Getting moved to Gmail
Mark Cuban said it first: the Internet is boring. But working at a startup isn’t.
But, working at a little startup after working at two of the world’s biggest companies (I worked at NEC, which had twice as many employees as Microsoft had before moving to NEC) it’s interesting joining one of the worlds’ smallest companies.
Patrick sort of nailed it when we walked in and said “Microsoft is bigger.” That was before he realized that Podtech only occupied about 2,000 square feet in the middle of one of USVP’s plush offices (he kept thinking that Podtech occupied the whole complex we were in, not just one small office). Podtech is in incubation space right now. Basically we have a couple of more months to find offices before they kick us out of the nest to see if we can survive on our own.
Oh, but talking about this stuff is making the natives, er, at least the skeptics, restless. Hey, Skeptic, didn’t ya hear that the Internet is boring?
Oh, anyway, one thing that’s different? This is the first time in years that my corporate email is not on Exchange. Turns out Podtech is hosting all of its email on Gmail and all of its calendars on Google Calendar. It’ll be interesting to see what moving over is like.
What else is different about a startup? Too fast growth. We are already out of places to sit and work. That took me back to my first job after college, at Fawcette Technical Publications, where we had people working on the table that also held our coffee machine.
Anyway, I’m wiped out. The day, the 13-hour drive (we got in at 2 a.m.), and another long drive to drop Patrick off at his mom’s tonight have wiped me out.
One thing that Irina already tapped me into is San Francisco’s strong social scene (there’s a raft of things this weekend to attend). She showed me how Upcoming.org lists all the coolest stuff. Like the ValleySwag Hoedown. This company has made a whole business out of getting people the latest swag.
OK, now I’ve heard everything. So long from the boring Internet!
Update: Maryam wrote about her first day’s impressions too.
Powered By 
July 12th, 2006 at 11:38 pm
Ha Ha Robert. I am sure you are going to love it. I look forward to seeing your suggestions for Gmail and Google Calendar seeing that you have used corporate applications all this long.
July 13th, 2006 at 12:06 am
Last week I would’ve been singing the praises of Gmail. This week it’s been a complete nightmare, since I can’t access it at all and there aren’t any bodies at Google willing to actually help troubleshoot it.
So be careful…use Gmail, but back it up with Outlook or something to your own computer or you could find yourself without your email and without a way to fix it, too.
It’s a pity that they have such a great product but do not support it in any way, shape or form.
Congratulations to you and Maryam on your move to Podtech…you both sound very happy. I’m looking forward to meeting Maryam in person at Blogher…will you be there too?
DnW
July 13th, 2006 at 12:29 am
[...] Robert Scoble is moving to GMail. A piece of advice: Back it up, back it up, back it up. And never, ever expect anyone to help you if you can’t access it. Of course, it could be that they actually have a Google contact person, something that everyday people don’t. [...]
July 13th, 2006 at 12:49 am
If you still like Outlook as you Email client, Gmail supports POP3, so you should be good there. I like Google Calendar, but I wish they supported synch to Outlook Calendar. I may have to develop something up to do that.
July 13th, 2006 at 1:43 am
Drums: yeah, I’ll be there!
July 13th, 2006 at 1:48 am
[...] Robert blogs about how working at a startup is exciting. I couldn’t agree more. He mentions using GMail and Google Calendar (because it’s smart to outsource functions like that which aren’t your core business) and also mentions running out of places to sit because their people have now exceeded their space for seating. [...]
July 13th, 2006 at 5:02 am
[...] Robert Scoble: “This is the first time in years that my corporate email is not on Exchange. Turns out Podtech is hosting all of its email on Gmail and all of its calendars on Google Calendar.” Posted by Richie @ 8:02 am Tags: Google [...]
July 13th, 2006 at 7:08 am
so why is the internet boring? your statement looks like a nice trick to techmeme-ed to be honest.
July 13th, 2006 at 7:23 am
Robert , is this gmail hosted services ?
July 13th, 2006 at 7:28 am
I look forward to seeing your suggestions for Hotmail once you have played with Gmail.
July 13th, 2006 at 7:36 am
[...] Really, I’m not trying to turn this into a Gmail blog, but that’s just what’s on my radar this week. Today, Robert Scoble has posted that PodTech uses Gmail and Google Calendar for their corporate communications. It will be interesting to see his take on things and what comments he posts. It will also be interesting to see if Google responds in any way. [...]
July 13th, 2006 at 7:36 am
Is Podtech using Salesforce.com (yet)? If so, I have something that’s going to blow your mind. (But I won’t plug it here.)
