Bijan Sabet

The open web

Techmeme is dominated by the future of openness this morning.

Some folks have been beating the drum for some time that open is really something the minority of techies care about and most people prefer closed as the success of the Apple App Store shows.

I don’t agree with that.

I have always believed that the success of Apple’s App Store is because for the most part it’s mostly open. The vast majority of applications are accepted. That’s a huge change from the mobile world pre app store.

(Now to be clear, Apple’s policy rubs me the wrong way. I wish it was even more open. I want Google Voice on my iPhone. I believe it would be better for their users and as a result better for Apple too btw)

Okay, back to this mornings meme. Is the Web dead? I agree with Fred, I don’t believe the open web is dead.

But I am concerned about some big companies and their approach to the web - everything from their stance on net neutrality to new products.

Consider Google’s upcoming Chrome Store. On many levels I love the idea. Give developers better ways of reaching their users and allow them to monetize their work. On the surface it seems like it could bring them many of the benefits that Google search provides. Distribution and monetization. Very cool.

But here’s the thing. I don’t believe that web apps in the upcoming Chrome Store will work “as is” in other browsers. (please correct me if I’m wrong about this). So now developers creating a service have to build custom things for Android, Chrome Store, iPhone and the open web.

One thing I’ve noticed since owning the iPad is that I don’t yearn for native apps. At first I was bummed that Yelp doesn’t have a native ipad app. But the web site is damn good in Safari on the iPad. Same for other services.

It’s a great browser in the end and we shouldn’t forget it.