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Google Axing Windows Makes Total Sense (and It’s Not For Security)

Posted on June 5, 2010 by jessestay

Several articles have come out recently criticizing Google for their recent policy, removing the Windows Operating System from their currently approved list of OSes that employees can use. One might expect that I would be against this move, considering the recent criticism I’ve given of Google employees deleting their Facebook accounts. I think this situation is different though, and I actually support it. Of all companies, I think Google is most prepared to make such a move and I think we’ll see a lot of innovation come as a result.

Companies Have Tried This Before

Several years ago I worked for BackCountry.com as an engineer. While there, our engineering department had a policy, making Linux and open source tools the default, while only allowing other operating systems (including Mac OS X) on an as-needed basis. We found this saved us a ton of money, and, as engineers it made sense because we were able to completely alter the systems we were writing on as we needed. It also made it so we could completely duplicate the server environments we were developing for on our local machines if we needed to.

We decided while there to take this to another level, and while I was there we started to push this policy throughout the company. We got a lot of push back, and it took us, as engineers and developers, to help out the rest of the company as they adapted. We started using Zimbra for e-mail, Bugzilla for bug tracking, and everything we could do we tried to do with open source tools. We saved a ton of money.

There was one fatal flaw to this, though. Where we were not an engineering-specific company (our bottom line was probably our buyers, who secured really good deals on outdoor gear, or even our customer support team, where we preached “We use the gear we sell”), we simply did not have enough resources to keep this going and be able to support it all whenever the company had a need that open source software could not solve. The main benefit to open source software (which security is only a minor benefit) is that, as developers, you can get in and alter the software if it doesn’t meet your needs. Then the code you altered could be shared with the rest of the world and others that also might have that need. That’s a great benefit.

However, not having resources to constantly do that whenever there is a need means you’re always going to have weaknesses in your systems, and those systems are likely to fail. I think that became a problem for BackCountry.com, because I heard that shortly after I left they were forced back into a closed-source, Microsoft-backed Exchange system, which probably means back to Windows for most employees. The simple fact is Microsoft, when it comes to Enterprise systems, can’t be beat. Exchange is by far the best e-mail system there is out there. Linux pales in comparison, and has always had problems competing against Exchange and the desktop. Not to mention general user experience and understanding of the OS by a mass audience. Most companies don’t have the time or money to devote resources towards replacing these COTS systems.

Why Google is Axing Windows

So one would think that making a similar move by Google may be prone to similar risks. Google’s hacker culture I’m sure has developers begging to be on Linux or Mac OS X, and higher executives wondering how they’re going to get along without Windows. There’s one thing different about Google though that completely sets them apart from any other company out there that might try such a thing: Google’s base is developers. Not only that, but Google has a vested interest in creating an operating system that works.

My guess is that Google is using “security” as a front to put a jab up against Microsoft, hoping others might try to make the same decision. Google is hoping that the bad stigma Microsoft has had in the past regarding security (Windows 7 is actually pretty secure) might dwell in the minds of others considering similar decisions. However, I bet the real reason is that this will force all employees, in this hacker culture, to truly understand what they’re missing when there are no Exchange servers, when there are no Active Directory databases, and when Executives can’t use the operating system or tools all their colleagues at other companies are using.

Google wants their employees to hurt from this. When you make a hacker culture that actually has a monetary benefit (Chrome OS) to fix problems that arise as a result, problems get solved, and people stop being lazy. I expect that as Google makes this move we’re going to see a much higher rate of bug fixes and User Experience enhancements on Chrome OS and Linux, and possibly even Android. I expect better user experiences on the server. I expect finally an e-mail solution that works up to par with Microsoft Exchange, and a directory services solution that works up to par with Active Directory.

I argue Google Axing Windows as a company is a good thing! I hope it’s only temporary, or on an “as needed” basis so employees that need to create Windows clients that interact and drivers that work together with Google devices, that the company can still understand and work with such devices. Yet at the same time I think doing everything they can to challenge employees to truly understand the weaknesses their new operating systems and web services provide will challenge the thousands of developers working them to produce solutions. While I think security is a lame excuse and PR ploy for Google to remove Windows from their network architecture, I still think this is one of the best things the company has done in a long time.

