BASEMENT.ORG
Posted by Richard Ziade on May 31, 2006, 04:29PMNetvibes Adds Digg & eBay Support
Your favorite portal page and mine, Netvibes, has added Digg and eBay support. The Netvibes blog has all the details here and here.
An Inspiring Photoblog
I share a lot of links here on basement.org and every so often I'll stumble on something that, while not necessarily informative or educational, is inspiring. A site i stumbled upon recently is Kathleen Connally's photoblog A Walk Through Durham, Township Pennsylvania. Kathleen takes photos within a 10 mile radius of Durham, Pennsylvania. The photography is, in a word, stunning. They look more like paintings than photographs. Very impressive.
Posted by Richard Ziade on May 30, 2006, 05:10PMIntroducing : Unobtrusive Sidenotes
Ever have something to say in a post, and then decide that you'd like to tell a little side story in your blog? There reallly isn't an easy way to do that unless we take the time to reformat and tweak HTML to include these brief asides to the primary theme of our post.
You can use footnotes, but footnotes aren't very cool. They're at the bottom of your post - taking your reader away from the flow of your narrative. Besides, you'd still have to mark up your entry in some specialized way to denote the text as footnote text. There had to be a better way to simulate the elegance of web linking with static text.
The first offering from the arc90 lab is Unobtrusive Sidenotes. It's a dead simple way to include nicely highlighted sidenotes that live alongside your primary text. They're color-coded via CSS and require almost no technical know-how to implement. They're freely available under Creative Commons. You can see them in action here.
Introducing...
Basement.org has been cited/quoted a fair amount by other sites and blogs. On occasion, others will refer to a basement.org post as written by "them" or "the writers at basement.org." Well, there is no them (except for the other voices in my mind). It's just me: Richard Ziade.
I've never really said much about myself on here (I'm not exactly sure why)...until now. I've added an about page that briefly describes myself. You'll also notice, on the right-hand column, some new links...
Today, I'm a lead strategist and partner at Arc90 - a New York-based technology and experience design firm. We've just debuted our web presence, including a blog where we'll share our ideas, thoughts (and occasional rants) with the community, and our lab, a place where we'll introduce code, examples, standards...and the occasional experiment.
Slashdot Redesigns With CSS
Slashdot just announced their winner for the CSS redesign contest. It looks nice. Mmmm...gradients.
Simple Bug Tracking : 16 Bugs
16 Bugs is a dead simple, web-based, AJAXified bug tracking tool. You can have one project for free, then tiered pricing after that.
Posted by Richard Ziade on May 26, 2006, 11:09AMFlash Beyond The Browser : Adobe Reveals More Details On Apollo
I've been going on like a broken record about how the browser will be challenged as the primary window to Internet-driven applications and content. Everybody and their uncle is taking a crack at it. Everyone has some sort of desktop download. Widgets. Gadgets. You get the idea.
Just about any attempt to get to your desktop requires a download and installation of some sort of appliation - a major barrier to widespread adoption. Adobe, following their merger with Macromedia, are working on a little known effort called Apollo. PDFZone has some insight on the effort and sum it up nicely:
The idea behind Apollo...is to enable apps currently made from Flash and PDF to "move beyond the browser" by assigning Flash-based apps a desktop icon that can be launched like traditional apps and utilities.
Adobe's Apollo may be a dark horse in this race if they can make sure they leverage the massive install base of Flash players out there (and PDF readers for that matter). If Apollo is going to require its own install to run, then I think Adobe will be falling back onto the same playing field as the other players. The secret sauce, in my opinion, is to provide users with a dead simple ability to cross the browser's chrome onto the desktop. No simple feat, especially considering the security implications. Adobe will face other challenges that will make this easier said than done, but this is a key requirement I believe.
Posted by Richard Ziade on May 25, 2006, 09:52AMIBM DeveloperWorks : Devise Web 2.0 Apps With PHP & DHTML
IBM DeveloperWorks : Devise Web 2.0 Apps With PHP & DHTML. Looks like the first of a series. IBM's articles are usually pretty thorough.
Posted by Richard Ziade on May 24, 2006, 10:35AMMicrosoft's Repackaging of RSS
One of the cools things developers can do with RSS is apply a CSS or XSL skin so that users see a nice explanation and formatting of the feed rather than a bunch of XML. Feedburner's XSL skin is probably one of the most popular ones out there. Here is the TechCrunch version. For the technically inclined, here's a nice tutorial on dressing up RSS with XSL.
