While I'm a big fan of Google, gobbling up just about every feature it releases while still in beta, they seem to be running the same path befitting developers of platforms. That is, while Microsoft established the first standard for what we've come to expect in a computing experience with Windows, Google is well poised for the same position for defining for us the same experience in "the cloud." And while in the pioneering days - 1998 - Microsoft overran all its competition, dominating the market with its products, and almost decimating into oblivion what we know now as the mighty Mac Book, Google seems to be the likely choice for holding the title and presiding with kingly stature over the Web 2.0 proving grounds.

And what had made Microsoft so formidable was that the PC world was, by-and-large, an open platform. Both hardware and software manufacturers were given the opportunity to designing and engineer for it. While Microsoft and Windows' contribution was the OS that tied all these diverse threads of market competition together, its product increasing in value when a plethora of software and hardware choices dominated the puny shelf spaces of Apple or Linux, it was heralded for a time as our savior. It launched a stock market boom, and gave rise to the term Tech Stocks. It formed the cornerstone of the IPO boom. It made us believe that anything was possible, as if our generation had traveled to the Moon as well. It was a Golden Era, but the enthusiasm, as with all things, didn't last.

Bill Gates at this time became the image of national Evil long before Bush came onto the scene. His fickle audience - the one who thought that a comuterisized utopia aught to be at hand - criticized Microsoft for not only for violating anti-trust laws, but also for being negligent at delivering a reliable product that didn't crash. The computerized world had, rightly, become paranoid that, because no one could touch this juggernaut devouring small upstarts that soon became a piece in their Start>Accessories bar, there would be no check or balance to their mighty dominion.

Well, no one knew at the time that, while the fear that unstable computing was becoming a norm, that a simple search box on a nearly blank page, Google, would become the David to this Goliath.

But Google seems to be repeating the mistakes of the past. Apple, even on its death bed, was still touted as having a better, more robust computing experience. It did so since Apple had a heavy hand in coding for its operating system. While Windows had gone the route of a free-for-all and developers-run-amok with the fine print of "compute at your own risk," Apple's saving grace was the claim that no virus or buggy warez could even make a beach head on its virgin desktop.

But while Google has built its temple and is in full stride with its mighty empire; while Google has, recently, done what most in the Microsoft days would reckon is the unthinkable: divorced itself of even the need to have an internet connection to use some of its products; while their competitors - Yahoo and Microsoft are still clamoring for their piece of the Web 2.0 market share; while Google has championed the "open source" movement in the form of its arsenal of gadgets and its incursion into mobile communications with the Open Handset Alliance, it has fallen prey to the same forces that disappointed once proud owners of a PC - the bugs; the pesky failures because, when code is so freely given and manipulated, a platform opens itself up to potential hazards. The header for Gmail "labs" projects informs you:

Gmail Labs: Some crazy experimental stuff.

Gmail Labs is a testing ground for experimental features that aren't quite ready for primetime. They may change,break or disappear at any time.

If (when) a Labs feature breaks, and you're having trouble loading your inbox, there's an escape hatch. Use http://mail.google.com/mail/?labs=0.

In other words, like with Microsoft, "compute at your own risk." That's fine and dandy when it's declared that these projects are not "ready for primetime," but Google has, unfortunately gone a step further with their business model that defies even the reckless gobbling up of small Web developer projects and including it in its kingdom. Their platform is built and patch together in a more haphazard way than Microsoft ever dared to do. Here's what Google declares about one of its recent additions to its pre-loaded OS:

Here's a question that anyone may venture to ask of themselves: When was the first time that one used Google for their Web search?

For those of us who had internet connections prior to 1998 or 1999, the field was wide open. We had, if we were curious about something, to chose from pretty big name competitors in the Web search domain: Alta Vista, AOL, Yahoo, Excite, Ask Jeeves, and these were only some of the few out there to choose from.
Google, for all of its current might, was ,to my recollection, a late comer on the scene of Web search.
My computer consultant and best friend (everybody needs a computer guru these days if one's to get by) mentioned when I asked that Google came on the scene during the "Portal Wars." Portal Wars? Yes, I remember that logging onto Excite or Yahoo or Alta Vista meant a getting a brief preview of news, horoscopes, weather and so on before I typed my querry into the search box, but Portal Wars?

The thing is that now Google, with its continuous and remaining understated presence on the Internet, has, as if one just blinked one's eye, created a new paradigm. It skirted past the Portal Wars, and emerged, pacifistically, the dominant force of the World Wide Web - not only for its search, but also for its ancillary products such as Blogger, Google Sites, Google Notebook, Picassa, Google Maps, Google Calendar and so on ... Googe Docs! Can it get any more sophisticated with a Web browser?

At any rate, I had to wonder where and when Google became my mainstay for search. It is only now that I have made Google the source and point of origin for my computing ecology. That is to say that I've already uninstalled Microsoft Office, and the only apps that remain in my hard drive have to do with photo and video editing.

Which is to say ... How did this revolution of computing on a personal level happen? It came like a thief in the night, and now that Bill Gates has retired from Microsoft, the torch is being passed to the good 'ol boys over at Google.

So here's a question for myself and for all of you out there. When did Google search become your mainstay search engine, your main internet squeeze, so to speak?

My Web Guru friend tells me that my first time logging into to a Google search came on, probably, a suggestion on his part. I tend to agree with the geneology he presented as far as Google infiltrating my life. But, as far as my Web Guru-friend is concerned he can't recall when he began turning to it as his Web point of departure.

Despite what we may know of when we engaged Google for the first time, it's for certain that they're at the hub of a revolution that is raging before all of us, nationally and globally, and the key, the crux of the revolution lies in two words: SEARCH and SHARE