Apps or New Browser for Access
November 9, 2010
The Google will have to make some changes to Chrome. When the GOOG adapts, I think those pushing the apps method of content access and the fuel providers behind RockMelt will have their hands full. I think a reinvention of the browser is an interesting idea. “
“New Browser Incorporates Latest Trends in Web Technology” reported:
RockMelt, a Mountain View startup that Andreessen has invested in and advises, is releasing today a beta version of a new, eponymous Web browser built around some of the latest trends in Web technologies. It integrates social networking to a degree not found in mainstream browsers and saves user data to the “cloud,” allowing users to get the same browsing experience on their work and home computers.
Both the Apps crowd and the new browser crowd are responding to needs from the exploding market for consumerized information access. Consumers like appliances. Some can be downright weird. Think about the Dyson fan and ball vacuum. Others can be helpful when one wants a way to read Web pages in unlikely places. Think iPad. The notion of mashing up information is not a new idea, but it is gaining momentum. Think apartment listings placed on a Google Map south of Houston. The mash up and a $1,000 in cash can score an apartment more effectively than a person from Harrod’s Creek and a printed listing of available spaces.
The challenge in the consumerized world of information is that whoever has eyeballs wins. Sure, some outfits can come out of left field and take over a market segment. One only needs to think about Google to realize that in the span of 12 years, Google is on the path to an AT&T-type operation. On some days, I think Google is AT&T, where some of Google’s wizards labored in a previous life. I can also point to the Apple iPad and the 200,000 plus apps available to someone with a lot of time on their hands like blog pundits.
My view is that browsers that seek to displace the incumbents have to leapfrog the competition. That’s going to be difficult because Google and other browser developers can incorporate functionality and make that functionality available to an installed base. My hunch is that the me-too tactic will make 2011 browser competition quite unlike 1993 browser competition.
Which will win? Browsers or Apps? The companies best at playing Monopoly will decide, not the market in my opinion. Fewer and fewer users want laundry lists. Complex results lists are an issue. Funky app interfaces are a barrier as well. Inertia, not innovation, is likely to be a formidable hurdle even with the ability to melt barriers made of stone.
Stephen E Arnold, November 9, 2010
Freebie
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