Anyway, I was playing around with Internet Explorer 7 Beta and noticed that any reference to an external XSL or CSS (for example Feedburner's) is summarily ignored. Instead, IE7 applies its own built-in skin for viewing the feed.
Here's the view that most browsers would see today followed by a view of the same feed in IE7.
Now, you can make a fairly compelling argument that what Microsoft is doing is a good thing. Providing a simple consistent way to educate and inform users about RSS is a positive step. However, the potential of RSS and the competitive advantage Microsoft will inevitably have with Vista and IE7, this may very well result in a hijacking of a technology that to date has flourished in large part due to its platform indendence.
RSS is capable of doing a hell of a lot more than just delivering headlines and news feeds. It is an incredibly powerful platform that Microsoft is very committed to. While my gripe may seem trivial today, as Microsoft evangelizes more specialized uses of RSS, the gravity of this important step will resonate later.
In the IE7 feed view, there is some explanatory text up top. I think the link to the word "feed" in the instructional text says a lot:
You are viewing a feed that contains frequently updated content from a website.
Despite its proliferation amongst technophiles, RSS is still unknown to the great majority of the world. They will be introduced to RSS for the very first time by Microsoft. And they will perceive RSS as a Microsoft product that is part and parcel of their browser and operating system. As to whether this is a good or bad thing is for another blog post (or two). Good or bad, few would dispute that this will be an inevitable consequence of Microsoft's plans for RSS.
Posted by Richard Ziade on May 22, 2006, 01:53PMGetty Images : 10 Ways
Getty Images has put out a seriously impressive collection of interactive Flash and Shockwave applications called 10 Ways. The demos are designed to provoke us to think about the different aspects of photography: light, information, memory, space, response, emotion, color, truth, time, and transformation. Pretty inspiring. It really shows how powerful Flash is in the right hands.
The Bite-Size Web
I think we're going to start to see an interesting side effect on web pages and blogs as content and services become more granular. Content providers, the Yahoo!'s, AOL's, publishers, magazines etc., will start to provide their content, in a dynamic form, for placement on other web pages.
This goes beyond adsense and such. It's more a highly targeted yet fully plugged-in view of content. As data and presentation continues to separate, the "big bite" aspect of the web will give way to this more targeted approach. Today, I visit My Yahoo to just get the weather or a sports score.
Yahoo! and others are already delivering that content in a more discrete format. Their desktop widgets are already fueled by such services. Techcrunch just recently gave a glimpse of Yahoo!'s upcoming finance widget.
It's pretty neat stuff and I think it's implications are more than subtle. As content and services get delivered in such ways, we (the users) will have to travel less from destination to destination. This is part of the promise of portal pages like live.com or Netvibes. Pick what you want and put it on your own portal page. But the implication here is even greater. Other content creators, most notably bloggers, will be able to tap into third parties for content as well.
People have talked about the value of separating presentation and data and the flexibility it affords. There hasn't been a lot of talk about slicing vertically and delivering these smaller, bite-size pieces of functionality. As simple API's and technologies like RSS continue to propogate, and as developers start to think in the context of discrete services rather than web pages, the Web is transforming into a Bite-Size Web.
Posted by Richard Ziade on May 19, 2006, 09:12AMGoogle Reader Mobile
Google Reader is now available for mobile phones. It's a stripped down version of the web version for easier viewing/navigation on smaller devices. The Google Reader Blog has more.
Posted by Richard Ziade on May 18, 2006, 02:13PMDealmyday.com
Dealmyday.com is a sort of Digg for online deals. I'm liking it. It looks fairly new based on the activity.
Dynamic Drive CSS Library
Not sure if this has already made the rounds, but the Dynamic Drive CSS Library is a nicely put together set of CSS tweaks.
Cool Text
Cool Text is a web-based image generator. Many text styles and each with many options. Just ignore all the annoying ads.
Posted by Richard Ziade on May 17, 2006, 10:36AMNice Listing of Ajax & Javascript Resources
A nicely categorized, fairly comprehensive listing of Ajax and Javascript resources can be found at Solutoire.com. In other news, Google has released an Ajax framework based on Java (Slashdot has more).
Posted by Richard Ziade on May 16, 2006, 02:04PMThe Danger of Corporate-Branded Information
Today, the major search engines are widely perceived as service providers that study the world's accessible information, organize and index to provide good, relevant search results. They make their money by presenting targeted ads alongside these results.
