[Update 2011/11/05: Google has now made Google Apps and Google Plus interoperate. If you have problems, try signing out of Apps and Plus and clearing your cookies.
I've still got a problem with how this was done - no email notification that it was fixed, and I didn't see anything in the Apps management console either; you find out by following some Google blog or other, or keep trying it. Google ought to improve communications with paying customers.
And as a result of Google's approach of non-communication and the forced creation of transition accounts, I now have a pointless Google Account which I must merge back into operations - more work for me and my staff, and no apparent help or guidance from Google for my having to fix a problem they created. It's just not good customer service. I suppose I'd like a way to merge Google Accounts - so I can get back the access that I had seven months ago.]
This has to be the strangest thing that I’ve come across on Google Plus and Google Plus 1. Google has created a paying service to manage user identity, and then excludes those long period paying customers from taking part in Google Plus One and Google Plus. Yup, if you have Google Apps, you can’t use social networking, and you can’t mark the resources you find useful. Everyone else who *doesn’t* pay Google for services, can use Google Plus and Plus One. And Google’s response to Google Apps users? Silence. Total silence. Thanks, Google guys. Thanks a bunch.
[Update: 2011-08-12 - Google Apps Help Forum has a Google Staffer response, but unfortunately he promises to keep users updated on a thread that already has 8 pages of comments. Find the updates if you have time... What's wrong with a pinned posting, maintained by the Apps Help Forum Advisors and locked against user content - a reasonable way to publish the Google position in a forum, with such a strong set of questions?]
[Update: 2011-07-21 - How Can I Get My Staff Connected? - You'll have to send an invite to a non-Google Apps Google Account, from a non-Google Apps Google Plus enabled account, and run everything involving Google Plus in a separate account. If you send an invite to a Google Apps accunt, it is completely useless, because Google appears to check that the Google Account that you are using, matches the Google Account of the invitee. Invites to a Google Apps user are completely useless. Not that Google tells you that, either as sender or receiver, until you actually click on the link and get the error message about Profiles, below.
Note that Google is apparently both intending to allow brands to have space in Google Plus, and is also supposedly adding access Google Apps users, at some unannounced point - so you may face another problem of merging identities or re-establishing an identity when Google does get around to allowing you access. Nothing like making it easy, eh?]
What the farquahr was passing through the mind of the Google Product Managers that chose to do this? Perhaps:
“I know, we’ve had paying users on this service since about 2005, we’re sure of their identity, because they are paying us to make sure we know who they are, so, I dunno, let’s just forget them because, well, they’re obviously idiots. They’ll take any amount of abuse. They’ve been used to working out how our poorly documented systems can be used, so being unable to reach another service we offer can’t possibly bother them. And if they complain? Meh. Paying customers on AdWords go for years without answers to basic problems, except ‘ask another user’. Fuggedaboudid.”
[Update: 2011-07-20 - Dave Girouard, a VP at Google says (but not in the Google Apps Help forums run by Google), that adding Profiles is a priority; even using the guys' name in searches, I can't find this post in the last month of articles on Google's various Blogspot.com blogs - probably because Google are such lame users of SEO. Running a separate blog article with a probably non-useful title and perhaps missing important cue words to allow search to operate properly, rather then replying in the Help Forum to questions from Google Apps Administrators and users, on a forum set up by the service organisation, is pretty peculiar. It's like me getting a question from a client, writing a blog article and neglecting to let them know it is relevant - irritating for everyone, and less than helpful. Blogs are for public announcements, not client communications. Learn. The. Medium. And learn how to write so that useful stuff can be found on search, or fix your search engine to work with the opaque way that you blog. One of them is ineffective - either search doesn't connect relevant material, or the writing needs fixing.]
Do Google Customer Service Staff Keep A Chart Of “Clients Crapped On This Month” and Compete To See Who Wins?
Doesn’t excluding Google Apps users from two services means that a whole bunch of federal and state government employees, several significantly sized corporations and a whole bunch of iddy-biddy liddle companies have just been excluded? Oh, and didn’t I see some national governments in Google Apps “list of informationally endangered organisations” client list?
I used to think that the hundred thousand or so small businesses denied any access to AdWords Customer Service was an abomination. But whoever thought up the idea of silently and without warning denying access to the great new experiment in social communication, to all Google Apps customers, has to win this years’ award for “Most Google Paying Customers Excluded From Reasonably Expected Service Levels For No Stated Reason”. We’re talking ten thousand users *at a time* for some Google Apps clients. By my estimate, it totally dwarfs the scale of ignoring small business AdWords advertisers by about an order of magnitude. And to omit the same user group on *two* services, in one month – absolute genius. Not sure if they get double points for that, or an exponential powerup.
