One of my favorite attributes of the web is the abbreviated length of the software cycle. With desktop software there's this whole mess of burning bits to a CD and shipping them to some physical location, which requires that users actually take the time out to go to said store. Even for desktop software distributed via the Internet, there's still platform limitations and bulky downloads. All of these factors that impede deployment and adoption of desktop applications are removed with web-based apps. It seems like almost once a week that there's some news coming out of Yahoo!, MSN, or (more often than not) Google.
Case in point, a slew of “search site” news came rolling out over the past few days. One of the coolest is Google Video's commercial-free airing of Everybody Hates Chris, a new comedy series on UPN about Chris Rock's childhood. Furthermore, Google Video, which used to use a program one needed to download and therefore limited it to playing only on Windows boxes, now operates as a Flash movie in the browser. That means cross-browser and cross-platform support, as well as the removed nuissance of having to download a program. Also, the Flash movie automatically resizes to your browser's resolution, automatically buffers the video and (on my DSL connection) starts playing nearly instantly. You can also seamlessly jump around the stream with little to no delay. Nice!
If that's not enough, Google also recently improved their Personalized Search feature. When logged in and searching, each search result has a “Remove this Result” link that you can click to optionally filter out search results for your particular search phrase, for all search phrases, or, heck, you can remove the entire domain. A useful tool for removing splogs and other spammy sites that clutter up the results page with useless information. This information is not only helpful in cleaning up your own results, but the information will likely be aggregated and used by Google to help improve their search engine's heuristics.
Finally, word is out that Microsoft will be releasing their own AdSense-like program. This program, called adCenter, has been in beta since March of this year, although only available in France and Singapore. However, the beta will, I expect, be opening up in the US sooner than later, seeing as there are a slew of adCenterp-related articles on all the tech news sites. It'll be interesting to see how Microsoft fares in this market, which is already cornered by the likes of Google and Yahoo. More competition is always better, of course, and hopefully Microsoft can introduce some innovative tools and metrics that force Google and Yahoo to increase their functionality and featureset. Viva la capitalism! :-)\
For a computer nerd who likes trying out new programs, it really is an exciting time we live in. As one who doesn't have cable and will, hopefully, never need/get it, I'm looking forward to a day when the computer can more effectively replace the television. Seeing Google Video's advances and capabilities in airing a sitcom makes me think we're that much closer.