Ok, I have an idea. The title is based on the line from The Social Network when the Mark Zuckerberg character is about to develop facemash.com.
With my mom's health in decline, I've been spending more time at the skilled nursing facility with her after work. Between that and work, I have needed time to be distracted for the sake of sanity. As such, I've been trying to find LONG audio books to listen to on my commute to and from work. On a side note, my afternoon commute is now almost 90 minutes, which is getting old.
Anyway, after listening to For The Love Of Physics and The Pixar Touch, I am now listening to In The Plex, a story about Google, how it started, operates and most importantly its corporate culture.
The audio book is almost 20 hours long, so it's been great for my commute. My commute time, while tedious, does give me time to think. And I have been thinking of looking for a job in or near San Francisco.
When I first got 'into' IT in 2000, part of the reason was to be more marketable and move to San Francisco. This was towards the tail end of the dot com boom, and we all know how that ended. I ended up not going, which I'm glad I did considering I was able to spend time with my father before he passed away in 2004 and also be with my mom before her stroke earlier this year.
There aren't many people who would not want to work for some of the larger and more notable companies in the Bay Area: Google, Facebook, etc., and listening to In The Plex has motivated me. So I started my search for job openings.
I have submitted 2 applications for information security jobs with Google. In all of my research, everything indicates that Google looks for not only a good cultural fit but also for good ideas.
Here is my idea.
With all of the login information that people have today: email, Facebook, Twitter, banking sites, shopping sites, etc., people often try using the most basic passwords (which they use for multiple sites) ultimately increasing the risk of identity theft. Because of this trend, products such as LastPass have popped up.
Why doesn't Google offer such a service? They have the resources and the built in customer base to make this a no-brainer in my opinion.
I'm no programmer, so I'm not sure how to develop a Google App for this. But I have some ideas on features. It would provide a single login based on an existing Google account. It would be accessible from any browser. It could incorporate Google's advertising if necessary. Eventually it could be built into Chrome, Android and an iPhone app would most likely be popular as well.
Features would include the account or site name (could be used for Adsense), username, password, security question information and notes about the accounts. Something that would differentiate it from existing products, and which would work well with other Google apps, such as gmail and Google Calendar, would be the ability to schedule reminders to be sent either via email or text when accounts are due.
I think I may work on a mock-up and figure out the basic layout and use existing Google products as a guide.
In the off chance I ever get a job with Google, I want to have this idea as fleshed out as possible. I guess only time will tell.
