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

Friend: “Hey Tai, what is wiki? Is it a software or a website?”

TaiTran: “Neither. Wiki is a concept. It refers to a content which everyone and anyone can edit.”

Friend: “What? You’re confusing me!”

***

OK, so let me go into details on Wiki.

“Wiki” is a concept

“A wiki” might be explained as a computer software or a website. “Wiki” is a concept.

What’s the difference?

You may want to notice this difference: “A Wiki is a software/website” and “Wiki (without ‘a’) is a concept”. “A wiki” refers to a specific instance of the concept “Wiki”.

To make it easier to understand. It’s like we talk about “a person” and “person”. “Person” is general, has body organs, has character and personalities - but doesn’t have specific character and personalities. “A person named X” is specific, has X’ body organs, has X” character and X”’ personality.

Back to Wiki. So I say “Wiki is a concept. It refers to contents which everyone and anyone can edit.”

Basing on this concept, people may build Wiki software that put this concept into practice. Wiki software allows users to create different wiki websites.

Wiki is powerful

1. Collaboration

The major power of Wiki lies in its open nature to collaboration.

Anyone can edit Wikis, and it’s quick to do so. We have the power of the mass where every contribution is counted. That’s how within a short amount of time, the community has grown Wikipedia to be the world’s largest encyclopedia.

Does this work?

To some, the idea of “anyone can edit” is crazy. But it works!

You want to know that the edition doesn’t go away easily. All modifications are tracked and they are discussed by the whole community. If person A puts in an inaccurate or biased information, person B will point it out and the discussion will determine how to deal with that information.

While I agree that we can never have perfectly unbiased information, this open nature allows the whole community to reach a consensus that would benefit all.

“I’m a genius. They don’t understand what I wrote in the wiki so they removed it!” - Well if this is the case, I’d suggest you revert to your blog or your Knol whether you have full authority

2. High Linkage

Wiki pages within a wiki website link to one another through keywords. Therefore, when you read a wiki page, you are presented with information to other worth-knowing concepts.

Wiki management models

Power of the Mass

“No editor”, or “everyone is an editor”.

This is the original concept of Wiki. However, you may want to know that this is an idealism and no wiki is perfectly wiki.

People participation varies, people commitment varies, and people behavior varies. There may exist certain bias in many wiki pages.

Because of this “open” nature, many question the validity and authority of information on wiki. Researchers may need to cite from other sources accepted as “more authorized”.

Power of Authority… plus the Mass

To deal with the issue of validity and authority of wiki, Larry Sanger, former Wikipedia co-founder, has initiated a new model for Citizendium.

“Authorized editors are selected to be editors of Citizendium. The site is still open for everyone to edit.”

This model harmonizes the credentials from editors while still utilize the power of the mass.

Wiki in enterprise

Wiki is useful to teams within an enterprise to centralize their knowledge. Of course, people can write separate documents, but it will be hard to avoid duplication, hard to maintain and hard to search. Wiki solves all these 3 issues.

In Sum

Wiki is a powerful concept on which people in the last decade have built centralized massive amount of information.

Bibliography

5 ways to build effective Wikis

Wiki Software: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_software

List of Wikis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wikis

Source: Stuff that happens, Simplicity