Where Google Chrome Failed To Succeed: The Integration Of Google Services
Sep 02 2008 
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Today, Techmeme was probably the last site you wanted to visit if you weren’t interested in the latest Google news. The popular news meme was full of links about Google’s latest entrance in to the browser wars with Chrome. You can read plenty of information about Google Chrome on ReadWriteWeb and in the ReadWriteWeb FriendFeed room.
Failure to Integrate Services
I’m not here to give you a rundown though. I’ve already tweeted that I feel the browser is a half-baked: something to look out for, but not really worth it right now. The biggest reason why is because the integration of Google’s own service offerings sucked donkey balls! For a company that is well known for its integrations with its other service, they really failed with Chrome, which should’ve had the best integration offerings ever!
For example, I typed in an address in the bar thinking Google would at least have the brains to implement their Google Maps service. Nope! Instead it took me to Google’s search page. There wasn’t even an option to lookup the address via Google maps from the address bar’s drop-down menu. WTF?
Another point of contest is something that I find to be awfully weird. I noted in the ReadWriteWeb FriendFeed room that Google offers different right-click context menu’s depending on what you’re right clicking on. This feature was implemented into Google Maps, but there could’ve been more. It’s such a standard menu: zoom in and out, etc. There’s plenty that’s missing such as emailing the map via Gmail or adding it to a Google Calendar event as a location.
Ubiquity Does It And Does It Real Good
Firefox’s Ubiquity does a better job of integrating Google’s service such as Gmail and Youtube, better than Google does, which we can all say is a damn shame. Google could’ve really scored one for the home team with such an offering. Instead, we’ll have to wait until the next update or two to see this happen if they even bother.
By then Google, I’m afraid I’ll love Ubiquity a little too much to come back to you.
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um dude – it's the public beta…
It's half-baked.
Have you tried using email on Ubiquity? It sucks! It doesn't even work. I applaud Google for releasing a product into public beta that is actually working. While I love what Ubiquity 'could' do in the future I have to admit that it's a buggy hot mess right now.
Ubiquity is definitely something I'm missing in Chrome.
I haven't had any problems with Ubiquity's email feature. In fact, I just used it.
I just tried it. The email feature is definitely buggy for me. The email subject line and the contents of the email message force me to waste time editing.
I guess this boils down to the expectations game. We expected Chrome to integrate Google products. Ubiquity is completely new and it didn't have expectations to live up to.
Chrome doesn't have service integration yet but I can appreciate Google releasing a lightweight, easy to use browser that works upon it's initial release. It does what the Google Product team said it was going to do. First, they said it would not be prone to crashes. My friend Chris opened up over 100 tabs in Chrome before it finally crashed on him. They also said it would be fast. And guess what? It's crazy fast.
You're absolutely right Corvida.
At the beginning I was very excited by Chrome but after playing with it for one hour I just though: it's just another browser, nothing more.
Google claims it's robust because of tabs being webapps in separate processes but I've been using Fluid for a while, and it already does just that.
Have you never played an adventure game? “I typed something in and the programmers didn't anticipate it, this sucks” is an unavoidable by-product of creativity.
Everyone has their own opinion. Of course some will love it & others will hate it. I like it; haven't had problems doing anything I usually do. I feel it's missing a lot but I also wasn't expected the very best from a first release beta browser. We'll see how it goes I guess.
Actually, I think this was the intention. After reading up on it, it seems that Google released this as an outline and is hoping others will help develop it further.
Also, as far as integration, It seems they have went out of their way to NOT tie this thing directly to Google in any way. It doesn't seem they intended to release a “Google Web Browser.”
Just a good web browser base to build on.
“Google OS”: To compare this to Ubiquity isn't exactly fair – you have the power of the FF3 browser backend to plug into already, which is a fairly mature technology. Google is using a cut down version of webkit and not gecko for it's engine.
The problem with chrome is that if you; as a user; are ready to adopt it this early then you are a probably a google services user and hence will require the integration that your normal browser has but with the lighter front end and security / memory management features of chrome.
The interface is only early Beta but I must ask – where is the space in that interface to add gmail manager, notebook add-ons etc..there seems to be very little real-estate to build extra functionality in at the minute. Sure you could have 10 tabs open with these running as separate “apps” but that surely would invalidate the cleanliness of the GUI. You can also have this with Prism from Mozilla!!
I personally think that there needs to be more front end introduced to realise this as a true competitor to FF or even Opera in the functionality stakes.
Based on the comment I left on Mat Cutts blog, it appears they have gone out of their way not to tie it in
i'm willing to try it out just to see if it works more efficiently than FireFox… if it's faster than Firefox and isn't IE, then i'll use it
If you're going to treat the tabs as separate applications then they need to act like separate applications simultaneously. The connection must be made if you're going with that analogy. If you're not going to seriously treat them like separate applications then I don't see the point in bothering with a fancy UI, yet half-baked browser, beta or not. Google needs to back-up what they're trying to prove.
For now, they're just playing around and I wish they wouldn't.
Ditto.
I don't even want to call them separate webapps because they're being treated more like the webpages that they are instead of web applications. They didn't add anything new except better loading times and more space. Big deal if you can't capitalize on any of it.
It's a web browser Corvida.. big surprise.. that's what Google said it was.. An open source web browser. Why would you expect it to be anything other than what they said it was. And you know what. It's not half baked, on a technical level it's fantastic in my opinion. But guess what.. it's still just a web browser. Moving to the javascript VM alone… awesome.
