Google Gears, Google Earth, Googlings (not earthlings)?
Google recently announced a tool/library/module/bundle that allows web application to run “offline” during the Google Sydney Developer Day which I shamefully miss (even my company couldn’t get me in through the back door despite the good and strong relationship my company has with google).
As suspected the first time I heard about it, local cache technology is used to preserve data when you are using an webapp online. You can seamlessly switched it to offline mode and still browse the data that you used to have. The package comes with a lightweight SQL database called SQLite.
The convergence of this offline browsing technology will change a lot of ways applications will run. For instance, I can imagine some hacks out there who will be trying to develop an offline GoogleMap app (I know I am) to replace the traditional thick map books that we carry around when travelling. Australia is no stranger to driving with a map book by your side. Imagine you can just carry your laptop around when you travel that lets you blog, take pictures and see your map OFFLINE when you want to. The synchronization with the data in google servers will happen once you become online. How awesome would that be? Check out the offline Google Reader demo in the developer day to see what I mean.
Traditional bookmark storage are no longer the popular trend with the introduction of online social bookmarking websites. With Google Gears, you can both have the beauty of offline and online bookmarks. The pages to the links can also be cached using Gears. Word documents/spreadsheets composed using Google office can be cached offline when you are typing it, and when you go online, it syncs with the storage servers online. That way, offline or online, you will always have your documents handy!!! So, we can probably see where Google is getting at. Think online, think Google. Think offline, think Google. The value of a business proposition with leveraging Google Gears and other Google technologies is tremendous.
With the convergence of new technologies that affect the current and future generations of users (and I am talking about technologies that will change the way we socialize) , and seeing that Google is building into every little space that we can breath on, I suggest we call ourselves Googlings, not Earthlings in the strictly digital age.
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