Well ok not exactly. I was still far off both by time and result, but the thinking is the same. In order for Google to roll out the kind of products they want to work in the way they want, they have to deal with the environment their apps work in, and that means working with the browser - which so far makes varied results. It therefore makes sense they make their own browser given the ever higher level of complexity they want their apps to do.

The average Joe is probably aware we developers hate IE, but may not completely know why. Explaining why is not the point of this post, but let me just tell you - IE sucks seriously big time. Anyone who's ever had to deal with CSS, UTF or language standards, or Java for example, will understand why developers have thinning hair or zero social life as they spend too much time trying to get their apps to work on IE. Firefox helped save them a bit with its standards compliancy, but has so far not been entirely reliable imho, and it still lags behind with approximately 30% market share. I love it and support it, but it's been crashing on me recently, and anyone who knows code knows that a crashing browser is serious stuff.

So where's the Microsoft in all this (other than my disliking IE)?

Now that I see Google creating its own computer based program (as opposed to web-based), I am reminded of MS's age - old strategy of creating its own operating environment. On the surface of course, to promote the stable operation of its applications and predictably advertised as for the benefit of its users, but secondarily and rather disguisedly, to kick out everyone else.

The big difference though is the two companies' reputation.

MS did that so often and so brazenly that no one trusts them anymore. Go to any web board, blog or tech news site and every MS move is met by suspicion and distrust.

Google of course still enjoys the high moral ground. 'Do No Evil' says it all, and people like and enjoy that.

But will they still after this?

Controlling the browser is the next step after controlling the search engine. Having such power is akin to controlling the information we rely on on a daily basis. If for example, something is not listed in Google, to many it may as well not exist at all. A successful implementation of their browser would make them even more powerful, at a position of control even stronger than before.

There's really nothing we can do about it. It's just a company that's doing the right thing every step of the way. As such they are gaining ground more and more. The only thing that bothers me is that you could say exactly the same thing about MS ten years ago. The only difference between then and now is the level of trust, but even that can change.

Anyway I stumbled onto this Ars Technica Article re Google Apps, a thrust by Google to support independent application developers via handholding at the start of their project until they can spread their wings and fly so to speak. App development is a topic very close to my heart, being essentially the core of what I'm trying to do with the Exchanges, and having to do with the fact that I'm using subdomains under a main domain (exchange.ph), which I've always been convinced will eventually come together when time comes. As to how, I'll keep that a secret, but it will one day.

So anyway, Google's guys know this, and also know the considerable technical and cost issues one has to face whilst trying to get things going. I for example am paying a relatively tidy sum for hosting alone, just imagine the cost if I hired developers (I do approximately 90% of the work myself), and / or I wasn't using a popular CMS. The more complicated the project, say it be Facebook, Imeem, or what Amazon Web Services are doing, the higher the cost. So Google pays for it all, along with provision of an authentication service (wow), a free database (although I gather from the article it isn't a 'traditional relational database', what is it I wonder?), and Google's BigTable Project among others.

You have to write it all in Python, though, which is more of a preference issue than a technical one.

But the scary part to me is that after you get your app all good, running and popular, things look like they're designed in a way where you've no choice but to allow Google to own you. The article says:

This sounds great to small developers with small sites, but what happens when your cool idea takes off and you've got thousands or millions of users? You'll be paying a lot of money to Google each month—with no easy way out. No matter how much your user base and technology is worth, almost no company will be willing to purchase your idea because of the high cost of migrating that code out of Google.

Of course I'm not basing everything on one article, well written as it is, but at the same time I realize that hey, maybe that's just the way of the world. Google is Tops A Number 1 right now, with enough influence on the 'net to be the master of it. So is it a natural progression for Google to eventually own it too?

On one hand you can't blame them. First, if you're signing up for Google Apps you owe them the chance to get a crack at owning your service too. I mean, why not, right? You wouldn't even exist if it weren't for them. Besides, they're already in the best position to run and host it, and migration to a new host is gonna cost you megabucks and megaheadaches.

What irks me though is that the last company I know that used exactly that same play to get ahead is the one in Redmond.

