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When ‘Open’ Isn’t Really ‘Open’. The Battle to Own Your Code — And Your Creativity.
Oxford University Professor Jonathan Zittrain in his new book, The Future of the Internet–And How to Stop It
…today’s Internet appliances such as the iPhone and Xbox hamper innovation. That’s because these locked-down devices prohibit the kind of tinkering by end users that made PCs and the Internet such a force of economic, political and artistic change.
Zittrain argues that if the cybersecurity situation doesn’t improve, we will migrate to a different kind of Internet. The new Internet will have as its endpoints tethered appliances such as iPhones, which are controlled by their manufacturers, instead of open, changeable PCs attached to an open network that can foster the next round of disruptive innovation.
A bold statement. And he’s got a point.
Now these devices are innovations unto themselves, and some even are positioned as development platforms. Take the iPhone, for example. Apple just released the latest version of their Software Development Kit (SDK) and developers everywhere are coding away, looking to build the next great iPhone application.
But in classic Apple style (i.e. heavy DRM within iTunes), Apple remains the gatekeeper. Applications can only be distributed via their App Store, and will only be distributed if approved by Apple. Apple will explain that this is for security and quality-assurance reasons, but it still puts them in control of what’s available, with the ability to shut an app off if they so desire. So yes, you can be as creative as you want on their platform, but it’s up to Apple if anyone is going to see it at all, or in perpetuity.
There’s a similar situation going on with Google’s new App Engine (the preview version was launched on 4/8, then taken down on 4/9). Google’s vision is that instead of freely building apps with their API, you can develop applications using their APIs and host them on their servers, free of charge. Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud and Salesforce’s Appexchange are also providing similar opportunities for developers. Sounds great, right? But there’s a catch, as ArsTechnica reports.
Perhaps the most blatant downside is being locked into Google’s platform. Existing projects will have to be ported or written from scratch, and those that rely on traditional relational databases will probably have difficulty making the transition. Even more difficult would be transitioning your application to your own servers if you choose to leave Google’s tender embrace. Once you’ve created an established application on top of Google’s authentication service and stored all your data within the company’s datastore, removing all this code and data and moving it to another location would appear to a be fairly onerous task.
Once again, applications — and even more importantly, data — are locked into someone else’s platform. And this is precisely what Jonathan Zittrain is talking about.
This is a disturbing trend and runs afoul of what led to the creativity that yielded many of the most popular websites of the last few years. Imagine if Warhol was free to create any art he wanted, but someone else owned the canvases and could destroy or bury them at any point if his art offended someone? That’s what’s going on here.
It doesn’t seem that this is a trend that will let up anytime soon as companies like Apple, Google, and Amazon have way too much to gain by housing and hosting application engines. Doesn’t feel like ‘do no evil’ anymore does it? And a little more ‘PC’ than ‘Mac’, if you ask me.
Food for thought…
Posted in 
Google User Testing Flyers In the Wild.
Spotted on an traffic light on 16th/6th Avenue in Manhattan (click image to see larger version):
This was 2 blocks away from Google’s Chelsea offices.
Google Putting the “Heal” Back in Healthcare?
Google’s announcement last Thursday about their venture into online personal health records is a mixed blessing, but one that has been much needed for the healthcare industry. It’s been a hot topic since the original announcement by Google in October. The biggest concern is that of privacy issues and, more so, data security. Microsoft and Google make assurances that data will be secure and privately controlled by individuals.
On the pro front, this announcement will open up the healthcare industry similar to how the iPhone has made carriers rethink their strategy of having strict control of what devices user get. Now patients should control where they take their ailments, rather than big healthcare saying what referrals you need and how to get care. Granted, this will take a while to see the full wave of this effect, but it’s finally happened where there is the challenge to bringing control to the masses. A big idea of web 3.0.
The cons? Well, for one, people will have to be the keepers of their medical history. A lot of people will, a lot of people won’t. Judging the way people can be cyberchondriacs with the likes of WebMD around, a social network space to post every symptom they may think they have would definitely need filtering and a professional opinion. But we’ve all been curious about what the doctor scribbles (yeah, they scribble) on that file. Just ask Elaine on a classic Seinfeld episode trying to see what’s in that file.
But imagine if that information does become publicly searchable (”OMG! She had WHAT when we were dating?”) or the movement into a medical social network (GooTube? Yuck.) It might lead to a new perspective on selective reproduction and a change in human evolution. Scientists are already theorizing on it.
If the trial with the Cleveland Clinic is a success, we can see a big change in the way medicine and society interacts on that online space. I see it as a portal of innovation and communication – cancer survivors speaking about their therapies, treatments analyzed and discussed, ease of research and innovation – beyond their niche spaces on the web. The power of technology, the power of social media and the human element are enticing for this to work.
Is Google Acquiring Plaxo?
Wired’s Epicenter is reporting that Google may be acquiring contact management powerhouse Plaxo for just under $200 million.
I’ll reserve comment on this, as it is only a rumor for now, but this would be a MAJOR development if true.
OpenID: What It Is, and What It Needs To Succeed.
