Integrate Gmail & Google Docs with Mindjet MindManager 8

A few days ago I saw an intriguing post on Alan Yoshioka’s mobile musings blog about his experiments using both MindManager and Google together. Alan showed me a great new Gmail Labs feature that allows you to add emails to your maps! Needless to say, that got me really excited so I started exploring our integration with Google. Very exciting stuff!

First, here’s a quick MindManager tip. You can easily drag any URL (e.g. your Gmail account) from your browser directly onto a map or on a topic within a map. This is a fast and easy way to add links to maps and it works with most, if not all browsers.

Now, for the exciting stuff. I created a map to quickly test MindManager 8’s integration with the following Google applications:

• Gmail
• Google Docs
• Google Presentations
• Google Spreadsheets
• Google Reader

What I like most about these Google Doc examples is that they are all collaborative. In other words, you not only link files to your maps but other members of your team can access and update the files too. Think about the possibilities! Updated progress reports, project status, finanical summaries, etc…

Here were my initial results:

Gmail: I haven’t tested all the links within Gmail yet. I noted that you gain access to your inbox but not all the individual emails.

Having access to your inbox is cool, but not as nice as gaining access to each email. This is where Alan’s trick comes into play. There’s a Google Labs project called “Create a document”. Enable this add-in and you’ll be able to take advantage of some powerful email integration possibilities. With a click, transform any Gmail into a Google document. In the next section, you’ll see how this appears within MindManager.

Google Docs: Drag any Google Doc URL onto your map and you have instant access to view and edit your documents from within MindManager. As I mentioned in the Gmail section above, you can convert emails into documents too. Are you using MindManager to manage projects? Sales opportunities? Capture Ideas? Drag all your relevant emails and documents into your maps for future reference.

Google Presentations: Spice up your next MindManager presentation by linking to slide shows built with Google Doc’s Presentations. When mapping alone cannot convey your message, combine the two for a powerful presentation. You’ll be able to present slides AND capture feedback or notes within your map.

Google Spreadsheets: I linked to a test spreadsheet and it worked great. When you want to collaboratively work on spreadsheets and reference them in your maps, check this out as an option.

Google Reader: I use Google Reader all the time to check up on many blogs that I like to follow. So, I gave the reader a whirl as well. Guess what? Worked like a charm!

Thanks Alan for turning me on to this great integration!

Join the conversation: How can integrating with Google Docs & Gmail enhance your productivity? Are you integrating with other apps?

Google Drops Search Web Option In Gmail

Seems Google has silently dropped the search the web option in Gmail and I am wondering if that could be the reason it has been so buggy today.

Everyone I have spoken to about their Gmail connection today has told me it has been on and off all day. Then I see the Web Search button is gone.

Guys I know you are trying to cut back but why even bother. I use it a little but was that link causing that much in hosting?

Or do you just plan to spam me with what you think I might like. Got to love those spam recipes I see occasionally at the top.

Google Penalizes Google Japan For Buying Links

Matt Cutts twittered that Google.co.jp was penalized for paying for blogger reviews. If you look at the FriendFeed details, you will see Matt first said, “Google.co.jp PageRank is now ~5 instead of ~9. I expect that to remain for a while.” And then when he was questioned if this was a paid link penalty, he said “yes.”

Google Blogoscoped has more details about the why with their story named Google Japan Reportedly Bought Blog Posts in Promotion Campaign, Now Issued Apology.

Akky Akimoto at the Asiajin blog recently reported that Google Japan was paying bloggers to review a new Google widget. Using pay-per-post service CyberBuzz, blog posts like the following popped up, strangely resembling each other, as Asiajin reports.

The Google Japan blog’s apology translated into:

Google Japan is running several promotional activities to let people know more about our products.

It turns out that using blogs on the part of the promotional activities violates Google’s search guidelines, so we have ended the promotion. We would like to apologize to the people concerned and to our users, and are making an effort to make our communications more transparent in order to prevent the recurrence of such an incident.

How long will this PageRank penalty last? Matt Cutts of Google said, “I expect that to remain for a while.” Any takers on what “a while” means?

Postscript From Danny Sullivan:

Official: Selling Paid Links Can Hurt Your PageRank Or Rankings On Google and The 2007 Paid Links War, In Review from Search Engine Land are past articles that provide further background about how Google has actively campaigned against sites either buying or selling links and implementing a range of penalties against those that do, including Google Toolbar PageRank decreases.

While it might seem amazing that Google is penalizing itself, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. Back in 2005, help pages for Google’s search appliance product were found to be cloaking content, showing Google’s spider something different than what human visitors see. When this was noticed, Google removed the pages from its index and required the team in charge of them to file a reinclusion request.

The penalty now applied to Google Japan will certainly help Google be seen as enforcing its rules fairly, even against itself. But I’d also expect it will reignite the paid link debate once again. If Google itself, however it happened, found itself in this situation — how are ordinary web sites to be expected to know the “rules” about what they can or cannot do?

