GigaOM

I used .Mac for a year maybe two years ago… probably within a week or two of paying I felt ripped off. Even back then the services didn’t really compare to various free tools. Currently, Yahoo Mail Beta is far superior (to everything) and the Yahoo toolbar centralizes all my bookmarks and addresses within Firefox on all OSes I use. Apple’s web publishing stuff is weak. The online storage would be nice if they offered a reasonable amount of disk space.

I pay for Mac.com for the synchronization features, basically. They also lag behind in storage and transfer numbers. Dreamhost, at the extreme end, offers about 200 GB in storage and 1,000 GB in monthly transfer for about the same price ($10/month at Dreamhost with yearly discounts versus $100/year at Mac.com, no monthly rate). A lot of other hosts offer from 10% to 50% of Dreamhost’s storage/transfer and cost less, even.

Well, I guess that means I have to finish my piece on .Mac sooner than I though - look out for it, Om - I’ll be pulling some unusual angles… :)

As a non-Macie since college, the one surprising thing is that .Mac did not embrace blogging, and become a defacto blogging platform for Mac enthusiasts.

Apple has all the tools for a great blogging experience - iPhoto, iMovie, etc - but those .Mac pages that I have seen show that the company just does not seem to embrace blogging. Maybe that explains their attitude toward bloggers?

I agree that .mac should have been a much better blogging platform for day one. The iWeb package is not enough - any decent introductory blogging system should have some sort of web-based editing option instead of being tied to templates (which are not plentiful, robust, or particularly creative).

To have a web.mac.com/blogname URL would be very nice, but right now it’s just not practical.

Om,

You might want to change the link to my site to point to

http://the.taoofmac.com/space/blog/2006-07-09.20:00

…instead (and feel free to comment on that).

I had the draft floating around for a couple of weeks, and meant to finish it by next week or so - but since you brought up the topic… It was getting kind of large anyway :)

box.net is blazingly fast? :-)

try idisk mike. box.net will seem blazingly fast :-)

I’ll be happy if Mac don’t fix it in a hurry. It will take us a little while to put a mac version together.

So, um, I think it’s fine just how it is. ;-)

I had come to the conclusion that Apple are in some way crippling their iDisk offering - by throttling it or something else, probably to reduce costs or load.

This bodes well for alternate providers gunning for the Mac user market (500,000 .Mac subscribers at the moment - apparently) as we are.

I had commented on this a while ago in my blog: http://akatsuki.co.uk/article/why-is-apple-not-jumping-in. The problem, I think, is one of resources and expenditures and what I suggested was strategic alliances with best-of-breed web 2.0 sites with integration. There is enough competition that Apple would not necessarily be granting too much power to any one player and Apple could easily spread it around.

As part of a .Mac rethink, Apple should sweeten the deal by offering a subscription to the full Mac experience for a single, bundled price: major OS upgrades, new versions of iLife apps, Quicktime Pro, and .Mac, all for some sensible annual price. Having to buy my way to the full Apple experience in the current piecemeal fashion is annoying, so I don’t bother with certain pieces — but I would pay a bit more to get it all.

I agree that the dotMac service needs a makeover. it’s real problem is that Apple doesn’t know who it is targeting it at - casual consumers, competent consumers, or semi-pros. Seems to me that they could offer a two-tier service - for casual consumers at $39 per year and for others at $99. I’m sure that Apple could work out what to subset for the casual consumer just by analysing dotmac usage. What to offer for the full deal requires looking at the best of breed offerings around, listening to comments such as here, and synthesising an appropriate offering.
Will they do it? Depends on whether Jobs is that bothered - I think probably not.

Any hands for creating a web services cooperative?

“…

Imagine Gmail, except operated by a transparent organization owned by its users. Its mission, terms of service, privacy policy and features would all be written by its users to serve its users.

Now build on this idea by adding your favorite features from Yahoo!, Google, MSN, MySpace, etc. As a member of the co-op, you would help shape it. Over time it would become a full-featured web service/community where people have faith in their organization and trust in its members.

…”

@tcrooks.

Sounds like a nice idea in theory. But with everything that starts out like that - some day the big companies come along and stomp on you.

Would be good tho to have something that the people owned, made and ran - just for the people and not for profit etc.

I meant that last comment for Sid Steward not tcrooks :o)

.mac already is “web 2.0″ as its based on webDAV. however that doesnt take away from the fact that it is rather slow

I agree with these criticsims and have quite a few of my own.

1. The iPhoto posting/sharing method pre iWeb was fast, easy and had little overhead when getting your photos online… with the advent of iWeb, while the galleries are a little more manipulatable, they take 2-3 times as long to put together, the publishing sux (you have to publish all of your images in all of your galleries everytime to add a new gallery) and you can’t share that monlolithic domain file that iWeb uses from computer to computer. Ridiculous.

2. 1GB is simply not enough storage for an account that is supposed to share movies, photos and be your email account.

3. The .mac groups is a cool idea, but why isn’t more like mySpace/Freindster? The connecting/interacting is way too painful to make it fun.