For those of you not familiar with the not-for-profit OpenID, here’s a simple explanation, courtesy of the official website:
OpenID eliminates the need for multiple usernames across different websites, simplifying your online experience.
You get to choose the OpenID Provider that best meets your needs and most importantly that you trust. At the same time, your OpenID can stay with you, no matter which Provider you move to. And best of all, the OpenID technology is not proprietary and is completely free.
For businesses, this means a lower cost of password and account management, while drawing new web traffic. OpenID lowers user frustration by letting users have control of their login.
For geeks, OpenID is an open, decentralized, free framework for user-centric digital identity. OpenID takes advantage of already existing internet technology (URI, HTTP, SSL, Diffie-Hellman) and realizes that people are already creating identities for themselves whether it be at their blog, photostream, profile page, etc. With OpenID you can easily transform one of these existing URIs into an account which can be used at sites which support OpenID logins.
Think of OpenID has a master key that gets you into any door on the web you have permission to open.
You may not have heard much about it yet, because in order for it to work the way it should, it needs mainstream support from publishers. Well, that’s starting to happen.
In the last few months/weeks, OpenID became supported by AOL (which means anyone with an AOL screenname has one) and now, by Blogger, which is owned by Google. Yahoo! also just hoined the bandwagon, giving another 250 million user IDs corresponding OpenIDs.
So access is being granted, and millions of people will now have a key that can unlock the door to nearly every publisher, nearly every online service they might use.
But here’s the problem…
Have you ever been cleaning out, say, a kitchen drawer and found a lone, solitary key, and wondered what lock it was for? It was important enough to keep, but you can’t use it unless you know what it’s supposed to open. That’s the problem with OpenID. Millions have it, but barely anybody knows what its for.
My recommendation? Bring the partners together. Have them donate a percentage of ad inventory per quarter to educate consumers on why this is important, and what the advantages of OpenID are. Launch a campaign designed to reach and teach. The government does it all the time, whenever they launch a new public service. OpenID and its partners would be wise to follow suit. OpenID providers have a lot to gain from this. The more people they get to use their email address as their OpenID, the longer people will be locked into their service. And the more people use their OpenID, the more dependent they become on it. And the fewer logins you need to remember, the better the user experience will be.
It’s a win-win-win. While publishers are busy integrating, lets start educating. Shall we?
Newsday’s URLS: Trying to Game Google?
If you know me personally, you know that I’m an incorrigible Mets fan. Which explains my high tolerance for pain. Being the Mets fan that I am, I was led to Newsday’s coverage of the Johan Santana negotiations. And that’s when I noticed something strange. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen this before at a legitimate website, but this is the URL of the article:
Is this what newspapers need to resort to to get traffic?
Sigh.
Google’s Blog Search. Useless?
Speaking of Googsturbation, I have an RSS feed for Google’s blog search on my name. It’s good to know if someone is taunting me on some blog somewhere.
The problem is, Google’s blog search is filled with so much spam, I rarely get any legitimate results, because when they do show up, they are pushed down the list my fake posts (fauxsts - my term, I came up with it).
Google, there’s got to be a solution for this.
Googsturbation On the Rise.
According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 47% of US adult Internet users have Googled themselves this year, up from 22% in 2002, says Wired News.
Pew senior research specialist Mary Madden was surprised the growth wasn’t higher, and I agree.
In an age where the web facilitates random acts of narcissism and vanity, not to mention violations of privacy, I’m surprised more people aren’t searching for their names on the web more often.
So what of the remaining 53% of users that haven’t searched for their names?
Here are my guesses as to what they are Googling:
- porn
- bush+[scandal]
- ron paul
- pr0n
- [celebrity] sex tape
- guitar hero III cheats
- iPhone
- wii
- how to kill my [spouse]
Google Launching Wikipedia Competitor?
As Danny Sullivan over at SearchEngineLand points out, Google is launching a competitor to Wikipedia, Yahoo Answers, Squidoo, Mahalo, and every other human-powered knowledge repository, and it’s called Knol. It’s in closed beta, so good luck checking it out first-hand.
While Danny dissects the (potential) new service, including it’s philosophical merits, I think there are only two reasons why Google is doing this.
1. This fits into Google’s overall "indexing" strategy. They’ve tried it with books, and are now trying it with human knowledge. It’s on brand.
2. Google is tired of every first search result on a noun taking people to Wikipedia. Danny points out that Google’s VP of Engineering said, "Google will give no special weight to these pages; if they rank, they rank because they compete with other pages and win the algorithm race." Well, call me a skeptic, but there is no way that these pages won’t rise to the top of search results.
I can’t responsible comment on this service, until it becomes available for public review, but once Google decides to put this out there, expect some heat from some of the loudest people on the interweb: Jason Calacanis, Jimmy Wales, and Seth Godin. They will all be critical of the GOOG.
Happy Hannukah, From Google.
Apparently Google was catching a lot of heat from a lot of people upset with the search engine’s results for the word "Jew", returning a list of not-so-mensch-like results.
Check out Google’s response, and explanation of how their search engine works here.
Happy Hannukah.
