Googlism

There's been lots of talking about Google the past days (well the past years in fact...) I thought I'd write down some of the news here.

First of all the result Googles Summer of Code was published. I'm really impressed by the number of successful projects that has been sponsored by Google. It's a great thing for the open source community and I hope we will see more of this. And I expect we will since it must generate a lot of good-will for Google.

Secondly, Google is pouring some more money. This time it is to the Oregon State University and Portland State University for helping them maintaining various open source websites and projects. There's an official press release.

Perhaps the most exciting news is that of base.google.com (it's currently down but has been known to be up at occations). It's a database where you can add all kinds of things. The really interesting thing happens when it is connected to Googles other services like Google Local, Froogle and the upcoming Google Wallet. Then you can share and trade information and goods, you can start local or global clubs and organizations. The possibilities are almost endless. The only potential problem that I see is how to structure the site so that it doesn't become "too abstract". That is, it becomes so general that it is almost useless. But I think Google will solve this, they know how to do things right. There's an article at ars technica about this.

Finally a note from Googles official blog about some stuff that was published on Google Video. Personally I haven't used Google Video so I cannot really say anything about it. Other search engines just search the web for video files and let you search them. But Google requires video makers to upload them onto Googles site. The archive will ofcourse be a lot smaller but perhaps it will be more useful. Time will tell.

Well, Google is hot. And they just continue to lanch new stuff all the time. Some people might fear that Google might become too big. But I don't think that is a problem. If there is one company that I will happily see taking over the world it is Google. With their philosophy that one can earn money without being evil, and which they've also proven to be correct, I trust the company fully.