Share Across Computers is Just the First Step
By now you've heard the news that Google Desktop 3 beta is available for download. There are plenty of useful new features, most of which include enhanced interaction with other desktop users. "These combined results can be seen only from your own computer; your computer's content is never sent to Google (or anyone else)."Does Google have an incentive to offer "Share Across Computers" beyond just adding more convenient features? I think they do. In December I wrote a column called Google Desktop is P2P in Sheep's Clothing. In it, I proposed that Google wants to do more than just put its brand and search functionality on your desktop. The real value to Google is organizing vast amounts of data, doing trend analysis on it, and possible selling advertising around it. Yes, Google offers privacy assurances for their new sharing functionality. But to my mind, these are the same types of assurances they offer with Gmail. They won't read your data or share the data itself, but they will use keywords in the data to offer up ads, and they will analyze the type and variety of content across users to more effectively target advertising. I just downloaded the new desktop, but it's telling me I have to restart my 'puter before I can set it up. So more on this later. Ben Charny is on vacation. Publish.com's editor, Steve Bryant, is filling in on Google Watch until Ben returns. |
Create, Communicate, Collaborate with IT Professionals at Ziff Davis Enterprise IT Link
Comments (2)
This indeed seems to be an invitation to hack, and with the lack of anything approaching subtlety for the ordinary computer user--I would say that you're right; it's P2P, though with a difference---rather like a renter advertising for squatters. Glenn
Posted by Glenn Charles | February 10, 2006 1:05 PM
There's no techincal reason the search index needs to go through Google's servers. You could build the same functionality without an intermediary server by having the two PCs communicate directly or with a distributed architecture of intermediaries (ala Gnutella). Even though we know this to be the case, the documentation seems to say otherwise.
Posted by Jay Budzik | February 17, 2006 9:46 AM