I’d warn against anyone from seizing upon this as an excuse to buy or sell links, however. The bottom line in such cases — when someone has been caught — is really how important a site is to warrant inclusion. Large and important sites generally get a mild slap on the hand, just as Google is, in this case. They do not get banned permanently, as that would hurt the relevancy of Google’s results. Smaller sites that won’t be noticed if they go missing indeed might find themselves missing.

Matt’s on the Ask The Search Engines panel tomorrow at our SMX West conference, and has been busy there attending all this week. I expect he’ll likely address the issue a bit more on the panel and knowing Matt, I’d also expect he’ll probably do a fairly comprehensive review of the situation on his blog after getting clear of the show. I could be wrong, of course, and I’m not trying to set expectations. That’s just what he’s tended to do with these types of issues — so if you were hoping for something longer from him other than a Twitter mention, I’d hang in there.

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Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.

How to Make Sure That TechMeme Links to your Blog

Techmeme founder Gabe Rivera earlier recommended that the best way to get Techmeme love your blog is through original content, descriptive titles and link love - i.e., you should send some traffic to Techmeme and they he may consider including your site among other Techmeme elites.

That was 2006 and obviously lot of things have changed since then.

Gabe diversified from the "computers decide everything" model and appointed a couple of human editors (Megan McCarthy and Omer Horvitz) who ensure that important news gets featured faster on Techmeme and they may push down obsolete stories out of the main page.

So what does it now take to get your blog on Techmeme?

1. For bloggers who aren’t on Techmeme yet

a. If you are have written an exclusive piece on your blog (like Steve Jobs spotted at a local candy shop), submit that link to Techmeme via Twitter (see examples) or send an email directly to the Techmeme editors at editorial@techmeme.com.

b. If you are re-blogging (like linking to a news story that says Apple releases iPhone), chances are pretty low that Gabe or his editorial team will include you in Techmeme. However, as Gabe said in his tweet, if you can provide some unique context that is missing from the current Techmeme conversation around that news, you can get included. Just follow the steps listed in 1a.

2. For bloggers who are on Techmeme but need more exposure

If your blog / website is indexed by Techmeme already, you don’t have to work very hard to get onto Techmeme. Just blog about current news (like Gmail Goggles) and chances are pretty high that your article will automatically become part of the relevant conversation happening at Techmeme.

However, getting onto Techmeme is just half the battle won. You’ll get minimal or no traffic if readers have to expand that + symbol in order to see your blog post on Techmeme.

To make sure that your story doesn’t get grouped with the main headline and that it gets syndicated in the Techmeme news feed, you have to really make sure that your blog article is adding something unique to the current conversation.

You can also escape the Techmeme grouping if one or more blogs link to your story and that will only happen if you have something unique to share.

You may also consider adding the Techmeme button in your blog that will make it easy for readers to recommend your blog posts to Techmeme editors via Twitter. Try this live here.

Important point: While you are allowed to tip your own stories for Techmeme via Twitter, it would be great if let your readers do that job for obvious reasons.

*If you are new here, check this Techmeme Time Lapse Video to see how stories move up or down with time.

How to Manage Email Overload with some help of your RSS Reader

If you’re feeling overwhelmed with the sheer volume of email messages that hit your Inbox daily, try these new ideas that may help reduce your overall email burden without interrupting the incoming flow of information.

*You may also want to check out Getting Email Under Control - a PDF ebook from David Allen where talks about tackling email using the the Getting Things Done methodology.

Idea 1: Ask people to only send tips via delicious for: tag

If you have a blog or website where readers send you tips via email, ask them to stop sending those email messages and instead bookmark those links on to delicious with the tag for:your_delicious_username. (e.g. for:labnol)

This is your personal inbox at delicious and any bookmarks tagged with "for:user" are only visible to that particular delicious user. Such a system is in place on 43 folders.

Idea 2: Only use contact forms that provide RSS feeds

Do you get email notifications when someone sends you a message using the ‘contact me’ form on your website?

If yes, disable this setting because a majority of email messages received via web forms do not require immediate attention and hence should not disrupt you from the task at hand.

Switch to a forms manager that can provide RSS feeds of user messages so you can read them at leisure. Zoho Creator is a good choice here.

Idea 3. Master Dapper and Yahoo! Pipes

Not all web content is available in the form of feeds yet and that’s where services like Dapper and Yahoo! Pipes come in very handy. Make a screen scrapper for any web page via Dapper and you will automatically know if anything has changes through the RSS feed.

Check this excellent screencast by Marshall Kirkpatrick where he shows how to convert a regular web pages into an RSS feed. See some more services that create feeds from web pages.

4. Read all Email Newsletters and Mailing Lists as RSS Feeds

Are you subscribed to dozens of email newsletters, mailing lists and deal alerts? Now these emails do increase the daily volume of email but you have no choice because the kind of information you’re looking for is only available in the email format.

There’s however a simple hack to help you read these emails as RSS feeds.

You know that it is possible to post on Blogger via email. Now when you subscribe to any email newsletter, instead of giving your own address, you can give that Blogger address and all emails will directly get published onto that blog which can subscribe in your newsletter.

Or if you want to keep that secret Blogger email address a secret, create a rule in your Gmail account that will automatically forward that newsletter to Blogger and will also delete the message from your own Inbox.