rebron.org: Everyday Life, Work, Ironman Training

I got one of these Dell XPS M1330 RED computers.  It’s a good computer, I recommend it.

It’s party season and some Web 2.0 start-up needs to put Evite out of their misery (maybe it’s smokethatass.com, j/k)

I’d like Evite to do two simple things:

1)  Create a click to add to Google Calendar (and Yahoo! Calendar needs to step it up w/ an AJAX version, maybe this is the Zimbra team)

2)  Just make it simple to copy and paste the event information so I can stick it in a blog post or an email or in a calendar.  The mark-up and tables are really messy.

It seems like Evite is in maintenance mode.  And if they stay in maintenance mode too long, they’re going to turn into MapQuest.

Steve Jobs put together a slide of his view of the Web Browser market share and what he wants. This is my view of the Web Browser Market share and what *I* want to see. I have Keynote too baby.

Given the current state of the Web browser market — if Mozilla keeps doing what they’re doing, Apple keeps doing what they’re doing, and Internet Explorer continues to suck, then my wishful projections aren’t far off.

It’s:

• Internet Explorer at 40%; it’ll stay with the highest share because of corp usage, and default distribution
• Firefox at 30%; because of International strength, simplicity and product strength
• Safari at 15%; because of default distribution on Mac OS X
• Others at 15%; variations of Firefox/IE, Opera etc.

What’s more realistic is:

• Internet Explorer at 55%
• Firefox at 20%
• Safari at 15%
• Others at 10%

I’ve been tracking browser market share since 1999. What amazes me about it is the fluctuation over the years. You’d think it would be more stable but it’s not. Two more things: 1) before the web was young and so users were being added like crazy. Now it’s more of a zero-sum game. 2) With all this talk about browsers, Flash has *all* the users. It amazes me how they did it. mozilla.org should have Adobe and Flash in their sights if keeping the Web open is their top priority. Adobe and Flash scare me.

Needle Movers

The biggest needle movers:

• If Google enters the browser market or continues to ride Mozilla Firefox. I’m hoping the latter. If Google enters the browser market, they’re just getting greedy because they already have the primary hooks in Firefox. Google needs to continue to help distribute Firefox, especially to maintain their goodwill with developers and the Web.
• How Mozilla does in Asia, China, Japan, and Korea. Also if they pay for PC distribution or improve on getting Firefox in the Enterprise space.
• Some other browser that we don’t know even know about that’s better than what’s available today.
• Major cheating by either Apple or Microsoft by making certain programs only work in IE or Safari.

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Have to go to the beach now…I’ll update this post in a bit.

*draft* before I forget

Once a user downloads a web page, that web page is technically theirs to do whatever they want, print it, mark it up, annotate it, etc. Doesn’t mean the content on that web page is theirs nor is the code, yes from a technical (I have it in my possession) standpoint but no from a copyright standpoint. Once a page is downloaded or even as it’s loading, that user technically “owns” that page. This isn’t any different from downloading anything off the web, an .mp3 file, a .xls file, a word document, a pdf file. Once a document is in my hands, on my computer, it’s mine.

I’m curious to see if other folks agree or disagree or if I’m once again just stating the obvious. I’m not necessarily sure that what I’ve mentioned is clear or even necessary for folks to understand.

Online video advertising was introduced last year and can be seen on ESPN.com, Business Week, c|Net, New York Times, etc. The standards for these video ads are still unclear:

• Some are played immediately on launch of the page w/ sound, some are played without sound
• Some must be clicked on to start the ad
• Video length isn’t clear, 15, 30, 60, 90, (120 and 180) seconds with 15 seconds as the norm. This matches offline tv/movie advertising.
• Video positioning isn’t clear either when ads are displayed within video content, i.e. the ad may be played before or after the video
• All video ads are using Flash as the underlying technology. Nothing new as Flash has been the platform of choice for advertisers who had been doing “rich media” ads before the video technology was added to the Flash platform.

What’s got folks salivating about this technology is that online video ads are measurable (television advertising is harder to measure). There can be a clear action that’s taken afterwards too (a clickthrough) but more importantly the advertiser can understand how many times the advertisement has been played and can also receive information on browser/os/location and possibly user demo info if that person is logged into the web site.

If you know that a 30 second ad on a good television show can cost $80 - $100k just for those 30 seconds, you can see the potential revenue.