Before I watched the video the whole idea reminded me somewhat (whether related or not), about OpenID. It's obviously far more richer and deeper than that, but for the most part the 'sharing' idea is the same.

So my thoughts:

The more social networking sites adapt it, the more powerful each individual existing app becomes. Flixster for example, already a great choice for reviewing and talking about movies, will become even more widely adapted and suited into each other's networks, increasing its popularity exponentially. Anyone who comes out afterwards who wants to do the same thing will obviously have an even harder time - although that's par for the course when you're trying to make headway into any existing industry anyway.

What is the effect onto a particular social networking's individuality? Say you own Friendster, whatever you do there is essentially going to allow it to be done elsewhere, say on Orkut or Imeem. What then will you have to do to keep your users on your network and not drop you altogether and switch? Further to that:

Is the end result of this going to make Google the ultimate social networking, err, site? Unless I'm mistaken using OpenSocial's API on each other's social networking site will allow Google to maintain its own database of each user from every site. In terms of managing to get a copy of each participating site's membership, then Google will come out on top, right? In fact, say Friendster dissolves and is wiped out from the 'net. Google will still have all their info cached somewhere. I'm not absolutely clear about this, but it might not even matter if you dissolve your account on that service, Google will still have it's own set.

After watching the video and listening to each participating Social networking's CEO make their 15 second pitch on how great their particular service is (always with users counting into the millions or billions), I came to realize social networking sites do not necessarily work globally. Some for example are 'big' in South America and Spanish speaking minorities while some, like Friendster, just.wont.die here in the Philippines. India has their own, China, I assume, has its own, and so on and so forth. If that's the case then Google will become an 'umbrella' organization, encompassing all.

To me, that's a little freaky. Google is already so entrenched onto our online lives that I worry about my info, cached in their servers. Sure it's easy to say how I should just stop using it if I'm freaked, but it's even user to, say, use Google Documents to stash my sales and inventory info and use Gmail's address book to keep track of suppliers and buyers. Madali lang sabihin pero mahirap gawin.

So in conclusion: Yes, I'm once again impressed at Google's forward thinking. These truly are the mavens of code, the people who truly and without question realistically understand the technology in a clear and straightforward manner and use it better than anyone else in the world. With billions is earnings to back them up and the giddy excitement of brilliant developers to make it happen, Google can and will take over anything the Internet can think of - social networking sites, search engines, blogs, news aggregators, ad serving, name it, they are on top of the game.

But no, I'm not completely sold on Opensocial, because I'm just afraid of all that info being available onto one central entity. If you think about it one of the reasons it's a good thing that the information Google is trying to collate is disparate, separate, distinct and different is because it's not a good idea for the responsibility for caching it to fall onto just one entity.

Yeah I'm thinking Big Brother here. I think that for the first time in History, the brainpower, the funding and the motivation are actually becoming available for a Big Brother phenomenon to be realistic, so I think we need to think about that.

Sometimes however, when the moon flies high across the sky, pulling with it the tides below and the ancient living things within, Ballex's Pagerank is a piddling (for a basketball site), pedestrian and all too ordinary 4.

Poetic inducements aside, I resort to such words for lack of an explanation of the quandaries I face as a blog publisher. To wit:

1. Why is Ballex's PR sometimes 4, sometimes 5?
2. Why is Pisces Iscariot's PR sometimes 5, sometimes (gasp) 3?
3. Why in the flying flak fudacious does KikayEx not have a PR rank yet after almost 5 months in existence?

These, as well as many other wonderments continue to astound and hound my dreams and inner fantasies. My websites, my great grand living, breathing, tangible examples of grandiose dreams and supreme aspirations stand, nay, kneel naked and vulnerable, in complete abeyance to that great mysterious spirit known as Google Pagerank.

How long can I sit and wait, perplexed, gazing at Google's Blog and relating pages, perusing in confusion its inner workings? Must others serve to continually lay upon me their lame explanations, which serve little but to frustrate me with information I already know or of vague importance? Perhaps its my style of clothing? Perhaps I should buy my better dogfood for my pet? Or maybe it's which shoe I put on first wherein lies the key?

Here I sit, uncertain.