There is one tacit and very important understanding in all this: the world's information is non-proprietary. In other words, it is the byproduct of thoughts, ideas, communications, and such that are going to get created anyway and not solely owned by any one entity (especially a search engine). The Big Three know how important impartiality and credibility is. If people stop trusting you, they will stop using you.
But will the search engines only be services that index information that is created elsewhere? Or will they create their own information? Yahoo! and Google already have their own versions of Answers. These are services where "experts" (or anyone really) can answer questions. That "data" is created and housed by the search providers. Nick Carr points out that there's an odd disparity in search results that seems to favor their own versions Answers. He astutely points out that the key metric in all this - relevance - seems to have been compromised.
I don't disagree. In fact, I think this speaks to a larger trend that I think we're going to start to see: these "service providers," in order to stay competitive and stay ahead, are going to do more than just passively index the world's information. They're going to move towards creating it and owning it. Much of Google's strategy is about not only being the after-the-fact search engine, but the place where information is created or acquired, is housed and is shared. Documents. Emails. Monitoring search habits. Even more pervasively, providing their own versions of Internet access.
It's all about getting a head start. To compete, it's far easier to help create that body of knowledge than to go find it. You can have a hand in not only the artifact itself, but the context, motive and structure that brought it to life.
The danger here is towards the integrity of information. If left unchecked, these utilities (and they are really evolving into "utility companies") will shift the ownership of information from that of the public domain into their own respective proprietary arenas. What may be local listings or health advice from one provider may be very different for another. People today assume that information is somehow sacredly protected and relegated to the public realm.
Ultimately, it is the tension between getting your customers to trust you and getting ahead of the competition. We can all hope that a freely competitive milieu will somehow police itself, but that's wishful thinking in my opinion.
As search engines evolve into information creators and proprietors, the "good faith" bar should be raised. Will that information make it back into the world? How quickly? In some modified form or as it was intended? The Big Three are no longer passive spectators. They aren't even just active participants. They are orchestrating. And with that power comes a greater responsibility to maintain the integrity of information - however way it comes to be.
Yahoo!'s Home Page Is Born Again
Yahoo! unveiled its new homepage today. The Yahoo! UI and Search blogs have more on it (Read/Write also has a nice analysis).
Overall, I like it a lot. It "feels" right and nicely delivers a pretty wide range of information without completely overloading the user. I think Yahoo! did a great job. Two observations:
The end of the categorized listings is testament to the power of good findability. Traversing a directory of categories has given way to simply typing what you want and getting there. The Yahoo! Directory, the hallmark of Yahoo!'s early years, has been relegated to a tab option above the search box. Credit to Google for raising the bar and making information that much easier (and quicker) to get to. Machines truly got smarter. We do a lot less work these days to get to what we want.
On a second and somewhat related point, the directory listings of Yahoo!'s past also represented a highly subjective static view of the world. They didn't change much...until humans got involved. Today's homepage is driven by highly dynamic information that is in constant flux. Trends, news and personalization have replaced the directory listing.
The three themes I take away from Yahoo!'s new page are immediacy, findability and personalization. I think these themes are a reflection of broader trends that are happening on the Web today. Rigid structure has finally given way. Congrats to Yahoo! Advocating change can be a really difficult and exhausting endeavor. It takes guts to make these kinds of moves. I think they've made the right ones here.
Posted by Richard Ziade on May 14, 2006, 01:13PMPeople Acquisitions
Are the Web 2.0 applications that spring up these days just portfolios that highlight the talent behind them? Are the creators of these Web 2.0 startups just prospective hires for the Web 2.0 Big Three (Yahoo, Microsoft & Google)? Are some of he "acquisitions" that have transpired over the last year (Writely, Flickr, etc.) really just masked attempts to grab talent and fold it into the Big Three?
I bring all this up because I just found out that Gtalkr is no more. The guys behind it are now Google employees and the applicaiton itself is no longer up. Now this wasn't an acquisition per se (otherwise we would've heard from Google) and I doubt we'll see Gtalkr return any time soon. Nevertheless, it makes you wonder about how the Big Three perceive all this Web 2.0 silliness: as a nice shortcut to finding smart, innovative talent. Ultimately, this battle is going to be won out by talent. It is clear that the real assets behind these startups are the people behind them.
