Google Chrome browser – a boost to web designers and developers

Google recently released their Chrome browser, to mixed reviews. In short, Chrome is an open source browser promising performance improvements, new features, and better integration with Google services like Gmail and Docs. There are many more details and reviews available, but regardless of how it performs or how people like it, it’s great news to those of us creating websites everyday.

What’s exciting to me as a web designer and (occasional) developer is that it gives users everywhere another viable, free, and well publicized alternative to Microsoft Internet Explorer, especially version 6 (IE 6).

Quite a few users still use IE 6, and most of them are probably content with it. For any company creating websites or web marketing however, IE6 is a monster that brings with it wasted time and resources, multiple versions of code, and severe limitations from both a technical and creative standpoint.

IE6 is an old, outdated browser. IE6 was released in 2001, and many of its shortcomings stem directly from the fact that it is simply outdated when compared to modern browsers like IE7, Mozilla Firefox, or Apple’s Safari. There are too many problems to list here, but security concerns, lack of PNG 24 alpha support, CSS layout inconsistencies and web standards compatibility issues are all sources of endless headaches for designers and developers here at DigitalDay and beyond. Additionally, there are interesting new techniques and creative approaches being discovered every day in the world of web design, but many of them are limited to newer browsers.

Some companies have officially just decided to stop supporting IE6 entirely, while others continue to plea their case to clients, etc. What ultimately matters though, is whether or not users can access the information and brands we work with. We don’t design for the brands, we design for the users. Unfortunately right now, approximately 25% of all users we measure are still using IE6. So, we have to keep them in mind with everything we do.

The exciting thing about Google Chrome is that it is a modern browser supporting web standards, with none of the headaches IE6 brings to the table. It is such a media darling that more than a few IE6 users who had never heard of Mozilla might give it a try. Every user who takes a step forward and downloads a modern browser will see what they’ve been missing, and the creativity and efficiency of web design and development across the board will grow.

The Dot.com Bubble… 2.0?

I came across this video yesterday during my daily check of Digg. It’s about the speculation of a Web 2.0 bubble and it’s to the tune of Billy Joel’s, “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”

The video even asked me to blog the song… how could I deny that?

The Digg Effect

Social news aggregate Digg is well-known for its ability to drive traffic to unlikely, and sometimes likely, Web sites and blogs. The surges in traffic from popular posts often result in overloaded servers or hit bandwidth caps in a phenomenon dubbed the “Digg effect.”

Ben Cook, a curious blogger who runs Blogging Experiment, wondered whether the Digg effect could leave enough lasting effect for a blog to rely on for its foreseeable future. Basically, how much traffic would he continue to receive once the surge in visitors from a Digg post had dwindled away? Ben created a blog called Hilarious Names back in May and posted the first article to Digg to see what kind of results he would get.

Well, after receiving about 20,000 visitors within a few hours, things died down to about 1,000 a day and then to 10 a day. He decided to take a look at the blog’s stats again recently and found that it still receives 40-50 visitors a day and is the top result of over 2,000,000 in a Google query for “hilarious names.” Seventy-five percent of Hilarious Names’ traffic comes from search engines and 19% is from the Digg post. He concedes that 40-50 visitors a day isn’t that big of a deal, but it is kind of impressive considering that this traffic comes six months after his post on Digg and the only effort he put into the blog was posting two articles.

As an avid Digg user (a “Digg addict,” if you will) I’m intrigued. It makes sense, but like the people before Ben Cook, I never really thought about how much traffic a blog could be left with once the Digg effect had waned. Digg really holds a lot more potential than many people give it credit for.

Source: Blogging Experiment – The Lasting Digg Effect

Google Growth

Google has been at the top of the search engine game for years and new data from Hitwise shows that it’s only getting more popular. The search engine that spawned “googling” as an acceptable verb is now used for nearly 65% of all Web searches in the US.

Usage of Google went up almost 6% last month compared to a year ago. Of the next three most popular search engines, Yahoo! Search, MSN Search, and Ask.com, Ask was the only one to see its numbers rise. It’s quite impressive to see Google grow an already commanding lead. Yahoo! Search took second place with 21.65% of searches in the US. That’s only a third of the queries Google handled!

I’d actually be a bit curious to see how many users rely on more than one search engine for typical use since it seems they tend to be pretty loyal to their favorite. I guess I’ll just have to google it to find out… (hah hah).