Google plays the closed-open game with its latest Chrome music video

Google Chrome might be built upon the open source Chromium browser project, but like Android the "open" label can be a bit misleading at times. Today we've got a perfect example from the folks in Mountain View: a brand new HTML5 musical collaboration with geek rockers OK Go.

Fire up Chrome (or Chromium), head over to www.allisnotlo.st(Opens in a new window) and the magic begins, mashing up OK Go's All is not Lost with an interpretive dance routine from Connecticut-based Pilobolus(Opens in a new window). This is Google's second foray into music video experiments with Chrome, the first being its collaboration with the Grammy Award-winning Canadian group Arcade Fire(Opens in a new window).

Here's where the irony starts to creep in. The Google Japan team was heavily involved in the project, and OK Go suggested using All is not Lost as a message of hope and unity to those dealing with the aftermath of the Tōhoku earthquake -- a poignant gesture. And yet, Google is sending a very different message to the web as a whole: that web openness and browser unity isn't priority number one.

You see, www.allisnotlo.st won't play if you don't visit the site in Chrome. We tested with Internet Explorer 9, Firefox 5, 6, and 7, and Opera 11.10, and each time was only able to see the landing page and a barely-readable white-on-light-gray warning that the site was designed for Google Chrome and "might not" work in my browsers. Why would that be? Other browsers support technologies like HTML5 and CSS3 and hardware acceleration, don't they? Of course they do.

This is precisely the same kind of trickery Apple pulled(Opens in a new window) with its HTML5 Showcase for Safari, which locked out other more compliant browsers in order to make Safari shine line a beacon of hope for open web standards. But Google isn't building these experiences to make the web look good: it's building them to make Chrome look good.

It's a far cry from what Mozilla did with its Game On 2010 competition(Opens in a new window) or its Dev Derby Challenges(Opens in a new window), all of which aim to deliver improved web-based experiences that work everywhere the web works, regardless of a user's choice of browser (as long as it's an up-to-date one). Heck, it's not even on par with what Microsoft has done with the IE Test Drive site(Opens in a new window). Those lovely little betta fish(Opens in a new window) will swim in any standards-compliant browser, and you can play the HTML5-powered Pirates Loves Daisies(Opens in a new window) in your browser of choice, too. Is Microsoft actually more open than Google when it comes to the web...?

Google's taken a beating for its subjective view of what "open" means before, of course, and it's a battle that continues to draw ire from the Android developer community -- which will never see the code for Android Honeycomb. Is Google Chrome headed down the same slippery slope?

Finally, for those who keep pounding the "Flash is a CPU hog" drum, it's worth noting Google's warning on the All is not Lost landing page -- which asks that you shut down other programs while watching the music video because it's very processor intensive. You'll also need to be prepared to wait: the loading process takes longer than almost every other Flash-heavy page on the web.