The platform wars are over. Long live the Web. That was the basic message delivered by Jeff Huber, Google’s vice president of engineering, in a ten-minute presentation at Web 2.0 a few minutes ago. His talk was nominally about widgets (which Google calls Gadgets). Huber noted that over 100,000 sites have already embedded Google Gadgets, with 63 of them attracting more than one million active users a week. While the first phase of these gadgets involved people using them to syndicate content out to other sites, the real promise he says is their ability to spread applications far and wide:
What we see is applications fundamentally changing. Just like the model for content changed from monolithic sites, now applications are going to be feeds and containers.
A lot that you have heard here is about platforms and who is going to win. That is Paleolithic thinking. The Web has already won. The web is the Platform. So let’s go build the programmable Web.
Take that, Facebook.
Finally, a post not kissing Facebook’s butt that offers a reality based opinion!
Most of those sites which use gadgets are probably blogs…
YAY, the web wins!
Nonetheless, we can’t ignore these developer platforms.
Yay, but platforms are amazing thingies … as I wrote about them on my blog …… “even though the product was mass produced; zero marginal cost meant that along with mass production, customization for each user is also possible. Thus, it makes sense that now if a product is being released and which is aimed at varied users, it should have platform like characters so that it becomes much more richer for each user.”
Woo!
The facebook platform can not be ignored, but companies and individuals need to stop trying to build their entire “product/website” inside the platform. It might be a nice add-on for some, but the whole power of facebook’s “social networking” doesn’t work unless EVERY SINGLE ONE of your friends has the app installed. And I think the most popular app on facebook is only installed by like 3% of my friends.
So basically it’s just a cute platform to add goldfish or pirates on your profile. Congrats facebook – way to get worse/more annoying for users by making it more MySpace-ish
So this is how Google responds to a paradigm shift? If Google doesn’t jump on the social platform revolution they will make themselves irrelevant. Can you say LexisNexis?
He is right. FB will never be the web. The Web is like MS windows, FB can be MS Office.
Why do web-pushers like Huber (would his Google name be Goober?) always have to use such hyperbolic language? Why are things changing “fundamentally” and not just changing? Are not coding anymore? Fundamental refers to the foundation, so I guess we are going to use “gadgets” on toasters instead of computers. hmmm…
Also find the reference to rocks interesting: Monolithic, paleolithic, again more exaggerating. Makes me think he’s lying about something, or at the very least, covering something up. But I guess that’s why they call the business side of the web, “bubble,” as in, “hollow, fragile and transparent.”
Hmm… that’s a bit simplistic. I see FB as a Web based OS and people are writing applications (a lot of them) for this operating system. Google has done a great job providing web services but they’ve only released a lot of distributed functions. They need to tie together all of their services into a unified platform.
Good post, but the “platform wars” will still be interesting to watch…
Yes, he’s right. That’s why we are not afraid of them)
If the web has won, then why am I still using desktop apps? Because they’re better, that’s why, way better, and they will be for a long time to come.
Also, I don’t want my information sitting out on one of your servers where you’ll cheerfully give it to the Chinese or the NSA or any other asshole who asks.
And, I’d like to work without a net connection. I don’t want to be totally dependent on yet another must-have umbilical cord to some unreliable service provider.
Should I go on? No? OK, then. Thank you.
I think that what Jeff said is more like a truism with a false conclusion, a “blah-blah”. Nothing prevents us from continuing to build higher-level platforms on top of the web platform. It’s the same thing. There is not one super-uber-do-it-all-platform, there is always a hierarchy ro a stack of platforms, i.e.: Web on top of network on top of OS, Salesforce on top of Web, Zimbra on top of web and mail. Oracle is a platform, SAP is a platform, Zimbra is a platform, Facebook is a platform, MySpace is going to be a platform. And that does not prevent the Web from remaining the underlying platform, and Network platforms from supporting the web, and OS from supporting the web and the network platforms.
Oh, speaking of Desktop – it is also a platform which, BTW, is essential for the web to exist – you’ve got to run the browser, don’t ya? And maybe we will see more Desktop apps that leverage the web, such as iTunes Store, streaming players, etc.
