Web Worker Daily

The latest project to come out of Mozilla Labs is Weave, which they describe somewhat fuzzily as enabling “the deeper integration of the browser with online services.” In its initial alpha release – compatible only with Firefox 3.0 beta 2 – Weave operates as a bookmark and history synchronization engine for Firefox. You install the Weave extension on to each copy of Firefox you use, log in to your account at services.mozilla.org, and all of your bookmarks and browser history are available transparently across machines.

Since I’ve already moved to the latest Firefox betas, I tried Weave and (with some obvious beta rough edges) it does indeed work as advertised, which is going to make my experience as a developer with multiple computers just a bit more pleasant. But the idea of bookmark synchronization is hardly revolutionary, and some pundits have been dismissing this as a “me-too” move that merely puts Mozilla on par with similar effort such as Opera Link and Google Bookmarks.

Those taking such a shallow view of this effort are, I think, missing the point. As Om Malik points out on GigaOm, Weave is a much more ambitious project, with the ultimate goal of offering a user-controlled metadata storage service “in the cloud” with open developer APIs, strong encryption, and a code of ethics. The word “platform” gets thrown around a lot these days, but assuming Weave moves forward, it really can be a neutral platform on which many different vendors can build location- and computer-independent services for Firefox users.

For many of us, the most essential part of a computer these days is already an internet connection, as WWD editor Judi Sohn dramatically discovered last month when she was stuck in safe mode (and still able to get her work done). The success of projects like Weave will move us along a path where those who want to can make a leap into operating entirely in the cloud: sit down at any computer with a browser, sign into a single account online, and have all of your customizations and data instantly available. That’s the payoff, not simple stuff like synchronized bookmarks.