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Fake Steve Jobs on Chrome OS

fakesteve.blogspot.com

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Re: Fake Steve Jobs on Chrome OS

#81

Post by sjs382 »

netsp wrote: post #45
sjs382 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not really. I doubt there will be ads in Docs & Spreadsheets. But there ARE and WILL BE ads in Gmail* and Google search results. The main idea is to keep you in Google's ecosystem and to make advertising on the web more valuable. Selling advertisings isn't about creating new places to put ads--it's about making advertising space more valuable. And that isn't as straightforward as you seem to think. :) * And adsen…

It still sounds pretty far removed. Release an OS that will drive traffic to your spreadsheet app that will drive traffic to your search engine where you can sell ads. *Gmail still doesn't really makes much money.

Contextual advertising in an email client is VERY valuable. :)

Re: Fake Steve Jobs on Chrome OS

#82

Post by dgreensp »

phillmv wrote: post #46
trezor wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll just assume the whole SF thing applies to you too on that one. Just like most people don't give a shit about what OS they use, most people don't really care about browsers either. I have never had issues with Firefox, I don't care one bit about Javascript speed and honestly Chrome is underfeatured to the point where I think I'm using NCSA Mosaic. I gave it a shot. I was back to Firefox before lunch. I see there…

All of those criticisms apply to Safari 4, tho.

That it lacks features and there's no market for it? ...

Re: Fake Steve Jobs on Chrome OS

#83

Post by access_denied »

nir wrote: post #74
concretecode wrote: post #40

It always amazes me how the best social commentary comes from those who have the least to lose. Without the artificial constraint of professionalism (or, I guess, the need to be factually accurate), Lyons somehow manages to be more honest and credible, not less. Take his Fake Steve piece on the Microsoft-Yahoo merger: http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2008/02/ballmer-im-completely-... which I felt was the most succinct a…

Exactly. If you don't let the style distract you, Fake Steve is actually the most sensible and sharp tech journalism around. This is the first non-hyperbole analysis of Google's announcement I've seen today. My bet is that Chrome OS will have similar impact to the Chrome browser - encourage everyone to step up their game, but not dominate the market. Google has a lot of money and a lot of bright people, and it acts j…

He is also good in weaving in trivia. Example from the Yahoo-merger story:

"But what, exactly, is the big vision here? I guess they'll talk about how phase one was the PC revolution and now we're entering phase two which is Internet computing and the cloud and they'll say that by joining together they'll become this giant powerful megacloud provider and the battle for utility computing is going to be all about scale."

Years ago Steve Jobs presented the digital-hub strategy for the Mac. He talked about the internet being the second phase of the PC and the digital-hub the third phase. So the above cited paragraph is mockery of the finest order. The better pieces of Fake-Steve are full of this stuff.

Re: Fake Steve Jobs on Chrome OS

#84

Post by dgreensp »

zmimon wrote: post #61
teamonkey wrote: post #54

I'm firm in my belief that at least one of the main reasons for Chrome was to kick things up in the browser market, rather than a serious attempt to grab browser market share. "Look, you're doing it all wrong, just give it here a moment... ok, you can have it back now." And it worked - Apple, Microsoft and Mozilla all scrambled to include some, if not all of the features that identified Chrome, which were the feature…

I would have agreed with you once, but I changed my mind since Google started advertising Chrome like crazy. You can hardly use a Google service these days without having Chrome suggested to you somewhere prominently. It seems like Google is really pushing Chrome to the mainstream. Whatever their reasons, they really do want to capture a significant portion of the market for it.

It's a long way to "capturing a significant portion of the market".

What they can do is reach some of the Internet users in dire need of an upgrade, like IE 6 users who trust the Google name, and get them to use a reasonable browser.

Not that that explains why Google had to invent their own browser. But their target market was average Internet users, so they might as well try to get them to run it.

Re: Fake Steve Jobs on Chrome OS

#85

Post by axod »

redcap wrote: post #44
akkartik wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest point in my mind: "You also may not have noticed, but nobody uses Chrome. I mean think about it. Do you know anyone who uses Chrome? Really?" Aside from the stat-based argument ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=694756 ): I've been repeatedly surprised by the non-technical people around me who are on Chrome. My girlfriend downloaded it literally the day it came out, when I had read just a blog post or…

It still has a pretty mediocre takeup rate, regardless of the people around you that are using it. The latest stats I've seen (posted on HN) have been that Chrome is less used than Safari. FF seems to be the bigger winner at the cost of IE.

FWIW, Chrome usage on Mibbit is already above Safari, Opera, and above IE6 and IE7.

Chrome usage is growing at an astounding rate in the 'webapp' world. Wouldn't be surprised if it overtakes IE8 soon.

Re: Fake Steve Jobs on Chrome OS

#88

Post by endtime »

blhack wrote: post #15
omnipresent1 wrote: post #5

some of it actually makes sense. how is google going to make money from this?

I know that I'm probably wrong. Sergey Brin and Larry Page are neeeerdddssss , not business school kids that decided to make a web app. There is a good chance that they're doing this just because it's really really cool, and because they can. I imagine that if I ever had the sort of cash that they have, I would be doing the same thing that I do on the weekends NOW, but on a larger scale: geekery. Building a linux dis…

I'm a CS grad student right now, and even I can see that'd be a pretty damn irresponsible way to run a business. Not that I think that's actually the motivation...

Re: Fake Steve Jobs on Chrome OS

#89

Post by Raphael_Amiard »

neilc wrote: post #57
trezor wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll just assume the whole SF thing applies to you too on that one. Just like most people don't give a shit about what OS they use, most people don't really care about browsers either. I have never had issues with Firefox, I don't care one bit about Javascript speed and honestly Chrome is underfeatured to the point where I think I'm using NCSA Mosaic. I gave it a shot. I was back to Firefox before lunch. I see there…

Rumour has it that Google wants to ditch X. If that is the case, no other GUIed nix software will run without a rewrite.* Not exactly: few modern GUI applications are written to use Xlib directly. If Google ditched X for a new window system and then ported GTK+, Qt, and a few other widget toolkits to their window system, a lot of software would run with relatively few changes.

"and then ported GTK+, Qt, and a few other widget toolkits to their window system"

Wich is obviously done in an afternoon :)

Re: Fake Steve Jobs on Chrome OS

#90

Post by andreyf »

netsp wrote: post #45
sjs382 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not really. I doubt there will be ads in Docs & Spreadsheets. But there ARE and WILL BE ads in Gmail* and Google search results. The main idea is to keep you in Google's ecosystem and to make advertising on the web more valuable. Selling advertisings isn't about creating new places to put ads--it's about making advertising space more valuable. And that isn't as straightforward as you seem to think. :) * And adsen…

It still sounds pretty far removed. Release an OS that will drive traffic to your spreadsheet app that will drive traffic to your search engine where you can sell ads. *Gmail still doesn't really makes much money.

Release an OS that will drive traffic to your [...] search engine where you can sell ads.

Not far removed at all. Google makes billions by selling ads. Even if they budget a couple of million $/year for this project (might be less, depending on how you structure the proejct), they'll be making crazy returns if this increases their ad revenue just by 0.001. Not to mention all the FUD it'll cause inside MS :)

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