From the pix storage perspective why not use Flickr? They seem decent enough, and seem like they have a decent paid tier option.

From an ad/search perspective, it seems like Microsoft is the biggest competitor to Google. Personally I’d like to see them gain search share and impact Google’s performance. Competitive markets are always better, and it seems Google just has too much power in this space. I’d like to see a bunch of people drop Google for iAd, MSFT, and whatever other players in the industry.

Thanks for the practical suggestions, RPM. My company uses Exchange, and I used to use it on WinMo several years ago. I suppose I can migrate back without too much trouble. I use Pocket Informant for calendar and tasks on iOS, and they now have native calendar support, so I won’t have to change much to get rid of Google Calendar.

I am not as familiar with Flickr, other than using it to browse other people’s pictures. I will be sure to take a look at that for my photo archiving needs.

Thanks again!

Went from Google Apps Gmail to Office 365 (Exchange or at least EAS was a big deal. Once you go real-time push email on the phone, you can’t go back. I chose Exchange because it is a PAID service and has SLA’s which they are financially backing)

Went from Google Docs to Office Web Apps. This was easy. I already use Office 2010 on my PC and Office 2011 on the Mac.

Long before they added additional storage options and when they used to upload videos to Google Videos and pictures to Picasa Web (kludgy!), I moved to Flickr Pro. For $25/yr (and lesser for multi-year) I get unlimited storage and it ties into Windows Live Photo Gallery and iPhoto directly.

Good luck!

Thanks spacepope. Those are all valid points. My friend actually brought me up to speed with a little more detail. Evidently, he has been trying all of the above methods for a month now, and only got a direct response this week. Even worse, the response he got didn’t really help his situation. It was just a response and acknowledgment of his situation. That’s pretty pitiful. I know my business wouldn’t survive acting like that.

The other root problem is that, if we can now confirm that people are getting through to Google, even if it takes forever, then we have proof that they are both aware of their screw ups in the Panda update, and the effects of it on their paying customers. They just haven’t bothered to get a fix out there in the past two months, or publicly acknowledge that they are aware of the problem, and are working on a fix.

Here is an example from my own personal experience. The company I work for is an Independent Field Office for a large global congloromorate that sells control systems. A few years ago, they treated us in much the same way regarding crippling bugs in a controller firmware update. I did what I was supposed to do as a best practice, and updated a system at a pharmaceutical container manufacturing facility when I installed a new controller that shipped with this firmware. Anyway, I happened to see the bug in action during a serivice call, and called tech support. Engineering was aware of the issue I was facing, but they held everyone at arms length, including their own tech support, while they formulated a response. Like Google, they didn’t make a statement for at least a month. Because they didn’t warn me that the issue was certain to happen again and to take special measures to avoid it, my customer incurred a $25,000 loss of product when they had to shut down an entire production line the next time it happened.

After everything was put out in the open about what happened, the company we represent had to give some hefty concessions to our customer, and pay us back in entirety for our labor and travel. The moral of this story? Both Google and the company we represent acted in a way that hurt their own customers and representatives. However, one followed through and did what as needed to make the situation tolerable and restore some goodwill. One has not, and based on past reactions, probably never will.

So, yes, Google does have some support mechanisms for AdWords. More than I initially recognized in my article. However, they are all slow, poor, and put a heavy burden on the customer. The real issue, however, isn’t that they have this token support. It is Google’s response, or utter lack of one, that really gets me steamed. I remember how I felt and reacted in that similar situation, and I feel for those going through it with Google.

Silence is the new support. Get used to it.

No problem, V Silly. It’s nice to hear from someone else with personal experience dealing with Google on AdWords.

As far as grass-roots movements go, I don’t hold out any hope for that based on this article. But, if a large media outlet were to hold Google’s feet to the fire on this issue publicly, I would be glad to see it. Then something might happen.

Let’s use Apple and their recent “LocationGate” fiasco as an example. Someone there probably had an idea that there might be a problem with their location data collection method, because the subject had been published on over a year before the story hit the mainstream news. Maybe Steve Jobs himself didn’t know, but I imagine that someone at Apple knew about the issues with holding unencrypted data for far too long on the device, and on users’ computers, and just didn’t see the issue as being important enough to act on.

Once it did become public knowledge, however, Apple had to move quickly to fix it. And, to their credit, they did. This is the way large corporations work. Even Apple, who has about as good a consumer reputation as any company of its size, can fall victim to holes and cracks in the system. However, what Apple did in “LocationGate” is a far sight from Google is doing with their Panda problems. Google is actually costing people money, and profiting at the same time. I highly doubt they are doing this intentionally, but that doesn’t excuse it. They need to step up and fix the problem. If it takes Google being drubbed in the tech and national media to get that done, then so be it. I’m not asking for Google to be shut down. They just need to fix their problems, and stop stepping all over their own customers. Just ask Microsoft how well the philosophy of not giving a damn has worked out for them over the last 10 years.

