myGoya Online Desktop

myGoya is a feature rich online desktop / Web OS from Berlin we just learned about.

The basic idea behind every Web OS (see Goowy, EyeOS, YouOS, Desktoptwo, yet to be launched Xindesk from Sweden to name a few competitors) of course is to give you a one stop shop for everything you need in a fresh package without being tied to a single PC using the well known metaphor of the desktop.

myGoya does an excellent job at that and provides you with email, chat, a calendar, a media player and a lot of widgets (called madgets) like a clock, a calculator, a taskplanner or a notepad. You also can store and share bookmarks and files. The site is in active development and they are constantly adding new features.

myGoya is available in English and German.

What I’m wondering though is whether transferring the idea of the desktop to the web is the best way to go. Sure, it is convenient to access all these features from within one monadic window with a single login, but the trade-offs of the slick interface are flexibility and speed.

We are living in the age of the widget and basically every functionality you might ever need has a corresponding widget component which you can add to a startpage like Netvibes, Pageflakes or iGoogle or a platform like Facebook. Startpages might be ugly, but you have the freedom to choose exactly the tools you want and to assemble a toolbox optimised for your needs.

(This article originally was written for blognation Germany. Since blognation is gone I have reposted it here)