I’m not sure Google is really doing anything very revolutionary here, other than identifying an existing trend. People are already using Google as an “omnibar”, they’re just doing it from the Google.com search box. Chrome just takes this idea and runs with it.

To your point about complexity, I am in complete agreement. The web is too big, and services such as Google search are essential to information management. I see navigation (URLs and clicks), storage (*marks) and search as part of a triumvirate of information management. Each of these serves a role and is adopted from a cognitive process, and to-date we’ve seen them as separate due to their enactment in separate toolsets and methods.

Questions of control complicate this unification. We’ve developed strategies, but if those strategies are compressed into a single interface, if the meaningful distinctions between them go away – then what do we have left, and what competencies will we retain? This is where your thinking about metaphorical shifts on the web resonate. If we leave the other skills behind, if the search box becomes the true “Omnibar”, then there are all sorts of tradeoffs. Compared to privacy concerns, the thought of having all knowledge mediated by an algorithm is particularly frightening.

But then again, how much of this is new or different? This is an evolution – and maybe we’ll just have to work hard to retain information skills.

As for your final point, which is not surprising coming from you (given you and Terrell’s leanings on privacy), I support your assertion, but worry that the weight and complexity of the web will invariably require us to outsource some aspect of our consumption of the web, or else be overrun by it.

As it is, we see FriendFeed as a wonderful mediation for seeing what our friends are up to — if we have 5 friends. If you grow that number, say to 20, 50, 100 or more, we’re suddenly caught up in the slipstream and prioritizing relevant and useful information becomes a daunting, if not futile, task.

So unless we are able to increase our own built-in cognitive abilities through augmented cognition, we’re going to need to have external services that help us deal with the tsunami of information not just available to us, but that washes over us constantly. This is when true user agents become necessary — and picking a user agent should come down to the quality of service it provides you (at what cost). If the monetary cost is zero because it’s leeching on your data capital (as Google does), should we complain? Or should we bask in a moment in time when we are able to co-exist with machines that are indeed working for us?

Personally I’m conflicted on this. I believe that if we bake in escape and choice into the model of this system — and create a symbiotic ecosystem — it will be good. If we let the majors determine the landscape, and dictate how we play or where we play, then that’s bad, and should be fought at all costs.