Back in the day, whenever I heard someone utter “embrace and extend” I immediately thought of the evil that WAS Microsoft. Using their once formidable position to lead everyone around by their nose. But the more I see from Google, the more they remind me of the evil empires of the past.
I mean there are SO many things to love from Google… Chrome, Picasa, Maps, Search… But the problem is that we’re again seeing fragmentation limiting what the Web could become and perhaps even threatening its long term survival.
Google seems to be shifting it’s mission away from let’s “organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful” to one of let’s make “high impact products—the ones that improve the lives of billions of people“. Maybe Larry fancies himself being the second coming of Jobs… and I’ll be the first to say…
NOT A BAD GOAL TO HAVE!!
The EVIL IS that they don’t seem to mind subverting the web to make it all happen. Google’s apparent “we’ll go it alone” mindset pushing initiatives like DART and SPDY… and their continued product positioning of Chrome As The Platform (chrome as opposed to the web)… are threatening the very fabric of the Web.
And I think folks might be underestimating the threat… Whilst Chrome doesn’t have the monopoly browser position that IE once had to drive this fragmentation… To paraphrase what a friend of mine recently blogged about… people won’t “buy” browsers but they will “buy” browsers+services…
Trust us you’ll work better with Chrome… GWEB anybody?
Joe just might get his wish.
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