2500 years ago, Europe was a filthy mess of dirt roads, battered and cracked by hooves in the summer and rutted by rude wheels in the winter. To travel from the British isles to the tip of the Apennine peninsula would have been the work of months — and messy and rough work at that. Around 450 BC, the Roman Twelve Tables specified (among many other things) the dimensions of roads, and methods borrowed from the Carthaginians standardized their construction to some extent. Mere centuries later, an unprecedented network of trade and communication had been established, some parts of which are still in use today. The Roman roads improved the entire world, and the fact that they were built, managed, and maintained by the Romans was as effective a weapon for Rome as the gladii wielded by the legions who patrolled them.
In the year MMIX Google revealed Chrome OS to the world. It was no more remarkable to onlookers than a single stone-paved road might have been to a Roman citizen in 400 BC. A decade or two from now, an historian might look back on the first few years of Google’s expansion and think: how similar was that Roman’s limited scope of observation to our own! For he saw a road, not the beginnings of an infrastructure which would span continents. And we see a suite of products, vessels for selling ads, not the start of a greater endeavor: a blueprint for connecting humanity in the 21st century.
I don’t mean to overstate Google’s importance. Just as the world was awaiting a Rome to civilize its mountains and valleys and connect their denizens, so now the world has been preparing for a Google to lay down the flagstones of a modern Appian Way.
All-purpose disclaimer: Now may be a good time to admit that I may have massaged reality somewhat to conform to my classical fantasy. Believe it or not, some allowances had to be made in directly equating Google with Imperial Rome. Furthermore, this is written from the point of view of a mere dabbler in the history of both subjects; feel free to correct me. Also, I want to note that I am not in the pay of Google. This was just an idea I had when Chrome OS was announced and thought I’d flesh out. But it’s all in good, thoughtful fun, so bear with me first and object later. Salt grain swallowed? Then let’s proceed. Oh, there’s an appendix.
Veni, vici, viae
Rome’s aims, once the project was well underway, were threefold. The roads allowed Rome’s military to move quickly and comfortably; her armies could move to her defense with rapidity, and strike or threaten any front without fear of leaving another long unfortified. The roads also allowed for trade caravans to move easily between areas of production and consumption, creating better distribution of risk and increasing wealth. Lastly, the roads were a symbol of Rome’s culture and sovereignty: wherever they were found, so too were found the rule of Rome’s law and the protection of her armies.
Do you see any resemblance to Google’s career and prospects? First, Google’s tools and access are its shining centurions. As the leader and standard in search, advertising, and a number of other fundamental areas, Google is able to wield itself like a weapon. And the more fundamental its access (i.e. webpage vs. browser vs. OS), the firmer its grip. Second, by unifying and simplifying the means of access to one another, Google increases commerce and elevates what we might call the “standard of living” of the web. Whatever the tradeoffs may be, the web is a much easier place in which to exist since Google built that particular road. Lastly, although we observe clearly (and increasingly) their pursuit of power and wealth, we should be generous enough to assume some magnanimity on Google’s part. They want to make not just the web, but the world a better place, at least as far as their definition of “better” goes: they want to make it, if you will, a Google Earth (take a groan break here). Not surprisingly, it’s a world with Google at the center of it, modern Moirae, watching and cutting the threads as it sees fit — but it’s also a world founded upon interconnectivity, elegance, and openness, the hallmarks of Google’s products.
Gugle cavat lapidem
The Roman Empire had several kinds of roads, divided roughly into three categories. They correspond nicely with Google’s positioning, and demonstrate its pervasion at every level of the tech world, just as Rome’s roads pervaded every feature of its territory. We’ll look at them in the order which best suits my point.
Viae rusticae, or secondary roads, were roads which already existed in some form before Rome arrived on the scene. These might be repaved or only lightly improved when integrated with the rest of the system, but they were what you might call the local thoroughfares. These are much like Google’s most well-known services: Google search, GMail, Apps, Reader, Android, and so on. Now, to be sure, email was certainly doing just fine before Google started up their own version, along with search, RSS, and so on. Sun, Microsoft, and Apple already laid these roads down. But Google approached them from the imperial, integrative perspective, and these roads, isolated and limited in their original forms, were made into tendrils of a larger system.
Whether Google really improved on the individual service or not doesn’t really matter, because the real improvement they brought was themselves. Google Reader doesn’t seem materially better than, say, Newsfire. GMail, for example, is convenient but lacks features standard in Outlook for years (the exceptions to this rule, Navigation for instance, are pleasant but neither revolutionary nor common). So it’s not that they leapfrogged the competition; the Romans didn’t unnecessarily tear down existing roads just to build new ones. They came, they saw, they integrated. “It may not look much different than it did yesterday,” a Roman Consul might have said at the time, “but today your road leads to Rome.”
Viae vicinales were the capillaries between the arterials of viae rusticae. These small roads were often private ones originally, and once brought into the Roman fold, lent a level of pervasiveness or completeness to the system that even the mighty road-builders could not hope to have achieved on their own. These are Google’s Labs and market experiments. Google Books, Checkout, Sketchup, Knol: not full-scale replacements for services used by everyone, but just big enough that Google can say “we do that” just as a Roman could say “we go there.” Who knows which hamlet might prosper and grow? — and who knows which might suddenly revolt? A good road is the best preparation for either eventuality. And it implies to those on the frontier that their town cannot be insulated from Rome — either from its armies or its auspices.