In 2007, online video advertising will start to get normalized/standardized in terms of length of time, position, metrics, etc. One thing is clear about the Internet, advertisers/salespeople are efficient and can get their act together quickly in finding ways to make money.

The IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) I believe is where all this stuff will be shaken out. Sadly, the Web may get annoying again as video ads have the potential to be more annoying than pop-ups. Can’t wait for that online video ad pop-up! I’m sure they’re already out there.

John Battelle asked Steve Berkowitz and Jim Lanzone where Google was vulnerable at the Web 2.0 conference on Wednesday. Either they knew and weren’t sharing or they really didn’t know the answer because neither gave good answers. I’m going to think the former. Let me tell you what I think and I’ll answer this in three parts.

Part 1

The main components of a general Web search engine are: speed, relevancy, and comprehensiveness. Mastering these elements make for a great search engine/great search product. These characteristics were defined a good while ago. Speed is speed. Relevancy has a lot of leeway and has much room for improvement. Comprehensiveness is how good and complete (breadth/size) is your data source as well as what vertical searches you offer e.g. government search, subject specific search, map search, local search, etc.

What makes up the rest of a search engine is marketing and distribution.

Part 2

I’m a big Google fan for various reasons. One of the biggest reasons is Google gets it. What Google delivers in their search results is the Internet. What I mean is when I search for something, say directions, I get results from Google Maps, MapQuest, and Yahoo! Maps because that’s what I was looking for. In contrast, when searching Yahoo!, it’s about Yahoo! services first, then the Internet second; same with AOL Search and Live.com. (It’s called driving recirculation.) I’m not sure if the search engines get it. This is also the “I can’t put a finger on why I like Google, but I like Google a lot.” Well it’s because they’re giving you or like to make you think that what they’re giving you is the Web.*

Google also understands how the game is played. It’s an ops game and Google understand ops. They also understand the fundamental concept of referrals and how the Web is a referral monster, in other words, ad machine.

Finally, there are a lot of “haters” out there now. It’s just human nature. But what I’d prefer to see is that people take note of what Google is doing and really step up to the plate. It’s not just copying their homepage to make it simple and clean, it’s about copying some of the same values.

Part 3

Google is vulnerable in several places:

1) International, they aren’t globally dominant. Other search engines are better than Google and Yahoo! in other areas of the world. In country companies have a distinct advantage just because Google is a US based company. Also note that the ad market is great in the US and in some other countries but isn’t as mature and isn’t the same structure in many countries.

2) Distribution. At the end of they day, Google still has to go through Firefox or Internet Explorer or some other browser or some other client. The food chain is PC, OEM/ISP, Browser, then Search engines and web sites.

3) Completeness. Google can get locked out of various markets because they may not have access to the data or content. Let’s say Yahoo! or MSFT buys NAVTEQ, the content provider for Google Maps and every Maps service around. Guess who’s up a creek.

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* This may change as Google starts hosting more and more content.  They may start giving preferential treatment to their own services and content.  They may also give this preferential treatment unknowingly by working with the content folks they acquire e.g. blogger, YouTube and helping them optimize for the Google search algorithms.  If we see “recirculation” coming out of Google, that may be the start of their decline as a preferred engine and opens up the opportunity for someone else.

List of Killer Applications

This list is based on killer categories and then lists the application that has market share and/or is a superior product in the category. Web sites are not listed here even though many sites have app-like services e.g. ESPN with live sports scoreboard or Amazon wishlists or portfolio apps. Everything listed here is just my opinion and best guess.

Killer apps are mainstream or apps that are stellar and primed to go mainstream.

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Clients -

Web Browser: Internet Explorer 6 - 7; Firefox 2
Email: Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird 2
Calendar: Outlook, iCal
Instant Messenger: Yahoo!Messenger, iChat
Music/Video: Windows Media Player, iTunes
Photo: iPhoto, Picasa

Word Processor: MS Word, Pages
Spreadsheet: MS Excel
Presentation: MS Powerpoint, Keynote

Anything missing?

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Web Applications (mainly US) -

Search Engines: Google
Specialty Searches: Google Maps/Local, Google Finance
Webmail: Yahoo!Mail, Gmail
Calendar: Google Calendar
Collaboration (may become a killer app): BaseCamp

Photos: Kodak Gallery, Flickr
Music: iTunes store
Video: tbd

Networking: Linked-in, MySpace, Facebook
Blog software (may become a killer app): WordPress, Typepad/Movable Type

Anything missing?