Greg Linden comments on Google’s 2006 strategies. A few things in particular are to be noted about this presentation:
- Most importantly, it has references to two Google Secret Projects: “GDrive” and “Lighthouse”.
- Google is focused on achieving unlimited speed and storage. “Philosophy: No Constraints”.
- Google wants perfect interoperation.
Unfortunately, the PowerPoint file with notes, 20060302_analyst_day.ppt, has been removed from Google’s servers, so all I have to go on are their actual slides, which depict “More Complete Ads System” with a picture of a woman at work in Africa (long tail?), and “Collective Wisdom” with a picture of a cow.
GDrive is practically a giveaway; it’s Google’s take on the online storage site. But what exactly is Lighthouse? The name itself doesn’t help; GMail’s code name was Caribou, as a friend of mine has pointed out. But apparently, it’s something that will:
- Require a lot of bandwidth. “With infinite storage, we can house all user files, including: emails, web history, pictures, bookmarks, etc and make it accessible from anywhere (any device, any platform, etc). We already have efforts in this direction in terms of GDrive, GDS, Lighthouse, but all of them face bandwidth and storage constraints today.”
- Has custom privacy options. “A user’s Orkut profile has more value when it’s accessible from Gmail (as addressbook), Lighthouse (as access list), etc.”
There’s one thing missing from this “total storage” concept mentioned in the first quote: bookmarks. Could Lighthouse be a privacy-enabled bookmarks system, like Yahoo My Web 2? Is it privacy-enabled blogging? Or is it something else entirely?
Directory Services
Hmm. Interesting suggestion.
The PPT has a new Home – http://tomcaster.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2006/20060302_analyst_day.ppt
A thought: a lighthouse searches through the fog, right? I know this is maddeningly general, but might not Lighthouse be Google’s next generation search technology — the technology required to search infinite storage?
I’m not as techbright as most of you, so maybe this is laughable in some way, but in light of Google attempting to revolutionize storage technology, might they not also be attempting to revolutionize the technology to search that storage? It seems they would have to… and “Lighthouse” seems like the perfect name for it. Think of the image the word conjures: a stable light in a dark and murky night, guiding otherwise blind ships safely to their destination…
I of course have no idea what this means in real terms — how Lighthouse would actually work, how we would engage with it, what its full potential would be, etc. — but this seems a plausible explanation of what it could be. No?
One man’s opinion: Looks like the bookmark system they’re generating now with the IE toolbar and Google Search History. Time will tell, however. I don’t get the “access list” reference.
Access list? – maybe its a new IM application? Or maybe its a security app allowing each individual to control who can see what on their gdrive, etc. Perhaps like an ACL-type thing for each person’s own web-based file storage system.
I agree with Ryan…perhaps an IM app based on the google talk format that implicitly finds your important contacts. Maybe the bandwidth constraint is the use of voice recognition to search gtalk voice calls, or maybe some sort of video conferencing and video conference archive search. I wouldn\’t put it past them, especially given their recent foray into \”voicemail\” inside gmail.
GDrive: Tüftelt Google an einer Internet-Festplatte?
Das World Wide Web als gewaltige Festplatte: Wie die Notizen zu einer versehentlich durchgesickerten internen Präsentation aus dem Hause Google belegen sollen, tüftelt der Suchmaschinen-Guru gerade an einem neuen Dienst, der es den Usern ermögliche…
Lighthouse. If you look at the context, it is refering to an interface which can access information. Gmail accesses information from Orkut. Lighthouse must also be a Web-interface. My guess is that it is file access. Similar to Flikr except files. So, when I upload a MS Word document, I can post it to Lighthouse for it to be viewed/reviewed by anyone I designate who has a gmail account. Consider the technology of Sharepoint and put it into Google terms.. makes a lot of sense.
Could Lighthouse be our long awaited Google OS?
It would make sense, right? Micrsoft is moving Vista to be more online based, but using MSN. If Google were to release an OS that used their services…I think they may be trying to pull the rug from under Microsoft.
This Google OS might be 100% integrated with GDrive. Like, just as easily as you could save a file to your own computer, you could use GDrive. Finding files would be easy with GDS, which already has the ability to scan on the computer and the web.
Just my three cents
Voice-activated mobile local search integrated with users’ GDrive, GMail using Google Maps and Google Earth.
I’m betting on it, as in my portfolio reflects this.
the article had mentioned something about storing pictuers, and bookmarks and videos and audio and the such, but really google alsmot does this already. Google video hosts movie files, they’ll scower almost any source for pictures, blogsearch puts the blogosphere in perspective, and the “GOOGLE IG” service provides implicited user controlled access to news bookmarks, recent mail and damn near anything else that can be retrieved via RSS. We’re practicaly there. Now we just need the bandwidth and storage. It’s not too far off.
And CPU. What about CPU!!!?
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Google may be planning a servies like USer OS
Lighthouse is confirmed to be Picasa Web Albums.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=254