What is Google up to ?

Google's developer conference - Google I/O on May 29th 2008 at San Francisco was a huge hit, with more than 3000 developers attending it for two days. The message was clear and simple: the Web is the new platform for application development. Google wants to make its own slice of Web infrastructure (the Google cloud) more accessible to developers and encourage them to build and run applications in it. Google's idea is to make the client i.e. the browser to be more capable which will ensure that its connectivity with the cloud is powerful to work with harmony.

To showcase its client-cloud connectivity, Google detailed several examples at the conference. The first was the integration of Google Gears (a browser add-on in the Adobe Flash mould that allows for richer browser experiences) to enhance search in MySpace email. Gears works by persistently storing, synchronizing and manipulating data locally in the browser, effectively allowing online applications to function offline. Next it unveiled a new 'rent-a-cloud' pricing for its App Engine software that allows you to build Web applications that run on Google's cloud infrastructure that is based on CPU use per hour - a model that sounds very similar to Amazon.com's Web services.

Google also presented a new version of the Google Web Toolkit which allows developers to build rich Internet applications in Java; the hosting of new Ajax libraries that lets developers improve the performance of their Web applications using JavaScript tagging; and a strategy for transforming Web applications into mobile applications using a new SDK for its Android federated smartphone platform. The SDK basically provides WebKit views and allows mobile applications to be built using Web browser technology as the user interface.

Finally, Google also showcased interesting Web 2.0-like application development technologies for single sign-on for the Web (OpenID), universal authorization (OAuth) and a social network development 'standard' (Open Social). These technologies promise to connect Web pages, applications and service to the 'sticky' social Web.

These diverse tools and technologies might seem loosely unintegrated and targeted at different areas. In fact they're all cogs and wheels of a more meaningfully connected Web that hosts Google Web services powered by the Google App Engine. Importantly some of these Web services and applications aren't written just by Google, but by an entire market of independent developers.

These developers aren't just keen to build 'cool' Web applications for the sake of 'coolness'; they also have an eye on tapping into Google's billion-dollar online advertising revenue stream. Google likes to separate its Web development technologies from its advertising. But the two are inextricably linked. Google's monetization strategy is simple. Invest in advancement of the Web by allowing users to do more on the Internet. That makes the Web a much bigger market for Google to monetize services like search. For that reason we believe that Google sees a pile of money in its Web application development efforts downstream, even though for the time being it is focused on getting developers to build browser-based Web applications to thicken up its cloud.

The moral of the story is "be there where Google wants you to be"