Google’s move here could be the best thing to happen to Linux, and the open source enterprise world, in a long, long time.

Adobe and Google Sitting in a Tree? Or Did Adobe Just Pwn Google?

Posted on May 14, 2010 by jessestay

There’s something really fishy going on with Adobe’s “I ♥ Apple” Ad campaign. You might have noticed it yesterday as you were browsing websites such as TechCrunch and Google Reader. Basically, somehow Adobe got around Google’s “no popups” ad policy for Adsense and for those on Macs and for some reason Opera web browsers. For users visiting sites with a specific Adsense ad image installed, Adobe was displaying an ad that said “I ♥ Apple”, trying to convince users of Apple operating systems that Apple was in the wrong. The ad was then causing a popup window on the page – I couldn’t open TechCrunch without a popup appearing, and I know TechCrunch didn’t put it there.

Aside from the existing issues of how effective such a campaign is already, what is really baffling is how Adobe was using their own Flash to get around Adsense’s security measures preventing popups. Jimminy Fuller investigated this last night, and gave me this explanation:

Since the ad was being handled by Google Adsense, this shouldn’t have been happening. It’s forbidden under the Adsense TOS, so I went to see if this pop-up was actually occurring. I couldn’t recreate the issue though for one reason: the ads were selective.

Selective ads? First thing that popped into my head was that they were performing a User-Agent check, a hunch that proved fruitful, later on. I ended up rooting around and finally was able to find some rendered code for the ad, at which point I went digging into the source to see if I could find the User-Agent check. I found that pretty quickly and noticed a little quirk where they were also messing with Opera users, I
assume because Opera also recently turned a cold shoulder to Adobe’s Flash platform.

So I spent a little time analyzing what was going on in the ad besides just the selective pop up, but couldn’t come up with anything determinate as to how they were getting the set of scripts embedded into their ad. What I did find out while analyzing their ad, was that they were using primarily javascript (ironically), lots of it, which did all the preemptive work in analyzing what your browser and OS, were, as well as if you had Flash 8, or higher, installed. If they were able to match the User-Agent, to either a Mac or Opera, and you had Flash installed, they would force a window open that held a Flash element, otherwise the ad was only activated if you clicked upon it.

That’s the very basic analysis of what this ad was doing, but it means that either Google allowed them to do this, or that Adobe basically ignored Google’s rules, and managed to manipulate the ad System to relay this message, I assume the latter. This is quite disturbing, however, because if Adobe, without Google’s consent, can manipulate the ad code, in such a way, it means that there is a possibility for it to be used as an exploit vector. Google has since pulled the ad, it had about a 10 hour stint, but I wonder if we’ll hear anything from any of the parties involved, particularly Google or Adobe.

You can read more details of Jimminy’s evaluation here on his blog.

Adobe brought up this popup when you visited certain websites like Google Reader

What Jimminy found is quite disturbing. As he said, the fact that Adobe was able to get around the popups rule either means Google had a specific relationship for this partner, in which they were willing to make an exception to the popup rule, or Adobe Pwn’d perhaps the only viable potential partner they have in the battle to come, revealing even a greater hole in Google’s code allowing other parties to potentially exploit any website with Adsense installed.

Adobe certainly has its own issues, and rightly so, but exposing flaws in Google’s ad code and taking advantage of perhaps your greatest partner isn’t the best way to fix those issues. I really hope we hear from Adobe or Google on why these Popups were allowed. We talk about Facebook and privacy, but if Adobe can get around Google’s safeguards, and deploy specific Javascript commands on any website that deploys Adsense, I think Google may be the one with issues here and I hope this gets fixed.

