9 April 2008
The Reason Google Apps Engine Could be a Competitor to Facebook
The hype is out there and it is real. After the launch of Google Apps Engine, everyone is up in arms as to what exactly it is, and who needs to watch out. The truth is, everyone needs to watch out when Google launches something, since because of tight integration with all of their products, a slight tweak in one product could mean cross-integration between others, making it almost impossible for you to compete as a company because all of the sudden your space is being threatened by the new products.
Truthfully, on a product-by-product basis, the Bungee Labs folks have it right when they say they are now competitors with Google. Bungee was one of the inventors of the term, “Platform as a service”. The funny thing is, Bungee is a strong supporter of Amazon Web Services. They were actually right there when Jeff Barr came by a few months ago and spoke to our Social Media Developers Garage, and actually met with him the following day to discuss ways to integrate. Bungee Labs are perhaps one of the closest competitors with Google Apps Engine, and the interesting thing is, this is actually helping their business!
I know I mentioned this earlier during the hype, but I correct myself when I say that Amazon S3 and EC2 are not competitors to Google Apps Engine. Google Apps Engine is simply too high a level to be a competitor. I will still need a place to host my blog, or run my mail server, or just, for now, program in Perl (click on the star here to change that!). True, Google provides those services as well, but it’s a fact that not everyone likes to use those. Microsoft Exchange is still the largest E-mail and Communications server out there. Businesses like to own their information, and Google Apps Engine is not for them (at least yet).
It is still important mentioning that the launch of Google Apps Engine is still one of the most hyped events amongst developer circles I have seen since F8 (Note that Paul’s almost met his prediction now!). Our local Python Users Group is holding a meeting tomorrow just to demonstrate it and go over how it can be used amongst developers. They didn’t do this for OpenSocial, and they didn’t do it for Facebook. This news is huge in developer circles because all of the sudden it puts power in developers’ hands to actually afford the hosting of their products, assuming you don’t mind that product being stuck on Google’s servers. I expect a very large grass roots effort from this launch from developers creating a new wave of apps that they could never before afford to host and continue to maintain as their apps became more popular.
Now, what if Google were to begin integrating with their other services such as Google Apps, OpenSocial (through Orkut), Gmail, Google Docs, or even Jaiku or Picasaweb? David Recordon on the O’Reilly Radar today makes a good point that with the current integration of Google Accounts, integration with sites like Orkut may not even be necessary. It is the data you’ll be able to get from the account’s friend and other data that will also be powerful. Add to that the cross-integration possibilities (which is currently possible through Javascript on OpenSocial, and REST and Javascript Client API on Facebook), Google will soon be the place to host Apps on Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Twitter, and others. What if Google were to write a common library for the Apps Engine allowing you to post to all the social networks and integrate back and forth with a common code-base? All this is possible when Google controls the API.
Of course, all this is theoretical. Facebook is a platform, just like Google. Facebook I will admit is not quite there yet, and I wouldn’t necessarily call it a competitor yet. With a launch this big however anyone, especially in the platform arena, needs to be watching. I think in some ways this could be the beginning of the big things for Orkut and OpenSocial I was talking about earlier that Google is beginning to roll out. Note I said this is just the beginning.
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[…] OpensocialNow! wrote an interesting post today on The Reason Google Apps Engine Could be a Competitor to FacebookHere’s a quick excerpt … ould mean cross-integration between others, making it almost impossible for you to compete as a company because all of the sudden your space is being threatened by t he new products….I expect a very large grass roots effort from this launch from developers creating a new wave of apps that they could never before afford to host and continue to m…This news is huge in developer circles because all of the sudden it puts power in developers’… […]
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