Another important fact about Google Desktop is that it is the first app by a major vendor that runs as a service/daemon and uses a web interface. The first app I saw with such an interface was Radio Userland, and the second was the P2P app called edonkey2000. This is the first time I have seen a big major app that targets the world, and also by a major vendor. There are probably others, but they are meant for specific tasks and not for consumer desktops. I just thought that it was interesting.