Facebook and the New SEO

Posted on April 30, 2010 by jessestay

With the advent of Facebook’s new Open Graph Protocol announced at their developers conference last week, there has been no shortage of criticism as to what’s private, what’s open, and if this makes Facebook even more open and more closed. While I’ve certainly made my opinion known, there is really little that needs to be said from a brand perspective. It’s quite obvious that Facebook is now a force to be reckoned with, and businesses, brand managers, and so-called “social media experts” should start paying attention. Perhaps the group that should be paying most attention though are those that currently pay attention to SEO for their company, or the brands they represent. With Facebook’s entry into the search space last week, Facebook should now be part of every company’s SEO plan.

Just last week, Mark Zuckerberg was quite clear when he said, announcing Facebook’s new Open Graph Protocol, that Facebook was working to make “people index the web”. No longer are the days of complex algorithms, PhDs focusing on the fastest and most relevant search results through code. What better way to provide relevant content and experience for what people are looking for, and often even when they don’t even know they need it, than through their friends’ activity on Social Networks. Search is now all about relevancy.

I find it ironic that before Google, Sergei Brin’s focus at Stanford was actually a relevancy engine surrounding movies your friends watched. His project centered around looking at how your friends rated movies and then provided suggestions based on the movies your friends like. He quickly scrapped that when the idea behind Google came along. Now, as the tides turn, Mark Zuckerberg took that entire focus of friends’ activity and suggestions, and is building the entire web around it, and just now he’s coming back to focus search around it.

What does Open Graph Protocol have to do with all this? Facebook’s Open Graph Protocol is just a series of meta tags that enables Facebook, when specific Social Plugins are installed on a site (or the site is registered through Facebook Insights), to begin tracking that website. Each website can provide very specific information about itself, and how it relates to the Facebook (or other) networks. If you view the source of this blog you’ll notice I even get so specific as to identifying what my phone number is and what e-mail address you can contact me with. All this information gets registered with Facebook.

Now, when you search in Facebook for “Stay”, this blog should show up in those search results, taking you right back to this blog, and providing you relevant results based on the usage and likes of yourself and your friends, something much more powerful than just an anonymous link network. Each and every website on the internet has this opportunity to now appear in the Facebook search results, and with little effort, intercept itself between the friends of its viewers so they can easily share it with others. That’s a very powerful concept, and so far in just the last week, over 50,000 websites are already taking advantage of this!

SEO is something that is now a standard part of any businesses web budget. It’s simple – you build common strategies for formulating your content to appear properly in Google and others’ search results. You try to guess the keywords you want your website to appear high under, and adapt the content of your site to make finding it in search engine results much easier. Now, you’re going to need to do the same with Facebook. Each SEO manager within a company should seriously be considering adding the proper Open Graph Protocol meta tags in their site, and, by doing so, they will now appear in Facebook’s search results as well.

Facebook has made it clear that this is a search game. The release of Open Graph Protocol makes this clearer, and you should be paying attention. Through your likes, Facebook now has the potential to provide near exact matches of advertising towards exactly what you’re looking for, without you even knowing you needed it. That, my friends, is the holy grail of advertising.

Now, take those ads and spread them across the web, just like adwords/adsense. Give website owners a cut for sharing them on their site. You now have near perfect contextual advertising across every website on the web, Facebook becomes even bigger as they make more money from those ads, and the web becomes a better place by providing an experience you, the user, actually want to receive. The brands advertising make more money, as does Facebook, because ads aren’t being wasted on people that do not want to receive them.

Facebook just did something huge last week. It is now in the interest of every single company out there to be getting their brand visible in the Facebook search so this can happen. This is a search game more than it is social. Facebook just made it a whole heck of a lot more valuable for you to be investing in SEO, but this time it’s on Facebook’s terms, not Google’s, and in the end everyone wins. Well, except maybe Google. If Facebook isn’t currently a part of your company’s SEO strategy it’s time to start re-thinking what SEO means to you and your company. Like it or not, Facebook is the new SEO.

Google: You Have the Same Thing as Facebook – Why Not Promote It?

