Google opens the kimono

/ 6 November 2009

Anyone who does business with Google (and don’t we all?) may want to take a look at their Google Dashboard. Google announced yesterday

In an effort to provide you with greater transparency and control over their own data, we’ve built the Google Dashboard. Designed to be simple and useful, the Dashboard summarizes data for each product that you use (when signed in to your account) and provides you direct links to control your personal settings.

And if you are a web devloper, you may also be as excited as I am that Google announced yesterday it is opening the JavaScript library and tools behind Google’s own web apps. This is a big deal, making years of Google development available to even the lowliest web developer. As noted at Ars Technica:

The library, called Closure, includes an extraordinarily diverse assortment of capabilities with functionality ranging from JSON serialization to standard user interface widgets. All of the features are cross-browser compatible and can be readily adopted without marginalizing any users. The library consists primarily of helper functions and user interface widgets, many of which are recognizable from popular Google applications.

This is an astute move by Google. The more widespread the adoption of this toolkit, the more likely vendors keep building browsers that run this code well. Everyone wins.

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