Big Brother Google

From SE Watch Blog:

Google Is Big Brother

Looks like Frank Watson has it in for Google. Still. He has a point, yes. Google still seems to enjoy this "golden" status that it had before it was publicly traded. Some interesting points about Google:

Though everyone seems to know that Google is a giant, nobody seems to view Google as being "out to get" the little guys in the business world. This is different from, say, Microsoft, for instance, who seems to be the software world's bad guy for everything.

People don't seem to be averse to giving personal information to Google, as they might be to other personal networking/information portals on the web. Google's tools are increasingly powerful (i.e., checkout, book search, picasa, analytics), but the controversies about invasion of privacy don't seem to stick for Google. Some may disagree, but I don't see Google suffering in the public eye from the insecurities surrounding the proposed DoubleClick deal.

Google seems to be bent toward sincere pursuit of knowledge and advancement in computing. Of course, we all know that they have to make a buck, just like the rest of us, but their continued initiatives seem to be directed more toward advancing their overall field, rather than just their company. This too is different from the perception surrounding most other large software firms.

With all of that said, if things were to suddenly change, and Google were to suddenly seek their own interests above all else, it is feasible that we could see the Big Brother incarnation that Watson is prophesying.

But... C'MON!!!

An Open Source OS that's NOT Linux

Google, if you're listening at all - I mean, I am within your blog-dom - I'm asking you to take up the challenge and move toward offering a complete line of software - including an OS. After buying and setting up computers and computer software for my small office over the past year, I have been overwhelmed by way that Microsoft has gradually attempted to force its software down the throats of small offices and large offices across the world - and I believe it is stifling innovation and competition. The latter is a "no, duh" observation; Microsoft is obviously taking a copyright-and-monopoly approach to software development, trying to use the current laws that protect innovation and authorship to cement its own place in the market for years to come. Their attitude has made it virtually impossible for someone else to spend the amount of money necessary to compete. Impossible, that is, until now.

Google is now the world's largest software company, and they have already ventured into software. Now that they're not afraid anymore, I would be the first to buy a Google attempt at a fully-functional operating system that is user-friendly like Windows, but does not cost a person or a company thousands of dollars to outfit just a few systems. Obviously, this need doesn't have to be met by Google-source - it could be met by any number of open-source developers out there who have the time and money to devote to such a project (*ahem* - are you listening, Mozilla?), but the thing I am worried about is usability. I don't have any interest in a piece of software that's only useful to developers and network administrators, as is the current case with Linux. The obvious problem with having a small outfit develop something is support - someone like Red Hat, though well-intentioned, is not big enough to promote or support its product in the same way that MS is. MS has constant updates and help docs online, which are supposed to alleviate the problems caused by the fact that their software is crappy and is designed to use the monopoly status MS enjoys to coerce offices into spending thousands of dollars per year trying to keep current.

My vision is a system that would cost $100, or would come pre-installed on a new computer, and then would always stay current through an online membership system, which would have an annual cost of something like $50 or $100/year. Imagine the possibilities, if the systems were always updated properly, automatically, and then people enjoyed the same massive technical support that MS purports to give.

New Earth-blog at Google

From Search Engine Watch Blog...

Google Launches New "Geo" Blog

This seems like a great opportunity for search to expand, and to me seems like a completely new frontier of technology, even. I also think that this is a huge opportunity for Open Source to show us why open collaboration is far superior to the monopoly-and-copyright approach to web and software development. While it is not really producing true "open source" software, Google genuinely promotes the open source movement by opening up its software APIs to the rest of the world. It also promotes the flow of open source by not charging a penny for the use of the software. They do stake a claim on the authorship of that software, but their claim doesn't cost me several hundred dollars per computer per year, like it does with some other companies. (Yes, that was a NOFOLLOW link.)

Again, I am making a play on the "striving" theme. This is definitely something where we will be always striving, never arriving. I don't really think the Web-Earth project will ever "arrive," in the sense that everyone will be satisfied, all at the same time, causing development to cease for a time until we all have holographic computers that display an actual globe in front of us, and then we work on Web Earth 2.1, or "XP". I don't think the striving of the entire community of developers can be held inside of one company - nor can the desires and needs of the world be met by one community of developers. And that's why open source (combined with "Google source") will be the ones to "win" this war by fighting the true fight.