Posted by Richard Ziade on May 12, 2006, 02:08PMBlogging From Microsoft Word 2007
Microsoft Office team member Joe Friend lets loose that Microsoft Word 2007 will have built-in blogging capabilities.
This is generally a good thing for both casual publishing to your own blog, and even more importantly, within an enterprise context. This is that weird place between documents and emails that can really redefine how people communicate.
Posted by Richard Ziade on May 11, 2006, 04:57PMWhy Don't Elevators Listen?
We've all done it. You walk into an elevator at the ground floor. You press 5. You wait a couple of seconds. Someone else walks in. They press 7. You quickly glance at one another. You press 5 again. A few seconds go by. You check your watch and with a sigh, you press 5 a couple more times. After a brief pause, the elevator finally complies. The doors close.
When you press an elevator button, the elevator talks back — sometimes. The button lights up. The elevator says “Ok. I’ll stop at 5 for you.” But the dialog ends there. Other people will get on and they can say their piece as well. But that’s it.
We talk to machines all the time. And they are getting more and more sophisticated in terms of the tasks they’re capable of completing. But where machines still fall short is in the breadth of dialogue they’re willing to embark upon with us. Better yet, why can’t machines pay more attention in general?
Consider the following questions:
- Why can’t the elevator realize that after a minute or so of me pressing the same floor and nobody else coming on and pressing any other floors that it’s time to go?
- Why can’t the button illuminate a bit brighter each time I press it, thus signaling to me that it is listening?
- Why can’t the elevator keep track of the patterns of the typical work day (the same way trains and buses do with schedules)? “Rush hour” happens in the morning and late afternoon so it should behave differently at those times. At 3AM, it should immediately respond to a single request.
The technology to do all this is not only there but pretty bare-bones. This logic can all sit on a single chip. The hurdles are clearly not technical but rather conceptual. Thinking about machines as beings that pay attention isn’t typically baked into your typical elevator business requirements. The weight of the payload. The time of the day. The days of the week (weekends vs. weekdays). The patterns of use. And of course, the odd patterns and habits of passengers as they click away at those buttons. 5. Door Close. 5. 5. Door Close.
As people on the other end of this dialogue, we can’t help but feel like we are talking to this machine – and that it’s listening. What we should do, as technologists and product designers, is aid these machines with the ability to listen, pay attention and let people know that they are paying attention.
Ever walk into a shop and buy some gum or soda and the shopkeeper doesn’t even acknowledge you or make eye contact? Instead of handing you the change, he tosses it on the counter and says nothing. Now you may not be trying to make friends, but it’s not a very good feeling. We love to be acknowledged and recognized. The more interactive machines are, the more of an affinity and loyalty we’re willing to build towards them. Is there a business case for smarter elevators? Possibly. But there’s a value to all this that is beyond efficiency and algorithms.
Ultimately, interaction design is about people. Today, people’s lives are filled with stress and anxiety. In our work lives, we’re often subjected to these impersonal routines that can eat away at us. This isn’t about improving the IQ of elevators. There are plenty of really smart people with high IQ’s that are really rude.
This is about making elevators a little smarter…and a little more thoughtful.
iPod Directions
Here's a neat little mashup. Sync up Yahoo! Local directions with your ipod so you can take your directions to go. I don't own an iPod (but by God I may cave in soon) but it looks pretty neat.
Adobe's Spry Ajax Framework
The lunatics at Adobe have put out a nice little Ajax framework called Spry. Yeh I know, there are many frameworks out there (just ask Max Kiesler), but this one's leveraging pure XML and Xpath. It looks pretty elegant.
Posted by Richard Ziade on May 10, 2006, 02:28PMGoogle News + Suggest
Google's showing the world that "yeh we can go mash ourselves into...ourselves" (or something). There's a flavor of Google News available that has that tasty Google Suggest autocomplete flavor. Pretty neat.
More Yahoo! UI Library Components
The Yahoo! UI team is obviously taking no prisoners. They've put out a slew of components that bring the desktop feel to web applications. There are some really useful, well-documented things here.
Posted by Richard Ziade on May 9, 2006, 03:57PMMinimizing Search
These days, it's all about search. Google is changing the game with search. Microsoft has validated Google's position by scrambling to make their own search story happen. Search, and the money associated with search through ads, has established a new arena in technology where none existed really. Quality search results and findability hold the key to billions of dollars.