Posted on April 23, 2010 by jessestay

Google is sitting on a gold mine opportunity right now and all I hear is complaining from their employees. Matt Cutts Deactivated his Facebook account and Tweeted about it to tell the story. Chris Messina called Facebook the dreaded “evil” word, and criticized the idea for being decentralized. Frankly, I’m getting tired of it and it’s making Google look desperate. Instead, here’s what I’d rather see Google doing:

Promote the Heck Out of Google Social Graph API

I don’t get it – Google employees are criticizing Facebook for not being decentralized when Facebook did just that. With the OpenGraph Protocol, any platform on the web can now implement a similar Pages network and integrate with the network of Pages Facebook is bringing into its own network. The opportunity is open to all, not just Facebook. Facebook even went to the extent of releasing that protocol under the Open Web Foundation agreement, solidifying that they were okay with others copying it.

Google has been promoting something similar – XFN links and FOAF attachments (along with “me” relationship identifiers to identify an individual as the same person across the web). In fact, Google built an API around it so others can have access to these protocols. Guess what? Facebook has an API as well for the OpenGraph protocol (called, quite similar “Graph API”). Has Google opened up their Social Graph API? No. (meaning, not any other network can copy the protocol of the API and use it as their platform as well) Neither has Facebook. There’s nothing wrong with that – they have to compete.

Google has a huge opportunity right now to be riding the coattails of Facebook on this announcement by promoting its SocialGraph API and how it’s a little better for the web than what Facebook is doing with its API around the OpenGraph. Rather than complain about what Facebook is doing, why not take the positive route and push that you have something better? Google has an incredible opportunity here to finally make the SocialGraph API really big, and they’re squashing it by spending their energy canceling their Facebook accounts and criticizing their efforts publicly. I think it’s totally the wrong move for Google to be making right now. Their PR department needs to get ahold of their employees and formulate a strategy for response.

Promote the Heck Out of Google Friend Connect

On top of the APIs and OpenGraph or SocialGraph related protocols (again, emphasis on the protocol being the open part of both networks – none of the other stuff, on both Google and Facebook’s side is), all that was launched by Facebook on Wednesday was a series of Widgets that lie on top of all this to make implementation of everything very easy. Google has the same thing, yet I have not heard one peep from Google employees about it since then.

Google’s product is called Friend Connect. Look at the Friend Connect page of widgets here and then look at the OpenGraph Social Plugins page here and tell me how they differ? The main difference is Google actually has more widgets than Facebook does. Kevin Marks, former Google employee who initiated OpenSocial and the Friend Connect program at Google, was quick to point out to me on Twitter that even Friend Connect has a like button (you can see it on his iPad Knees Up site in the upper-right here), and it requires a Google login to use! How is that any different than what Facebook is offering? You can see an example of Friend Connect in action over to the right where you see everyone’s profile pictures (note you didn’t even have to log in to see those, and there is no opt-out).

This is Google’s time to shine – show businesses that they can promote Twitter users and iGoogle users and Buzz users and Orkut users, and provide all the same functionality Facebook is providing, just as easy as they are (with the exception of that extremely simple Graph API Facebook just launched). Come up with new features that compete where you’re not at their level yet. The world doesn’t know about this yet. Google has more people using its network than Facebook does – Google needs to flaunt this, not complain.

Start Building on Facebook’s OpenGraph API and Stop Complaining

I’m sure I’ll get plenty of complaining responses by Google employees and former Google employees from this, but, I really hope they take this to heart and rather than argue with me on this, just go out and promote the products that they have. They potentially have something even bigger than what Facebook has, and it’s extremely important that the world knows about this.

Google really should consider taking advantage of this new protocol by Facebook – integrate it on its own sites, just as it expects Facebook to do with FOAF and XFN. Find ways to search and index this data in ways that Facebook just doesn’t have the advantage. They should find ways to integrate Facebook login (it’s just OAuth 2.0 now!) into their Friend Connect login process – Facebook’s being completely open in this.