Facebook is essentially a AOL v2, but spun differently. AOL died because it was an inferior content container compared to the web. Facebook is attempting to leverage its user base to re-create that lock-in through trivial features (super poke). The web will win because its more open, whereas closed systems like Facebook will ultimately become marginalized.
Completely agreed.
Imagine the web being Earth – the “ultimate” platform.
Facebook et all are just carving out their communities. Like on Earth, some communities will be much larger than others (e.g., U.S. vs. Lithuania), but they will each have a distinct following and purpose.
There will also be goods that are used across all communities, e.g., oil, food, water, video games — also known as widgets. Ultimately, these widgets have a much larger market opportunity because they span across communities and have a permanence derived from the fact they are global in nature.
Unfortunately, as we have seen both online and in the real world, great communities rise and they fall, whether you’re Rome, or simply MySpace.
Hmm… I’ve just now become less bullish on FaceBook. Is it too late to join the Calcanis reality-bandwagon?
>Take that, Facebook.
Glad you’re not writing with any particular agenda. ;>
Since I’m here I’ll say I’m pretty sure the web will remain as fragmented as it is today. Yes there will be more open flow of data, but there will still be as many walled gardens and proprietary formats. I do not think think we are approach the data singularity. People want the safety and calmness of neat organized walled areas, and corporations thrive on proprietary technologies. I’m not saying this is a good thing, just how I think it will be.
Facebook? Platforms?
Widgets ……..are the winners.
hmmm the web is the platform… along with 100 passwords for me and my friends to remember, then there’s those widget & gadgets… how do I use those again…? and what’s html?
or perhaps I should just stick to facebook, 1 password and all my friends are already there…..
The web is the platform only for geeks.
Is it just me or is one of Huber’s nostrils like 4 times the size of the other – just freaks me out….
oh, and the platform thing, come on people, the obvious analogy is that old Atari game Joust – there is the main platform on the bottom (web) and then other platforms above it (facebook, myspace), and you have to use the different platforms together, because if you stay on one platform too long, you get stabbed – no one platform, even the largest one, is the best long term
I’ll take my Mcarthur Genius Grant now
You can’t completely ignore platform especially for the products which needs user customization. Widgets are widely used only on blogs. A combination of two will absolutely make some difference. FB platform rocks
http://vidsonly.blogspot.com
The web is the environment. Google wants to be the platform. Facebook is part of the web, but Facebook cannot be the platform for the entire web unless everyone uses it for everything.
Google is much more modular — Google’s platform could potentially work with any web application, while Facebook applications only operate within Facebook. Facebook could respond by becoming much more modular. But it will be much easier for Google to become more social, considering they are building their apps around mobile use (and social activity) for the widest possible market.
So I just think Huber got his signifiers mixed up. The web is the environment. There is indeed a platform war. Its much easier to use Google Calendar if your address book, webmail and VoIP phone number are all Google. But I think Huber’s point was to say that a platform like Facebook could not hope to encompass the entire web, while a modular platform like Google’s could.
@21
What if Google provided a modular authentication service for the web? I bet a lot more sites and applications would sign up for such a service than would switch to the Facebook platform.
platforms are good for economy…remember how many jobs are created, and how much money being spent on developing apps for every new platform…..infact FB created its own economy by self feeding each other…
i agree with Huber, web is the platform……the problem is, it is too generic….and wild wild world.
Platforms are becoming popular as developers know who they are tapping into (atleast).
@21 So everything you need to accomplish on the web can be done through Facebook?
“A lot that you have heard here is about platforms and who is going to win. That is Paleolithic thinking. The Web has already won. The web is the Platform. So let’s go build the programmable Web.”
These statements are meaningless. The internet was born 30+ years ago. Networked computers and applications have existed for that long.
“Take that, Facebook.”
That’s not what he means. I believe, and correctly may I add that XML/RPC specifications like Facebook’s, Amazon’s and eBay’s are inclusive to his: “The Web has already won.” statement.
I think you misunderstood him. He is talking about Linux vs. Windows vs Mac.
He is talking about XML/RPC and how the web is now more and more programmable. Bill Gates said the same EXACT thing a couple years ago in a keynote speech. Actually he said it several times.
This is too obvious. Everybody knows this and it’s been this way for too long. Come on Google genie, what’s the FUTURE about?
