MyBooo: Web Sharing That Looks Pretty But Needs Work

I've gotten to be fairly excitable when it comes to web operating systems, mainly because I'm getting very tired of dealing with sharing issues. As a freelancer, I'm constantly emailing attachments back and forth, especially if I'm editing a document for someone, and making sure I'm using the right version is difficult when I'm forever downloading the latest version from an email to my hard drive.

When I first received the invite to MyBooo, I was torn; Peepel hadn't yet adding file sharing to their app, and I really needed something that would allow me to easily share documents across the web. I already knew I loved Peepel, so anyone else was going to have some big shoes to fill.

At first look, MyBooo is a very pretty app once you get past their overly busy homepage. The icons are so easily understood that I was able to navigate around even before I realized that there was an English version in addition to the default French version. Not meant as a full office suite, MyBooo attempts to be a one-stop shop for the rest of your online needs, from file sharing to checking your email and RSS feeds.

My biggest problem with MyBooo, however, is that it's kludgy and slow in the execution. I could have done without the games in there for a little more intuitive interface and speed. A perfect example is the way MyBooo handles images; I uploaded one of the graphics files I used for an article here at Profy. If I double click on what appears to be the file icon, it actually opens an image viewer complete with a menu tree. The menu tree, however, is already visible on the desktop! With only two files saved and no RSS feeds or email accounts set up, I found waiting for MyBooo to open folders or documents like a bad flashback to 1995 when I still thought a 14.4 modem over dial-up was speedy.

I also got lost in a few places, like sharing files. The cutesy icons threw me for a loop here and I wasn't quite sure how to go about sharing files with more than one group of people separately, for instance, if I wanted to share one folder with my fellow writers here at Profy while sharing a different folder only with friends and family. The app is buggy for logging out as well; using Firefox on a Mac, I was unable to logout using either the in-app logout or closing the tab. I finally was able to exit by getting the tab to go back in my browsing history and then closing the tab once I'd navigated away from MyBooo. 

MyBooo has the right idea, but to be competitive in the Web OS space, they are going to have to improve performance in a big way. Ditching the extraneous games and streamlining how things open might be a good place to start.