Browsers
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I’m not sure whether this is the right phrase but do consumers have a bad case of “upgrade fatigue” when it comes to Microsoft software? Look at Internet Explorer, which has seen its market share decline to about 80% in the U.S. while Firefox has climbed to 14%, according to WebSideStory and Net Applications. This is despite the fact IE7 has Firefox-ized itself by adding such as tabs so you can open multiple Web sites at the same time. Are people moving to Firefox because it’s better and/or cooler, or are they simply tired of IE?
While there’s no Firefox in the operating system world (sorry, Mac and Linux supporters), there doesn’t seem be much buzz about Vista’s impending launch. While I haven’t drilled down into Vista yet, there appears to nothing compelling that will drive XP users to buy Vista. And what about Office 2007? How many people really need a new version of Word or PowerPoint when Office 2003 will do pretty much everything and anything you need.
Of course, millions of computer users will happily upgrade to IE7, Vista and Office 2007, while people buying new computers will have no choice. That said, IE7’s battle against Firefox puts the focus on the upgrade cycle and how difficult it can be to migrate people to new versions at a time when interesting competitors are battling for the attention of consumers.
Technorati Tags: Firefox, Microsoft
Written by Mark Evans on January 17th, 2007 with no comments.
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For the past six weeks, b5media has been actively trying to hiring an advertising sales manager so we can grow revenue and become less dependent on things such as text links and AdSense. In talking to potential candidates, one of the things we’ve highlighted is the huge potential of the blog-vertising market as advertisers begin to allocate some of the budgets to the user-generated content market.
There is little doubt blog-vertising is going to see huge growth over the next few years as advertisers become adopt more aggressive online strategies. We see evidence of this trend in our business every day as email inquiries appear in our in-boxes. The question is how quickly will the blog-vertising market grow. According to a study done by PQ Media earlier this, the blog-vertising will climb to $120-million by 2010 compared with $16.6-million in 2005. That’s impressive but it strikes me as conservative, although I could easily be accused of being biased. 
What has struck me over the past three months since joining b5media is how many advertisers are still cautious about the online market, which seems strange give the strong growth that Internet advertising has seen over the past two or three years. Many advertising realize they need to be on the Internet but they’re still unclear about where to do it (mainstream sites, niche sites, blogs, podcasts), how (banner ads, CPM, CPC, CPL) and how much of their budgets (1%, 5%, 20%).
In terms of the blog-vertising market, a major challenge facing advertisers is who to do business with given there are 50 million blogs and counting. My sense is advertisers will approach the market in a pragmatic way and do a lot of experimenting with a variety of players to see what works. Part of this go-slow approach is many advertisers still see the blogosphere as the Wild West where anything goes. This is great for readers looking for lively writing but not ideal for advertisers that want editorial content they can count on.
As a result, advertisers initially do business with blog networks such as b5media, Federated Media, Gawker, Weblogs Inc., 9Rules, GigaOm and PopSugar where there are editorial standards and the media buys are easier than trying to pick off individuals blogs even those that are popular.
For more thoughts on the blog-osphere and the advertising market, check out Canadian Business writer Andy Holloway’s recent column.
Written by Mark Evans on January 15th, 2007 with no comments.
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There's a lot of excitement about Firefox 2.0 (although it seems muted compared with 1.5) but I have no plans to jump on the bandwagon quite yet despite the new version's better security and better speed. Why not? It mostly has to do with the compatibility of extensions. Why would I want to jump to 2.0 if some of my 1.5 extensions won't work? It would be like buying a new car with a better motor but the headlights and speedometer don't work. For now, I'll stick with 1.5. Who knows, I may even try IE7.
Update: Hardware 2.0's Adrian Kingley-Hughes has a post looking at 2.0's shortcomings, including memory leaks, weak anti-phishing features and incompatible extensions. He still believes 1.5 users should upgrade: "If you stick with 1.5.x then you're going to
be at risk from unpatched vulnerabilities. The only way to go is up to
2.0 and keep downloading updates as they become available."
Written by Mark Evans on October 31st, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on internet explorer and Main Page and Browsers and Firefox.
After months of anxious anticipation, Internet Explorer 7 is finally available. Now, we can abandon those pesky open-source browsers that have kept IE from cementing its domination of the market. I can't wait to uninstall Firefox, Flock and Opera. No more worrying about cool extensions and plug-ins from an army of developers, no more worry about Web sites that just don't look quite right, and finally no more guilt about trying to be one of those people who seeks out Microsoft alternatives. If I were you, I'd rumble over to IE7's download site immediately. Can it only be a matter of time before Firefox's 10% to 12% share of the browser market returns to a more reasonable level - say 2% to 3%? Then, we'd be back to normal again with a true king and lots of little wannabes wandering around to make it seem like competition is alive and well.
Then again...what if IE7 isn't the be all and end of browsers? What if it's a simply much-needed improvment from IE6, which was still using Spyglass technology from late-1990s? What if Firefox 2.0 is just as good and user-friendly? (and less of a memory hog would help as well!) Surely, this wouldn't mean Microsoft would still have to deal with competitors (Firefox, Opera, Flock, Maxthon, etc.) that encourage innovation. What if all those Firefox users and all those Firefox developers just keep on doing what they're doing? Now, this could be interesting, very interesting.
So what do you do as a browser user? Well, if you're curious and brave, download IE7. If you're happy with Firefox, Flock and Opera, just keep on doing what you're doing. For more view check out FactoryCity, Inside Microsoft and Matt Cutts.