Also, please contact me, I still want to show you our new technology. I can fly out there any time with a HD video.
@27
ChrisR – if you have something interesting to show Google, which you truly believe they would be interested in, why don’t you contact them directly rather than inviting them to contact you in the comments section of a popular technology blog?
That’s basically the same point I made yesterday about the iPhone backsliding for native apps:
http://factoryj...ail-the-iphone/
I definitely think we’ll see a few more years of transitional and hybrid native apps, and probably even more blurring of the definition of what a “native” app is, but it’s inevitable, connectivity be damned, everything is moving to the web and will be accessed increasingly by thin clients.
Sure, you could say that “The Web is the Platform”. In the same sense, I can build a brick-and-mortar store and proclaim that “Reality is the Platform”.
But the web is fundamentally less rich & less efficient than facebook, just like reality is less rich+efficient than the web (and yes, “rich” and “efficient” are ambiguously used here).
Everything’s a platform, it’s just that facebook is one of the better ones there today.
Oh, the reason I can’t go to google directly is because they have a PR abstraction layer called http://www.allisonpr.com/ and they’re a bunch of dicks. So I hope that explains that.
s/dicks/jerks/
Sorry, about that, please do the sed replacement, and reread.
The web is the platform… how much longer before the gov gets their hands into it is the real question now.
Jon
Of course the web is the platform if you’re Google. You can’t say anything but the web is the platform if you work for Google. As I understand it and I may be wrong, if everything on the web ends up in containers, then Google’s search results become lots of containers and it becomes redundant because we can go straight to the containers. If everything on the web is in one big container I need Google to find my way around.
Welcome to Planet Web.
BTW, what happened to all the proposed Web-based OS such as Google OS?
Girissh
http://www.contentconcepts.in
Can you say “self-serving comments?”
Facebook is not THE platform. And I hope it never will be. Its utterly useless. Only good thing about facebook is the groups and a tiny fraction of the appz being created.
Google’s plan for world domination is clear: one world under the Web, one Web under search, one search under Google.
Dude, big Freakin’ surprise that is! Of course web is the platform, how else would you be hosting this site?? It may sound like terminator like punchline but it sounds lame. Anyways coming to facebook I think that is not true, It may not be long before google will come up with a search that will result every website that has your profile then guess what?? it will be just like facebook!!
Between the lines i understand is that Google is coming back to the old story of Google OS. And Google calls itself web platform.
http://blogkatt.blogspot.com
Is there a video of this presentation?
hooray for the Web! The platforms are dead long live the Web!
It may not be long before google will come up with a search that will result every website that has your profile
“Google’s plan for world domination is clear: one world under the Web, one Web under search, one search under Google.”
You know what amazes me????
Brin and Page wrote this crap TEN bloody years ago!!!
http://infolab....rub/google.html
NO ONE has thought to challenge this way of organizing the web. NO ONE. Not even Microsoft, and they’re bloody EVIL. What about NOT listening to Google and doing something original? Does anybody see value in that?
A. Harvest your own cache of the web.
B. Organize it in a different and better way. Expose it in a way no one has thought of before.
C. Watch Google as they scramble around like ants on fire.
They beat on the rest of us with huge storage capacity and lots of bandwidth. The gap on that is narrowing. They’re going to lose their super computing advantage in the near future to smaller companies because of price drops.
@44 …I just said that at @40
So there’s only room for one platform for any purpose, with no other platforms built on top of it? I wonder if Google will get rid of their advertising platform and use the Web instead.
And what exactly is “the programmable Web”?
The web did not win. Lightweight applications won. The web is only the current platform for it. And it’s a sucky one for client-side controls and features.
Virtualization may change all that. Think of having Windows Vista or Leopard OS on a memory stick you can plug into any network. You could have all kinds of applications. Not just web sites and apps, but networked office applications, networked rich applications, and more.
You’re living in the “now”.
I am starting a series…Will pen my thoughts everyday…All the crazy thoughts. It’s ad free. Just visit it and let me know if I should continue or stop.
so, let’s see, when all these “long live the web” models emerge, how do they build traffic? Hmmm, sounds really pretty self-serving, dontcha think? Kill the networks who help link friends together, and push it out to “the web” where, the world relies on Google to get found.