I guess it’s somewhat hard for Google to come up with new services now that it owns the world’s most popular search engine, what’s probably going to soon be the world’s most popular mobile platform, Android as well as a large series of other popular applications and services (the Chrome web browser, Gmail, Google Buzz etc.). Once the company decides to release that highly expected Google Me social networking site, you could say that Google has managed to build an empire.
According to Mashable, Google also has other plans. The company is now preparing the upcoming Chrome Web Store. During the GDC Europe conference, video game website 1up managed to snag some photographs of a presentation Google showed to a room full of game developers, which showed the future Chrome Web Store. Chrome Web Store will serve as a marketplace for HTML5 apps that the company announced earlier this year.
Google’s new game developer advocate Mark DeLoura and Chrome developer advocate Michael Mahemoff also talked about Google’s major entry into the browser game space with the help of the app store for Chrome. According to the presentation, the store will most likely launch this October. The presentation also revealed details regarding Google’s future app store. Noticing how Apple’s store proved to be a big success, Google has implemented several iPhone App Store-specific features into its own product, like app icons, categories and top rated games. There will also be an ‘Apps your friends like’ section. What’s not clear is what service Google will use to find your friends. It could be Gmail, or Google Buzz. It’s definitely not going to be Facebook, but who knows, it might be Google’s future Google Me.
While what I wrote above pretty much sums up what Google ‘borrowed’ from Apple’s store, there will also be a major difference between the stores of the two US companies. Google will only be taking a processing fee of about 5 percent compared to Apple’s 30 percent cut out of revenues generated. This sounds pretty fair and could mean a lot for developers who’ll actually be making more money out of the applications they sell.
At this point, it’s all about gaining domance of the web. Apple is doing pretty well with its iPhone and iPad products, complimented by the app store and the iOS platform. Facebook is
also the clear leader of social networking, with constantly growing user base. Microsoft is also strong on the market with Internet Explorer and Windows, products with which Google is now competing through the Chrome web browser and Chrome OS. So how will browser-based games influence the market and help Google gain more terrain on the World Wide Web?We’ve yet to see. Another benefit to browser-based games is that they can easily include web content or web-based widgets and modules. Naturally this presentation also aims to convince developers on the advantages of Chrome OS, which should be launched later this year.
