Technology As Innovator

(to-be-read in reverse-chronicle order)

3 September 2008

Positive review: SaigonNezumi, Google Chrome - What a browser should be -> Simple

A nice coverage: Chip 2.0, Review after the first day launching Chrome

Not-so-positive review: Google Chrome, it’s not worth the Buzz

Why Google Chrome is not only a cost-saving basket

On Finance’s side: GOOG’s Chrome is all about Wall Street.

TaiTran’s comment: Chrome is only only a cost-saving basket, but a full house for wealth for Google.

1. OK, the money that Google is saving as depicted in Zdnet’s article is the kitchen.
2. Chrome knows all your web activities. Google will sell smarter ads and thus their revenue from ads will increase. This is the bedroom.
3. Chrome is the O/S for the web
   Recall: what’s the 2 most successful properties of Microsoft? Windows and Office
   Has Google got Office? Absolutely. Now Chrome is Google’s Operating System.
   This is the living room.
4. Chrome being open-source will attract the communities (many from Mozilla) who will work for Chrome (more accurately, GOOG) for credit rather than wages. This is the bath room.
5. Chrome will be the web platform on which many applications and SaaS will base on: free dependency is never a free lunch. This is the dining room.
6. Chrome being very light will integrate deeply with Android for penetrating into Mobile market. This is the garden.

In short, all about making money in the long run, given that Chrome will succeed. How successful do you think Chrome will be?

Testing Chrome

1. Is faster than FF3
2. Failed to import bookmarks from my FF3
3. Offers more free space by pushing the tab bar to the very top
4. Doesn’t destroy the layout when zoom in. This is both good and bad.
5. Doesn’t display XML correctly
6. Supports built-in 48 languages
7. Connects to Google services at full speed
8. Uses same web standard with Firefox
9. Provides context-sensitive status bar
10. No RSS auto-detectio
11. No support for Quick Time
12. AdBlock will be highly political
13. Smart start page: recently visited sites
14. Flickr “Web upload” does not work
15. The address bar is a search bar
16. Facebook and Zoho Javascript errors
    

Chrome About Pages

1 September 2008

Google’s official announcement: we hit “send” a bit early on a comic book

Tad was skeptical with 7 reasons why Chrome is a bad idea

Technologizer raised 10 questions

Agglom scanned the catoon

Google Blogoscoped threw the first bomb

I’m on Firefox 3 too, and I utilize addons to enrich my web experience too, like most of you there.

There have been countless of entries to useful Firefox addons, but what’s different about this post is that it measures the costs that can be saved for users when using these extensions.

What are the costs of usability and how much are they?

The descending order of severity of the costs are

1. Screen loads: this is a pain when internet connection is slow. It usually takes most time of all interactions with the computer
2. Mouse movements: mouse movements severely damage the wrist and this should be minimized
3. Mouse clicks: mouse clicks are less severe than mouse movements, but are also expensive
4. URLs: an URL takes time to type in
5. Enters: it hurts the little finger
6. Hot keys: hot keys usually consists of at least 2 keys, but are regarded as less expensive than Enters because they are mostly done with the left hand, reduces damage to the right hand

Now, let’s start with the addons!

The first six in the batch: Google Toolbar, Diigo Toolbar, StumbleUpon Toolbar, TwitterFox, CustomizeGoogle, Better YouTube

Google Toolbar for Firefox

Google Toolbar provides search, “I’m feeling lucky” and images search functions without having to go to Google.com

It also supports Gmail notifications and Google PR check

Diigo Toolbar

I have used Diigo as a replacement of delicious (I still love the old brand del.icio.us)

Though delicious tagging is smarter and usability is better, Diigo supports web-highlighting which makes it an advantage.

Diigo toolbar allows user to bookmark their favorite web pages for later reference. With Diigo, all bookmarks are centralized when users move from computer to another.

StumbleUpon Toolbar

StumbleUpon works on an interesting concept: when you hit the Stumble! button, the addon takes you to a random interesting page that matches your preferences.

The StumbleUpon toolbar makes it more convenient for you.

CustomizeGoogle

This powerful addon modifies Google search results and display preferences. It supports options for Web Search, Images, Groups, News, Products, G Answers, G Books, Gmail, G Galendar, G Maps, G Docs, Video, Reader, Cache, Blogger, History, Privacy and Filter

Twitterfox

Better YouTube

This Greasemonkey-based addon loads the YouTube video faster and allows downloading the video. Generally it saves me half an hour per day for one video.

Conclusion

With the intensity of these service I use everyday, these addons easily save at least one hour each day for me.

I can use this one hour for other business purposes which can generate other benefits.

What is your experience? What do you think of my approach when analyzing these?

We thought Web Service was good. It certainly is!

Web Service has brought the economy to the web. There is no need to repeat what Amazon, eBay, Yahoo! and Google all have done.

Web 2.0 and a different approach

But another approach is rising fast. Web service providers now make their product a Web Platform.

They build up a very good core based on solid philosophy. Then they provide API for developers to build applications on.

Browser

With their defeat by Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5, Mozilla temporarily withdrew and launch their next hit: Firefox.

As in September 2007, market share of Firefox reaches 35.4%, according to W3C.

One important reason why Firefox has become this popular is due to its extensions gallery. A huge collection of well-done small web services are offered for free by developers worldwide.

Many of Firefox extensions are done to support other web services such as Google Search, Blogging, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, digg, Amazon, eBay.

Gradually, the browser becomes one of the largest centralized points of the web.

Social Networking

Talking about Social Networking today, we have to praise Facebook immediately.

Facebook is also doing very well to provide their API so that applications can be developed on a very good and mature skeleton.

Most successful Facebook applications support networking purpose such as free gifts, messages, testimonials, collaborative games.

The goal of a social networking site is to become the home of as many activities of users as possible.

Content Management Systems

WordPress, Joomla, phpBB have been building communities around them.

Themes allow personalization.

Plugins allow customization.

Most of all, the platform allow monetization.

Conclusion: Web Platforms

Looking at these obvious examples, we see that Firefox, Facebook, WordPress et al offer a very solid and useful core and highly flexible and open API on which applications, extensions, addons, plugins, themes can grow and develop.

They have become Web Platforms to Web Services.

These Web Services in turn make the Platforms new and ever-changing.

Future: Information Depot

In near future, or maybe now already, we’ll see these central points become Information Depot in Semantic Web.

When a web seller wants to approach specific market segment, it should know what and how the potential customers are like. How? From Information Nodes such as e-Commerce sites and Social Networking sites. It would go to Amazon to get information on the customers’ buying preferences, and go to Facebook to get information on the customers’ networks and personal interests.

Can you imagine what happens next? These Information Depots will be able to manipulate the information in whichever way they prefer, not limited to making the information available, for prices.

Conclusion

We’re moving from separated glamorous isles to metropolitans on the web.

You will be able to do many things on a single website. Enjoy the sweetness it brings, while not lowing your guard on diabetes.