I’ve been arguing on Twitter with Kevin Marks about Google’s past attempts to integrate Facebook Connect into Friend Connect. They were denied, because they were displaying user data without user permission before. He referred to this page in the Terms of Use for Facebook. The thing is, Facebook has provided means around this problem. Facebook is all about user privacy, even down to the developers that integrate their platform. Google got shut down because they weren’t using the means Facebook set out to use their data. There is a specific permissions API Facebook released within a month after Google launched Facebook support in Friend Connect (and got shut down), just to solve Google’s problem and Google never used it.

It’s time Google start accepting these Facebook social graphs. Let us bring our Facebook friends into Google’s network – there’s not even a storage limit any more! Google needs to start playing nice or they’re going to get left in the dust. It’s time to stop complaining and take the ball back into your own court, Google. Otherwise I’m going to have no choice but to abandon Google products and go where my real friends are playing. That’s not a threat – it’s just the reality of where I’m being forced to go.

Getting Me to Share Your Posts

Posted on April 4, 2010 by jessestay

One of the things I like to do on my Twitter account is to share interesting articles around the web that I think would be interesting to my readers. Such articles can be techy, geeky, mainstream, pop-culture, or anything I deem interesting. Based on your retweets, I think you like it. I had someone ask me the other day why I wasn’t sharing more of their posts. It’s actually quite easy – I’d like to share how, and I’m pretty sure you can use this same technique on any other blogger that uses Google Reader.

I have a policy on Google Buzz – it’s the same policy I have on Twitter. I follow everyone on Buzz who follows me. The thing is that I think it’s even more powerful on Buzz because, just like Twitter, it gives me an opportunity to discover interesting people I may not have known about before. For the spam, I have SocialToo for that. However, with Buzz, for everyone I follow, I also see their Google Reader shares. That means for every one of you that follows me on Buzz, if your content is interesting, I am very likely to discover your content that you share (that can even be your own blog posts!), and if I like it, that content goes straight to Twitter and Buzz.

So the secret is just to follow me on Buzz! Yes, I hide many people in my Google Reader, so it’s important you share unique, and interesting posts. Also, if I know you I’m also more likely to not hide your shares, so get involved in the conversation. Comment on my shares, retweet my posts, reply to me, comment on my blog. I read every single comment and try to respond where it makes sense. As we have more discussions I get to know you better and I’m less likely to hide your content.

I hope that helps. I don’t think the individual who asked me to share his content more is following me in Buzz. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t hide his content because I know him and I like his content. The secret is to follow on Buzz, join the conversation, and I’ll very likely share your interesting shares on Twitter. I think the same goes with anyone that uses Google Reader. There’s a great opportunity here – I hope you use it.

You can follow me on Buzz over on my Google Profile. Can’t wait to start seeing your shares!

Photo courtesy Creative Commons on Flickr.

Google Re-Enables Adsense on RSS Feeds in Buzz

Posted on March 25, 2010 by jessestay

Some time in the last hour or two it appears that the Google Buzz team has re-enabled AdSense ads in RSS Feeds in Google Buzz. Recently I wrote about this, criticizing the service for stripping out ads a blog author was including and importing into Google Buzz. This included both RSS feeds directly imported into Google Buzz and those shared via Google Reader. I argued this was a violation of the authors’ copyrights and their intended method of content distribution.

Google responded quickly, saying they had confirmed the problem, and expected to have it resolved “within the week”. Apparently they meant a month, but I’m glad it’s fixed. As both a book author and blogger, I always hate to see my content being modified in ways I had not agreed to. It is a strict violation of authors’ copyright, and not to mention “evil” in a way. It’s nice to see Google recognizes that and has fixed the problem.

If all goes well, if you visit my Google Buzz profile, you should see an ad now, right below this text. Are you seeing the same?

