The Google I/O conference in San Francisco kicks off today with a really welcome announcement: MySpace has integrated Google Gears into its messaging system, which will back up all messages to a user’s local machine and allow for very fast search and sorting.
This is the largest third party implementation of Gears and the first time a search and sort mail functionality has been made available on MySpace.
Google Gears (actually, starting this week Google will start calling it simply “Gears”) is mostly known as an open source project that lets third party developers allow for offline access to their browser applications. Applications like Zimbra and Zoho have integrated Google Gears in this way, as well as Google’s own Google Reader. (Update: Zimbra actually uses Mozilla Prism).
But in this case, MySpace isn’t that concerned with offline access (they haven’t turned the feature on yet). Instead, they are leveraging the framework to make their messaging service, which previously didn’t allow searching, sorting or any other basic organization techniques, into a much more useful feature.
Google Gears performs three basic functions that are available to developers via Javascript. Those functions are a local database (SQLite), a local server for caching objects such as images and web pages, and a thread pool that allows updates and actions to take place asynchronously in the background. MySpace has taken advantage of Google Gears by using the local cache and background processes to enhance a number of previously resource-intensive processes on the site.
The two main areas of MySpace that previously just used only Ajax and relied on server-side processing were the messaging inbox and friendslists. The previous behavior was that a user would click and then have to wait for the request to be received, processed, and sent back from the server. With a large list of messages or a large friends list, common tasks such as these were frustratingly slow.
By using Gears, MySpace takes advantage of desktop processing and the locally installed database to speed these actions up to the point where they perform like a desktop application. This also has the benefit of cost-savings for MySpace, as this processing work is moved off-server.
I’ve been testing the new feature for a few days on my MySpace page. Instead of scrolling through pages and pages of messages, users can now sort by date, from, status (read/unread) or subject. And, more importantly, users can also search the full text of messages. The results are shown instantly (think Outlook), without page refreshes.
170 million messages are sent per day on MySpace, says the company. Not all users will be offered the new feature right away. Any user with at least 5,000 mail messages in their inbox will be prompted with the option of installing Gears and using the new system. Also, any MySpace user that has already installed Gears will have the option of using the new system.
Hello? Facebook?
I’ve been complaining about Facebook’s messaging system, which suffers from the same problems as MySpace, since late last year. There’s no reason why Facebook can’t implement Gears, too, and fix most of the problems with their own messaging. But given the epic social networking wars between Facebook on one side, and MySpace/Google on the other (in all of its petty glory), it may be some time before Facebook begins to adopt open standards first pushed by Google. Perhaps someday soon we’ll see Facebook Gears, or something similar.
…and that’s it for today’s segment of “what really grinds my gears”
The problem with having your messages, or application data stored locally, is the fact that if my computer crashes, or harddrive goes down… as does my data.
Why reverse all this cloud technology that has been coming out for the last few years?
I don’t want to run “Gears” on my PC, nor do I want the “Google Toolbar” for my PC.
exactly!
Obviously the gears db is just a copy of the server database, so if your pc crashes the data will still be available on the server side.
I’d be really surprised if Facebook utilizes Gears, soley based upon the fact that they’re partially owned by Microsoft (who prolly wouldn’t feel any better about turning to Adobe AIR either). I’m not sure if MS has that kind of control over FB though…
This is great! Now I can quickly search through indexed copies of hot but bogus women asking me if I’m lonely and want to be their friend but only if I visit their webcam page before their user name “no longer exists”.
All messages I receive are in the body of the notification email and thus searchable in Outlook/Apple Mail/Gmail etc, so this realy isn’t a problem for me.
good post
Actually the big question is why Flash isn’t doing what Google Gears does, Java practically did this before but weren’t successful (slooow).
Won’t it be nice to just have one BHO plug-in required to address both graphics and data requirements and still be service provider agnostic.
Christ Ryan, if Facebook doesn’t do it or support it, we know, you don’t like it. The prblem with having your career and head so far up some compamy’s ass is that you cannot see value in a feature they don’t have or support.
Please realize some of us get on planes and go places where there isn’t access.
Are you for Real? I would anyone want to download their their Online Messages? Just use the online search utility to query the database!
Lame Announcement form Google MySpace! And What does FaceBook has to do with it? Next time add Twitter at the end of your you Title to Make it Viral.
Twitter!!
Even if you don’t lose your messages if your computer crashes, I don’t like this solution at all. If GMail and Yahoo Mail can have a half-decent email system using a server-based Ajax/system, then FB or MySpace should be able to do it, too! And that’s not even mentioning the Privacy issue you now have when messages are kept locally. Do you want, say, your spouse to be able to search and read all your FB messages to your FB “girlfriends” if he/she somehow gets access to your computer? NOT!
I’d rather go on for another 6 months or so on FB’s limited messaging system than use something like this.
Go install google gears and then check your myspace email. Myspace auto detects it and displays the new features. It is pretty slick.
It still looks like ass.
@ Randy V: Wow, who would have expected a comment like that after 20 years of privacy gurus telling us that we should be careful about letting our data OFF of our machines…
Google Gears is a very nice product. Moving more of the load, processing power, and data storage to the client is a huge thing. Web applications are a wonderful development in the world of computing, but their lack of resources and inherit limitations are ridiculous.
When the modern PC can run a first-person shooter at 60fps, don’t you think it’s kind of retarded that we sit around waiting for web pages to load and javascript to execute?
And now if MySpace could solve the other problems with their website, maybe I’ll start using it again. This is a step in the right direction, but they still seem like their just doing patch work to keep up.
coming soon - Web 3.0. install the apps and run them LOCALLY! better performance, no more waiting for a busy server to respond! offline version built-in!
oh wait, they already have this - it’s called regular installed programs. in fact, they had this first. seems like we are gradually going back to it, piece by piece.
Myspace.com still looks like crap and even with a better messaging system it will not overtake Facebook. Clean and simple is always better. Myspace.com looks like one giant advertisement page with blinking icons and flashing banners.
Please, they need to focus on UI and not function because it’s horrific.
totally agree
@gilltots — I would rather write HTML, Javascript, serverside and Gears code once to work with 3 operating systems than maintain 3 client versions of the same desktop application. Oh, and then bring in the auto-update mechanisms for client apps vs. a web app. And one last thing. I’d rather have one plug-in installed that makes x number of web apps work like a desktop app, than have x number of desktop apps cluttering my hard drive.
Usage data is the #1 reason Facebook wouldn’t want to incorporate Gears. If the message data is cached and there are no server calls, does Gears return any data to MySpace?
Though Facebook were pretty recently underutilizing it, they must be smart enough to be religious about collecting and analyzing by now.
The biggest problem with Facebook mail isn’t a missing Gears implementation, but their stupid database design. It’s holding back their growth and isn’t an easy fix.
This tread will make those desktop applications for Web services become irrelevant.
Anything against facebook is ok for me.
Facebook would probably team up with Yahoo and come up with a different solution.
Facebook will probably team up with yahoo.
Leverage…..For Roget’s sake, think of a new word
thank you very much
exactly!
It still looks like ass.
The problem with having your messages, or application data stored locally, is the fact that if my computer crashes, or harddrive goes down… as does my data.
very good topic
very good