The Parakey Can Speak

November 3rd, 2006 | Categories: marketing, strategy

After much hype and anticipation, Blake Ross finally speaks out about his new stealth start-up. For months, he’s kept quiet, not willing to reveal any details whatsoever.

Now let’s take a step back and explain. Blake Ross was one of the co-founders and masterminds behind Firefox. He began the project at age 16. While most kids were out playing sports or watching movies, he was changing the world with a revolutionary new web browser. Later on, he helped launch the ‘Spread Firefox’ initiative.

Now 21, Ross is speaking out about his new venture - Parakey. Up until now, he hasn’t said a word, other than the fact that it wasn’t going to be a web browser. Ross and a partner, Joe Hewitt, raised seed capital from Sequoia Capital in February 2005.

So what is Parakey? GigaOM explains:

“Ross describes Parakey as a WebOS that does what a traditional OS can do. It allows you to set up a site that can be shared by say all member of the family, and can be accessed from within a web browser. In order to make it work, you need to download a small application that turns your local machine into a server. You can decide which part of the Parakey site is viewable to the outside world.”

Blake goes on to explain that the project will be open-source, contrary to many reports. In addition, a new language, JUL, is being used to develop the system.

I am very interested in seeing the progression of this venture. Blake Ross is a very ambitious guy. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with him at Gnomedex. I have huge expectations for this project, but I have no doubts in my mind he will exceed even those.

As the details are vague at this point and there is nothing to see, I am going to refrain from making any concrete conclusions or stating any opinions. However, I wouldn’t doubt if this project revolutionizes the web and changes the way we do things online.

I will be updating this story as more information and details become available.

NOTE: For further information, check out this Parakey article by Richard MacManus at Read/Write Web.

One Comment

  1. Blake Ross on Firefox » So about that project… Says:

    […] Thanks to the many people in the blog world who covered the story and offered input (positive and negative) about what we’re doing. I believe Matt Mullenweg was the first to break the story on the Web, and it was then graciously picked up by Matt Marshall, Dave Winer, Niall Kennedy, Om Malik, Aidan Henry, Ajaxian, Susan Mernit, Lloyd Budd, Alex Moskalyuk, […]

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