[Android] Combine Dropbox, Google Reader, Google Drive, and more into one single feed with Hojoki

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What is it and what does it do

Hojoki brings together dozens of online services and combines them into one huge stream, allowing you to view updates to every service at once and work even faster. It lets you collaborate using Google Drive, Dropbox, and more, all from a unified interface.

Pros

Combines all new things into one overarching feed
Supports 36 webapps ranging from Dropbox to Chatter and eveywhere in between
Allows you to instantly see what’s new on the internet
Access your stream from the web or from a phone/tablet

Cons

Uses an embedded HTML page, leading to terrible performance and on certain devices detection failure leading to the whole site being displayed inside a shell with a Close button
Requires login credentials/authorization from every website
Scrolling to the bottom and loading more posts freezes the app
Settings window extremely laggy on older devices

Hojoki, the Japanese name for an important early literary work about a series of disasters befalling the people of Kyoto, is also the name of a new app that lets you combine multiple collaborative webapps together to work at full efficiency. Rather than sending ten updates to thirty people about something you did once, Hojoki lets you view all the updates everyone has made to your shared Dropbox, Google Drive, and other services:

The only thing to note about Hojoki is that it does not let you do any of the actual editing from within the app itself. It’s merely a hub for combining the various streams together. This stream is perfect for viewing updates to collaborative projects, however, and lets you view anything you might’ve otherwise missed had they been spread out on 30 different webapps.

Another main feature of Hojoki is commenting on other people’s activities. If you need to discuss something with someone, just comment on it. Since it works with Works with Google Drive, Google Calendar, Dropbox, Evernote, Box, Highrise, CloudApp, Delicious, Google Reader, Google Contacts, Basecamp, Twitter, Zendesk, Mendeley, Pivotal Tracker, GitHub, Ta-Da List, Salesforce Chatter, Yammer and Beanstalk, there’s barely any services left out of the loop.

Conclusion and download link

If your life is a complicated mess due to all of the collaborative webapps you’ve been using, Hojoki can definitely help. However, for the masses, Hojoki is probably not nearly as useful as it might at first seen. Most people do not massively collaborate using Dropbox and Google Drive, and those that do already generally have a system in place set up for it. Still, if you’re setting up a new workflow for yourself, it might be worthwhile to consider combining your work together with Hojoki.

Price: Free!

Version reviewed: v1.4.2