Written by Mark Evans on October 19th, 2006 with no comments.
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Stowe Boyd was ruminating earlier this week about the need for a Web site to take a hard look at some Web 2.0 services six months after they have been profiled by TechCrunch. It turns out he inspired two German entrepreneurs who are poised to unveil a site this week called Techcrush. Not sure if Techcrush is a spoof but some retrospection on the Web 2.0 landscape would be interesting. A good example of a Web 2.0 service that deserved to be re-visted is Flock, which was drilled when it released an alpha version of its browser last year. While Flock's developers likely had good intentions, the browser was far from cooked and looked bad in comparison with the alternative browser du jour, Firefox. Several months later, Flock released a new and improved beta that was a huge improvement over the alpha. Of course, Flock's beta didn't get as much attention because people had already moved on to the next new and shiny thing. I'm sure there are lots of Web 2.0 services that need a second chance in the spotlight after getting off to a rough start; just as there are many services that received lots of buzz and hype only to come back to earth. Update: Speaking of Web 2.0 services, a new version of Go2Web20 has been released. It's pretty.
Written by Mark Evans on September 17th, 2006 with no comments.
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Sorry, one more G-Thought. Now that
Google Apps is out in the wild, the inevitable question is when Google will launch a browser. I mean, it can't hide behind Firefox forever, right?
Written by Mark Evans on August 28th, 2006 with no comments.
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ZDNet has
an interview
with Flock co-founder Geoffrey Arone. At first, I was not high on the
upstart Web browser, mostly because it released an alpha that wasn't
ready for prime time. Today, I'm using
Flock
as the default browser on my desktop. It's come a long way in the last
little while, buoyed by the growing number of extensions now available.
Written by Mark Evans on August 11th, 2006 with no comments.
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ZDNet has
an interview with Flock co-founder Geoffrey Arone. At first, I was not high on the upstart Web browser, mostly because it released an alpha that wasn't ready for prime time. Today, I'm using
Flock as the default browser on my desktop. It's come a long way in the last little while, buoyed by the growing number of extensions now available.
Written by Mark Evans on August 11th, 2006 with no comments.
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Opera, the little browser that could, reports users of
Opera Mini have surfed 1B Web pages since its official launch seven months ago. So what are mobile device users checking out? Not surprisingly, Google.com leads the pack, followed by Gmail, Friendster (must be a lot of Mini users in Asia), MySpace, Yahoo Messenger and hi5.com. Opera said other popular sites included USA Today, BBC, Mapquest and eBay.
Written by Mark Evans on August 8th, 2006 with no comments.
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While Firefox doesn't seem as sexy these days (maybe it's a good sign), it now 15.8% of the U.S. browser market. Globally, Firefox has 12.93%, compared with 11.79% in May, according to
OneStat.com. IE's market share fell to 83.05%, although it has fallen to 79.8% in the U.S. The most enthusiastic Firefox users are in Germany where the browser has 39% of the market. While I've been an ardent Firefox user for the past year or so, I recently started using the new version of
Flock after finding its first foray to be less than ideal. One of the reasons Flock now has some appeal is how you can customize with extensions - just like Firefox. Flock became my 1A browser after someone came out with a hack so password tool
Roboform will work with it. (Roboform, in my view, is
the Web 2.0 because its easy to ramble all over the Web without having to punch in passwords at each site).
While I don't expect IE to lose its perch at the top (maybe IE7 will revive its market share) but choice is always a good thing because it encourages innovative. Speaking of choice, The Economist recently had a story looking at whether there were alternatives to Google. Part of Google's "problem" is its dominance, which probably keeps new, small players with interesting features/ideas out of the search game. It is pretty amazing that Google has dominated the search market for the past four, five years. In the high-tech world, this is an eternity. Anyone using new and interesting search engines?
Written by Mark Evans on July 11th, 2006 with no comments.
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Flock, the wanna-be browser for Web 2.0, is taking another hack at making its mark with a new public version - 0.7. So there's nothing terribly new from the last version, which was met with ridicule because it was an alpha that really wasn't ready for prime time. But I'll give Flock this much: they're certainly ambitious because Flock is still trying to be all things to all people. As standard features, it comes with a blogging tool, a bookmarking tool (del.ico.ius), an RSS reader and a photo uploader. One of the challenges of trying to be multi-faceted is it's tough to a do a good job at everything. The blogging tool, for example, is pretty basic - and it doesn't support
Blogware. That said, I like this version of Flock a lot more the last one. There is nothing wrong with trying to push the envelope - and Flock is trying hard to do something different. So is there enough to unseat Firefox as the main rival to Internet Explorer, or even establish itself along with Opera as a viable number three in the browser market? Maybe. Flock has another chance to create some buzz and attract enough users to establish a browser foothold. It doesn't hurt that
Michael Arrington is waving the Flock pom-poms. Flock has apparently raised $10-million in venture capital from Shasta Ventures. Not sure how it justifies this kind of investment given the business model hinges on revenue from a Google search box but I guess the folks in Silicon Valley are either smart than us or have a lot of money sloshing around. Anyway, it's worth giving Flock another try but not sure its a Firefox-killer. You can download Flock
here.
Update:
TechBeat offers up a review on the new Flock, while
Thomas Hawk gives it a huge thumbs up.
Written by Mark Evans on June 13th, 2006 with no comments.
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