Why This Might Not Be a Good Idea For Google
For most businesses on the planet, paying customers come first, not last. If they did so at Google, then when Google have a new and exciting service, Google should make sure that the people who pay the Google payroll and keep the lights on in the Google datacenters, get an early crack. Rather than the current policy, which is apparently to keep paying customers both excluded and totally in the dark. AFAICS, that’s really not very clever customer service – is it? Am I really that out of step with how organisations should be treating clients?
You know that number one thing in the Google corporate mission statement? You know, the one about “Focus On The User“? It comes ahead of the one that people usually talk about, that you can do business without being evil? Point of fact for the Google staffers… the people who pay Google to do things for them, are Users, too. Just because they pay Google, doesn’t mean that they should deserve less respect.
I’m really annoyed by Google. For now, we use Google Apps. Or at least, we will probably do so for about 30 more days *WHILE I WORK OUT HOW TO LEAVE GOOGLE APPS*. I’d prefer to not-have access to a service that I’m not-paying for, than be denied a free service because I am paying an organisation for their services.
Cloudy Implications
Why would being disallowed to use Google Plus and Google Plus One make me reconsider our usage of Google Apps? There’s some really cute things you can do with apps, from scraping sites to sharing stats. But… Google is supposed to be unifying the Identities of Google Accounts and Google Apps. This is the first crucial test of whether new services will be available. And the answer is “FAIL”.
({sarcasm on} Good product naming system, BTW – makes it totally clear in the users’ minds what they are doing and how separate those services are. I can’t see anybody ever being confused about them. {/sarcasm})
Which would I rather have? And what would my users in the business rather have? The ability to mark useful resources and engage in controlled social networking, or the opportunity to use the not-as-good-as-Word-or-Pages word processor, or the not-as-good-as-Powerpoint-or-Keynote presentation tool, or… Well, they already hate using Google Docs, unless I force the use on genuinely shared data. So most would vote to kill it – they use the mail system, and otherwise overwhelmingly prefer to use a local app with a richer UI and features. Unless it is genuinely data for interactive sharing.
Sharing Data and Encryption
There are other ways to share data, after all. The failure of DropBox a few weeks ago (they accidentally allowed anyone to access any content in any DropBox for a four hour period) has made me wonder about the wisdom of having unencrypted data in the Cloud. I’m beginning to develop the idea that, just as I do with DropBox, I only put already encrypted data on it, or I use for insensitive data, stuff that I wouldn’t be unhappy to have leaked. But Google keeps everything in the clear… And that’s increasingly uncomfortable for me. We have client data. If we continue to march towards sharing data, I want an secure communication to an encrypted resource, not something merely protected by a single level of authentication and a secure communication protocol. I want the service to be unaware of the keys to unlock the data, so even if someone at the service provider forgets to lock the resource, I’ve still got a good level of protection on the data.
Google Apps doesn’t have that level of security now. I haven’t seen it discussed as a future option. And if Google has such disdain for Google Apps users that it won’t communicate about its’ most important new communications and search mechanisms… Well, I don’t think they care about my concerns for improved data security. So I think my business needs to move as soon as practicable, from a provider that isn’t even talking about services that I think are increasingly needed. That’s how connected Google Plus and Google Apps are. The behaviour of one is a likely predictor of behaviour for the other – and I just lost all confidence that Google understands what a customer is, and what their needs are.
“Google customer service” is apparently an oxymoron – or at least, looks that way from the lack of any statements that I can find, using Google’s own search engine to search their own web site site and blogs using the keywords “google plus google apps”, as of July 11th, 2011. As George Bush memorably said “Fool me once, shame on you. A fooled man can’t get fooled again. Erm.” I’m just fed up with Google. Really feel betrayed. Again. And Again. And Again. And that makes me feel like an idiot for trusting Google, again. I don’t enjoy feeling like an idiot – so I’ll be extending less and less trust to Google. But I will use them for their free services – those are absolutely fantastic value.
Summary
Understanding how Google treats paying customers yields some illumination on free services. My interpretation of silence is negative – I can’t construe Google’s silence in their own forums in any positive way. I fear for the security of my company’s data in Google’s Cloud – because it is held in clear and offers no opportunity to hold encrypted shared data.
Google should be reconsidering what it does with paying clients. They shouldn’t be the last to use a service, but amongst the first; and they should be communicated with. That’d create an incentive to pay to use the services. Not a disincentive.
I now detest Google about half the amount that I detest Microsoft. I’d still prefer to use an Android phone over yet another Windows implementation, Google Search Results barely over Bing, AdWords over adCenter. And I’ll probably be looking to see if I can find an autoencrypted file sharing service that uses AWS/S3 or something similar as a service, so I can remotely mount an “encrypted disk” and use it whether connected or not (rather like Apple’s iDisk but better shared, and encrypted).
Notes
Fuggedaboudid = “Forget About It”, said quickly and with nasality.