It's all pretty understandable. Correlating advertising with search results have proven to be wildly effective. It is turning the advertising world on its end. When we're perusing through a magazine or lounging around while a TV ad comes on, very little of our consciousness is committed to focusing on the ad. Interspersed between articles or television programs, ads are, by definition, disruptive. In today's age of mass marketing, our brains are by now very well-conditioned to tune out at appropriate times. Besides, the ads rarely have anything to do with what we're focusing on in the first place.
Searching for something is a whole other ballgame. Unlike reading or watching TV, we are engaged in a dialogue. We ask a question. We're also in a task-oriented mindset and anxious to get the right answer. We're paying attention. When results come up with ads alongside them, we're in a markedly elevated state of attention. The search engine already has a head start on traditional media: it knows we're already engaged.
Despite it's near hypnotic power, we don't stay around very long. Thought about from a use case perspective, the search process sits somewhere in the middle. We may print out the results. We may write something down. The most likely scenario is that we're just going to click through and move onto our intended destination. For all it's engaging abilities, the search engine is just a means to an end.
As an interaction designer, I would love to whip together a nice little interface that allows me to quickly see search results, click on them and quickly jump over to the destination in my browser. In other words, why do I need to use a whole browser to essentially execute on an interim step? Why can't it be this thin slice of search results in a side bar within a browser or desktop? Or off of my mouse pointer? A better experience can be had if we're willing to compartmentalize and make portable the search results step.
With all of the toolbars, add-ons, extensions and desktops that Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! put out, every one of them land you in the browser. The driver here is not a user case but rather a business case: those ads need to be shown.
Others have talked about how search is headed towards commoditization. If that's the case, then keep the brand name and the bells and whistles and just give me that information in a portable way. It may run counter to the business ends, but it's definitely the right thing for users.
Flickr + del.icio.us = Groovy Thumbnails
Tag a Flickr image page in del.icio.us and you'll get a thumbnail of that image. Yes. Groovy.
Posted by Richard Ziade on May 8, 2006, 02:18PMMobile RSS Reader : LiteFeeds
I have no clue if this is any good but I figured I'd point to it anyway. Litefeeds is a mobile RSS feed reader for Nokia, Palm, PocketOS and other devices.
Share Your OPML
Winer's at it again. The freak that brought us web services and RSS has been going on and on about OPML for awhile now. It's essentially an XML standard for outlines but it's primary role these days is that of ad hoc standard for representing reading lists for RSS feeds. I'm a fan myself and see a lot of possibilties for it.
As part of his master plan, Winer has put out Share Your OPML. It's a site where you can upload and compare OPML reading lists with others. It's pretty cool. TechCrunch has more details on it. I like the idea of seeing the reading lists of other users - especially those that the site suggests are similar to yours. My only gripe is that I'd love to see the feeds that I don't have in my list that a user of like interests may have. Right now, it just ranks the users by similarity but I have to comb through their lists to see if there's anything worth subscribing to.
My other gripe is on the interface itself. Winer's been pretty adamant about sticking to the orange XML as the visual representation of an RSS feed. Unfortunately, it's also the visual representation of an OPML file:
Now I may be splitting hairs (or not), but that's kind of silly. Yeh, they're all XML, but I think it's clearly worthwhile to distinguish the two. The only way to infer that it's OPML is that it's at the bottom and it's slightly larger. It's going to be hard enough explaining to people what OPML is and why it's valuable.
Posted by Richard Ziade on May 5, 2006, 09:47AMBokardo : 7 Reasons Why Web Apps Fail
Bokardo : 7 Reasons Why Web Apps Fail.
Posted by Richard Ziade on May 4, 2006, 06:03PMFree Pixel-Based Icons
Websiteicons.com has a nice collection of free pixel-based icons. There are other icons as wel for a fee ($48/year).
A Visual Analysis of Search Engine Bots
Drunk Men Work Here (heh) has an impressive analysis of how the bots of the big three search engines troll around the Internet. Some really nice data visualization here (in both images and Flash animation). Found via the relentlessly cool Information Aesthetics blog.
Semplice Pixelfonts
Semplice Pixelfonts is a nice collection of ultra-stealthy pixelated fonts. The site is not in English but the fonts seem of high quality and free.
Posted by Richard Ziade on May 3, 2006, 10:37AMOminously Depressing Comment Spam
Below are the last four comments posted to Basement.org:
My mind is like a bunch of nothing, but I guess it doesn't bother me. I haven't been up to anything recently. I've pretty much been doing nothing to speak of.
