John O Connell’s Blog

In July google announced that they were working on Google Chrome OS, an open source operating system for people who spend most of their time on the web.

Google are open-sourcing the project as Chromium OS. They are doing this early, a year before Google Chrome OS will be ready for users, because they are eager to engage with partners, the open source community and developers. As with the Google Chrome browser, development will be done in the open from this point on. This means the code is free, accessible to anyone and open for contributions. The Chromium OS project includes current code base, user interface experiments and some initial designs for ongoing development. This is the initial sketch and we will color it in over the course of the next year.

via Official Google Blog: Releasing the Chromium OS open source project.

Google is planning to hold a special Chrome OS event at its headquarters in Mountain View, CA this Thursday morning, we’ve just been notified. The plan is to give some technical background information as well as show off some demos, we’re told. More notably, they will be giving a “complete overview” of the new OS, which they say will launch next year.

Sundar Pichai, Google’s VP of Product Management and Matthew Papakipos, Google Engineering Director for Google Chrome OS will be speaking at the event. And there will be a Q&A session afterwards.

via Google Holding Chrome OS Event Thursday. Complete Overview And Launch Plans To Be Revealed..

The Complete Guide to Google Wave is a comprehensive user manual by Gina Trapani with Adam Pash.

Google Wave is a new web-based collaboration tool that’s notoriously difficult to understand. This guide will help. Here you’ll learn how to use Google Wave to get things done with your group. Because Wave is such a new product that’s evolving quickly, this guidebook is a work in progress that will update in concert with Wave as it grows and changes. Read more about The Complete Guide to Google Wave.

via The Complete Guide to Google Wave: How to Use Google Wave.

Google’s announcement this week that it would enter the desktop operating system business with an OS based on its Chrome browser has unleashed a firestorm of commentary, hand-wringing, and proclamations. It’s the perfect tech industry debate, because the OS itself doesn’t even exist, we can’t look at it, and it’s not even close to being a shipping product.

via Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows: Google Chrome OS: Is It the End of an Era?.

It’s been an exciting nine months since we launched the Google Chrome browser. Already, over 30 million people use it regularly. We designed Google Chrome for people who live on the web — searching for information, checking email, catching up on the news, shopping or just staying in touch with friends. However, the operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web. So today, we’re announcing a new project that’s a natural extension of Google Chrome — the Google Chrome Operating System. It’s our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be.

via Official Google Blog: Introducing the Google Chrome OS.

Regulators in Europe want better privacy protection by Facebook Inc., Twitter and similar social networks, fearing information about people could be misused.

Palo Alto’s Facebook gives marketers access to some data about users so that they can create applications aimed at them and try to sell them stuff. Europe’s “Article 29 working party,” which oversees privacy, warned that such uses might violate European privacy rules.

via European regulators eye privacy at Facebook, Twitter – San Francisco Business Times:.

Twitter, Twitter, Twitter. Seems every where you turn these days that little blue bird is staring you right in the face. But how did it all start? Where is it all going? Who’s to say really, except you I suppose, in 140 character bursts. In the meantime let’s take a look back on some milestones of microblogging.

via The Story so far of Twitter | Manolith.

I’ll admit that what I first heard about Twitter, I wasn’t really interested. I asked the usual question people ask when they hear about something new on the internet: “What’s the point?”

For a while now, I’ve wanted to write a blog post about Twitter, but there has been so much written about it already, that I didn’t want to bore my readers with the usual. So I began the pursuit of developing my thoughts from a different angle, and I ended up with the most unusual comparison: The Sims.

At first glance, the two seem to be as related as a finger painting is to a coconut, but hear me out.

via Twitter: The Sims of the Internet – Geeks!.

The Internet Growth Alliance, a business led initiative that was recently launched to support the international growth ambitions of Irish Internet businesses, has announced its core strategy based on early day discussion and feedback – expertise, funding and network.

The Alliance is made up of several Irish based associations including the Irish Internet Association, Enterprise Ireland, the Irish Software Association and the Institute of International and European Affairs. They are joined by several leading industry people who have established their businesses internationally such as Cubic Telecom’s Pat Phelan, and Colm Lyon of Realex Payments. The Alliance is aimed towards internet and not traditional software businesses and its aim is to collaborate and find practical ways to help internet businesses scale internationally.

via Internet Growth Alliance Update | Irish Developer Network ICT Portal.

Is e-commerce the answer to Twitter’s future?

The question comes over and over again: how is Twitter going to make money?

Its coffers are full and healthy: the micro-blogging service has racked several million dollars in venture capital in its two years of existence. But it hasn’t been profitable. The San Francisco company has been in no apparent hurry to find a business model, with its executives saying they have focused their energies on patching up glitches, building up their user base and now turning their attention to adding features.

via The Technology Chronicles : Is e-commerce the answer to Twitter’s future?.