A New Era of Ads... Ads acting as Mail… From Google

Last night I was doing my nightly sweep through my inbox to make sure that I haven't missed anything important and low and behold this weird looking red mail in my inbox, BUT WAIT! It's an ad! 

Now I am one of the first to not complain about ads when it is a free service, but this is setting a alarming precedence that I don't think I care for.When I was clicking on my tabs in GMail I thought it was viewing a new labeling look for mail, YEH I WISH, because I use the crap out of some labeling in GMAIL.

It even acts as mail. You can open it and forward to other people... Ironically in the right hand of the "admail" it describes itself as:

"It's a new type of ad which you can forward to a friend, or star to save it to your inbox. If you dismiss this ad, you won't see it again."

 I have never noticed this before so I did some digging and turns out that this ad is based on information from my Google Account.

I have never noticed this settings page which made me speculate that is was new: https://www.google.com/settings/u/0/ads/preferences?wta=1#wta

So down and down the rabbit hole I go. I found the page that allows you to control your ads: https://www.google.com/settings/u/0/ads?wta=1.

This page was very interesting to me because if I go edit and view some of the information Google's algorithm has collected from me I can tell that it's pretty accurate. Like my interest for example.

What I can tell though that their ad setting help page has gone from this: https://support.google.com/ads/answer/2662856?hl=en

On April 5, 2013 to this: https://support.google.com/ads/answer/1634057?hl=en&ref_topic=2971788

Updated On June 27, 2013:

So that's what those blanket privacy Terms of service that we agree to while ago... lol
 I don't know how many of these can fill up in GMail or how often they pop up, but I'm keeping my eye out.

Google Drive Viewer Updated!

Since I am a soldier and student I use Google Drive religiously. I use it to take all of my notes for classes and housing resources that I want to access online at any given time. I recently opened a .docx file in +Google Drive and this popped up:

It seems to me that the team has updated the Google Drive viewer. Basically any view-able Non-Google Drive formatted files will be viewed in the viewer. (images, pdfs, word docs, PowerPoints, and spreadsheets) show up in this light-box experience. Similar to Google+. It also works for files that use a Drive app. So you can quickly

preview Google Drive Docs by selecting a Google Drive file and pressing the "p" key. You can select more than one file at a time which is great. If you use Google Drive enabled apps like I do you can manage defaults that a file opens up with by using the gear as shown in the photo. This experience feels like it took a thing from Google+ and has a similar look and UX which is not a bad thing at all. I am glad it was updated and I look forward to using this feature as I continue to utilize Google Drive. I wonder what will come next. I see a long road for Google Drive. Drive could be the next GMail in a sort of way. Applications like Drive have definitely created a shift to moving things solely in the cloud.

Here's what the Full new Google Drive viewer looks:

What Do You Think?

Combined Clouds with Busy Flow... Almost what I want!

Busy flow is basically a system in beta that allows you to collaborate on projects with others while integrating many different cloud services. It allows you to connect with services like +Dropbox annd +Google Drive .. . It is a neat service and works fine... What I want as a great service would be a locker or place that I can take all the great features and utilities from all these great services like +Box and +GitHub Anywhere and access it in one location taking my 50GB from box and my space from Drive and access it and edit etc... and  utilize it in 1 spot...

What busy flow has done is close.. It is more project oriented, which don't get me wrong isn't bad, but not what I need at the moment. What they are doing now isn't anything that you can't do anywhere else... seems to be basically a share script and a link to the sharing space on each platform, but it is convenient and a time saver... one step closer to what I need a virtual "corner office..." in this Google campus of an internet... lol

They seem to know how to set things up right for example they allow you to oauth into the service because no one likes the username and password input fields anymore.. and they are mobile in the App Store and Google Play.

I expect great things from +BusyFlow. 

Google Drive SDK Early Access Program Coming Soon... Real Soon

This is interesting, I wonder what will be in store from +Google Drive.  Today +Google Developers had a live stream about +Cooliris  and their integration with Google Drive and now this popped up in my feed. Got me interested. I will definitely be tuning in for this announcement. I live in Google Drive for school and other things. Here's what is said about the event:

Today we announce the Google Drive SDK Early Access Program, an on-going program covering multiple aspects of the Drive API. Participants will get early access to upcoming features and the opportunity to shape the direction of the SDK. Join us to learn more about this program, how to be part of it and what features will be available to developers.

Add it to your Calendar: January 22, 2013 11:00 am PST

Here's where the event will be Streamed: Stream Live Event