Smarterware

You’ve struck a rich vein here, Gina, and I hope you’ll explore it in some detail over the next few weeks on TWiG – I don’t think it’s something that’ll be widely understood or solved by Google quickly.

I have both an Apps Account and a standard Google (Gmail) Account. Before Gmail came along I had already established a domain of my own and an e-mail identity there that remains my primary e-mail. Unfortunately I got in on Gmail late and missed the opportunity to claim my own name – instead choosing one that is rather tied to my job – a job I likely won’t have in another two years (d’oh!). When Apps came along I was very pleased to be able to host my domain with Google Apps so as to use Gmail, but since all of the more innovative services (Reader, Wave, Buzz, etc.) were only available on the main Google Account all of my activity in those areas has been done associated with a Gmail Acccount I rarely use for e-mail. I’d love to simply merge the two, selecting which personal data to preserve from each.

The issue really came to a head for me when I got a Droid and the reality of my split personality began to have more far reaching consequences. I’ve basically had to recreate my contacts and calendar (things I’d previously maintained under my own Apps domain) in the Gmail Account so that I could take better advantage of the phone’s capabilities. There has been a silver lining, though. The high volume of Buzz e-mail notifications has not polluted my main e-mail account.

(P.S. There’s another issue I’ve run into with Buzz that I’d like a good solution for. I still POP all of my e-mail into Thunderbird (out of habit or paranoia). The Gmail filters you and others suggested to keep the Buzz notification stream from polluting the Gmail inbox don’t appear to help for POPed accounts. I can set up a mirror set of mail filters in Thunderbird, but I’d rather do it in just one place. Any suggestions?)