I’ve Been a Little Rough on Google Lately

Posted on March 13, 2010 by jessestay

For having posted just less than 1,000 posts, this blog has gotten a lot of attention in just the last one or two years. It used to be when I posted something I would get few comments (I still wish I had more), little traffic, and I knew it was only going to perhaps a few hundred eyes at most in an RSS Reader somewhere. But it took off. I’m not saying this to gloat, and I accept that I’m nowhere near a TechCrunch or a Mashable in terms of readers or traffic, but I’ve quickly learned that some times when I say things here it seems to have a lot of influence. Some times my articles end up on Techmeme. Some times people like TechCrunch and Mashable mention what I say. Some times Google employees talk about them. Not only that, but it goes out to near 25,000 people on Twitter, thousands on FriendFeed, not to mention the thousands of subscribers that read this in their RSS Reader. I tend to forget that when I talk here, it has the potential for a lot of people to read what I say. It’s not the old days of when I would just strive to get someone to read my stuff. For that, I apologize – I’ve been a little negative on Google lately without realizing the implications, and I want to make ammends.

The truth is, I like Google for a lot of stuff. My main e-mail client is Gmail.com. In fact I also use it as my FriendFeed, Facebook, and Twitter client. Despite my frustrations, I still use Google Reader as my main RSS Reader, not because it’s Google, but because it’s still by far the best Reader out there. There have been various Chrome releases that have been by far the fastest and best browser out there. Google Calendar is my favorite scheduling application – it’s the best of any tool I’ve come across. I’ve replaced the phone icons on my iPhone with Google’s http://voice.google.com Google Voice client.

Truth be told, I still love Google. They’re an amazing company. They’re a company full of amazing talent and smart people. Perhaps I hold them to a higher standard, and hence my criticism.

I think it’s obvious that I also have a bit of a Facebook bias. I’ve written many apps both for myself and others on the Facebook platform, wrote two books about it, and I’m very close with many of their team over there. Most of my business is to help other businesses integrate Facebook technology into their products – with over 400 million users and still growing, a very accessible API, and a lot of rules that go with that API, my help is often needed, and I’m happy to provide. I’m just as passionate, if not more about Facebook as I am Google, but I think some of that gets to me at times.

I am also passionate about open standards. I admit Facebook is not open across the board as others like to define it, but neither is Google. Ideally, I guess I’d like to see a web that is completely free of the big guys like Facebook and Google – sure, they’ll still have a presence, but the user will be in control, not these companies or even developers. There is no one perfect solution right now. This is why I talk about Kynetx a lot. I don’t think any of the open standards available right now completely tackle this, so I get passionate, perhaps too passionate about it at times.

So, to Google, DeWitt, and any of the team there I may have offended, I apologize. I’d like to make ammends. Sure, we may disagree at times, but as my Mom always taught me, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”. I’m going to be much more careful with what I say online from now on, especially when I disagree. I’d like the things you take from here to be positive. I want to influence, but in a good way. To start the mending process, I’m re-creating my Google profile and re-opening my Buzz account, which you can find here.

Let’s open the air here – what else can I improve about this blog and what I share online? Am I making the right choice in backing down in my criticism?

Image courtesy http://www.youpimped.com/comment_graphics/i_am_sorry

Did Google Reinvent the Wheel by Adopting the Protocols They Chose?

Posted on March 6, 2010 by jessestay

In a response to my article here, DeWitt Clinton of Google defined what he deemed the definition of “open” to be. According to DeWitt, “the first is licensing of the protocols themselves, with respect to who can legally implement them and/or who can legally fork them.” I argue if this were the case, then why didn’t Google clone and standardize what Facebook is doing, where many, many more developers are already integrating and writing code for? Facebook itself is part of the Open Web Foundation, and applies the same principles as Google to allowing others to clone the APIs they provide to developers.

DeWitt’s second definition of “open” revolves around, according to DeWitt, “the license by which the data itself is made available. (The Terms and Conditions, so to speak.) The formal definitions are less well established here (thus far!), but it ultimately has to do with who owns the data and what proprietary rights over it are asserted.” Even Facebook makes clear in its terms that you own your data, and they’re even working to build protocols to enable website owners to host and access this data on their own sites. Why did Google have to write their own Social Graph API or access lesser-used protocols (such as FOAF or OpenID) when they could, in reality, be standardizing what millions (or more?) of other developers are already utilizing with Facebook Connect and the Facebook APIs to access friend data? Google could easily duplicate the APIs Facebook has authored (even using the open source libraries Facebook provides for it), and have a full-fledged, “open” social network built from these APIs many developers are already building upon. I would argue there are/were many more developers writing for Facebook than were developing under the open protocols and standards Google chose to adapt. I’d like to see some stats if that is not the case. Granted, even Facebook is giving way to Google to adopt some of these other “open” standards so developers have choice in this matter, even if they were one of the few adopting the other standards.

