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What They’re Saying

Today Google released it’s new web browser called Chrome.  There has been a tremendous amount of interest in the tech world over the release, in part because of what Google is and represents, and partly because the release is truly different than anything out there.

Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins over at Mashable has fallen in love with it for it’s leanness, using over 80% less memory than Firefox in loading up web pages.  Wired Magazine’s Steven Levy goes behind the scenes to scare up some of the reasons why:

“Blazing fast JavaScript engine opens the door to more advanced Web applications.”

Next2Friends tested out Chrome and found it fast and easy to understand.  Here is a live streamed video of Next2Friends member Olibs adding us to his Chrome homepage:

And here is a great run through of Chrome by the unofficial blog on all things Google called Google System.

What Interests Next2Friends

We share the community’s excitement over Chrome, particularly the “Cloud Computing” nature of Google’s latest offering, but there were a few things that really stood out to us at Next2Friends.  The first comes from Harry McCracken’s Ten Questions About Google Chrome from his excellent post on Technologizer.  Number ten on his list is:

“10. Will Chrome stay on the desktop? Google sees its future as being highly mobile, as witness its work on Android and all the work it’s put into making services like Gmail and Google Maps work well on iPhone, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, and other mobile platforms. Will we see Chrome on phones?”

We’re dying to know as well.  With Android and the notion of an open-sourced mobile OS the questions remains, how will Google bring the key concepts of Chrome to mobile?

And the other VERY compelling idea we came across was posed by Jeremiah Owyang, Senior Analyst at Forrester Research, on his always illuminating personal blog. His number two question / comment was this:

“Any website can now be social Google’s browser could eventually make any website social –even if the website owner chooses not to participate. How? A plugin could be created that allows your gmail, gtalk, and other network to join you wherever you surf on the web, essentially your social graph could go with you as you travel the web. Coupled with Google Readers’ aggregation ability, this is a way to beat Facebook using a more ‘open model’.”

We will watch this progression very carefully, for we love a good shake up now and then, and Google’s Chrome definitely shows some interesting potential.

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