-Charlie
July 13th, 2006 at 8:32 am
I’ve been using the Gmail hosted stuff for a while for my family mail/calendars and it’s been great. I use Outlook for mail most of the time but find more and mroe I’m just using the gmail interface. My wife still likes Outlook Express but that’s another story.
Calendaring, something I never used to use outside of work, has totally changed my life. I’m one of those people who often forgets not just what they have to do, but what day it is. Having a shared calendar allows my wife and I to put up events which we’ll both see. And SMS reminder, including a daily agenda, help me stay on top of things.
Now if only Outlook 2007 would let me subscribe to a iCal calendar without using the dopey webcal WebDAV protocol.
July 13th, 2006 at 8:45 am
Geez, Scoble, you really don’t know how to comprehend what you read, do you? You apparently missed Cuban’s point completely.
July 13th, 2006 at 10:20 am
Mapped events in the valley from upcoming, eventful, and Expo:
http://blockrocker.com/categories/events/37.1756/-121.6846/9/Map
July 13th, 2006 at 1:40 pm
Going from a large company to a small can be quite disconcerting - I recently made the move from a 12 person team in a 100 person department in a 4,000 employees university to a 6 person office that’s part of a 25 employees (across 3 countries) company.
There’s fewer people to have water cooler type discussions with, that’s for sure!
July 13th, 2006 at 4:59 pm
Robert, check out : http://www.plugandplayrealestate.com/.
Pay-as-you go, month-to-month space, you can grow (shrink?) as business demands.
July 13th, 2006 at 5:38 pm
So, was it easy making the switch to using GMail? :) It’s definitely a great place to outsource your email needs to.
Do write more about life in a startup! See ya
July 13th, 2006 at 5:47 pm
Sounds like someone needs a SBS 2003.. has exchange you know … and it can even be hosted ;-)
July 13th, 2006 at 5:53 pm
[...] Robert Scoble, from popular blog site Scobleizer, announced recently that he’s moving to Gmail and Google Calendar as their company hosts all their email and calendars there. [...]
July 13th, 2006 at 9:31 pm
I tried moving off a hosted Exchange solution to Gmail last month and it was terrible. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if I hadn’t been used to Outlook 2007. The attachment preview in Outlook 2007 is a huge time saver if you review a lot of attachments each day.
I eventually moved off the hosted Exchange to just regular POP/SMTP solution through the company that hosts my blog/website. Hosted Exchange was sweet but not worth the $25/month.
Good luck moving off Outlook. No way in hell could I do it at home or at work.
July 13th, 2006 at 11:44 pm
Hmmm… Are my trackbacks being censored? http://www.dead20.com/2006/07/13/scoble-gets-new-gig-moves-to-bay-area-becomes-dull/
July 14th, 2006 at 9:43 am
I’ve been using Gmail for domains for a couple months and really love it. Great to go from computer to computer and access to the same stuff. I prefer to anything I’ve used before.
July 14th, 2006 at 5:15 pm
[...] Now, Google is going after Microsoft’s core business which is software! Google is releasing word and excel apps and gmail, chat and calendar could be a threat to exchange which is a huge part of Microsoft’s business! The link below from Robert Scoble’s blog talks about how his new employer The Podtech network is using Gmail and Calendar! Wow. Click here to read the article post. [...]
July 15th, 2006 at 12:34 am
Let us know how you like Gmail. Once you get used to the keyboard shortcuts, it’s really fast. :)
In fact, don’t you think you should try a symbolic month of MSFT-free stuff? :) Store everything on the net: calendar, email, etc. Go to Bloglines for your RSS so you’re running fewer apps and more webbiness.
Go on, give it a try! :)
July 15th, 2006 at 11:04 am
I’ll echo what several people have said - the best combo is Outlook (or another e-mail client) on top of GMail.
I made that decision GMail went out on me right before a conference call, and I was left without access to several important e-mails. It’s the best of both worlds - you get the benefits of an e-mail client (backed up, toast popups, etc.), and you get the benefits of web based e-mail (can use the web interface whenever / wherever), mobile access via m.gmail.com, etc.).
July 16th, 2006 at 10:27 am
You should give Windows Live Custom Domains a try. Upgrade the accounts to Windows Live Mail beta, and you’ll get the familiar Outlook look and feel with a whopping 2GB of storage.
February 5th, 2007 at 10:42 pm
[...] Google Apps, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there are quite a few. I know that PodTech does (link) there are a number of Universities who also use [...]
May 30th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
For an historical footnote, Hosted Exchange provided by companies like 123Together (for reference http://www.123together.com) clearly came out the winner. Especially with the move to mobile device integration as that became central to small business success.