I'm not the type to toot my own horn all that often but sometimes it can be fun. Like when I make a prediction about the future business development path of the most popular search brand ever. I'm talking about Google of course.

Back in October of last year I put up a post about Google transforming itself into a portal and today I find out via Danny that Google is indeed launching a portal. It's not really that shocking, especially with their recent acquisitions and increased revenue from multiple divisions. I've also compared the past and present business units of operations Google and Yahoo have and how similar they are. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Google's business plans aren't all that secretive. If you want to find out what they're about to do next just look at the timeline of Yahoo and throw in elements of social networking and you've got Google's secret recipe for busdev.

Offering a portal type service is a logical step for them and the timing is perfect. I mean if you simply use gmail and google maps on a regular basis then you're already tired of having to put in the same driving destination over and over cause it doesn't remember it and you want to be able to manage all of your Google account info in a single place. Additionally, now you can slide out of your MyYahoo app and use Google's search results and still have several of the same features you have over in MyYahoo like stocks, news and weather. The only downside I see right now is that the elegantly robust user interface is already looking cluttered even though they're using images sparingly. However, since I always felt like Yahoo's portal gave me way too many options and made me remove too much garbage in order to actually end up with only the information I wanted... I find my new Google portal a breath of fresh air. I already customized my iGoogle... but I'm wondering when I'll be able to replace bloglines with my iGoogle homepage. That will be a very cool day indeed.

Successful execution of an internet business plan involves many things. The most elements are timing and delivery and I think Google has done a good job on both fronts with the launch of their new portal app.

As I was finishing up this post I tried accessing one of the unread emails in my GMail account from the iGoogle page and I got a javascript error saying GMail was temporarily unavailable and then the same message appeared on my iGoogle homepage. But when I accessed GMail directly from another browser tab in Firefox it worked fine... hmmm, is this yet another beta?

Yesterday I reviewed the backpack app by 37Signals and Jason Fried said thanks and told me how it is possible to attach more than one image to a page at a time... cool!

"...you can upload multiple images at once by emailing
multiple images to a page at once. Attach multiple images
to an email and send that email to the page. Bam, they're
all added at once."

Good to know, now I can save even more time. Thanks Jason!

I have been using the latest creation from 37Signals called Backpack. So far so good, it does a lot of what I need it to do in the way it organizes information and allows you to put all sorts of attachments on pages and get notified in the event of an update and securely share pages with other users of the system. I think I need to make it clear that I'm not using the free version and didn't even test out the free version because I wanted to be able to test out it's attachment storage capabilities and store lots of information on each page.

I shouldn't be surprised but I guess I was just a little bit by how easy the application is to use. Creating pages, tagging those pages and finding the information you're looking for is all relatively straightforward and simple. 37Signals is right in the middle of this new wave of web app interface enhancements we seem to be seeing a lot of these days. Instead of using super fancy forms to add/edit/delete information, they make editing super easy by allowing you to hover over the text you want to change and then providing an "edit" link. Once you click on the edit link, the text is placed inside a form field and you can then update and save the changes. 37Signals seems to be pioneering this method of making web app gui interfaces easy to use and less cumbersome but in some ways it makes things harder.

One way it makes it harder is that if you're trying to figure out what text is editable you could be moving your mouse all over just to find the hover hotspot. Until you find that hotspot or find a link to the place where you can make changes you can become very frustrated, as I did when I was trying to edit the tags associated with a page. But I think that portion of the learning curve is well worth the initial frustration because you can make up for that in time savings later on down the line.

There are a lot of good features I like in Backpack. Take a gander.

*Ability to tag pages and create a pseudo hierarchical relationship easily.

*Ability to add notes and attachments to pages to track updates and changes.

*Simple interface void of complex search forms and results pages.

*The fact 37Signals doesn't link to themselves in the footer of your backpack.

*The fact 37Signals didn't use an actual backpack for the logo.

*Using a subdomain of "skidmore" for stylesheets and js includes.

*Nice implementation of a new app on top of a blogging system.

*They released an API less than a week after backpack was launched, way cool!


Things I'm Not Too Keen On With Backpack

*Help movies don't contain audio, found them hard to follow.

*Can't upload more than one attachment at a time on a page.

*They seed your backpack with fake data and removing it bogged me down.

*Took forever to find the place where I could add/edit tags for a page.

*Linking pages is reciprocal and I only want it to be one way to further emphasize the hierarchical relationships of categories using a combination of tagging pages and linking to specific pages that are part of a category from the parent category pages. Having to remove the links from the child page to the parent page was a hassle and in the end I decided to use notes instead of creating more pages which limits the intended functionality of the app from the get go.

*Inability to create a secure RSS feed from a secured backpack.

*Inability to upload mp3 files as attachments [though I understand why].

*Can't sort displayed links on the page navigation.

*I know it's cheesy but I wish I could upload an image and personalize the layout a bit more than simply choosing the colors of the site. I wonder if I'm the only one that wants that feature though.

