The web is an interesting place, and Google is an interesting player. They’re just announcing their new browser, Chrome, which uses the same WebKit engine as Safari (as opposed to Firefox’s Gecko engine). The challenge is to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (which is raising new anti-trust issues with the announcement that once you install it, you may not be able to remove it), but at the same time it’s also challenging Apple and Mozilla (owners of Safari and Firefox, respectively) with whom they’ve had a pretty good relationship. Of course, Google’s Android OS for mobile phones also challenges Apple’s Mac OS X for the iPhone. The point being that there are times when it’s hard to decide who’s doing what to who!
Which isn’t to say that Chrome isn’t a compelling vision, and the way they chose to reveal this vision is with a comic! They got Scott McCloud (author of the must-read Understanding Comics) to write/draw it, and he clearly had access to folks who understood the underpinning ideas and manages to communicate them. Granted, it helps if you understand the differences between threads and processes, but it really does help illuminate the underlying ideas.
Two lessons:
1. you’ve got to stay on top of the changes in the web space: the arguments for the new technical implementation may not be important to you (they are, but it’s about performance and if you’re not a mega-surfer yet you won’t really notice), but Google’s weight behind it is important from a market perspective.
2. Comics are an underused communication tool with great power. We’re looking at them for a project we’re working on, fortunately the client’s enthused. Start considering how you might employ them.
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