Justin- Your comments are also very insightful. I will say that, even though I didn’t spell it out in my article, I don’t see Google as some nefarious entity. If they became one, however, that would be an issue, but I know that is unlikely.

However, the dangers of privacy don’t have to lie with Google, alone. How about governments seeking to gain access to their information, whether with Google’s permission or without? That has to be considered in a Post-Patriot Act US. Personal privacy isn’t what it used to be here at home. Also, Google is doing more and more business with government entities. We ca already see an example of their changes in stance towards Verizon in just a few short years. Again, something to consider.

Simon- Point taken. I knew before I wrote this that, while many may agree with the points, very few would actually take the actions that I am going to. That is probably more likely if you know someone who is getting screwed by this Panda Update, or you are getting screwed yourself.

Go Google- Dude. Come on. Drop the fanboy flag for a minute. People take you much more seriously when you attempt to use grammar, and go a little easier on the vulgar language. I took the liberty of editing your post so that it could be posted. Post vulgar language again, and I will delete it.

So I’m a ***** for not leaving Google services behind because I no longer approve of their methods? Just because they do things well, doesn’t give them a license to do whatever the hell they want. The fact is, you and I both know that they know about this problem. They know it is screwing over people who can’t afford to suddenly lose a line of income, and they haven’t done anything about it, or even acknowledged the fact that it exists, in over two months. How would you like to lose part of two months of your income? How well would you weather that storm? I would have a tough time with it, myself, so I feel for those caught up in it.

Actually, there aren’t very many avenues for direct support from Google. Not just anyone can call them and actually get to someone who will help. Most issues are put off to their support forums, which aren’t always that helpful. My friend is stuck in one with a bunch of other site owners who told him up front that Google has never bothered to respond to their questions on Panda issues. They are stuck trying to fend for themselves.

As for trying to hurt Google, that really isn’t my intention. This is just a personal decision that I decided to write about. Heck, I even ran this by the team here at iSource before doing it, to make sure it wasn’t too personal of an issue to tackle here on the site. However, as I stated, the real purpose of this article was to get people to think. That said, since you took the time to post on it, whether we agree or not, the article worked its magic.

Dan- That is a very good point. One that would apply to many organizations this large. Microsoft, with their various software and hardware teams would be another good example. It’s actually pretty funny how those teams can be at cross purposes with one another, as well.

I would disagree on your point about their search algorithms, though. Google runs searches and anonimized analysis on your data, just like they do with your Google Searches. It may not be part of their site ranking system, but it is all a part of their advertising model and focus. Everything they do and offer is geared toward those ends. I even heard a Google senior executive once say in an interview, that they don’t necessarily have algorithms that are that superior to the competition. They just have much more data to model. That is a telling statement, and I reason I find myself pulling away.

I, and I’m sure my friend, would love to hear how you got in touch with Google directly for help. From what I understand, he’s tried, but was told he had to go through the forums. No phone or email support was made available to him. Feel free to contact me at jhrogersii@gmail.com to share any help you can. And yes, I see the irony of me giving out a Gmail address in response to this article. I can’t very well cut the cord in one day. I’m currently incredibly swamped with work, so it may actually be a month or so.

Carolyn- Wow. Another great point. It’s good to be challenged. That’s why I love a good discussion. I actually made a point, even though I didn’t spell it out, to only target Google’s data storage services. I actually may start to divide my searches between some alternate methods, but I will still use Google Search and YouTube, which I don’t really use a lot anyway.

I guess I see a distinction between the point of me having my personal email, documents, or photos stored on their servers, with them having access to run analysis on my data in some fashion, or on my activities there, and the limited scope of a Google search or watching a movie trailer on YouTube. They do still feed into Google’s advertising model, but I guess I don’t have a problem with that more limited contact. I am removing my personal information from their ecosystem, and keeping them at arm’s length from my digital “personal space.” That’s more important to me, and that’s also where most of my contact with Google is.

I may not write another article to update everyone on how I did and what services I ended up using, but feel free to post back here later on if you are interested, as I will get a notification when you do. I will be glad to give an update. That, or we could do it in the Forums.

Thank you for all the great feedback. Keep it coming.

From my experience with support and meeting google employees it would seem that each thing they offer has a different game plan on how they will or won’t support it. I’ve actually gotten decent assistance from google when I’ve had adwords problems and I’m a very very small adwords customer.

Sounds like your concerns are justified, but they will mean bugger all to the average person. It would take a lot more than what you’ve described for me to give up my Google ecosystem. And that’s coming from someone who lives and breathes iDevices. Not an Android fan at all.

The only other alternatives I know of are Microsoft (yuck) or MobileMe (rip off and no where near as good as Google).

Love them or hate them, you’ll have a hard time avoiding them altogether! 🙂