Google Chrome is poised to become the second most popular browser in the world by the end of 2011. And they deserve it. Their speed, security and simplicity is what a great Web browser should be. And these features contain to grow Chrome’s popularity – with an anticipatory end-of-year due-date when it will pass Mozilla Firefox for the coveted #2 spot, probably for good.
Now, all that’s left is Internet Explorer – the browser people use who don’t think they have a choice or care. I say it again – a wonderful business lesson for how important a first-to-market strategy is for your product. You learned on Internet Explorer. You stay with Internet Explorer. Unless there’s an extremely compelling reason to switch.
For many of us, Google Chrome has given us that reason. I think Android tablets defaulting to the Chrome browser may be the real long-term answer for getting that #1 spot over time.
It originally must have seemed like an impossible quest. Starting a fight against the behemoth that is Internet Explorer. Even fighting for the #2 share against the ever-popular choice in the tech world, Mozilla Firefox.
Two years later, Google Chrome has reached 20.7% of global market share – up from only 2.8% in June 2009. In that same time period, Internet Explorer has fallen from 59% to 44%, while Firefox has dropped slightly, from 30% to 28%.
It’s officially a 3 man race, with only 1 competitor still gaining speed. And for those of us who use Google Chrome, it’s slightly confusing why more people haven’t switched. Do we need to start going door to door evangelizing the clearly better Internet navigator?
Not to be confused with Google Instant, which returns your search engine results before you’re done typing your search terms, Instant Pages from Google hopes to improve your load time once you make your click.
Here’s the idea. The vast majority of users click the #1 search result. So, while Google is waiting for you to review the search results, just sitting their idle, why can’t it be pre-loading that #1 site in the background? That way, if/when you click on that ever-popular 1st search result, you won’t have to wait for the page to load. Because Google has already downloaded the necessary items in the background for you.
This feature will only be released in Google’s proprietary browser, Google Chrome.
Would you lease a Web-only laptop for $20/month? That’s the student package price that Google looks to be aiming at with their new Chrome laptop lease promotion. This package includes both hardware and access to online services.
These Chromium notebooks aren’t just Web-based. They’re Web-only. It’s a browser. There’s no hard-drive. Everything you do happens on the cloud. Your documents. Your presentations. Your files. All saved in real-time, and stored on Google’s servers for everywhere access.
While Amazon’s cloud hiccup the other day which temporarily kept companies from accessing their cloud-hosted information, this sort of Cloud-only service may scare some people off. But, it’s probably the mainstream future.
And Google is probably looking to see how these student versions do, before going consumer- or business-side with it.
Have you seen Google’s “Dear Sophie” video? Apart from it being adorable, you also get a peek of something we can only assume is soon to come.
If you look closely, you’ll see a little Google +1 extension within the Chrome extensions toolbar. Assumedly, this would allow you to +1 any site you visit, which of course, is Google’s aim at social search. Of course, if Google is relying on Chrome to mainstream this tool, that’s not going to do it. A Chrome extension would simply be a convenience piece for those who have bought into it, utilizing sites who haven’t. And letting the world know you approve of this site, within Google search rankings and more.
I’m writing this post using Google’s Chrome Internet browser. I marvel at Google’s self-driving cars that are currently being tested on real California highways. And for a minute, I start to question who Google is anymore.
Because they used to be a search engine. The very best data aggregate and refiner in the world. And they still are. But, as their competition catches up (Bing), they seem to be moving focus to other things. Now, Google’s official mission still is, “Google’s mission is to organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
At the very least, it seems like self-driving cars are a stretch, doesn’t it? Perhaps Google thought they had won the search war, and were simply moving on the next one. But if they’re not careful, they could slowly lose search before the next real war comes to be.
Google Translate has been improving to the point where, in the future, it may be a complete waste of time to even attempt learning a foreign language. Kidding, sort of. And now, Google’s Chrome browser has introduced a Speech Input feature to the stable release.
This support for the HTML5 speech input API means that web developers can now subscribe the user’s voice to text. A web page could use this feature, allowing the user to speak into their microphone, and transcribe and translate the text via their speech servers, before typing out the translation.
While, at first blush, it seems like this would be most handy via mobile phone – allowing for communication between those of different languages. But, I’m sure that companies are going to quickly come up with amazingly interesting uses of this new speech input functionality.
This article mentions a “pretty big algorithmic improvement to our ranking – a change that noticeably impacts 11.8% of our queries.”
The goal is to reduce rankings for low-quality (not useful or copy content) sites, along with providing better rankings for high-quality (original and thoughtful content) sites.
They also make it clear that this update does not take into account the feedback they have received from users who have black-listed their own results through Chrome’s Personal Blocklist extension. But that they did compare the preferences, and note that their algorithmic change addresses 84% of the top several dozen blocked domains.
The world of social media metrics is simply fascinating. And since we at Windy City Strategies specialize in evidence-based marketing, we were excited when Klout came out. One of the first Twitter rankers, providing you with your Klout score – a measurement of your online influence. This Klout score is based on the number of people who follow you, the number of people you follow, how often your tweets are re-tweeted, and how often your followers engage with your tweets in general.
So, it was fun to sign up for Klout and see that you are a…..42. Ok. So, what do I do with that number? Nothing. Until now.
Klout has released a Chrome Extension that, once installed, lets you see every single Twitterer’s Klout score, directly within the Twitter timeline itself.
So now you can see your most valuable followers and prospects, and work even harder to connect with the online mavens in your market. It’s pretty awesome.
For a Web browser that continues to break new grounds in terms of speed, security and style, it’s no wonder they’re looking to minimize. But, getting rid of the address bar altogether?
Yes, apparently, that feature is in the works for a future Chrome update. It is called “compact navigation”. And the goal is to save screen real estate for Web content. It’s the same reason the channel number on your TV fades away a couple seconds after landing on your channel. It’s just in the way at that point.
But how will users navigate this new compact navigation from Google Chrome? It’s one of those things where we’ll have to see it before knowing it’s going to require a learning curve.
