Intro – Browser As a Platform
Posted on | October 7, 2008 | 3 Comments
by Rashidi Barnett
I decided to start this blog to expound on my thoughts and views on the browser becoming a platform for development (or browser as an operating environment). In a conversation with Portfolio Magazine contributing editor Kevin Maney at The Churchill Club in Palo Alto, Calif, Marc Andressen, the founder of Netscape Communications, said “Any desktop application that has not been implemented in the browser is now going to be implemented in the browser.” He also said,” “The barriers to doing everything in the browser are falling fast,” crowed Andreessen.” and I definitely agree with him.
My first personal thought on this came about 5 years ago when I was taking and HTML class on the weekends. I can’t remember exactly what I was working on, or building at the time, but it know I was using a WYSIWYG. I asked if it was possible to create a MS Word doc type application that just ran online. The instructors reply was “I think it could be possible.”
Over the past few months, I’ve realized how many more applications that I use on a daily basis, are not software applications, but run within my browser. The company I work for, made a switch about a year ago to Gmail, but I still was using Outlook(desktop) and Thunderbird(laptop). One of my team members was telling me about the plug-ins he was using along with GMail, Remember the Milk, Gmail Notifier, Better Gmail, GMail redesigned v2.0. Since I already ran a lot of browser plugins to improve my browsing, I assumed that I could have a better experience using GMail and along with the plugins. It took me a few hours of getting accustomed to the UI, but I’ve enjoyed switching over. My only issue will be is if I do not have a connection. Without a connection, I wouldn’t be able to catch up on emails.
In this blog I will discuss my thoughts and implications on what myself and others are seeing in the industry. I’ll also review apps and cover anything that is browser related (ie Firefox news, Chrome news or IE news etc.) If you have an application that you would like for me to review, send it my way!
This is defintely an interesting time. In my next post, I will elaborate on some of what I’ve discussed here.
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3 Responses to “Intro – Browser As a Platform”
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October 7th, 2008 @ 3:41 pm
I am definitely interested in seeing how I can simplify my life by integrating all of the work (personal and professional) that I do into as few programs as possible. Whatever speeds up the process and doesn’t clog up my drives is a plus for me. Good luck with the blog (I know its moreso for techies but I hope to follow and understand it as well
October 14th, 2008 @ 5:03 pm
[...] some feedback from my original post, I wanted to make sure I clarified some of [...]
October 15th, 2008 @ 10:02 am
Hi Rashidi,
Cool blog, and thanks for sharing this on facebook.
I just thought you might be interested in hearing about nanohub, which the software I work on OOF2 is available on. http://www.nanohub.org/tools/oof2/
I haven’t been following how many people are using OOF2 via nanohub or how they use it. But I suspect that they log on just to try it out a bit to decide whether to download the source. Since OOF2 is only available as source code that people have to compile, it’s nice to be able to try it out before you invest the time in installing it. But I’m not sure using it through your browser is practical for large scale simulations…