Of course, Rome isn’t famous for going around labeling and resurfacing existing roads. But it was necessary to do so, for the system they planned wouldn’t be complete without them. And, until recently, that’s pretty much all Google was doing. As much as I enjoy GMail, I would never suggest it changed the world. Why should it? Changing the world wasn’t on the agenda — not then, at least.
Viae publicae were the roads Rome built, and which in turn built Rome. Fashioned according to a rigorous standard (borrowed from the Carthaginians) which ensured usability, longevity, and replicability, these were the highways of empire. Their direction, construction, and maintenance were overseen by censors, senators, and, during Augustus’ reign, the emperor himself. This high level of superintendence was established because these roads weren’t just to make the farmers’ cart rides easier; they were to be the foundation for a world-spanning civilization that they saw lasting, well, forever. The fact that it failed to do so has not escaped my attention, but that’s for later. Meanwhile, it’s worth noting that the roads are still here.
Chrome OS was announced quite a while back, and at the time the response was deafening and confused. “Will it change everything? Will it change anything?” I suggested waiting until we saw it before drawing any conclusions, and now we have. And here’s my conclusion: Chrome OS is Google’s first via publica.
Pax Chromana
Once again, I want to stress that I’m not putting Chrome OS on a pedestal. This isn’t me slobbering over what is clearly a simple and very straightforward OS made for everyday tasks, and which actually looks inadequate for most of what I do. And it’s not me saying Google is a beautiful thing we should all admire and praise. I’m saying that Google, which up to now has been satisfied with laying rambling country roads and tinkering with decaying byways, is about to start laying down asphalt by the mile. And it’s going to change things.
The OS itself, it has been remarked, is no great shakes. Some people think it will be slow, some think it will be limiting, and some think it looks fine. The quality of this pre-release software, however, is not the issue (think Android 1.0 vs. 2.0). And really, its positioning in the OS market isn’t, either; it’ll affect the success of other OSes, but Chrome OS will do exactly what Google wants it to, and they’re happy to maintain it for as long as it takes. As proof, witness the sleeping giant, Android. A year ago, everyone thought it’d be a bit player. Two years from now, half the people in the country will own or have owned an Android device. Like Android, Chrome OS will start slow, get better, and pick up steam. This road may not look like much at first, but, if you’ll pardon my pun, Chrome won’t be built in a day.
Here’s the thing: Google has said that Chrome OS will run on Google-branded hardware. Now, the open source Chromium bit will certainly be compiled to run on a few other devices, but what we’re going to see is a more extreme version of the current Android device market. Viz. a tripartite, tiered offering:
- devices that use the OS because they can (digital photo frames, netbooks)
- devices created to run the OS (MyTouch 3G, Hero)
- devices for which the OS was created (Nexus One)
Hackers will be welcome to put Chrome OS on this or that device, and companies like Asus will put it on nice little netbooks (instead of Android, thank god). But the star of the show will be Google’s first-party devices, whatever they are; chances are they’ll be dirt cheap, dead sexy, and extremely capable. Openness will remain, but the choice to use their devices will be made increasingly easier. And as they lower the bar for adoption, they raise the floor for quality.
We’ve lost track of our metaphor; let us return. Rome improved the viae rusticae, they mapped the via vicinales, and then laid down the highways, making the the disparate roads into a single system. Likewise, first you went to Google. Then Google came to you. And soon it won’t matter, because Google will be everything under the sun if it has its way.
Apple best embodies this approach (“all things to all users”), but their we-know-best approach and expensive hardware (along with some questionable decisions in the 80s) have limited their piece of the pie. Microsoft is like a lumbering beast, rarely misplacing a step, but unable to turn quickly or defend itself against nimble assailants (except to squish or buy them). “Mainstream” Linux, having failed to achieve any traction in the consumer market during these tumultuous times, is unlikely to do so in the future. Google can step in, vertically integrated, with usability and trustworthiness oozing from the seams, and say, “Behold: our hardware, running our OS, providing our many services, able to do 95% of everything you want to do, and it costs less than an iPod.”
And what will happen? Well — they’ll hardly sell any! Everyone already has a computer that does everything they need. But the point of Chrome OS isn’t to sell computers just yet, it’s to create an indivisible unit — the monad of the computing world. It’s hard to overstate how important such a unit will be, and it’s hard to say anything but “be patient” when its marketability is questioned. I said they’d hardly sell any — but at first what were the roads of Rome built for? After a road’s completion, it doubtless laid nearly unused for some time before the import of such a feature was understood by the region. Google’s roads started out empty, but parallel to other roads. Traffic gradually shifted over from the others. And this is the biggest road Google ever made, because it connects all the others. It’s just a matter of time before the chariots start rumbling down it by the thousand.
An interesting flaw in the metaphor here is that Rome never really had to compete with anybody in their road-building, since they were more or less the first. Google’s in a different situation here, and the result is that Google will have a harder time of it, but the user wins out. After all, if the monad provides a certain level of functionality for what we can guess will be a seriously competitive price, then the rest of the computing world will have to match that. As was mentioned, Google has been content to sit by the sidelines and offer itself up, but now they’re actively encroaching on enemy territory; what they did to GPS makers, they’re going to do to everyone else.
This Google monad sets a standard; it is Google’s Twelve Tables. The idea of what constitutes a computer is changing, and Google is striking at the critical moment. It gets to define what the New computer is, because it’s put in place so many of the systems the New computer will use. Google’s foresight becomes clear now; it was always looking toward this future, when it would take this step. Whether it would be successful in building the platform was not clear from the start, but now it’s beyond question. Google’s been loading the boats, and now it’s ready to cross that Rubicon.
