Today is an important day for Google Chrome. Google will launch Chrome Web Store (chrome.google.com/webstore), a marketplace for web apps, and Chrome OS, the first browser-centric operating system. Here’s the live Google feed and the Chrome announcement.
Speed, simplicity and security are the major themes of Google’s Chrome Browser. A lot of applications on the Chrome Web Store, such as the NY Times, work off-line as well as on-line. Games and Google Docs, too.
Netbooks and tablets using Chrome OS with the Chrome Browser, are said to offer similar functionality of Windows or Mac computers using Google’s off-line apps, and can also connect via Verizon for as low as $10/mo for 100 MB. Acer and Samsung netbooks will be available in mid 2011. It’s in beta right now, as a pilot program.
Google’s Chrome Browser runs on different operating systems and competes with Microsoft’s IE Explorer and Mozilla’s Firefox. As of December 2010, Google’s Chrome Browser was the third most popular, with 13.35% of worldwide usage share of web browsers.
The Chromium projects include Chromium and Chromium OS, the open-source projects behind the Google Chrome browser and Google Chrome OS, respectively.
Compared to the Android OS, Google’s Chrome OS can support a larger variety of hardware and the browser is more powerful, and optimized for a variety of screen sizes, resolutions and formats (like tablets, netbooks and settops).
Chrome Apps are web apps. They will compete with downloaded Android Apps that generally run on smartphones and some tablets.
Google’s push for the Chrome Web Store, along with their open source operating system and browser is tied to their desire to deliver advertising on more devices, including tablets and settops.
Meanwhile, Amazon today plans to demonstrate a new version of Kindle for the Web, one day after Google launched its Google eBooks and eBookstore strategy.
The new Kindle for the Web will “enable users to read full books in the browser and enable any Website to become a bookstore offering Kindle books.”
Amazon first launched Kindle for the Web as a beta application in September to allow customers to discover new books by sampling first chapters of the books directly through Web browsers. The new version would allow book purchases of Kindle books through various Web sites offering them. It also would also allow reading of the full book, not just samples, says ComputerWorld.
Google’s Andy Rubin one day earlier demoed a prototype Motorola Android tablet, running a dual-core Nvidia chip and Honeycomb, the next iteration of Android.
Google Books for Android requires Android 2.1 or later. Google Books from the Google eBookstore can turn the page by swiping side to side.
Google Books from the Chome Webstore let you use just about any device you own to read any book, desktop, laptop, tablet or phone. Similar functionality. More devices.
The NY Times App for Chrome Web Store, a new application built with HTML5, delivers a premium reading experience. Readers can choose from 10 customized display settings to view the latest news from The Times in a variety of layouts.
The Chrome Web Store is a fundamentally new publishing platform. It allows publishers to create and sell books from a website, and enables readers to purchase and view that content from a desktop, laptop, tablet or phone.
Amazon can play that game. Internet users can also run Kindle stores of their own. Anyone who runs a website (including blogs) can embed Amazon’s widget and begin selling Kindle books using Kindle for Web. Simply click the “Read first chapter FREE” button on selected Amazon book overview pages and a new browser window will open containing the book sample.
With smartphone sales set to form two thirds of mobile handset sales in the US in 2015, opportunities for mobile eCommerce are expanding significantly,” says Coda Research (above).
- Apple introduced its mobile ad platform called iAd in April. In January Apple purchased Quattro Wireless for $275 million. Quattro Wireless analyzes more than 10 billion mobile actions each month to target and optimize ad campaigns. It’s available on the Android and iPhone
- Google’s purchase of AdMob was under intense scrutiny by the FTC for anti-competitive issues, but Apple’s mobile advertising move got the FTC off its back by proving that Google is unlikely to dominate the mobile ad space.
- Engineers at Yahoo have begun to create a dynamic layout, so when the consumer reloads the home screen — which resembles a living room with couch, magazines and television — they will get a different experience.
U.S. mobile commerce sales will grow 100% this year to $2.4 billion from $1.2 billion in 2009, according to ABI Research. That’s following a 203% jump in 2009 from $396 million in 2008, the firm says.
In 2015, shoppers around the world are expected to spend about $119 billion on goods and services purchased via mobile phones. That number represents about 8% of the total e-commerce market. While the U.S. surpassed the $1 billion mark last year, Japan dwarfed the U.S. at $10 billion, ABI says.
Related Tablet stories on Dailywireless include; Google Rolls out Gingerbread & New Phone, Google eBooks: The Beginning, Kindle for the Web, Tablet Newspapers, Borders – GET PUBLISHED, Newspapers + TV = Hyperlocal Blog network, Tools for Data Journalists, M-Commerce: Huge, Apps & Mobile Websites: Gateway Drug, Google Tablet: Android or What?, Tablet Revolution!, Mobile Ads for Apple, Google & Yahoo, Kindle Announces 70% Royalty Option, Self Publishing on the iPad, Kindle App for iPad, Mobile News via Paid Apps, E-Textbooks: How Big?, Nozzl: Local News Streaming Live, The $99 Tablet, Tablet News, Mobile News via Paid Apps, Producing Olympic Multi-Media, HyperLocal: There’s an App for That, Neighborhood News: Big Time in Seattle, Coming Soon: Tablet Wars, Publishers Revolt over iPad Restrictions, Kindle App for iPad, Tablets and Three Bears and Apple Launching Pad.
