Those of you who read John Milan's insightful article on R/WW about the coming convergence of Web apps and desktop apps, will be interested in a new development by Blake Ross - famous in the Web world for co-founding Firefox. Blake has an intriguing new startup called Parakey, which is going to be a WebOS for the masses. In a long IEEE Spectrum article, Blake describes the product:
"As he describes it, from a user’s point of view, Parakey is “a Web operating system that can do everything an OS can do.” Translation: it makes it really easy to store your stuff and share it with the world. Most or all of Parakey will be open source, under a license similar to Firefox’s."
Readers of my ZDNet blog will be familiar with my obsession earlier this year with the WebOS. There are a lot of small, mostly European, startups building a WebOS system - a virtual desktop, if you will. Check out my WebOS market review from April, to see some of the startups in this space. None of them have made any headway into the mainstream market yet - in fact most are still building out beta versions of their products. Let's not forget also that Google (in particular) and Microsoft are very well positioned to come stampeding into this market, like a herd of.... er, elephants.
Also I should note that the WebOS startups have banded together to create a community called "WebOSApi". Right now it's a private mailing list - I tried to get in a while ago, but they wouldn't let me :-) So it'll be interesting to see what comes of that and whether Parakey is a member.
Here's another key quote from the IEEE Spectrum article:
"Today, something like e-mail can involve two completely different experiences, depending on whether or not you’re using the Web—Outlook versus Hotmail, for example. A Parakey e-mail program, on the other hand, provides a single access point for your mail, “unifying the desktop and the Web,” in Ross’s words. Parakey is intended to be a platform for tools that can manipulate just about anything on your hard drive—e-mail, photos, videos, recipes, calendars."
Also Om Malik has some details about the funding and Matt Mullenweg has a post too.
To use Parakey, you'll need to download a small app onto your computer - which essentially turns your computer into a local server, thus enabling offline access. Kind of similar to how Dave Winer's Radio Userland blogging tool works. This description could equally apply to Radio Userland:
"...everything is ultimately stored locally, your computer being synchronized with remote servers whenever you are online. “You never have to care about the uploading process,” says Ross. “That just happens transparently.”
I'm looking forward to testing Parakey out. It sounds like it has the potential to help bridge the current gap between Web and desktop applications, in an open source way. I'm also interested in the reaction of the other WebOS vendors.
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At some point, somebody's bound to call WebOS's "web services on steroids". Would it be safe to say that a WebOS is a type of web service? Or am I missing something still? They sound very interesting.
Posted by: Devon | November 2, 2006 12:20 AM
As a representative of eyeOS (http://eyeOS.org), which is probably, the best existing Web OS today :), I'd like to say that we're open to working with Parakey or anybody else that has a real interest in the WebOS market.
Also, our software is GPL, and we already have a established user base of 73,000+ users, that would be delighted to see new developments in this filed ..
Posted by: hombrelobo | November 2, 2006 12:50 AM
The ever growing number of systems aiming for this, is proof positive that this is a major field of development which will have a great impact on how the web will continue to unfold.
What once was a joke is now on it's way to become a major industry force.
Posted by: Mikael Bergkvist | November 2, 2006 4:22 AM
An interesting article. I haven't heard of Parakey before, so I must look it up.
But, in my spare time, I have tried out a few 'Web OSes', including YouOS, DesktopTwo, Goowy, Orca and eyeOS. And in different browsers, too, because I'm a bored sod - IE 6 and 7, Firefox 1.5, 2.0 and 3.0 and Flock 0.7.
Just in response to hombrelobo, I didn't find eyeOS very helpful, but I haven't tried it for about a month, so maybe it's changed.
Out of the ones I've tried, I think DesktopTwo, Orca and YouOS are the best ones. I can't pick a definite winner because these three aren't exactly the same, but I think Orca (accused for a while by eyeOS, if I recall correctly, as being vapourware) is well on the way to beating the other 'Web OSes' (maybe I should just stick to calling them webtops).
Posted by: Greg Stott | November 6, 2006 8:19 PM
Interesting idea.. And open source!! great
"I'm looking forward to testing Parakey out."
Me too +1 :)
Posted by: Emre Sokullu | November 8, 2006 9:34 PM
Greg, exactly.. Goowy is Flash based, which is a big disadvantage for me, YouOS is still too alpha. These are the only 2 I keep following. I think the market is still hot and very open!
Posted by: Emre Sokullu | November 8, 2006 9:36 PM
Dear RW & Richard
First of all, nice work Richard - you work for the Web 2.0 bizz. is something that inspire us all to be all we can.
I would like to thank you Greg for the kind words - its good to hear that people do like the work we try todo.
As for ORCA:
:::::::::::::::
We are presently preparing the Beta 2, and it will be "all that" - alot of idea's have been tested - and in generel - people should be looking forward to testing it out - it only gets better.
As for the WebOSapi:
:::::::::::::::::::::::
Link: http://www.orcawebos.com/orcaa.com/forum.php?show_posts=115
Its true that we do not accept journalists into the main group of the WebOSapi - the reason for this is mainly that we do not want to waste your time with tech talk - but i do promise you Richard - when we have something to tell - you will be the first to know :-)
I will like to invite Parakey to join this group, with the hopes that they will consider it closely.
with kind regards
Leon Bollerup
Lead Devleoper
Team ORCA - http://www.orcadesktop.com
Posted by: Leon Bollerup | November 16, 2006 2:45 AM