Okay, I own that the classical references are getting out of hand. But you have to admit the Latin puns are pretty good so far.
Did I overstate it earlier when I called Chrome OS a blueprint for connecting humanity in the 21st century? Almost certainly. But it represents the first major divergence from traditional connectivity in this century. Since the internet was established, devices and OSes have been designed to accommodate it, but as the internet has grown to become the primary connective medium for the entire world, accommodation is no longer satisfactory. Our modes and media are limited by fundamental design choices in the devices into which they’ve been so rudely squeezed. It’s a square peg/round hole situation.
Chrome OS, by contrast, is designed around the web so completely that it should be considered not child of Vista, OS X, and others, but rather the first ancestor of OSes to come. Chrome OS is the sapiens to their neanderthalensis. It would be as wrong to say that modern humans descended from Neanderthals as from geckos, and in a few decades it will be as wrong to say that whatever the hell we’re using then descended from Windows. It’s a new branch of the phylotechnic tree.
To put it more succinctly: it’s not that the apple fell far from the tree. The apple is a pear.
Mobile OS in mobili
Now let me temper my hyperbole a bit. I’m comparing OSes to primitive humans, for god’s sake.
As you may be aware, the Roman empire did not last forever. It was brought down by hubris, nepotism, decadence, and lead. Google’s downfall will be a little bit different, though considerably more rapid; things move a bit faster these days.
Yes, I think Chrome OS will be the via publica that joins Google’s many pieces into a truly powerful whole. And the next age basically be a playground for Google, and everything will be strange and new as they were when the predecessors of our current OSes were created. Microsoft wasn’t always a lumbering beast; back around 3.1 and 95, Windows was unfamiliar and revolutionary at least to the eyes of many consumers. Now the traditional OS is bloated and stagnant — Google has no need to dramatically put it out of its misery. Progress will see to that, as it saw to DOS (ah, I miss DOS), and Chrome OS will simply be the carefully groomed successor.
I suppose I’m positing the death of Microsoft, which is going to be a drawn out process if it happens at all. But I think we can all agree that though Microsoft and Windows will remain, they will be progressively more marginalized. Once Google lays its road down, it has nothing to lose and everything (everything of Microsoft’s, that is) to gain. Don’t worry, Microsoft, you’ve got a good decade yet.
And Google will tread that path too, maybe 15 years from now. The way things are accelerating, miniaturizing, and converging, the New computer will become obsolete faster than the old one. Has not that always been the case? Google will wear the laurel for a brief, bright period — a transitional period, because as fast as things are changing now, we have nothing left but a succession of transitions. No company can survive long in that, even one which brought about the change it is enduring.
Like the Republic, Google Earth is a fantasy. If we’re going to live in Google’s world, it won’t be for long. Just as the Vandals harried and eventually sacked Rome, so will Google fall to what passes for barbarians in 2020 or so. I’m already so far out on a limb here that I don’t dare speculate what those might be, but doubtless they will exist if history repeats itself — which it does, I am told.
Mort UI vivos docent
After its death, Chrome OS will live on to guide the next generation, just as the viae publicae persist to this day. In ten years, you’re as likely to be riding a chariot as you are to be running Chrome OS, but that doesn’t mean it won’t have left its mark. The past informs the present, and the present conceives the future. Windows 7 and OS X still bear the identifying features of extinct OSes — some code here, a UI element there — and it’s for the best, since people fear the truly new and unfamiliar. Google’s work is here to stay, as is Microsoft’s, Apple’s, Sun’s, and everyone else along the way. Don’t be sad, it’s a circle of life thing.
To conclude (at last), let me say that this little exercise in free association and self-indulgence, while original (or the next best thing: long), doesn’t really say anything new. The tech world, like the rest of the world, moves in cycles. There are small cycles like the yearly “innovation” that keeps us buying products, and there are large cycles, like the move from computers as tools to computers as universal companions. We’re always in the middle of an unknowable number of these cycles, but I thought this one was particularly worthwhile to note. It’s a big change we’re about to witness, and we should be happy to be a part of it. Google is laying the stones for a fundamentally different period of computing and connectivity, though Chrome OS is admittedly a humble beginning. We must try to transcend our role in this — that is to say, the role of a blinkered and skeptical Roman citizen who sees only slaves putting rocks in a row, and instead see it for what it is: the foundation for a mighty empire.
Appendix (just in case)
Via/viae: road/roads
Moirae: in classical mythology, arbiters of fate who monitored and cut mortals’ threads of destiny
Veni, vidi, vici: I came, I saw, I conquered
Monad: Greek philosophical concept of singleness and indivisibility, precursor to the atom
Gutta cavat lapidem [non vi sed saepe cadendo]: a water drop hollows a stone [not by force, but by falling often]
Pax Romana: period of enforced peace during Rome’s peak strength
Mobilis in mobili: moving in a moving thing, or changing in a changing medium. Motto of Nemo’s Nautilus.
Mortui vivos docent: the dead instruct the living
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That’s 15 minutes ( I are slow) of my life I’ll never get back.
Maybe you shoud try “crossreading”. I only wasted 10 seconds… + 20seconds for writing this comment. ;)
Actually, not a bad post. But most of you aren’t able to snack more than 4 consecutive paragraphs without ADDing. So it’s actually a compliment for the writer.