4. Apple webmail needs Ajax Spell check during composition, not sending.

5. The iWeb photogalleries should have some sort of commenting/Flickr-ishness.

Never was too compelled to use the .Mac service since I use Yahoo for my emails and have my own webhosting plan with another company… the only advantage of usign the .Mac plan (assuming everyone consider this an advantage) is the ability to sync multiple OS X machines with shared data (bookmarks et al).

Even that service is being challenged (though in a small way) by Google - which is now allowing people to sync their Mozilla bookmarks across computers via Google.

Om,

This article, simply put, is completely and entirely spot-on. I applaud your decision to actually SAY what the rest of us have been quietly grumbling about for the past 5 years: .Mac sucks. If anything, it is a slow, antiquated, and very cheap-feeling hodgepodge of various crippled technologies, all of which can be found for FREE elsewhere, not to mention infinitely more usable.

That said, despite all of our personal feelings about Apple\’s allegedly user-centered business policy, the reality of the matter is that Apple really doesn\’t have much incentive. A Ford Motor Company executive was once asked in an interview why it was that the Ford Crown Victoria still used ancient assembly technologies such as a bolted-on-body rather than the \”unibody\” construction typical of almost all vehicles. The Ford executive smiled, and grimly remarked \”Because guess what: We\’ll still sell every damnone of them.\” This, in my opinion, is the mindset we\’re looking at with the .Mac technology. No, it\’s not their biggest seller by any means, but with over a million users each paying $99 a month, it\’s no small business venture. Morever, people keep buying it, hoping that Apple\’s insistence on puting \”i\”\’s \”e\”\’s and periods in front of world\’s is secret code for \”this will make the internet easier!\” Unfortunately, it does no such thing, but people persist in using it anyways, either out of company loyalty or just force of habit. Ultimately, it would seem that .Mac service proves that Apple is - in some respects - a business at heart.

That said, I still have faith in the company, and would suggest SEVERAL advancements to the .Mac interface. Really though, I\’ll leave that to someone who can truly take the time to innovate rather than say \”make it like Gmail!\”, which is really all I would do at the moment. :)
Much love - haere e hoki,
Jack Jenkins

Why does my above post not separated into paragraphs?

confused

-Jack

re-posting, with html

Om,

This article, simply put, is completely and entirely spot-on. I applaud your decision to actually SAY what the rest of us have been quietly grumbling about for the past 5 years: .Mac sucks. If anything, it is a slow, antiquated, and very cheap-feeling hodgepodge of various crippled technologies, all of which can be found for FREE elsewhere, not to mention infinitely more usable.

That said, despite all of our personal feelings about Apple’s allegedly user-centered business policy, the reality of the matter is that Apple really doesn’t have much incentive. A Ford Motor Company executive was once asked in an interview why it was that the Ford Crown Victoria still used ancient assembly technologies such as a bolted-on-body rather than the “unibody” construction typical of almost all vehicles. The Ford executive smiled, and grimly remarked “Because guess what: We’ll still sell every damnone of them.” This, in my opinion, is the mindset we’re looking at with the .Mac technology. No, it’s not their biggest seller by any means, but with over a million users each paying $99 a month, it’s no small business venture. Morever, people keep buying it, hoping that Apple’s insistence on puting “i”’s “e”’s and periods in front of world’s is secret code for “this will make the internet easier!” Unfortunately, it does no such thing, but people persist in using it anyways, either out of company loyalty or just force of habit. Ultimately, it would seem that .Mac service proves that Apple is - in some respects - a business at heart.

That said, I still have faith in the company, and would suggest SEVERAL advancements to the .Mac interface. Really though, I’ll leave that to someone who can truly take the time to innovate rather than say “make it like Gmail!”, which is really all I would do at the moment. :)

Much love - haere e hoki,
Jack Jenkins

Interesting article and comments (found it via digg).
I too never understood the attraction to a .mac account. It was sort of like an AOL tactic for the less tech savy. For much cheaper prices you can get all the benefits (well most), all you have to do is shop around and know a little bit about web hosting. A .mac account has skated the borderline of being a “scam” imho. I think I was soured to the whole .mac when Apple took away my “free” email account. A small blemish on the apple experience. Yes… I am an Apple fan too.

Dcrad-

Thanks for the support for my web services co-op idea. I agree there are risks. OTOH, the co-op model is already widely used to compete in the free market, even at a global level. One example is Sunkist.

With careful planning, I believe it could succeed.

Sid

Great article, this is the first time I have visited this site, though I have read references on other blogs. I completely agree, I was quite happy with the offerings from dotmac until I started using some other applications such as gmail and gmail calendar.
I used to use the dotmac website to post my pictures until people started complaining about how slow the pictures loaded. I did a test then by posting a picture of equal size and resolution on both typepad and dotmac, and the load time was significantly different. I would not be opposed to paying the same amount of money for a reliable, consistent, quick and innovative set of tools such as what gmail provides.
Thanks again for the article.
Anant

I would have liked to have seen Apple purchase pMachine’s Expression Engine instead of starting from scratch with iWeb. With EE, Apple already would have a great, CSS-based, blogging and Web site development tool for customers, one with a wide range of features and an intuitive user interface — because it was developed by Macheads.

