Google Browser: ABCs of Information Access
September 1, 2008
A is for Apple. The company uses WebKit in Safari. B is for browser, the user’s interface to cloud applications and search. C is for containers, Google’s nifty innovation for making each window a baby window on functions. The world is abuzz today (September 1, 2008) with Google’s browser project. The information, according to Google Blogoscoped, appeared in a manga or comic book. You can read that story here. There are literally dozens of posts appearing every hour on this topic, and I want to highlight a few of the more memorable posts and offer several comments.
First, the most amusing post to me is Kara Swisher’s post here. She a pal of the GOOG and, of course, hooked up with the media giant, currently challenged for revenues and management expertise The Wall Street Journal. The best think about her story is that Google’s not creating an extension of the Google environment. Nope, Google is “igniting a new browser war”. I thought Google and Microsoft were at odds already. After a decade, a browser war seems so 1990s to me. But she’s a heck of a writer.
Second, Carnage4Life earned a chuckle with its concluding statement about the GOOG:
Am I the only one that thinks that Google is beginning to fight too many wars on too many fronts. Android (Apple), OpenSocial (Facebook), Knol (Wikipedia), Lively (IMVU/SecondLife), Chrome (IE/Firefox) and that’s just in the past year.
Big companies don’t have the luxury of doing one thing. Google is more in the “controlled chaos” school of product innovation. Of course, Google goes in a great many directions. The GOOG is not a search engine; it is an application platform. It makes sense to me to see the many tests, betas, and probes. Google’s been doing this innovation by diffusion since its initial public offering and never been shy about its approach or its success and failure rate.
Finally, I enjoyed this comment by Mark Evans in “Google Browser or Slow News Day” here. He writes:
The bigger question is whether a Google browser will resonate with computers users. Many people are using an increasing number of Google services (search, GMail, Blogger, etc.) but are they ready to surrender to Google completely by dumping Firefox and IE?
My take is a bit different. Two points without much detail. I have more but this is, after all, a free Web log written by an addled goose.
- Why do we assume that Google is suddenly working on a browser? Looking at the screen shots of Google patent documents over the last couple of years, the images do not look like Firefox, Opera or Safari. Indeed when I give talks and show these screen shots, some Googlers like the natty Cyrus are quick to point out that these are photoshopped. Not even some canny Googlers pay attention to what the brainiacs in the Labs are doing to get some Google functions to work reliably.
- Google’s patent documents make reference to janitors, containers, and metadata functions that cannot be delivered in the browsers I use. In order to make use of Google’s “inventions”, the company needs a controlled environment. Check out my dataspaces post and the IDC write up on this topic for a glimpse of the broader functionality that demands a controlled computing environment.
I’m not sure I want to call this alleged innovation a browser. I think it is an extension of the Googleplex. It is not an operating system. Google needs a data vacuum cleaner and a controlled computing environment. The application may have browser functions, but it is an extension, not a solution, a gun fight, or an end run around Firefox.
Stephen Arnold, September 1, 2008
The Knol Way: A Google Wobbler on the Information Highway
September 1, 2008
Harry McCracken greeted Google on September 1, 2008, with a less than enthusiastic discussion of Knol, Google’s user-generated repository of knowledge. The story ran in Technologizer, a useful Web log for me. You can read the full text of the story here. The thesis of the write up, as I understand the argument, is that while a good idea, the service lacks depth. The key point for me was this statement:
Knol’s content will surely grow exponentially in the months to come, but quantity is only one issue. Quality needs to get better, too–a Knol that’s filled with swill would be pretty dismaying, and the site in its current form shows that the emphasis on individual authors creates problems that Wikipedia doesn’t have. Basic functionality needs to get better, too: The Knol search engine in its current form seems to be broken, and I think it needs better features for separating wheat from chaff. And I’d give the Knol homepage a major overhaul that helps people find the best Knols rather than featuring some really bad ones.
I agree. One important point is that the Wikipedia method of allowing many authors to fiddle has its ups and downs. Knol must demonstrate that it is more than a good idea poorly executed and without the human editorial input that seems to be necessary under its present set up.
I have a mental image of the Knol flying across the information super highway and getting hit by a speeding Wikipedia. Splat. Feathers but no Knol.
In closing, let me reiterate that I think Knol is not a Wikipedia. It is a source of input for Google’s analytical engines. The idea is that an author is identified with a topic. A “score” can be generated so that the GOOG has another metric to use when computing quality. My hunch is that the idea is to get primary content that copyright free in the sense that Google doesn’t have to arm wrestle publishers who “own” content. The usefulness to the user is a factor of course, but I keep thinking of Knol as useful to Google first, then me.
Will Google straighten up and fly right the way the ArnoldIT.com logo does? Click here to see the logo in action. Very consistent duck, I’m sure. Will Knol be as consistent? I don’t know. Like the early Google News, the service is going to require programmatic and human resources,which may be a while in coming. For now, Google is watching clicks. When the Google has sufficient data, then more direction will be evident. If there’s no traffic, then this service will be an orphan. I hope Googzilla dips into its piggy back to make Knol more useful and higher quality.
