Quick Thoughts on Chrome
Thanks to VMware, I’ve had a chance to play around with Google’s new Chrome browser. All-in-all it’s a nice step. Carter made a good point that it won’t really be a game changer until the new Java engine, V8, and Gears are fully utilized and Chrome apps begin to do things we haven’t seen before. Very true.
However, it’s Chrome’s Omnibox, a multi-functional URL box, that piqued my interest for a couple reasons:
1) Bye, Bye YubNub: I’ve been a big fan of YubNub, a site that lets a user query numerous sites from a simple, quick-loading web page. (I profiled YubNub once before on my old blog.) However, the Omnibox supercedes YubNub by planting this functionality right in the browser.
2) A New Revenue Stream: I’ve yet to see any evidence of this but it’s entirely possible that Google could plant advertisements into the Omnibox’s dynamic site suggesetions, either by paid advertisements (more likely) or moving a suggested website’s position closer to the top of the queue. This loosely parallels what I’ve seen in the brokerage business aimed at professional investors where firms are doing all they can to move upstream in a client’s investment process by gaining access to their trading book (i.e. the list of positions they need to enter/exit). The logic is that the earlier you determine a users/traders intentions, the earlier you can capitalize on this knowledge. Chrome’s Omnibox gives Google just such an advantage should they decide to use it.