Google notepad [via TechCrunch] and a Web 2.0 mini-muse…

Written by Ian Jindal on May 13, 2006. Posted in T'interwebs.

So, Google’s rush of ‘widgets on the web’ continues with Google Notepad – looks like a combined scratchpad, tagged link store and shared repository. Neat.

So: we now have two things:
1) yet another way to put granular, transient tidbits in a ‘web bucket’; and
2) yet another google* thing to increase our use of and devotion to the Great G.

Thinking about this accelerating trend to light apps, provided free, in open-ish fashions and a ‘web 2.0’ feel, makes me think:

* data is increasingly going to be the issue: why would I want all of my data to be held by Google?
* now that we all have good broadband at home, work (firewalls permitting access, natch) and in many metropolitan areas, there’s going to be a further push to get fully pervasive internet connectivity
* these tools will need to get offline caches/versions/synchronisation options in the medium term
* the browser is now the window on the world and increasingly performs the general tasks we need: information sorting, display, analysis and the basic, normal activities (mail, calendar, notes, tags, images).

The biggest realisation of the day though is the reduction in content creation or origination: everything is geared towards seeing what others have produced, linking to it, telling your mates you’ve linked to it and then collecting your links and publishing those too!

This isn’t a value judgement nor a criticism: in fact, isn’t this the basis of virtually all human conversation? He said that she said and then I said and then this happened – tell your friends!

I’ve come round to thinking that it’s the turn of “content” to have its day in the sun (the wheel’s come round again: content – community – capability (software, broadband, technology – whatever)). This time, though, it needs to work more closely with the architects and planners since there are going to be so many feeds, mashups and secondary sources looking to found themselves on definitive yet accessible data that for the first time in my working life it’s not enough to create a closed, custom data source/base. Content may soon be King, but it’ll be like having an heriditary monarch in a political democracy – more of a balance and a complex set of interdependencies, niceties and planning considerations.

No palaces, though. Unless you count Bush House 😉

Update: How long until we get GoogleWiki? That’d be something I’d like to see: personal aspects for project and data management, but with a group/publish option. Surely it can’t be more than a month or two before we get an announcement…?

Update 2: TechCrunch has done a nice comparison of the simpler todo listy things currently available. Worth reviewing if you want a list of ones to play with ^W^W evaluate.