*Support appears to be pretty comprehensive and the folks at 37Signals set up a forum and a blog to keep everyone posted about what's going on with the app and how they're addressing issues. Customer service is key to any successful web based business, even if it is a fairly robust application and not an entire business entity in and of itself. 37Signals is great on the PR side and getting better on the support side and for the $9 bucks a month I'm paying I'm quite satisfied.

*Can't add a member to my backpack and pay for their membership or purchase multiple licenses at a single time [especially for a bulk discount] and email invites to the folks I want to use the backpack with me.

*Can't share an entire site [at least I don't think you can] with someone else, can only share specific pages, need a checkbox in a user mgmt section that allows me to say "share entire site with jdog".

Backpack Review Summary
I really look forward to the launch of products from 37Signals. I think part of it is the fact they're big on sharing information and give a lot of information and services away for free via their corporate site and the apps they release. Every service they offer with the exception of consulting has a free level and I think that's critical in this day and time. It's hard for small companies to compete with the likes of Yahoo and Google by giving services away for free but when a small company is willing to take that risk in order to make their products better then they earn my respect. Plus, it makes it a lot easier to cough up $9/month when I know the money I spend is only going to further improve an already great company.

I was able to get my backpack up and running in less than 10 minutes and that was without reading all the buzz it had been getting in the blogosphere and relying merely on the word of mouth from a friend that I should try it out. So without knowing much detail about the app before I signed up I felt comfortable enough with the sales literature on their corp site to plop down my credit card. And, being able to get something meaningful accomplished in less than 10 minutes is critically important to me since time is always of the essence and backpack allowed me to do that.

There are a couple points I want to make about the 37Signals team and how this application epitomizes their ideology. First, they're creative thinkers who apply their wisdom, experience, and intellectual property centered around user interface design and content management systems to solve existing problems. This shows they're entrepreneurial at heart. The fact they can roll out a fairly robust app in short order and without a major ad budget and without any major glitches shows they're effecient and effective. Those are two words accountants love to hear. Leveraging existing applications and technology to build an entirely new product shows they're not only smart but talented. All these attributes are things VC firms and interested investors or acquisition hunters love to see. Add to that the identity branding and 37Signals well respected voice in the web usability community and you've got a possible superstar status on your hand. Do I hear a 5x multiple?

Well let me wrap up this review before I get carried away. I think the price is right, the initial features backpack rolled out with do the job and this tool has saved me a lot of time writing code, so I give backpack two thumbs up. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or would like more information on backpack and how it can save you time and money, feel free to drop me an email, I'd be more than happy to offer my input.

jason.dowdell [at] gmail.com

First off I want to thank Greg Sterling for tending the blog while I was on vacation during the first week in May. Secondly, I want to thank all of you who continued to read my personal thoughts and musings while I was MIA last week. I'm sure all of you have been playing the Where's Waldo game on mshift as of late. But instead of looking for Waldo, everyone's been looking for me. The short of it is I had emergency family matters to attend to. The good news is I'm back and it feels great to resurface and post again.

Vacation In Curacao
As most of you know, I was on vacation with my family in Curacao a couple weeks back. Wow, what a beautiful place. It's part of the ABC islands. Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao make up the ABC islands. I did a lot of snorkeling with my father in law, a lot of much needed bonding with my daughters and even got to go out on a date with my wife one night. Even though the date was just to the resort restaurant and Shannon's steak looked like it had just given up the ghost and hadn't finished bleeding, the time together was great.

We stayed at the Sea Aquarium resort. The resort is right next to this miniature Sea World type facility who's office is housed in an old mine sweeper ship. My oldest daughter Piper loved the sea lions at the Sea Aquarium. Every morning she would wake up and say...

"Do you hear dat daddy?"
and I would say
"Yes, what is is Piper?"
"Sea lions daddy, they're talking to me."

It was probably the funniest conversation I've ever had with her. After I acknowledged the fact that the sea lions were indeed speaking directly to Piper we would walk over to their swimming area and she would say...

"Good morning sea lions, how you doin?"

Needless to say, Piper loved Curacao and still asks me if I hear the sea lions talking to her.

Shannon had a great time as well, even though she didn't get much sleep. She's as tan as ever and more beautiful now than the day we were married. Sometimes I think she belongs in the Caribbean. She loves feeling the stickiness of salt on her skin from spending the day at the beach and flaunts the fact that she doesn't peal after baking in the sun all day. Unlike her husband, your's truly, who's flakier than a Pillsbury Flaky Biscuit. Too bad my daughters inherited my skin.

All in all, vacation was great and it was nice spending time with my girls and with Shannon's parents. I think they really enjoyed spending time with Piper and Finley and hopefully will be willing to do it again some day. Maybe when the girls are a bit older and not in diapers, haha.

Alright, that's all for now. I'm going to talk with some people and try to find the pulse of technology and marketing and I'll be the process as I stumble back into it. Although right now I must admit it's much easier for me to find my way to the beach than it is to find my way to the blogger dashboard. Have no fear, I am back and back for good. No more dry spells on mshift, promise.