So everyone's trying to nail down exactly what GoogleNet will be. A wifi network, a VPN, both?
Slashdot is buzzing.
I agree with Engaget who says: Its getting sticky and suspicious and interesting—a real page turner, if you ask us.
Good Morning Silicon Valley says: a move into the communications space would be in keeping with Google's mission to promote universal access to the Internet for users. And it would do much to keep Google at the center of our Internet experience and in prime position to do what it does best: Serve us targeted advertising, in this case geographically targeted advertising.
UVA Law Professor Chris Sprigman emailed me that if accurate: doesn't this mean that Google is about to destroy the business model of the telcos and cable co's? A terabyte fibre network with WiMax endpoints would allow video multiplexing, phone calls, video phone, the Library of Alexandria on demand, etc. etc. He adds They'll start with cheap broadband access and VOIP -- and that in itself is a major pro-competitive jolt that will hurt the telcos and cable co's.
And Dave Weinstein, the U.S. editor for Gizmag.com, told Chris that: Google's beta VPN will make the simple open network model workable from a security perspective. It also has the side effect of tunneling all traffic through Google's proxy, which raises the possibility that they get to analyze the traffic, perhaps for their ads, or perhaps, more broadly, to get a good picture of what's happening on the network for marketing purposes.
No matter who's right, this is going to have a huge impact and is an important story I'm glad the blogs are following.