When Will asked me to do a post on a website trying clone Arena Flowers, it coincided with Google’s launch of the Chrome web browser. I had related the two and was about to hit the publish button, when I realized it makes little sense to tie in a search behemoth to a little known flower website based in Australia. So abandoned the post and decide to port it to my blog instead.
Over the years we have seen many successes being replicated and at times these imitations have gone on to do better than their predecessors. Take the issue of Internet browsers for example. Internet Explorer has ruled the roost for years despite constant threats from other better, feature rich browsers. But in the last few years, browsers are technically superior, less resource intensive and feature filled. Firefox is the best example. Year on year, IE’s usage has been declining by 7-8%, primarily due to a similar increase of Firefox users. Following the success of Firefox, which in essence is bankrolled by a company which dominates the web world, Google, the very firm has announced the launch of Chrome, a next generation web browser which represents a technological shift in the browser market.
Google’s entry to the browser market raises several interesting questions to the search marketing industry. Following the recent launch of Internet Explorer 8, which packs in advanced privacy settings preventing search engines, Google in particular from collecting user centric information related to ad performance, a nifty search bar and several other features which are predominantly inclined towards Microsoft’s services including Live Maps, Encarta and Live Spaces etc.
In any case, retreading the history of Internet browsers is quite laborious, but what spurs the interest is how the search industry reacts to chrome in the coming days. The blogosphere is abuzz with Chrome’s launch and the first screen shots have started trickling in along with a detailed technical view on the browser through the official comic book by Scott McCloud. It’s a pity that there’s no news of Chrome for Mac, but knowing Google it should be on the way soon. In any case, whenever it is available, you can download chrome from here.