+1
++1
+++1
Thanks, I tried but went “cross-eyed”.
Chrome is just a spyware, there is nothing useful in that program is garbage. And google is getting worse that MS, Gooogle is becoming the enemy of the user
10 minute of reading this article and it was all worth-it eventhough there are some past-present tense grammar error (NVM that lol)
Indeed Google is like a kingdom, the glory that was google, ayt? The question is, we all know well in history that barbarians conquered Greece when they became lineant, lazy and its soldiers were way too sloppy to fight. Hopefully it will not be the case for BIG G. See the 1st plans of google on 1st week of january: http://bit.ly/google-caffein-after-new-year
let’s ‘caffeine’ the world, shall we?
Hi Victoria,
you said
“…all know well in history that barbarians conquered Greece when they became lineant…” more proper would it be
barbarians conquered Italy… :-)
CIAO!
Hey, they were barbarians but they also had a name, Macedonians. ;)
Great post, I love how the analogy between the Roman Empire and Google Corporation was made.
Victoria, mind pointing out those tense errors? I try to be careful about my grammar but it was especially difficult with this past-present-future thing.
Google’s leading our inevitable march towards 1984.
FACT: Did you know every CHARACTER you type in Chrome’s superbar is sent back to Google and stored? Now, queries you don’t even submit are logged.
The big “G” is watching.
Can you IMAGINE what MSFT has on anybody and everybody who has ever used ANY of their products starting since 1995???
Actually Microsoft doesn’t have much, which is probably why one of Mozilla’s Directors has embraced Bing over Google.
If you haven’t heard about this, just Bing it.
Your FACT is in fact total FICTION, you paranoid loon.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/update-to-google-suggest.html
What do you mean “Bing” it?
Do you mean that I should use Bing to Google it?
Ha! Another devious trick of mine worked! Burn baby, Burn!
“..To conclude (at last), let me say that this little exercise in free association and self-indulgence, while original (or the next best thing: long), doesn’t really say anything new…”
In the future you might consider placing a line like this at the beginning.
“I don’t mean to overstate Google’s importance.”
Oh, but you do and you did. This article sucks.
I LIKE you Amy! I mean I REALLY LIKE you!
+1
+1 fro Amy
-1 for this article…
I kept waiting for this to come to some truly profound conclusion. But it really just feels like the chrome story was just crammed into the Roman construct.
If someone else got something deeper let me know.
Also, I imagine the anti-Google clan and likely others will soon be here to complain about you comparing Google to the Holy Roman Empire, which it seems like you admit is a stretch.
The Roman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire have nothing to do with one another. As my 8th grade history teacher used to say, “the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.”
nothing to do except the title ‘ceasar’ and some fake pride
after crash of rome there were at least two ‘roman empires’, one in the east and one in the west. and they existed until austria and russia stopped being empires, and ceasars (kaisers and tzars) disappeared.
Hi fedd,
etymology of the word kaisers an tzaras is almost right.
Same root CAESAR and do not ‘ceasar’.
Beware,
“after crash of rome there were at least two ‘roman empires’, one in the east and one in the west.” is 100% correct!!
But:
1. the east empire didn’t get stopped by the Austrian Empire (that empire was born many centuries after) it got stopped from the Odoacre a German.
2. the west empire didn’t get stopped by the Russian Empire that empire was born many centuries after as well); it got stopped from the Turks Ottoman
more details at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Empire
yes Walter, but i mean that Russian tzars took the title ‘caesar’ or ‘tzar’ after marrying some Byzantine princess, therefore making Russia a descendant of East Roman Empire, so called the theory of Moscow – the Third Rome. the same theories was in the west.
certainly that were not that Roman Empires, which ended with Odoacre, just a proud traditions. (sorry for offtopic and my English – i am Russian :)
TLDR;
TL;DR not TLDR;
RTFM
+1
“2500 years ago, Europe was a filthy mess of dirt roads, battered and cracked by hooves in the summer and rutted by rude wheels in the winter. To travel from the British isles to the tip of the Apennine peninsula would have been the work of months — and messy and rough work at that. Around 450 BC, the Roman Twelve Tables specified (among many other things) the dimensions of roads, and methods borrowed from the Carthaginians standardized their construction to some extent.”
WTF do you mean “was”?
Chem hasn’t been on a European highways recently apparently. Motorways, Autoroutes and Autobahn are in far better shape then our Californian roads which are littered with debris for god sakes.
Can’t speak for Southern europe or the East Coast of the USA
Devin,
I enjoyed that. Well thought out and written. Inspiring, especially the reminder of how quickly cycles move.
I’m subscribing to get notice of the next piece that you publish.
Keep up the good work,
Jonathan Wold
I like the GOOG “nipple” logo!
http://ec.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/chromecartoon.jpg
Imitation is the best form of flattery.
oh wow I did not notice that before!!!
I Just shared this article with everyone in all of my networks and may have clogged the internet…is everyone else out there running slower than usual???
This is a nice article. I like this comparison between Google and Roman empire.
You’ve got to be kidding me. It was meant to be a form of torture. Now I’ve got some fire-ing to do. Burn!!!