My life's been basically bland today. More or less nothing seems worth thinking about. My mind is like an empty room. I've more or less been doing nothing to speak of. Not much on my mind recently.
Not much on my mind lately. My life's been completely boring these days. I've just been hanging out not getting anything done. So it goes.
I haven't been up to anything these days. So it goes. I can't be bothered with anything these days.
Can anyone out there shed light on why my comment spam filters seem to pity and thus spare comments posted by unmotivated, completely depressed, borderline-suicidal posters? The impact of such gloomy commentary goes beyond just cluttering this blog and reaches to my very soul - bringing me down a notch or two as I scan through them on a daily basis.
What we need is a Cry For Help Movable Type plug-in that somehow detects joyless, melancholic tone and promptly deletes it.
Protolize : Essential Web Tools In One Place
Protolize : Essential Web Tools In One Place. Man, can't get enough of those gosh-darn lists.
Windows Live Shopping
More Live tastiness. Windows Live Shopping debuts. Interestingly, no Firefox support yet.
Posted by Richard Ziade on May 2, 2006, 09:36AMThe New Web 2.0 Frontline
The war drums are beating. Google has shown the world that delivering quality search results and services can translate into a hell of a lot of money. Microsoft, never one to sit idle while major trends ripple through the technology world, has its own plans to attack the web-based services and applications space. And let’s not forget Yahoo! They’ve fully embraced the Web 2.0 trends by acquiring companies like Flickr and del.icio.us. The war drums are not only beating, but they’re getting louder and louder. Everyone is focused on the battle and the combatants but few consider where this battle is being fought. The battlefield today lies inside your web browser. That’s all about to change.
A fundamental premise for winning this battle is the ability to get users to interact with your services. Once they’re talking, the next step is to pay very close attention to them. Gather their search queries. Read their emails. Index their documents. Google has shown the world that the undeniable need to seek out and find good information leads to a lot of money. To date, the web browser has been the primary gateway between these various services and users. The billions of dollars that Google is generating is hanging on a single, simple URL. If any of these players can capture that entry point - or jeopardize or supplant it, they will have won a key battle in the war.
But there’s a wrinkle in all this. Not many people have noticed, but the browser is starting to show its age. As simple API’s continue to proliferate, and as simple push technologies like RSS continue to gain adoption, the browser itself is beginning to…leak. Information and these key entry points are starting to show up in other places.
Visiting both Yahoo! and Google in Microsoft’s Internet Explorery 7 web browser generated the following, tweaked landing pages:
Notice how both pages attempt to entice the user to change their default search box (Firefox has a similar capability). The URL, as a primary entry point, is clearly being threatened by new browser capabilities. We should not underestimate the millions of users who buy Dell’s, plug them in, flip them on and just start using the Internet. They are not interested in tweaking or refining. They simply want things to work. A very large percentage of searches start from within that little search box that sits near the top of your browser.
As the critical entry point for users shifts from URL to some readily available interface control, the various combatants will find themselves standing on a different battleground. Specifically, they’re standing on Microsoft’s soil. If you venture beyond the web browser, it is invariably Microsoft’s territory. This critical distinction conjurs up memories of Netscape, and antitrust and icons and desktops. Google has already raised concerns about Internet Explorer 7 and it’s ever-present search box that defaults to MSN Search. The New York Times article nicely touches upon the crux of the issue:
That slice of on-screen real estate has the potential to be enormously valuable, and Microsoft is the landlord.
Google’s concerns are completely justified. And as you can see from the screen captures above, they’re going to make every effort to speak to users and help them make the necessary tweak to move away from other web properties and back to Google. As to whether this practice is anti-competitive on Microsoft’s part is a much harder argument to make. The feature is not some useless tactic to torpedo competitors but a rather useful one that brings more power into the users hands.
Google Heart Firefox
Another clear hint that it’s not just about the web page but the browser itself is Google’s commitment to Firefox. The standard Firefox installation defaults the homepage to Google. Google donates $1 to the Mozilla Foundation if you download Firefox. And just recently, they’ve gone ahead and promoted Firefox on the sacred Google homepage (if viewed through Internet Explorer). The end game is clear here for Google: maintain some control over the software that sits on people’s computers. It’s also worth noting that Firefox contains the same quick search that, of course, defaults to Google results.
Goodbye Browser. Hello Desktop.
