The Google discussion and Consolidation of Services

• The-Google discussion

Google's strategy for revenues may be this : short term - ad revenue, longterm - apps...longer term like api / extension. Google currently makes money from even its e-mail services by extending through Google apps.

Google API are not open source but Mashups on them can be open source / closed source. Wikimapia - derivative based on Google Maps

• What is the importance of consolidation of services?

On the discussion of replicating a google mail service, if it were open source in smaller pockets two points came up: 1) replication of infrastructure will still be a challenge. 2) Consolidation of mail services is to avoid spam problem...

This extended to a discussion on consolidation of services. Distributed services and keep them tied together ideally - doesn't seem to have worked. All points of distributed service have to get as good as a centralized service.

The internet is a federated system that is the only one that seem to have functioned despite no consolidation. It's easier to build a centralized system than to build a distributed system that complies.

Google depended on map-reduce ... protocol - they put out the source. Face book depends on open sources thrift for IPC. Thus an existing service , infrastructure will be reused consolidating it into one of the essential services.