I still think Google is adopting these standards because it benefits Google, not the user or developer. If Google wanted to benefit the majority of the audience of developers they would have cloned the already “open” Facebook APIs rather than adopt the much lesser-adopted other protocols they have chosen to go by. This is a matter of competition, being the “hero”, and a brilliant marketing strategy. Is Google evil for doing this? Of course not. Do I hate Google for this? Only for the reason that I have to now adapt all the apps I write in Facebook to new “open” APIs Google is choosing to adopt.

IMO, if Google wanted to truly benefit the developer they would have chosen to clone the existing “open” APIs developers were already writing for. This is a marketing play, plain and simple. It may have started with geeks not wanting to get into the Facebook worlds, but management agreed because in the end, it benefits Google, not their competitors. If you don’t think so, you should ask Dave Winer why Google is not implementing RSS or rssCloud instead of Atom and PSHB (I’m completely baffled by that one, too).

Image courtesy http://northerndoctor.com/2009/04/17/re-inventing-the-wheel/

The Web is No Longer Open

Posted on March 3, 2010 by jessestay

“So it can benefit everyone.”

That’s what a Google employee said today as he tried to explain Google’s recent push to have websites use the ‘rel=”me”‘ meta HTML tags to identify pages a user owns on the web. It’s not a bad strategy – index the entire web, know every single website out there, and when they change, and now the web is your network. The thing is, since the “open” web hasn’t had a natural way of identifying websites owned by users, Google, the current controller of this network, needed a way to do it. Why not make people identify their websites to Google’s SocialGraph network, and call it “open” so it benefits everyone? I’m sorry, but the “open” web that we all grew up in is dead now that 2 or 3 entities have indexed it all. This is now their network.

Let’s contrast that to Facebook, the “Walled Garden”, criticized for being closed due to tight privacy controls and not willing to open up to the outside web. Of course, all that is a myth – Facebook too has provided ways for website owners to identify themselves to Facebook on the “open” web, making Facebook itself the controller of that social graph data, thereby giving Facebook a new role in who “owns” the “open” web. Facebook has even made known in its developer roadmap its intention to build an “OpenGraph API”, making every website owner’s site a Facebook Fan Page in the Facebook network. Don’t kid yourself that Facebook wants a role in this as well. They’re a major threat to Google, too because of this.

Then there’s Twitter, just starting to realize how to play in this game, now starting to collect user data for search in their own network. Don’t count them out just yet, as they too will soon be trying to find ways to get you to identify your website on their network.

So we’ll soon have 3 ways of identifying our websites on the “open” web. I can identify my site through Facebook, as you see by the Facebook Connect login buttons scattered around. I can identify myself in the Google SocialGraph APIs, which, if you view the source of this site you’ll see a ‘rel=”me”‘ meta tag identifying my site so Google can search it. Who knows what Twitter will provide to bring my site into its network. Each network is providing its easiest ways of identifying your site within their own Social Graph, and calling it “open” so other developers can bring their stuff into their networks easily, without rewriting code.

I think it’s time we stop tricking ourselves into thinking the web is open at all. Google is in control of the web – they have it all indexed. Now that we are seeing that he who owns the Social Graph has a new way of controlling and indexing the web, which we are seeing by Facebook’s massive growth (400+ million users!), I think Google feels threatened. They’ll play every “open” term in the book to gain that control back. Of course the new meta tags are beneficial – is it really beneficial to “everybody” though? I argue the one entity it benefits most is Google. Yeah, it benefits developers if we can get everyone to agree on what “open” is, but that will never happen. I think it’s time we accept that now that the web is controlled and indexed by only a few large corporations, it is far from “open”. “Open” is nothing more than a marketing term, and I think we can thank Google for that. No, that’s not a bad thing – it’s just reality.

