Today Google made a rather large, and ambitious, announcement. They announced a little thing called Google Chrome OS . All uncreative name choices aside, this seems to be the fabled Google OS. According to everything we know right now, Chrome OS will be targeted at the Netbook audience, an ever popular trend in the Personal Computer arena.
Here are a few facts you might want to know from the post.
- A lightweight OS targeted at Netbooks.
- Slated for product release in the second half of 2010.
- Designed to work on x86 and ARM processors.
- Built on a Linux Kernal. (Quoted from the blog, “Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel.”)
- Open Source.
One thing I noticed is it did say Open Source, so I’m assuming it’ll be free. I mean most, if not all, of what Google does is free, however considering this is an entire operating system, you never know how it’ll go. Also, although they did say it was targeted to Netbooks, they did in fact mention full blown desktop setups and such. So, with that said, we have to wonder how capable this system is meant to be. Will it just be watered down for Netbooks, or will it be lightweight but capable for everything?
This also brings up the question of Microsoft’s, and to a lesser extent Apple’s, response to the whole situation. Linux was pretty much killed as an OS for the Netbooks when Microsoft announced it would extend the life of Windows XP. And with Windows 7 just around the corner, I’m sure Microsoft thought it had the Netbook market wrapped up. Of course they’ll probably just pull the “We have a very capable, well built, Operating System with loads of software already made for it.” but that may not be enough. Of course, Apple has denounced Netbook’s in general, so it’ll be no surprise if they don’t care in the least. If anything they may support it, as it would certainly hurt their competitor.
Of course, details are few and far between on this new OS, considering it was just announced hours ago. However as time progresses we should start seeing what the folks at Google have to offer in an operating system.
Thanks,
Oliver (lockerhaxor)
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I have noticed that nowadays people are relying more and more on stats to confirm that the website they own or run is growing in a positive manner. Be it with Google Analytics, Website Outlook or other comparable site’s the information can be misleading and inaccurate.
Tons of people rely on Website Outlook each day to get a status update on what they could possibly get if they decided to sell their domain name or site as a whole. The real question is how accurate are these services? In reality in no shape, size or way are websites similar to websiteoutlook.com any where near accurate. The reason behind this is in the way that Website Outlook and it’s competitors gets their numbers. The entire service is relying on your ad revenue, number of daily site hits and your overall freshness of your site. a.k.a how long it has been since changes have been made to your site. Using this method results can be spastic, one day telling you that your site is worth hundreds of dollars more that what it was worth yesterday or a week ago. Thus making this a very poor way to judge organic and dynamic growth.
A more accurate way in predicting the overall value of your site is calculate how much you make per month in revenue and multiply that by a factor of 10 or higher depending on the overall size of your site. So for example Geekologist for the month of January has made $32.67 in ad-sense revenue so $32.67*10 = $326.70 Using this method is much more accurate in predicting what you might actually be offered if someone contacted you about a possible purchase.
It is a shame that site like Website Outlook provide such terrible insight into the overall value of websites and instill false hope in websites that make no revenue. A website that makes no revenue is worth nothing to someone looking to buy, sponsors or even possible investors. Without any revenue model how can those investor, sponsors or purchasers expect to get any return investment.
If you are truly looking for a scale to judge your website I suggest using Google Analytics or just play it by ear. Regardless of how many site hits you get it is always going to be the overall experience that you give the readers, viewers, or listeners that will keep them coming back.
What do you think about Website Outlook or websites like it? Leave us a comment!
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Google releases Chrome 1.0
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Our fantastic friend google android is out and so far is not impressing me one bit. Don’t get me wrong the software is great but from my perspective doing research on both the hardware and the network that google choose to release this phone I am really disappointed. The G1 is one of T-Mobiles first 3G phones and the reason behind it is because that T-Mobile has an extremely small 3G data network. (Currently only in 13 Markets and by the end of 2008 only in 27 Markets). To put that into perspective AT&T’s 3G covers 350 US Markets.
You might think what does this mean in terms of the G1 and the services that google is offering. Rumors have it that google and T-Mobile are going to allow you to get googles services without the need for a data plan. If you have looked into what is google is offering this is ALOT I mean ALOT. Google is going to sync everything on the phone over the web. So if you add a contact, start a convo in gTalk, delete or send an email it will all be synced back to your google/gmail account over the air. However my question to google is how long is this going to take on T-Mobile’s EDGE network? With only 27 Markets on their 3G network and the average person not being in those Markets most people are going to suffer with EDGE speeds. So let’s say you have 100MB’s of email 10MB’s of contacts, cal events and tasks, and another 10MB’s of gTalk convos. If you loose your phone and need to replace it it would take around 45 minutes to re-sync all that back to your phone. Needless to say T-Mobile needs to get a faster data network soon or google needs to find a faster carrier.
The issues with this phone don’t end with T-Mobile. HTC is the maker of the G1 and so far I have seems some setbacks for this phone. First and foremost is going to be the 256MB of ROM on the phone. For all you music guru’s out looking for a cheap alternative for the iPhone this is not what you a looking for. 256MB = little to no music. Before you say I am crazy yes the phone does have an optional MicroSD slot that can support up to 8GB’s but who wants to manage where they store their programs and data? I sure don’t and would like to see google take an approach more along the lines of the iPhone with the built in flash memory.
Lastly I would like to let all you know that I am very disappointed in the overall marketing and overall execution of the G1. In my opinion the software has a great potential being an open source platform that many developers are going to jump all over. I currently have no issues with the software and will keep you updated on my progress as I am currently looking into learning more about the SDK and developer tools that google offers. In the end I will keep an eye on the G1 but have no intentions of running out to get one.