Corvida,
I was surprised as well that Chrome comes across as the Switzerland of Web browsers. My sense is Google is likely worried about the optics of initially coming out with something that integrates other Google services even if it does make sense. In the coming months, you can probably expect Google to introduce integrated features based on “feedback” from Chrome users. That way, the user community is seen as compelling Google to do it as opposed to Google making the first move. :)
Do you think that's better or is it a lie if you already know that this is the plan?
Great read for me, just been offered a job with Google :)
I think it's fully baked, it just doesn't yet have the frosting on it yet. I'd eat it, anyways.
There seems to be a disconnect here. Chrome is just a web browser, not some kind of extension of Google's web applications or a competitor to Mozilla's Ubiquity. That's not a flaw or oversight, that was the intention from the beginning.
Chrome has the most advanced architecture of any browser available today. It's super fast in rendering pages (thanks to WebKit) and runs Javascript-heavy pages and web apps without bogging down, thanks to the V8 Javascript engine.
It's already faster and more reliable than FireFox, Internet Explorer and Safari, which have far more mature code bases than Chrome does.
And to be clear: each tab runs as a separate process whether it's showing a web page or is running a web application and is treated as such by Chrome. The value here is that something on the page could cause that page to crash, but your other tabs will keep running. That's huge. Who wants their Google Docs session to die just because some other site caused their browser to crash?
I think part of the confusion comes from the blogosphere itself, where everyone tries to post what the double secret meaning of what it all means before they even understand what's going on. As the bloggers fell all over themselves to have the most insightful article about Chrome, they decided they couldn't take Google at their word and made up their own story why Chrome exists and what it's meant to do. And lots of it was just plain wrong.
For now, Chrome is clean-slate re-implementation of what a web browser can be. Used it as my primary browser for a day and it came through with flying colors. If this is what half-baked looks like, I can hardly wait until it's done.
I liked the clean interface of Chrome. Maybe its just me, but I feel the less complicated a browser is, the better it is. Firefox does hang an awful lot of times for me.
If it's just a plain ol' web browser, then it definitely doesn't beat Firefox, Opera, or even IE8 for that matter. No it's not an extension of Google web apps, but with such an intense focus on web apps from this browser, I expected to be an extension to some extent. Quite frankly, Chrome isn't giving me anything I don't already get with Firefox or with another web app: Ubiquity. This is just to clarify my points about that.
A couple of things: not sure why you expected any kind of extension of anything from Google. As several commenters have already posted, Google went out of their way to not tie Google's apps and services into Chrome. Listen to the latest Gillmor Gang podcast (if you haven't already) with two members of the Chrome team making this point several times: http://gillmorgang.techcrunch.com/2008/09/05/gi....
Part of the confusion comes from the initially poor reporting that happened on the blogosphere about Chrome and web apps. Even in it's beta form, it's by far the best browser for running web applications: dead simple UI for creating dedicated web app short cuts (you should really play with that feature), very fast Javascript engine and tabs that run as separate processes so one of them can't crash the entire browser. WebKit is way ahead of IE and Gecko for advanced standards support and support for HTML5.
Google Gears is built-in, so it has support for off-line web apps right now. You can run launch Google Reader and run it disconnected from the internet right now using Chrome without hacking stuff or downloading plugins. This is what's going to move web apps forward into mainstream use, which should be a good thing IMHO.
In short, Chome is already the best browser for running web apps and it's still in beta. And don't get me wrong: Ubiquity is cool as an early adopter tool and points the way for integrating web services but Chrome will have a bigger impact over the long term.
I'm going to agree with you! I thought it would at least have the Google Toolbar integrated, but I guess not. But yes, it's just launched, it's not going to be 100%, definitely worth keeping an eye on!
it's funny, the more i use Chrome (for windows), the more unstable it seems to get… crashes a lot more, can't handle sites with flash, hangs every time i close a tab… all that to say, i'm switching back to Firefox
I think the main reason why Google Chrome is failing is not having enough plugins. Firefox is way way ahead in this arena. I just don't like the way Chrome is designed.
I have heard that chrome is getting pulled out of its beta version. At this current stage, i personally still feels that chrome is not as good as firefox on it interface. Though there are some good features such as its the search function via its navigation bar, chrome still needs to be further developed.
Rif Chia
nead much Plug-in for Google Chrome
The interface is only early Beta but I must ask – where is the space in that interface to add gmail manager, notebook add-ons etc..there seems to be very little real-estate to build extra functionality in at the minute. Sure you could have 10 tabs open with these running as separate “apps” but that surely would invalidate the cleanliness of the GUI. You can also have this with Prism from Mozilla!!
CHrome is something to reckon with in the future
I normally open many windows and tabs and do my things. So I use Chrome because it is very fast loading and this is the best thing that comes out of Chrome. So if speed is what you want, use Chrome selectively.
I am still sticking to Firefox. I think many people are using it due to lack of active promotion.
I agree, they could have done better with chrome.
I agree, they could have done better with chrome.
Why is chrome's downloading so slow? It goes at almost half the speed of available bandwidth. Suppose I wish to use DAP for downloading, how do I integrate it in chrome?
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Another point of contest is something that I find to be awfully weird. I noted in the ReadWriteWeb FriendFeed room that Google offers different right-click context menu’s depending on what you’re right clicking on. cara menambah tinggi badan