I’m a student of history, so to consider Google analogous to Rome is a very long bow. One is built on an algorithm (and very bad product management outside of search), and the other on ideas, values, law and social order (with varying success). It’s like comparing the Iliad with a bubblegum wrapper. Nevertheless, I do see one key parallel – the Romans taught the barbarians how to be better soldiers, farmers and traders – with tragic consequences for Rome. Likewise, Google’s legacy will be about better search and index processes, along with a valued contribution to ‘rewarding’ quality content. But in the end, someone or something will out-optimise the optimiser.
andy…
google is a one shot pony to date… if someone kills their search, they’re dead…
msoft/ibm/hp/appl/etc… on the other hand, have shown time and again that they build products that people pay for… (whether you like them or not!)
when goog gets to this level.. then they can be considered game changing..
the issue with a lot of the bloggers, is that they have no real sense of what these other guys have really done.. because they’re not the latest eye candy!
we’ll see…
The OLD google was built on an algorithm. They’ve just been building the pieces (of which search is obviously a part), and now they’re going to put them together. The broader comparisons to Rome were a stretch, for sure, but I think the roads (which were originally going to be the whole comparison) are a solid connection.
Dude, the roads are not a solid connection. You’re just being defensive because you wrote the damn tome.
The Roman roads were arterial and the fabric of communication and commerce. The tech equivalent of that is the Internet itself. And if you want to be more concrete, the network of telecoms networks that form the backbone of the Internet.
Google neither owns the Internet nor the networks that it runs on. It’s just a user of those ‘roads’. In your analogy, Google is a very important Roman town (maybe Pompeii), but certainly not the roads.
Rome first conquered the world then built Roman roads. Google has built nothing of the Internet’s infratsructure. Google didn’t invent IP, HTML or telecommunications.
When Google builds a new Internet that we all need to use, you’ll have a point. Until then, please learn to edit your posts for length.
+1. Poor analogy by Coldewey.
The internet can live without Google very easily.
However, Europe became super-reliant on the Roman infrastructure, and the infrastructure still has its influence in 2009 (e.g. much of UK’s road structure is mapped over Roman roads).
Google’s search engine isn’t an infrastructure.
If Google unplugs its search engine tomorrow, everybody goes to Bing, Yahoo and other search engines. There’d be a kerfuffle in the SEO industry but that’s about it. At the end of the day, people will switch search engines and that’s it.
If Gmail stops, people switch to other free-mail providers. A hassle, nothing more.
If the Chrome browser became unavailable, its users would use Firefox or whatever.
Maybe you’re getting my point?
Google’s services are mirrored by many other companies. It hasn’t built an infrastructure that anyone totally relies upon that can’t be supplied by another company.
great comment etrigan. that’s what i kept thinking of when i was reading this. i tried to force myself to think of this strictly in the terms of the rome google analogy, but i really actually kept asking myself is devin talking about the internet? i think his sub para points are valid but i don’t think this conforms to that rome comparison so easily. there’s a lot more that has to happen google wise and maybe around google for this to work. google isn’t the internet. yes people are using and buying into google more and more but all we need is some valid contender against google to change all this momentum. it will happen. i love google but i love change and competition even more.
i would strongly advice you guys do a search (on Bing of course) for:
“google data center locations” and you will find “Pingdom” does a very nice map.
the other thing you will notice is that none of the centers has a logo on the outside.
wow, Davin! he really got you!!
Etrigan: Standing by one’s argument is not being defensive.
If you read my post carefully, you’d find that I was defining roads as services for the purposes of the comparison. Redefining my terms won’t win any arguments. The collection of wires and switches you suggest are the true roads are simply the basis for signals traveling to and fro. They enable Google’s services as much as the Microsoft’s, and so can be safely discarded from the comparison. It’s like subtracting from both sides of the equation. The real internet is a collection of services, not routers and protocols, which the real internet has always striven to transcend.
I came to the conclusion that Google is going to be the first to truly leverage the internet by designing around it exclusively and fundamentally – as opposed to other services and OSes, which have only been modified to accommodate the internet.
So in a way, you’re right: the sub-level of the internet is more important than Google – but I never said it wasn’t. I said Google is changing the way we use that medium by providing a totally new platform.
Andrew: I did not say that the world is reliant on Google now, though it certain is to some degree, but I suggested that in a few years we will rely on Google’s collected services far more than in these past years, when Google has just been putting the pieces in order.
Also, “Google’s services are mirrored by many other companies” – no, it’s the other way around, as I wrote in the post. Google has been building its own mirror services (“parallel roads” if you remember) in preparation for the rollout of their own complete platform.
Saying that Google is just about search and others could fill that void misses a key point.
Google’s main product isn’t search. It isn’t Chrome OS. It isn’t any of the scores of products they now offer.
Google’s main product is pervasive, easy-to-place contextual advertising — the products most people see and use (from search to Gmail and beyond) all create a landscape for that.
Viewed through that lens, anything that makes the web easier to use is a de-facto win for Google. Easier to use = more internet use = bigger landscape.
As core strategy, it’s a winner — I wouldn’t bet against Google on any initiative where they thought they had a chance to generate billions of additional page views.
unfortunety you wrong Greg.
you are wrong about the landscape. explain me please how google benefits in any area whether market share, revenue, popularity, etc by…. people using bing or yahoo??
see what happens when you let kids have access to a blog…
this crap wouldn’t pass most junior level college newspaper editors!!!!
Did you forget to close your emphasis tag?
Yeah, that was my fault. or maybe you guys were just all really emphatic.
This article is the perfect definition of hype. Google is a great search engine, no doubt, but to compare that to Roman empire was a bit too prepostrous. Even in search, other engines like Bing have come pretty close and for a lot of queries search engine looks like a commodity. The distance between G search and other engines is a lot less than between iPod and its competiors or Windows and its competitors.
