Reading an article on Chrome OS prompted me to ponder the up-and-coming juggernaut that is Google - at least where the Internet is concerned, but as that keeps growing, so will their power.
The obvious thing is that Google is about advertising. What do you think pays for all your space on Gmail? The revenue from Google Apps for Business won't cover it - and if you think of all the ISPs that resell the platform yet retain ads, e.g. Sky, you can see where the real value lies.
The added benefit of reselling is passing on the cost of support; this leaves more resources for Google to spend making those ads more relevant and thereby improving the bottom line.
That's fine, though. I can live with that. Companies need to make money somehow, and Google doesn't do this in a particularly insidious way; their ads are the only ones I actually allow because I have found them useful at times, and because they aren't insanely irritating compared to the competition. (Even YouTube fares better to commercial TV, IMHO.)
The real concern in my eyes is that, while Google is sticking to 'Do no evil', they're not doing good, either. Let's get back to Chrome OS: no support for native apps or data storage is in no way good for users. It is a serious step back in time in an era where storage is insanely cheap and mobile processors have more power than huge mainframes did not too long ago. People might spend huge amounts of time on the web, but everybody I know needs at least one killer app which you can't get via a web browser. That might be Skype, it might be an image editing program... hell, people have mobile devices which need to sync somehow, whether it's an iPod, smartphone, or digital camera.
I just wonder where the value comes in from having Google's glorified browser as the only thing on your netbook. It's not like manufacturers haven't tried putting Linux on to cut costs - look at how successful that ended up. I suspect people want a little more than that - but I also suspect I may be proved wrong and Google succeed over that original failure.
But that's not really the issue here. There's a good reason why Google want people to stick to the web - it's what they're good at, they make money from it, and it's all they really care about. The linked article at the top gives plenty of examples where it's obvious their only loyalty is to themselves. Getting people on the web where they have huge popularity and more control of things can only be good; even if some people avoid all Google-using sites as a consequence, there's going to be many more using them by virtue of their reputation, and they know this. A win for Google.
Advertisers are their customers, and users are their product. They worked out that attracting users means you have to make things users like, and damn anyone else; the perfect example being Google Book Search's lack of regard for copyrighted works, and the associated furore.
Sure, Google makes nice things for us. Just don't fool yourself into believing it means they love you; if you do, one day you'll wake up with a nasty surprise, a very awkward situation on your hands and terabytes of data all about you stored somewhere in the Googolplex. The sea level will rise a metre solely from how much advertisers are salivating right now.
The obvious thing is that Google is about advertising. What do you think pays for all your space on Gmail? The revenue from Google Apps for Business won't cover it - and if you think of all the ISPs that resell the platform yet retain ads, e.g. Sky, you can see where the real value lies.
The added benefit of reselling is passing on the cost of support; this leaves more resources for Google to spend making those ads more relevant and thereby improving the bottom line.
That's fine, though. I can live with that. Companies need to make money somehow, and Google doesn't do this in a particularly insidious way; their ads are the only ones I actually allow because I have found them useful at times, and because they aren't insanely irritating compared to the competition. (Even YouTube fares better to commercial TV, IMHO.)
The real concern in my eyes is that, while Google is sticking to 'Do no evil', they're not doing good, either. Let's get back to Chrome OS: no support for native apps or data storage is in no way good for users. It is a serious step back in time in an era where storage is insanely cheap and mobile processors have more power than huge mainframes did not too long ago. People might spend huge amounts of time on the web, but everybody I know needs at least one killer app which you can't get via a web browser. That might be Skype, it might be an image editing program... hell, people have mobile devices which need to sync somehow, whether it's an iPod, smartphone, or digital camera.
I just wonder where the value comes in from having Google's glorified browser as the only thing on your netbook. It's not like manufacturers haven't tried putting Linux on to cut costs - look at how successful that ended up. I suspect people want a little more than that - but I also suspect I may be proved wrong and Google succeed over that original failure.
But that's not really the issue here. There's a good reason why Google want people to stick to the web - it's what they're good at, they make money from it, and it's all they really care about. The linked article at the top gives plenty of examples where it's obvious their only loyalty is to themselves. Getting people on the web where they have huge popularity and more control of things can only be good; even if some people avoid all Google-using sites as a consequence, there's going to be many more using them by virtue of their reputation, and they know this. A win for Google.
Advertisers are their customers, and users are their product. They worked out that attracting users means you have to make things users like, and damn anyone else; the perfect example being Google Book Search's lack of regard for copyrighted works, and the associated furore.
Sure, Google makes nice things for us. Just don't fool yourself into believing it means they love you; if you do, one day you'll wake up with a nasty surprise, a very awkward situation on your hands and terabytes of data all about you stored somewhere in the Googolplex. The sea level will rise a metre solely from how much advertisers are salivating right now.
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