February 17, 2005
Free the User Agents!
I've always thought that a user agent (the software that decodes a web page so that you can work with it) should be able to do whatever it wants. In the same way I can rip, mix and burn all the other media I bring into my computer, something as straightforward as an HTML page should be fodder for processing however I want.
About four and a half years ago, Microsoft announced their intent to add Smart Tags to the then-in-beta Internet Explorer 6. In grand blogosphere tradition, there was much hue and cry and the effort was abandoned.
I thought then, and still think now, that Smart Tags were a great idea, especially if they were implemented as an option. Being able to use simple text parsing (and hopefully eventually some sort of bayesian or semantic processing) to annotate a page with additional links and information is exactly what I want my user agents of choice (namely, Firefox and Internet Explorer) to be able to do. Once your HTML page gets to my machine, it's mine to rip, mix and burn.
But of course, nobody trusts Microsoft, and some of that mistrust is quite justified. So the idea died, and nobody's made a credible implementation of equivalent browser technology in the years since.
Until yesterday. Google put out their Google Toolbar 3 beta for Internet Explorer. In amidst the smattering of improvements is AutoLink, which parses page text to insert useful additional links on demand. WordTranslator works similarly, letting you translate words that you select on the page.
Except Google's implementation doesn't let third parties create logic for detecting text, and doesn't let third parties add additional actions to text that's hyperlinked. And Google gets all of the ad revenues from the Google services which are linked to by the AutoLinked text. Basically, It's Smart Tags except only Google gets to decide what's linked, and Google controls where the links go. Microsoft's Smart Tag implementation (which lives on in Microsoft Office) can be extended by any developer, letting you choose what get linked and where the links go.
Now, let me be clear. I don't begrudge Google their AutoLinks at all. I think they're a great technology and well implemented. Above all, they're useful. But I bet the entirety of web developers could come up with even more creative and useful stuff if they were freed to do so. Especially if they were freed to do so by core abilities in the most popular user agent platform, Internet Explorer on Windows. But they're not. Because people were so inflamed about the potential misuses of a technology that they refused to consider its legitimate applications.
So, techies and bloggers and journalists focused on the potential abuses of a technology instead of getting excited about, and building a business model on, its potential opportunities. They were threated by the potential for someone to manipulate and make something new out of their media. And they didn't anticipate that maybe growth and creativity for their medium could come by being less controlling of the way their works were used.
Sounds like exactly what we accuse the RIAA and MPAA of doing, almost every day.
12 TrackBacks
Anil Dash: Free the User Agents! Exactly right. Like I've said before, Google is beginning to worry me a bit.... Read More
As I'm sure you've heard by now, Google rolled out the latest version of its toolbar a few days ago, complete with a new feature called Autolinks, which has a lot of people freaking out. The concern is over Google... Read More
A look back at the week that was in the world of Web 2.0. This week: Google's AutoLinks feature, IE7, NY Times buys About.com, blogger companies coverage in media, Bloglines hacks...
Read MoreGoogle has added what it calls "autolinks" to the Google toolbar for the latest version. There have been a variety of responses to this in the blogosphere already, some negative and some positive... with people going on about comparing this... Read More
Google has created a big stir among the webtelligentsia by releasing a beta of Version 3 of the Google Toolbar. The issue? Google has added an AutoLink feature that, on command, adds links related to certain kinds of information on the page. Many peopl... Read More
I just uninstalled Google Desktop Search which has been running alongside Yahoo Desktop Search for the past few months. Not only did Yahoo have a better preview feature of hits, Google's tool was, strangely enough, too integrated into the browser. Read More
Google has a new version of its toolbar containing a controversial feature: AutoLink. New! AutoLink The online review of a great new restaurant has the place's address but no map. You could type the restaurant's street, city, and ZIP code into th... Read More
Google recently released an arguably more benign version of Microsoft Smart Tags recently called Google AutoLink. For various opinions, check out Rogers Cadenhead, Anil Dash, Richard Erikkson, Dave Winer and Richard Zeldman. The point that can’t ... Read More
AutoLink is new feature in the new third version of Google's popular Google Toolbar that's raised controversy since it was released last week. Why are publishers upset? Can they block the feature that adds links to their web pages? Who... Read More
There's some kerfuffle going on about new technology recently rolled out as part of the Google toolbar. The AutoLink function allows Google to convert certain plain text strings into links: street addresses get linked to Google maps, and book ISDN num... Read More
The recent Google toolbar furor is stimulting some interesting discussion about interfacing with the web. In his post, Free the User Agents!, Anil Dash says this: In the same way I can rip, mix and burn all the other media I bring into my computer, s... Read More
I’m going to take an objective look at the debate so far including all the major arguments I’ve found, both for and against, giving the perspective of each affected group: content authors and publishers, users, and Google; and examine the desire fo... Read More
6 Comments
Leave a comment
- Earlier: Please, Tangle With Us
- Next: The Grey Lady Blogs
Thanks Anil, for being a rare voice of sanity on this topic. My take the day before was much the same: [http://battellemedia.com/archives/001269.php#9829]. As it was with Smart Tags in 2001: [http://client.grc.com/news.exe?cmd=article&group=grc.news.feedback&item=10052]. Why don't bloggers, who, more than most, have embraced third party content appearing on their *actual* sites, not just their readers' local copies, get this?
Will the blogoshere get mad at the W3C next? Annotea goes much, much farther than Smart Tags or Autolinks: [http://www.w3.org/2001/Annotea/]
"Once your HTML page gets to my machine, it's mine to rip, mix and burn."
if that's allowed, i should be allowed to dissassemble, modify, and patch any software i have installed on my computer. to bad the eula's don't allow that. is the eula legally binding? what about a website's use policy?
Like your point, Anil. don't know if you've seen them, but blinkx(www.blinkx.com) are trying to take linking like this a step further and use a more 'intelligent' approach than the simple text parsing that autolink has (ie claims to take into account all the visible text on the screen). Also it works from different apps--so Word and email as well as IE or firefox.
I've just started to use it and it seems to work pretty well actually.
The problem I have is that what starts as a useful feature can easily turn into a corporate tool. What if Google starts injecting its map links onto Mapquest pages?
I like the concept of "give the power to the user," but I'd feel better if the power were really in the hands of the user. Sure, the Google toolbar has to be installed by the user, but what if IE 6.0 did have a similar feature? There are some serious antitrust issues there.
One way that this could be fixed is to make the system pluggable. Let the user easily change the service they use for a certain type of link. Now that would rock.
It's really bizarre reading Dave Winer's article on this subject. It makes no sense to me -- it's as if he's using some alternate form of logic that I just don't understand it.
3 years ago I was looking at google the same way as you. Great technology, absolutely awesome improvements for the human kind. But my attitude towards google has changed: the nearly monopolist doesn´t behave according towards their policies...they exploit their power and that´s just sad.