Regarding advertising, I have lost track of the number of blogs that were uglified by adding adSense. And honestly when was the last time you clicked on those ads? I don’t know of any friends who click on adSense ads, and I guess as people learn internet skills they will learn to ignore those ugly sentences.
Chrome browser came with great expectations, and 15 months since I don’t know any common guy using it. Orkut is a failure except for Brazil and India, and even there Facebook is gaining share. Blogger couldn’t beat wordpress even with big G owning it. Google chat is ok, but skype is better. Last checked, Youtube has not started making real profits after 3 years in G’s hands. Gmail is good, but its not making money anyway and even with its metadata I doubt it is making search any better.
In short, Google is running a real risk of losing its primary competitive advantage in search while its other ventures have not been failure monetarily. Like Microsoft and Apple and oher tech majors it has a nice brand and a loyal band of fans. That’s pretty much it. Google is no more Empire or wonder than Microsoft or Apple or Oracle or IBM.
Rephrasing Voltaire, Google is neither holy, nor Roman nor an Empire.
Please, have you tried to read more than the titleof the article ?!
First of all, Google might not be the best on every domain but that s not the point ! Google is slowly building an ecosystem which is very efficient for the end user and very profitable for google !
But your points are irelevant anyway
- Gsearch : yes Bing is coming close regarding functionalities but is far behind regarding market shares…
- Adsense : maybe you never click, maybe your friends neither, but have you an idea of how much money Adsense generates ?
- Chrome : is NOT meant to be used right now ! But wait for the Google Netbook…
- Orkut : yes they ve failed. But they have Google Friends Connect and they might still have cards to play in the socialplayground : who has no G-account ?
- Gchat and Gmail : dude, it s called Google Apps and if you think it doesn’t make money, you just forget the Premiers accounts and it s becoming huge…
And you forgot so much other services I can not even try to list them (Picasa, Google Voice, Google Music, Google Books…).
They will all be centralized in Chrome and that’s a revolution, and it looks like the creation of an empire that will be at least as big as Microsoft’s one (RIP).
@Basic Googler
There is no denying that Google search has the market share and AdSense makes money (that’s pretty much most of Google’s revenue). But, I just question the “ecosystem” and the value they add. Value add is the impact on the world if tomorrow the product ceases to exist. As you accept that other search engines are pretty close, in quality and interface world might not miss too much.
Re: Google apps. they still don’t make a lot of money as this artile suggests.
http://www.businessinsider.com/2009/1/the-google-apps-revenue-myth-goog
“Google executives hope the company might hit $40 million of revenue in 2009 (800,000 subs at $50 a pop)”
$40m revenue is most likely is less than development, marketing & infrastructure costs, and even then it is a round-off error for a Tech major.
A sizable chunk of US uses Google, but what s the impact of Google on US economy? In the last 10 years since the arrival of Google, US economy has grown significantly only in the period from 2002-06, and if you subtract the effect of Greenspan cuts, RE bubble and Wallstreet gimmicks, there is almost no productivity growth in a decade. If Google is such a messiah that has impacted people’s productivity, where is its signature on economic growth? What is the impact of this very “efficient” ecosystem?
The ecosystem is about to debut, Balaji. Your criticisms are perfectly valid, but in two years I think they will be far less so.
@Arrington, you going to catch “cold” this year? OR are you going to make the event? After last year, I’d really like that 60 mins of my life back. Bottle of wine last year, how about a bottle of 18 yr this year?
I just remembered…this all goes down the crapper when 2012 arrives.
Who will be the modern Mirthadates to harass Google to the point of madness?
Mithridates was pwned by Gaius Marius.
What’s next for you then.
Apple and The Renaissance Period.
:) lol
No, its Microsoft and the Great Depression
How about tech blogging and Dickensian England?
“… well obviously apart from Search, Chrome, GMail and Docs – I ask you – what have the Googlers ever done for us ?”
“umm … Wave ?”
Good prose Devin. I think your analogy is somewhat apt. Let’s also remember that the fall of Rome presaged a Dark Age lasting hundreds of years. Had Rome not been so powerful perhaps some of those roads and aqueducts would have been built by others. Ultimately, Rome’s former vassals may have been stronger.
So while I agree that Google’s activity is “a good thing” in principle, I don’t accept Google’s vision of itself. In practice Google tends to leach out value present in an economy. Their closed ad and search platform is the Citadel around which the earth is scorched.
The Dark Age is when we all realize we gave away our privacy and what was left of our mind (after decades of govt and media propaganda took most of it). No one considers where we are being led which is a place where computers can do so much and are so small that they’ll all just naturally think “why not put it permanently in our head?”
If looking for a Rome/computer connection, just look here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_Society#History) because this is what ‘The Delayer’ did. We are ‘updated’ little by little to accept change (the bad kind) and it’s so slow that we don’t realize it’s happening to us. It’s the perfect indoctrination and one for which we can’t even rely on the advice of our elders (as they too were indoctrinated).
Just look at the words we use, ‘net’ and ‘web’…we’re all caught in it now. Soon it will be like the films Existenz (on Youtube in parts) or Sleep Dealer or Gamer…no doubt about it.
Devin, Is there anyway I could get you to write a quick article on the striking similarities between Rush Limbaugh and Adolph Hitler??
wow… just wow
Who is this guy ? I am paying ad-impressions for this page.