This basic is the sort of advancd, Web development software that Apple needs to turn .Mac into the social networking site it should have been. Have you watched teens use MySpace? It offers terrible tools and terrible graphics options and kids with little or no design sense assemble terrible-looking pages.

I’m a happy user of .mac for reasons of syncronization. For $8 a month, I like the ability to take care of everything on one site. I do think it needs a makeover, and should host the latest of helpful technologies. Nonetheless, I like having an OS and an internet account that work together without me thinking about it. iDisk is a wonderful feature and Backup has saved my butt. Yes, I would like more. Who wouldn’t? For now, .mac hosts my website, Mail, iDisk, and Backup, as well as providing a public folder. It meets my basic needs and is thoroughly integrated with OS X. I don’t care for “social networking”. I want a service that provides synchronized backup, plus all the things that I would have to go elsewhere for, all integrated seamlessly in my OS. Where else am I going to find that? Improvements would always be welcome, but I think those that bash .mac should simply take their business to the varied service providers that they need. For me, I’ll stick around as long as I get my basic needs met.

I did a series of articles on features Apple could borrow for .Mac:

What the Heck is .Mac?

10 Reasons Why Apple Can Kickstart Web 2.0

Fixing .Mac - Idea 1: Hyperblog the Web

Fixing .Mac - Idea 2: A Reputation System

Fixing .Mac - Idea 3: .Macster!

Fixing .Mac - Idea 4: Secure Identity Services

Fixing .Mac - Idea 5: A .Mac Marketplace

Fixing .Mac - Idea 6: Add Privacy Management

Fixing .Mac - Idea 7: Enhance & Encourage Sharing

Fixing .Mac - Idea 8: Subscription Music

I’d been using .Mac for about three years when my subscription became due a few weeks ago. I couldn’t really justify paying the $129 AUD for another year. The one thing I miss? The syncing between Macs. The rest I can replace with box.net, GMail (using its contacts) and other such services. I’ve yet to try mySync though (http://www.mildmanneredindustries.com/mysync/moreinfo.html), may be what I’m looking for.

I don’t know why people stick with .Mac when SpyMac[.com] is out there with essentially the same features for a fraction of the price. .Mac is old and seriously overpriced.

.Mac is a piece of shit. If it just had all the features it has now only WORKING and not buggy I would be happy.

I couldn’t agree more. It is as if .Mac is made by the B team at Apple - those that didn’t quite get the top grade in the Apple school of things. I had to laugh at your suggested comment that they should improve iCal on the web side so as to allow users to add appointments . . . eh yes - indeed some would say that that is the definition of a calendar! I have been amazed for years now at the lost opportunity that .Mac represents. Given that its users give the company $100 million a year its even more surprising. Dot mac is a place we go to everyday - its a chance for Apple to offer is the Apple lifestyle - to cement as joyful willing citizens of the shiny happy utopia to which Apple fans, albeit self-conciously, aspire. There is a lot more money than $100 million to be made out of dotmac - we just need to find some young hungry executive in the company to realize this. Here’s hoping.

I wholeheartedly agree. After 2 weeks of dotMac subscribing I was sorry I signed up. The entire service needs an overhaul. It almost seems like Apple has gone out of their way to make it hard to use, which is so unlike Apple.

I agree, dotMac needs a makeover. I’ve been using it for over 2 years and I’ve not seen any improvements. It seemed like when they first launched I’d get all sorts of free software, but they have not offered anything lately and they even turned off the anti-Virus software they bundled… I just don’t get it anymore. They REALLY need something compelling, along with the “What the heck is .Mac?” stuff.

I thinkit needs a makeover. And how is it getting ready for the coming era of web 3.0?

Jack, et al, you bring up great points. I think when stacked up against the free alternatives, .Mac looks expensive at $99/year. But you don’t have to pay retail.

I’ve posted a how-to save 20%-50% on DotMac here:

http://homepage.mac.com/cherrypop/blogappleproject/files/2181b108aaec7cdc4260c3d574675109-29.html

The last copy I bought cost me $49 shipped. For all that DotMac offers, plus the integration I find it a value at that price.

I won’t pay full retail anymore, however, as I agree that many (if not all) of DotMac features are in desperate need of an overhaul.

Funny I just blogged about this very thing. I received an email to renew my .mac account. After mulling over the possibility of the boys in Cupertino actually responding I thought it best if they really understood why I decided not to renew. It’s gratifying to know that I am not alone in my gripes about how Apple is taking care of its customers and the quality of the services they offer. I very much echo what is written here but if you feel inclined you can read it here.
http://homepage.mac.com/prometheus451/iblog/B620186653/C594058048/E20070614083713/index.html