As users of tools and applications related to Web 2.0 it is possible that once we have asked where is the application you use? where is all the information we generate processed? where is all this amount of stored information? or how many people are needed to manage all this? Each passing day the number of users uploading content in the form of videos, twitts, comments or those who simply read the information provided by others, is growing without stopping, up to figures difficult to imagine short time ago. During the month of April, 200 million Facebook users spent a total of about 14,000 million minutes of their time on this social network. On February, Twitter reached an aggregated sum of more than 55 million visits a month. Google Mail has over 100 million email users to whom it offers a free storage capacity between 2 and 4 GB and between 10 and 400 GB for payment users.
When Facebook friends were university fellows of Mark Zuckerberg, it was only necessary a single computer connected to the Internet to enable them to share information among themselves. But as the company grew, the number of servers and staff also grew, and so do the consumption of energy resources. Certainly many of current Twitter users do not know that, this company which has grown nearly 1400% in a year with users who have hundreds of thousands of followers, has not changed too much from the time when those who use it were few and considered by the vast majority as geeks.Twitter maintains a small number of workers and computer systems. How can they do it? Thanks to benefit from a relatively new trend in the sector of Information Technology known as cloud computing.
What is cloud computing? is a difficult question to answer because there is no clear definition. After researching over the net, I found the following video that I think explains it quite clearly.
To summarize and assuming the risk of defining something so complicated without being an expert, I would venture to say that cloud computing is the trend to use a variety of resources (equipment, applications or services) available through Internet and shared by multiple users or businesses. As everything it has advantages and disadvantages as well as authentic evangelists and staunch detractors. But beyond technological or business considerations arises one really important, that is to take into account the energy consumption reduction associated with the concept of shared information systems across the network.
Twitter, unlike Facebook, is one example of a company that leverages the opportunities offered by cloud computing. Google for its part, as well as providing free software as a service (SaaS) with GMail, it offers a set of solutions called Google App Engine, accessible through the Internet, designed specifically for software developers.
The approaches to the concept of cloud computing that Twitter and Google do are different (one as a user and the other as a supplier), but in both cases they benefit from what I like to call the green cloud concept.
ksibe
Google, already the king of internet search, has rolled out an experimental new search product called ”Google Squared.”
Google Squared does not provide a list of links to Web pages, like with a traditional Google search, but presents information derived from a query in a spreadsheet-like grid called a ”square.”
Users of google.com/squared can then build, modify and refine their ”square” through further Web searches.
“Unlike a normal search engine, Google Squared doesn’t find webpages about your topic – instead, it automatically fetches and organizes facts from across the Internet,” Google said in a preview of the product last month.
In a blog post, Google said Google Squared could be useful when a user needs to make multiple searches to find the information they want.
”It essentially searches the Web to find the types of facts you might be interested in, extracts them and presents them in a meaningful way,” Google said.
”If your square isn’t perfect at the beginning, it’s easy to work with Google Squared to get a better answer,” Google added.
The Mountain View, California-based Internet search giant cautioned that Google Squared remains experimental and the technology behind it ”is by no means perfect.”
香港仔時昌迷你倉
Nice article but how ‘green’ are Twitter and Google with their cloud services? Is everything on their site CO2 neutral (from front end to back end)?
Hi Bela,
Unfortunately I don’t have enough information to answer to your question.
Anyway, I think that on Twitter and Google sites not everything is CO2 neutral.
Green Cloud is a way, not the only one, to reduce energy resources consumption related with IT. We are on the way but still on first steps.
Regards