+10,000,000 :))) ROTFL
How long have you been searching for a vehicle to show off your knowledge of Roman history?
more my knowledge of wikipedia…
lol. don’t be bummed devin. it’s a good read. interesting roads of thoughts. i think it kind of fits with that article erik or mmg wrote about google today or yesterday, something about the employee email of openess.
devin tell me, why did you not use your knowledge of the google data center infrastructure?
Looks like Tech Crunch is trying to be like Ars Technica and failing miserably. That’s a waste of everybody’s time… you guys keep reporting on the latest Silicon Valley asshattery and leave the deep thoughts to sites like Ars.
uuummm…. really??
This article sucks in the worst way. What kind of kool aid is the author drinking. In fact this grandiose vision of bull crap is dangerous.
i’m so happy to see that i’m not the only youngster in this forum. really? bullcrap? was it that bad?
Its Great! Anything that adds misery is a good friend of mine!
That Rome empire metaphor came just on time. I don’t know if you guys are aware to what Google just did to the affiliate market. A few weeks ago they have closed brutally thousands of Google Adwords accounts with no warning saying in nicer words we do not want you here anymore. Some say that they may want the margins for themselves by forcing the vendors to advertise directly and others say they push their own affiliate network. On the other hand they claim that they are only fighting back spammers… and on the way they are shutting down the affiliate market main source of traffic no matter what you sell.
Bottom line, it is not just the GPS market that suffers, it is also the little guys – work from home PPC specialists that lost their main source of income. Big brother is not just watching you, he is already putting his hand on you!
For more information, please refer to the webmasterworld forums, Google adword forum and feel the pain.
and we – as users looking for quality information – THANK Google for closing these spammers down… This kind of actions differentiate Google from the rest of the search market…
So Google will collapse like the Romans.
Apparently so the story goes.
Devin, you sure the Romans didn’t put up ads on the pillars on the sides of the roads? ;) And if they did, dude, you just wrote a great article.
But nevertheless.. good article.
What with all the references to the “world”, “earth”, and “humanity”, there’s no mention of the 5 billion people (75% of world population) who are not yet using the Internet and Google’s strategies (both announced and potential) to become a part of their lives. Instead, you focus solely on the developed world with its already-built roads, noting that “everyone already has a computer.” No, they don’t.
And in Roman times everyone was rich, correct? No, wrong!
That’s a fair point. The article was overstuffed enough without my going into third world economics, but if I had to speculate, I’d say that Google’s Chrome OS-running monad computer will not be the first wave in someplace like Africa, where obviously cloud services are impractical. These will be holdout areas but penetration IS happening and I guarantee that in 10 years it’ll be hard to find a point on earth where high speed internet access is not available in some form.
i don’t know why you’re so positive but i guarantee you in 10 years that there will still be places in this world that are chronically underdeveloped. granted my cousin has internet up in the desert somewhere where he’s doing an internship, and it suprised the heck out of me, but i know there are many many villages that don’t even have paved roads, lights, clean water…and least of all access to the internet. yeah things are changing quite fast in africa, but not as fast as the environment is changing. these technical changes are happening very very slow and it’s always people with the money who benefit. probably more people in india or south east asia will be wired way before africa does.
If it were up to me, I’d put clean water, food, and health services ahead of internet, but it’s not up to me, and the fact is you can’t beam clean water for miles from a radio tower. I guarantee that there will be plenty of people who would get 2 bars of 3G before they can trust their water.
That’s what they all say. Given a world war don’t become real.
Brilliant article Devin, I am not used to this level at Techcrunch. You are an excellent craftsman of journalism. Your colleagues should take you as an example. As a starting point, it will be good if they start using correct English.
lol. yeah. it’s kinda sad some of the stuff that ends up on this website, but you know what it’s free and they are just trying to do their jobs. i’m glad devin is writing longer pieces for the site, cause i learn a lot (new words) even if i don’t agree with him always.
I really appreciate that from both of you (and the rest too, seriously)
Great article – you are among the few who have great insight and foresight to the all powerful Google. Google has amassed a collection of pieces that when put together is unstoppable. Maps, E-mail, Local, News, Search, OS, Mobile, Docs, etc. People don’t stop to think how dependent we are on Google. Big fan of Android – by Google.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8CqMVa6ZeU
Without the Roman analogies this article would have been a lot better.
The weird thing is that your thesis is correct but ChromeOS is not the core piece. Google already owns the “next-gen OS” with Android, yet insists on looking backwards with a ChromeOS for computers that no one will care about in 10 years.
All they need to do is intergrate Chrome (the browser) + HTML5 + Android, and its game over.
Brilliant Article…. It will only be truly appreciated in the future.
Loved it! Great post.
So if Steve Jobs is the infallable Jesus to the hardcore Mac fans and Google is Rome… I don’t like where this is heading.
I love the Roman analogies, but I think it unfortunately ended up burying your point, which I think was a pretty good one. That is, Chrome OS is the first OS designed around the Internet rather than just accommodating the Internet. I didn’t think of it that way before and helps me understand why so many are excited about it.
I honestly think what will eventually happen will be similar to what Asimov et. al. hypothesized decades ago. Back in the 1950s through 1970s, everyone thought computers would just be too large to ever be brought into the home. So Asimov concluded that everyone would instead have devices that simply uplinked to a massive central computer. The devices themselves would have barely any processing power, but instead would have essentially limitless bandwidth with data flowing at the speed of light.
