All Things Digital

Now, we have two Googlers, who are demoing Google’s new Chrome browser and its features and user interface.

“Friendly” tabs, knowing your history better graphically, auto-typing, simplicity, easier downloading with a new window that one guy is calling a real app like “Pinocchio, because we wanted to build a real boy.”

Well, Pinocchio was wood for most of that story, but I like the effort!

Also, they show off the “Incognito” feature, where you can hide Web searches you don’t want others to see, which basically means porn and Barry Manilow fan sites.

Except the Google (GOOG) guys use a toe fungus search!

This is gross, although hiding toe fungus is a good idea related to Web navigation software.

Now, another smart-looking guy comes on, who looks like the other guys, and discusses the architecture, including rendering, security and so forth.

Also a speed test, from another Google guy, from Denmark, where Google’s Chrome–incredibly–beats Microsoft’s Internet Explorer! It is like one of those blind taste test commercials on television.

My mind starts to wander and I wonder if Microsoft Founder Bill Gates is watching this and getting plenty steamed up north at Microsoft (MSFT) HQ.

At this point, I suggest you please watch the Webcast of this demo to listen to the details, available through both Windows Media Player and RealPlayer.

Because once the Googlers start talking “plug-in bugs,” I start staring at Google co-founder Larry Page–who is here sitting with with top Google exec Marissa Mayer off to the side–to see if both are paying rapt attention.

They are, natch. (I should have eaten a tasty pastry.)

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Last year, BoomTown caused a tempest-in-a-Web-teapot by asserting that Facebook apps were, for the most part, inane.

And, while many said the market would develop from the frivolous to more useful–making Facebook a true “utility,” as promised by Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg–that day is not today for the social-networking site or its third-part widget makers.

Instead, it’s still Pinocchio at Funland (and we know how that turned out!).

While this is great news for my 3- and 6-year-old boys, it still makes grumpy old me dubious.

Because, as I wrote in a post called “The Children’s Hour: Facebook Apps Are for Toddlers (There, We Said It)” that was published last October, I still assert that businesses based on Zombies and apps called Pop Ur Zit are questionable models:

But, so far, as popular as those apps have become, what Zuckerberg and the widget-makers have wrought is mostly silly, useless and time-wasting and the kazillion users of these widgets are pretty much just acting like little children.

I never thought I would call the often frivolous AOL (TWX) back in the day–very simply, a Neanderthal version of Facebook–a mature offering in comparison…

And if that is all there is, can Facebook really build a viable and long-lasting business on what is essentially a bunch of games that will ultimately become wearying for users? Doesn’t it need more robust apps that actually are useful and relevant and make Facebook the service that Zuckerberg has often told me was a ‘utility’?

While Facebook–with a cleaner and more strict look and a better navigation–is surely less goofy than rival MySpace (NWS) for anyone over 12 years old, and its video, photo and email features are nice, the vast majority of its apps are still mostly as dumb as a box of hammers.”

Unfortunately, that’s still the case and today, we have a nice chart below from FlowingData to help our little case along from a visual point of view (click on the image to make it larger).

Case, unfortunately, not closed.