Google recently opened the doors to their new Chrome web store. While many complain that most of the "apps" are just glorified bookmarks (they are), I think this is a fascinating preview of a world soon to come. We're entering a golden era for app development. It's starting with a major teardown of software concepts that have existed for some twenty years now. This old institution is being upended by two Goliaths.

And it's a fascinating duality. In one corner, you have Google, a company who wants the world to run on web-based apps. In the other corner, stands Apple, a company that's all in on native apps.

I don't care who you side with or if you're somewhere between. You win.

Mashable recently noted just how iPad-like many web apps are. We've also recently seen how the iPad is guiding the future of desktop application development. I believe that we're just now beginning to see how profoundly mobile devices and the web will ultimately transform mainstream computing.

How I'm using the Chrome web store day 1

For now, the early versions of Chrome web apps allow me to leverage Chrome even more as a productivity app by using it to corral specific activities.

Here are a few Chrome web apps I've been particularly impressed with early on:

  • Todo.ly - a task app that shows just how amazing HTML5 can be.
  • WeatherBug - a gorgeous weather dashboard.
  • TweetDeck - this web app version makes it clear to me that I'll never need a native Twitter client on my Mac.

You can find all of these by searching for them by name at the Chrome web store main page.

Let me know which web apps you like.