Do these technologies really “benefit everyone” when no other search startup has a remote chance of competing with owning the “open web” network?

Further note:

How do we solve this? I truly believe the only solution to giving the user control of the web again is via client-side, truly user-controlled technologies like what Kynetx offers. Action Cards, Information Cards, Selectors, and browser-side technologies that bring context back in the user’s hands are the only way we’re going to make the web “open” again. The future will be the battle for the client – I hope the user wins that battle.

Image courtesy Leo Reynolds

UPDATE: DeWitt Clinton of Google, who wrote the quote above this post is in response to, issued his own response here. The comments there are interesting, albeit a lot of current and former Google employees trying to defend their case. I still hold that no matter what Google does now, due to the size of their index, any promotion of the “open web” is still to their benefit. I don’t think Google should be denying that.

UPDATE 2: My response to DeWitt’s response is here – why didn’t Google just clone Facebook’s APIs if their intention was to benefit the developer and end-user?

Is Google Stealing Authors’ Copyright With Buzz?

Posted on February 25, 2010 by jessestay

2 years ago I shared about a blogger and follower/friend of mine, Ali Akbar, who purchased the domain, googleappsengine.com (he still owns it) in order to create an AppEngine-related blog (since Google apparently forgot to purchase the domain). Ali received a threatening Cease-and-Desist from Google shortly after asking him to immediately discontinue use of the domain and “Take immediate steps to transfer the Domain Name to Google”. It would appear that Google needs to take a dose of its own medicine though. To my surprise, I’ve realized recently that my articles from StayNAlive.com and other blogs are being shared, in their full text, on Buzz and having my ads stripped from them, without my permission.

For those unaware, there’s a “subscribe” button when you visit this blog that allows anyone to obtain the RSS of this blog and plug it into a Reader. For those of you reading this in a Reader, thank you, and you’re already aware of this. One thing I have done with those feeds if you haven’t noticed is at the bottom of each post in the RSS, I’ve added Google Adsense to my feeds so I can at least cover my costs of running this blog and make at least a few cents a day trying to re-coup costs of hosting and time spent writing posts. If you visit http://staynalive.local/feed in a browser like Chrome, you can look at the raw feed and see the ads at the bottom of each post. Or, if you’re reading this post in a traditional feed reader, look down at the bottom of this post and you’ll see the ad.

However, there’s a feature on Buzz that enables anyone reading my shared posts to expand the summarized content and view the entire post, right in Buzz. For one, I didn’t give Buzz permission to do this on shared posts, and second, Buzz is stripping out my ads, depriving me of that potential revenue rather than either displaying those ads, or redirecting the user back to my site where I can monetize that in some other form. This is blatant copyright infringement if you ask me! Now, if you expand my posts, since it’s integrated into Gmail, look over to the right – see those ads? Yup, I’m not getting a penny of that.

Google is now monetizing my content, and neglecting to ask for my permission in doing so, while removing what I had put in place to monetize my content. Starting today, I’m removing my blog from my Google Profile, as well as my Google Reader shares so that I don’t help further the copyright infringement on other blogs I share. The problem that still exists is that anyone who shares my content from Google Reader will also have my content available on Buzz in full format, and my ads stripped. There’s no way to stop it, and Google is encouraging this wrong practice.

To be clear, I’m fine with them either displaying the ads that I put there (and allowing me to monetize off the other ads that are on the page), or just summarizing the article and encouraging users to click through to my site. I’m not okay with Google scraping my content, stripping my ads, altering my content, and pushing it out for them to get 100% of the revenues off of something I spent time and money making.

Google, how is this not evil? Maybe I should use Google’s own Cease and Desist letter to get them to stop this practice. Or would that itself be copyright infringement?

Image courtesy Warner Bros. Entertainment – “The Ant Bully”

UPDATE: The Google Buzz Team did contact me on Buzz (Ironically, considering the content of this post), and they say they’re going to have the ad scraping issue fixed by next week.