(2008-04-07) Bigtable Service

It is rumored that Google will announce an array of Web Services, including BigTable tonight. Free competition to Amazon's SimpleDB.

Dave Winer hypothetically [leaked](http://www.scripting.com/stories/2008/03/30/whyWouldGoogleWeb ServicesC.html) this a week ago. He sees it as a way to prepare Start Up-s for acquisition by Google (avoiding a painful Infrastructure transition).

I was just thinking a couple weeks ago that we need a Python/PyLons equivalent of Drupal running on Amazon Web Services.

So clearly we'll need practices or code-wrappers that make it easy to switch EcoSystem.

Update: yup that's it - whoa, for now you have to write in Python! All of the Python-built tools seem to borrow heavily from Django, a Python Web Framework. App Engine will work with other Python frameworks (these ones were all specifically mentioned in the documentation: EZT, Cheetah, Clear Silver, Quixote, Django and CherryPy). (No PyLons?) GoogleApp Engine supports any framework written in pure Python that speaks CGI (and any WSGI-compliant framework using a CGI adaptor), including Django, CherryPy, PyLons, and WebPy.

And only a few thousand people can get in for now - it's already too late.

Tsktsk putting up Huddle Chat, a clone of CampFire.

• they took it down.

Nate Westheimer thinks they're aiming at FaceBook more than Amazon.

Niall Kennedy has a good run-down of trade-offs.

Here's a good review of bloggage.

Ian Bicking looks at issues facing users of other Python Web Framework-s.

Tim OReilly discusses the Lock-In risk, linking to Stephen O Grady's more detailed analysis.