Of course, we now have personal computers and the need for such devices seems limited. However, we are now moving in such a direction with cloud services. Right now, most only talk about the cloud as a way to store data, but Chrome OS could be the next step of using the cloud as a computing processing center. Pretty soon, we could be using the devices Asimov dreamed about.
techcrunch= Google fan boys
Loved the article, thanks for writing it!
Also, you haz the same name as me!
Google: search & maps. Everything else they do is ugly
Upon a second reading, I think a more historically accurate version would be to portray Microsoft and Unix as the Rome archetype(s), having done more to build the the groundwork for where we’re at right now, and where we are moving, than anyone else.
Google are building some new roads, but their fortune is based on advertising, one could say a foundation of sand.
You should have wrote the article, not that other dumbass.
Thptt. He’s not a dumbass.
Comparing google, or any company, to Roman history takes some literary ambition and that must be acknowledged and commended.
I liked the article, just disagreed with it.
I hear you. but I think Microsoft and Unix fell under the categories of smaller roads; certainly they came earlier but they’re destined to be “civilized” by the Google Empire. Google hasn’t done nearly the work they’ve done yet, but that’s because Google’s work is just beginning.
Thankyou for this well thoughtout a interesting article . Although many (maybe including me) will disagree with what you have written, you are clearly a very interesting and intelligent person. Instead of making wild predictions you have thought out a future path for the world to take by looking at history.
If i can ask, what makes Chrome OS a Viae publicae instead of a Viae vicinales? At least at this early stage? Am i right in assuming you have chosen Chrome Os as a Viae publicae because it is the fastest quickest way to Rome? (Google’s Internet?).
It is a Via publica because it is going to join the bits and pieces (the other viae mentioned) into a single system. The publicae were the best roads, to be sure, but it was more that they were the pieces that rome put down to connect the empire.
Devin, you massively overestimate the importance of Chrome OS. Granted 100@ a web OS based on a browser will be the way we all compute in 10 years. But an OS like Chrome still has one simple function: to launch the browser.
In that sense, the browser is more important than the OS, because it’s the gateway to the web. And browsers are really commodities: they all do the same thing, so no browser has the kind of gateway influence Windows had on the PC- or the Romans had with their roads.
20 companies (including MS) could write web OSs tomorrow.
It’s too late for them to do so. Google is the only one with the means to pull it off: years of polishing strictly web-based replacements for nearly every application and service out there. If anyone tried to put out a web OS, they’d be indebted to Google and have to integrate Google services.
Genius.
maybe you can replace steve gillmor.
Please ignore the simpletons making negative comments, Devin. That was the smartest and most insightfully imaginative example of tech blogging I’ve ever seen.
And, yes, the Latin puns were pretty damn good.
Oh, very bad. Very, very bad post. Where does one begin?
First, the extremely loose and tenuous analogy between the Roman republic and Google. The laboured and forced similes that just seemed…forced.
Second, the clearly self-important attempt to show off knowledge of ancient Roman history in mind-numbing detail. ‘I know something you don’t know’ is the refuge of second-tier insecure minds who think detailed knowledge of some obscure academic area counts as intelligence.
Third, the tedious, meandering length of the post. I love ancient Rome, and have read the whole of Colleen Mc Cullough’s Masters of Rome Series. I never miss a Discovery Channel programme on the Romans. But this was just exceedingly boring. Different types of Roman roads?
Fourth, the total irrelevance of Rebublican Rome’s history to a technology blog.
Dude, you tried to make a weak point in a tedious way.
Fail, fail, fail. Please don’t come back. I beg of you.
Terrible analysis of a great article. There was nothing at all weak about the point he, very engagingly, made.
Sorry, I’m staying.
chrome os is a cloud based operating system
If you internet connection fails like mobile
there is a problem. I use t mobile have g1
I often lose conectivity but os is still there.
Chrome os could be a big step backwards.
Yep but this problem won’t be one in a few years. Do you have batteries in your desktop PC because there could be a power cut ?
Chrome OS is aiming something much bigger than just compete today mobile OS, it’s aiming to be the universal OS for (always) connected (future) devices…
Bigger than you can imagine.
About the article, pretty cool to read someone trying to draw a big pic of the big G. Thanks !
“Chrome OS is aiming something much bigger than just compete today mobile OS”
It’s just a browser.
“Do you have batteries in your desktop PC because there could be a power cut ?”
Good analogy. Of course we might have if we couldn’t rely on the power grid. And since we can’t rely on 3G networks, right now we have computers that are half online, half offline. That will change.
Amazing article. The metaphor was simply outstanding. I couldn’t have said it better if I tried for months.
Further proof that Google is the superior company in the world, and no one else.
One article comparing Google to Rome is proof they’re a superior company?
Less KoolAid dude, they’re a company with stockholders, board of directors and everything; not some world healing charity. They want more info to present better ads to make more money and profit and are doing this to facilitate this process.
They do a lot of good during this process (charity donations, opening access to info, etc.), but the process’ main goal is to enrich themselves and their shareholders.
Not buying into the whole “Google = Rome” thing. If Google truly worked the way Rome did, then it would’ve invented the medium itself (the Internet for Google, roads for Rome).
If anything Google’s more like the Hunnic Army in that it’s attempting to lay waste to those that really did invent the medium by using new technologies (different military tactics), while all the while taking dramatic steps towards creating an empire of its own.
I guess he just wanted to show off his Photoshop skills.
Google is more like Christianity spreading by riding on the power of the Roman Empire. It rides on the Internet to grow and become powerful.
huh. maybe that’s the accurate comparison. or even pompeii or even what patrick above suggested.