The big players know full well that the battlefield is going to expand even beyond the web browser’s chrome and onto the desktop itself. All three players have their own flavors of “Desktop” applications. Google has sprinkled various pieces of their services (maps, news and others) into their desktop application – Google Desktop. The goal for all three is the same: build relationships between their web properties and users. Create a dependency. Gather usage metrics. Get to know these users and target them with ever-more accurate ads. It’s a pretty straightforward strategy.
Microsoft’s Two-Pronged Attack
You can’t help but watch this unfold and surmise that this is all playing nicely into Microsoft’s hands. As Internet applications become more sophisticated, the appeal of bringing them directly to the desktop in a more targeted manner is very strong. The result is a smoother end-user experience where data and services are intermingled throughout the desktop experience.
The next phase in this battle will be fought on the desktop. Microsoft will invariably use it’s position to squeeze their competition at every opportunity. With Windows Vista and their Live initiatives, they are planning already planning an exodus away from the browser.
On one end, you’ve got Microsoft Gadgets. Today, developers can easily build little widgets that can live on Microsoft’s Live personal portal page. Hundreds have already been built. Google provides developers with a similar capability for their personalized portal page. But what’s interesting about Microsoft’s play is that their gadgets will actually run outside of the browser, either on the desktop or the Vista sidebar. There’s already an SDK available for the latest build of Vista. So it’s clear that Microsoft views the Gadgets and the Live initiative in general as not just another set of web applications but a suite of services and content that fit holistically into Microsoft’s grander picture.
Microsoft is also attacking from the opposite end - the desktop. They’ve completely reworked the presentation layer for their operating system. Sitting atop this layer is the XAML markup language. XAML is to the Windows desktop what HTML is to the conventional browser. Developers can create a Windows front-end that is wired to web services via simple XML. Users will be able to click on a link in an email or web page and a full-blown application can spawn. No download. No installation. The potential impact of XAML may well be massive. Imagine solutions and content delivered in a perfectly tailored way right to your desktop. Widgets. Toolbars. Floating controls. All tied directly to services and content. An eBay wizard for adding items. An Amazon wishlist application. The possibilities are very exciting.
Where Do The Ads Go?
If all these great services are headed away from the browser and onto the desktop, the proverbial question has to be asked: where do the ads go? Will users tolerate advertisements on the desktop. The desktop is clearly perceived as a personal space today. Users infer a clear delineation of the windows that allow them to peer into the rest of the Internet (i.e. browsers, chat clients) and their own personal world. Sure, we’d love to see Google results streamlined into a sidebar or widget, but let’s face it, Google is in no hurry to move as away from the web. The web is where the ads are.
This all highlights one precariously painful reality for a company like Google. The billions in ad revenue hangs on a single thread: the URL destination. All roads need to lead back to the web for Google to sell ads. As the desktop continues to light up with content and capabilities from the Internet, the relative importance and dependancy of the URL destination will continue to diminish. Users will not go someplace to do something. They’ll open a box or run a program or click on a toolbar.
The New Guerilla War
As content and functionality continue to leak out of the browser, the weapons needed to win this battle are going to change. Microsoft owns the arena and the other players will use every means possible to offset their clear advantage. It doesn’t surprise me one bit that Google is lobbying the government against Microsoft’s supposed “unfair advantage.” This time around though, Google may have a much tougher time convincing others that what Microsoft is doing is unfair. As Jeremy Zawodny points out, there’s a bit of a double standard at play here. Google is no babe in the woods and they’ve made some pretty overt moves to try to position themselves as the default search engine for users.
Beyond this highly sought-after entry point for search, the PC experience outside the browser will progressively be wired more and more to the Internet applications and data. Will Google complain over an envelope icon that launches a desktop client that is wired directly into Live Mail? Will Yahoo! complain that it’s del.icio.us social bookmarking site is being unfairly threatened by a seamless implementation of Live Bookmarks? The list goes on and on.
By moving software away from the browser and decentralizing it, the nature of the battle fundamentally changes. Whereas the battlefield was clearly delineated prior, the war zone is now far less tangible. It’ll be interesting to watch the different tactics materialize. A lot of mindshare and money is at stake.
Posted by Richard Ziade on May 1, 2006, 10:34AMNetvibes Keeps Churning
Anyone who follows basement.org knows I'm a giddy cheerleader for Netvibes. Perusing their blog today, I notice they've made a bunch of upgrades and enhancements.