TechnoPastor

If you haven’t heard by now, Google has come out with their own web browser named Chrome. It launched today in beta and I have been using it through the afternoon, with good results. Here are a few random thoughts on the product:

1. One of the great tests of any new browser is whether it has problems rendering pages created for Internet Explorer and/or Firefox. So far I have not run into any rendering errors, which is more than I can say for the beta version of Internet Explorer 8. I received a twitter message today saying that it appears that one is limited to twenty tabs at the same time, but frankly, anyone with more than twenty tabs open at the same time probably needs to be checked.
2. One of the features they touted was a rewritten Javascript renderer, which would speed up the browser. So far I have found the browser to be very zippy in rendering, suggesting that it is working.
3. I miss the extensions I use in Firefox, but in some ways the simplicity of the interface is nice. There isn’t much to it, and that allows one to pay more attention to the page content than the browser itself.

I’m sure that more features are on the way, but all in all, I think it’s a good product.

I have seen a couple of comments on my last post on the changes at Jott suggesting that folks are pretty unhappy with Jott for moving to a pay service.

Certainly I have loved the free service they have offered to date. Jott has been a great productivity tool, and the fact that it was free made it that much better. But I also understand that these guys are in business to make money, and that there are limits to how these services can be monetized.

Jott could have moved to an advertising supported model, but I honestly think that would have degraded the functionality of the service. Thus the only model is to offer layered featuring by subscription. As these services go, Jott offers quite a bit of functionality at the lower price level, and I think that their subscription fee is not unreasonable.

The fact is that we have become spoiled by the “cloud computing” model, which is moving services like Jott to the Internet. Google’s willingness to offer services for “free” (with the knowledge that these services often are advertiser based) has led us to think that somehow these things can be offered without cost.

The trick for these new services is to develop pricing structures that aren’t onerous. Most of us can pony up 3 or 4 bucks a month for something we use and like, but once you get above the 4 or 6 dollars a month realm it becomes much more difficult for church folks.

The fact is that Jott offers functionality that simply isn’t available anywhere else. The ability to use one’s cell phone in the voice mode as an input device for your todo list, your calendar, and text messaging is very useful, and worth the cost.

But be prepared, for Jott’s move is simply a sign of the world to come. As we move from dedicated software to web services we move into a leasing model rather than an ownership one. That shouldn’t shock church folks too much for most of us have already made the switch to leasing our copy machines, recognizing that there was little benefit to owning a machine that would become out of date within five years. Likewise, the “value” in web services is that we aren’t having to update our software with new purchases every year or so, but rather are receiving ongoing updates throughout the year as a part of the subscription. No, we no longer “own” the program, but we also don’t have to worry about obsolesence.

I have talked about Jott in the past and have shared how I use it in my ministry. This morning I received an e-mail informing me that they are out of Beta, which means that they are transitioning from a free service to an advertiser/subscription service.

It was bound to happen, and given the usefulness of this product, very much justified. The pricing plans don’t seem to bad — $3.95 per month (which has most of the functionality the free service) and $12.95 per month for a pro version. There is a “basic” version that is ad supported, but it loses some of the most important functions, so I will likely move to the $3.95 a month service.

One addition that looks interesting (I haven’t tried it yet) is the ability to jott appointments, tasks, and email drafts from your cell phone to Outlook. I continue to be an Outlook user, primarily because of the more universal synching options with that product, and the ability to enter items via cell phone is very interesting to me. I am certain I will be checking that out in the days to come, so be looking for a review.