UsefulConcept

Its been 24 hours of working with Googles c-oop beta now. My site cfhunt.com has come along nicely I think. Here are my initial impressions and frustrations with the system.

The Good:

Very Easy to set up a dedicated site on your own domain. There are only two tags to use. You can do it all with just html.

Easy to add sites to be included in the search. Google supplies bookmarks you can click on when on a site you want to include to quickly add that site to your list.

Free and can possibly make some money. If you have an adsense account you can connect it to the search results to get a cut of the ad click through revenue. It was easy to do. To date I have had 2 clicks. ;-) Not really going to make money, but hey it is something fun to watch.

Google is watching the newsgroup used for support. I had an issue that they privately emailed me about and resolved quickly. Not all issues have that happen I am sure, but that is pretty good.

The Frustrating:

My home machine Firefox just wont play nice with the coop site. The form fields are not filled out, they don't respond to my actions and basically it is all confused. Firefox at the office works just fine. I double checked and my account is the one being used. Just wierd.

It was odd to find out how to encourage volunteers to sign up to help. IT is automatic if you use googles site, but not if you have your site at its own domain. It is possible for volunteers to sign up, but not leave their name or contact info. How can I authorize a nameless volunteer?

No clear way for me to figure out what the volunteers have done. I know they can add sites, but what if I want to see what sites they have added? What if someone added something inappropriate and I have to figure out who?

Volunteers don't seem to be able to determine if a site is already added (not in any easy or convenient way).

No email notification of people wanting to be volunteers and waiting to be authorized.

The bottom line:

There are bugs, but I am sure they are being worked on. It is a good idea, and I am hoping that the cfhunt.com site catches on and people use it as a resource and contribute to it / volunteer.

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