Google’s quest for world domination rolls on…
October 14th, 2004While Google Desktop (via every blog I’ve read today) looks cool and great (especially the web cache search feature), but until it can be used to search products other than Microsoft’s I don’t see the personal benefit in it (and given that Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice etc. all have open formats, I don’t see why it’d be too hard to add them to those supported).
Still, as some bloggers (specifically I’m thinking of an excellent article by Jason Kottke) have speculated, with Google’s vision of the future being one where Google is the ‘portal’ for everything - first providing web services delivering information to the consumer, like search, news and shopping; more recently, applications allowing the consumer to deliver information themselves with Gmail and the acquisition of Blogger. Now this reverse-Microsoft approach is homing in from the web to the desktop with the Desktop app and the purchase of Picasa.
So are we heading for Google OS, where we connect and work with documents remotely using thin clients? Possibly. Networked, collaborative working with mobile/PDA devices via Google’s web applications is a distinct possibility, which covers the business side of things, but Google have still made little inroads on the leisure/entertainment side of the internet (Picasa and potential for photo sharing aside). If/when we start seeing a Google entry into iTunes’ territory (random idea - wouldn’t it be cool to search for a random song lyric you heard and got an mp3 of the song, say?) or other media services (online video archives + highly capable search?), then that will be the time to welcome our new Google overlords.
October 14th, 2004 at 23:38:53
It uses your default browser. Don’t know if this is what you mean by working with firefox, but i’ve installed it and its looking pretty groovy. It’s pretty similar to lookout, a plugin for outlook that also searches for files, and blinx, but instead of using 3rd party applications, it uses your browser. It’s pretty sweet, although right now I’m wishing I could force indexing rather than having to wait for it to have my computer idle….
October 15th, 2004 at 01:32:26
Not forgetting GBrowser, of course.
They knew what they were doing with that IPO shizzle. Just at the point where everybody thought the company was running out of steam, they start unleashing a new GApp every week almost. Nice work, you terrifying bastards.
Of course, the other key thing that they’ll realise, what with their “don’t be evil” mantra, is that everybody hates a monopoly. In 5 years, they may be our new overlords; but if that’s the case, in 4 ½ years I fully expect to see Google2 being launched - marking the first time a company has ever deliberately set up its own divergent, yet fully-integrated, competitor…
October 15th, 2004 at 02:41:19
Of course, what I meant to say, in response to the Overlords meme, was:
“All these worlds are yours - except Eudora. Attempt no searching there.”
Hmm… nah. Doesn’t work, does it?
October 15th, 2004 at 03:40:58
Sorry, just to clarify, although it uses the default browser for the search interface (just like the Toolbar), it can only index and search the cache of Internet Explorer, not Firefox/Mozilla/Opera (According to Jason Kottke in this comment on his blog).
One thing I failed to mention was that Google’s overlordness will not be complete until it feels just as happy dealing with non-MS products as much as it does with MS (it took ages for any Mac browser to read Gmail, IIRC) - , i.e. Google still has to assert its own dominance and full ‘authoritah’ over MS.
October 15th, 2004 at 14:13:41
They’ve also got their fingers in our happiness….
or at least it seems. See: http://www.solvedating.com and ‘meeting through Google’ via http://www.socialgrid.com
Googleweddedbliss coming soon.