Stephen Arnold, September 1, 2008
IBM and Sluggish Visualizations: Many-Eyes Disappointment
September 1, 2008
IBM’s Boston research facility offers a Web site called Many Eyes. This is another tricky url. Don’t forget the hyphen. Navigate to the service at http://www.many-eyes.com. My most recent visit to the site on August 31, 2008, at 8 pm eastern timed out. The idea is that IBM has whizzy new visualization tools. You can explore these or, when the site works, upload your own data and “visualize” it. The site makes clear the best and the worst of visualization technology. The best, of course, is the snazzy graphics. Nothing catches the attention of a jaded Board of Directors’ compensation committee like visualizing the organization’s revenue. The bad is that visualization is still tricky, computationally intensive, and capable of producing indecipherable diagrams. A happy quack to the reader who called my attention to this site, which was apparently working at some point. IBM has a remarkable track record in making its sites unreliable and difficult to use. That’s a type of consistency I suppose.
Stephen Arnold, September 1, 2008
Sun’s New X4450 Servers
September 1, 2008
I have a soft spot for Sun Microsystems hardware. Heck, we even like Solaris. We love mounting devices and performing the Sun certification process before deploying hot new hardware. I learned that Sun Microsystems released a “white paper” about its newest servers. If you are a hardware junky as I am, you will want to click here and wallow in the technical goodness of these gizmos. The white paper is “Sun Fire X4150, X4250, and X4450 Server Architecture.” What I found interesting was this statement from page 38:
Organizations strive to reduce variety of platforms in the data center, even when a wide range of workloads are present. To help this effort, the Sun Fire X4150, X4250, and X4450 servers can run the Microsoft Windows operating environment. Indeed, these servers have passed stringent Microsoft compatibility test suites, achieving “Designed for Windows” certification. This certification demonstrates Sun’s commitment to providing the best platforms to run not only the Solaris OS and Linux, but Windows as well.
I would love to have a couple of XX4450s. Finally a hardware platform that can make Vista hum. Now about those SQLServer back up time outs. I am not sure even a X4450 can swizzle away that issue. I am confident that I could eliminate some of the latencies we have encountered with certain blue chip search systems’ content processing sub systems with a rack of these X4450s stuffed with memory and upscale storage gizmos. The ceilings of 50 million documents would remain, but I would hit that ceiling more quickly I surmise.
Stephen Arnold, September 1, 2008
Enterprise Social Software: Security in a Single Word
September 1, 2008
Disclaimer: I write for KMWorld.
My feedreader delivered a story from KMWorld with the intriguing title “Enterprise Social Software Technology.” You will want to read the article here. It provides a glimpse of what I call Heidi Klum (the star of Project Runway and international supermodel) “one day you’re in and the next day you’re out” approach to enterprise software. Social software is the buzzword for software mechanisms that streamline certain types of communication and make it possible to assemble information from different sources in a single Web page. The write up does a good job of collecting buzzwords and explaining each within the context of an enterprise. You can read the full text here. What struck me as interesting is that the issue of security gets a single word. With Sarbanes Oxley, BASEL II, and other governmental regulations increasing the grip, the importance of information security ratchets upwards a notch. Organizations quick to embrace Webby solutions may find themselves scrambling to make whizzy systems mesh with regulatory and legal guidelines. When a legal matter confronts an organization, the importance of “security” pops up a level. Communications germane to a legal matter may be “discovered”. One hopes that “security” warrants more than one word, which is what the author and KMWorld allocate to this topic. When your organization deploys social software, how will the messages be archived and made findable. What’s the audit trail for spoofed messages? What actions are needed to ensure that confidential information finds its way into the shared information space? Does your organization’s security methodology have the means to deal with content germane to a hot topic such as a clinical trial result, an employee’s health, or a new product that is critical to the company’s revenues? Non-social content management in most organizations is a disaster. Will social software tidy the messiness or accelerate entropy? At my age, I err on the side of planning, caution, and careful consideration of regulatory and competitive issues. I leave the craziness to parvenus, wily MBAs, and those with more enthusiasm than common sense. Agree? Disagree?
Stephen Arnold, September 1, 2008
Google Ecosystem: An Appliance Appliance
September 1, 2008
Network Box has released a web content filtering technology to support Google Safe Search and Safe Browsing functions. Device Management Forum’s “Network Box Releases Web Content Filtering System for Google Safe Search and Safe Browsing.” You can read the story dated August 25, 2008, here. According to the story,
Network Box USA customers will now have a content filtering engine that uses Google’s Safe Browsing system to check URL requests against Google’s constantly updated blacklist of suspected phishing- and malware-infested web pages. These web filter categories will be in addition to Network Box’s existing anti-virus and anti-phishing solution, which uses Kaspersky and ClamAV to inspect pages for malicious content.
With a bit of work, this “box” could be used in tandem with Google Search Appliances and other functionality added to bolster the GSA in certain environments. An appliance for an appliance strikes me as an interesting innovation in the Google ecosystem. You can learn more about Network Box. Mind the url, please. http://www.network-box.com/
Stephen Arnold, September 1, 2008
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