The "Google OS" meme takes its next logical step: Signs indicate that Google is at work creating a Google-customized browser based on the Mozilla trunk. (My bet is that they would use Firefox, since the kewl kidz love Google so damn much.)
Last summer, Anil Dash suggested that it would be a good move for Google to develop a Google browser based on Mozilla. Give that kid a gold star because it looks more than plausible. Mozilla Developer Day 2004 was recently held at the Google Campus. Google is investing heavily in JavaScript-powered desktop-like web apps like Gmail and Blogger (the posting inferface is now WYSIWYG). Google could use their JavaScript expertise (in the form of Gmail ubercoder Chris Wetherell) to build Mozilla applications. Built-in blogging tools. Built-in Gmail tools. Built-in search tools. A search pane that watches what you're browsing and suggests related pages and search queries or watches what you're blogging and suggests related pages, news items, or emails you've written. Google Toolbar++. You get the idea.
Mozilla is currently getting some good press due to Microsoft's continuing troubles with their browser and the uptick in usage compared to IE is encouraging. But it's nothing compared to what could happen if Google decides to release a Mozilla-based browser. A Google Browser would give the Mozilla platform instant credibility and would be a big hit. The peerless Google brand & reputation and their huge reach are the keys here. Mom and Dad know about Google....
[Jason Kottke, "More evidence of a Google browser"]
"It's been obvious for awhile now that Google isn't a search company," Kottke says, pointing to earlier ruminations:
With their acquisition of Pyra and new Content-Targeted Advertising offering, it should be apparent that Google is not a search company. What they are exactly is unclear, but their biggest asset is: a highly annotated map of the web.
Unclear, indeed. But whatever it is that they are or become, it will control truly unprecedented amounts of power.
The relentless techno-optimism around Google is fascinating and frightening. That this "highly annotated map of the web" should reside in the hands of one closely-controlled company with strong profit motives and utterly unprecedented stores of information is, frankly, terrifying to me.
As a private entity, and as such not subject to public oversight (and no, stockholders don't count as "public oversight" -- and especially not at Google), Google is much more greatly to be feared than Government. There is effectively no control over what information they can collect and use internally, as long as they don't resell it. And if they are a one-stop-shop for all information usage, there ends up being effectively no limit to the uses they can put that information to.
In future, in fact, I can envision the Government outsourcing Total Information Awareness to Google. It would solve so many of their problems: No longer would the Government be hampered by silly "pre-9/11" rules that prohibit it from domestic spying; they'd effectively be able to get whatever they want, from Google. Sure, some kind of suitable chinese wall would have to be erected, but that's a trivial matter considering the power at stake, here.
(Leads courtesy Boing-Boing and the Register.)
