Marcelo Calbucci

I’m very pragmatic on my adoption of technology. I use whatever saves me time (or money), makes me more productivity, help me achieve my business or personal goals, etc. That’s why my life is made of products and services done by most tech companies: Microsoft, Adobe, Google, Yahoo, Apple, Facebook, etc.

What I don’t like is the sense that I only have one option and it sucks. Web-based online solutions… dozens. Blogging platforms… dozens. Cloud store… dozens. Then there are few products that I’m surprised there are effectively no alternatives. There might be a startup here and there building something, but usually it lacks the depth and feature-richness that I like from the original. Some of these tools and services are so complex and big that no startup can ever tackle them, but Microsoft could, particularly things that are provided by Google.

So, here is my list of things that Microsoft should be building to provide an alternative to Google's monopoly:

Feedburner: I’m not a big fan of Feedburner, but I  *have* to use it. There is no one else out there providing the solution that Feedburner provides.

Google Analytics: Google Analytics is near-awesome, but it gives me the creeps that Google knows so much about websites and people around the web. I’m not sure what a rogue Google employee could access, but it could be quite scary if you think about it.

Google Reader: I use Google Reader every hour. Every hour that I use Google Reader I miss BlogLines. BlogLines performance and improvements suffered quite a bit at the end of its life, and Google Reader is just starting to feel like that. I don’t think they have made any changes to Google Reader over the last 23 years. It’s stale. Now it’s the time to come with something awesome for people consuming RSS. No, Outlook or IE is not it. And don’t tell me only 3% of people use RSS. I know that and that’s 50 million people!

Google Alerts: You know people still use email, right? You’d be shocked to learn how many people use Google Alerts to monitor their name, their company and competitors online. The shocking part is that this is very ineffective and clumsy. I’m pretty sure you can do better, provide more knobs and other interesting solutions.

Google Groups: Facebook Groups and Yahoo Groups suck so bad they are not even alternative to Google Groups. I know you had a product and you made it suck as bad as Yahoo, because they were your role model. Yay. Can we get serious now an build a real alternative for it?

These are just some of the products there are no alternatives on the market. The same reason Android is being so successful because it’s the alternative for iPhone, you should seriously considering building these products for no other reason than people will use it when they get pissed off at Google.

For me, I just want to see some competition. Google is becoming a slog in improving these products. They need a stick to motivate them.

I know that everything I publish online can be used against me or against people that I know. This doesn’t include only the usual suspects like YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and Twitter. Anything that has travelled through the wires of the Internet is also on that watch-list, including private emails between you and another person, files that you upload to an online backup service, etc.

I don’t live a very secret life, but there are a few things that I’m very cautious about using online, and you should too, because it’s not about the implications for you, but it’s the implication for others, particularly your kids (because they have a much longer life ahead of them).

The easiest example that could have severe future consequences for your kids is to write about diseases, conditions or injuries they have online. There is at least one ethical issues (arguably) and two practical issues.

The ethical issue is that you are publishing health information about somebody else. Yes, they are your kids. Yes, you are their guardian. But still, it’s a third party who didn’t give you consent to write about that.

The two practical reasons are easier to grasp and to agree on. We don’t know what the future holds for us. We don’t know if 10 years from now, it’ll be common practice for Insurance companies to request all your Facebook information before you get insurance. Maybe they will ask all your parents statuses updates of the last 20 years. We don’t know. And we don’t know how they will use that information. And besides asking for that information, the can subpoena Facebook (if the law allows it in case of a dispute) or they can tap into the big hack Facebook suffered in 2018 that exposed everyone statuses updates on WikiLeaks.

The second reason you should avoid disclosing health info about your kids (and others) online is because of their future chances of being accepted at a college, getting a job or even joining the army.

The examples I gave above are mostly to avoid issues in a long distant future, but there are also present issues like getting your house robbed, getting stalked in the real world or worse. That’s why despite the fact I publish a lot on Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and Instragram I try to always think one step ahead.