Chrome: The world's quickest porn browser

It is always a bit of a chore to catch up on RSS feeds after a couple of days away, but the release of Chrome has taken the blogosphere by storm in a way I have never seen before.

Whilst Blogpulse shows that 1.5% of all blog posts were about Chrome, it was probably nearer 25% of all the posts in my RSS reader. Even the most irregular of bloggers were compelled to post an opinion. So, is Chrome any good, and how quickly will it grab market share?

Chrome is amazingly quick, the bloggers are impressed, the press have decided not to take the 'porn' browser line they did with Internet Explorer 8 - Beta 2, and it's promoted on the Google homepage. Whilst it has been suggested that Chrome will take 15-20% of the browser market within 2yrs, I expect to see it grow faster than that.

Not only will Chrome quickly gain market share, they will be getting it primarily from Microsoft, not Firefox. Without extentions the Firefox geeks are unlikely to be swayed in the long term, whilst the simplicity and speed will quickly appeal to the average user. From Microsoft's point of view, it will give Google access to sort of data that they wanted to leverage with their BrowseRank.

Verdict: Unless Microsoft produce something amazingly innovative in the next couple of years, Google will own the web within 10 years.

BrowseRank v. PageRank

Search Engine Land posts about Microsoft's new ranking algorithm, BrowseRank, based on user browsing behaviour rather than web links. Whilst it seems reasonable to presume that BrowseRank will produce better results than PageRank, the question is whether people will willingly/knowingly share their browsing data, and if they do, which search engine they would choose to share their data with. Whilst Microsoft may not have been a particularly trusted brand in the past, they do seem to be putting the past behind them.

xRank Musician Feature: Exactly the same as celebrity list!

Before advertising a new feature it is always best to check that it works: xRank has added a musicians list to its celebrity list. However, unless I am very much mistaken, the two lists are exactly the same (nb. you can click on the pics to see them more clearly):


May I take this opportunity to congratulate Daniel Day Lewis on his new single.

xRank: Another frivolous ranking

Hot on the heels of the BBC's Sound Index, Microsoft have announced the launch of xRank, a ranking of celebrities by search volume. Whilst there were a few negative comments about the sort of music that made it to the top of the Sound Index, the mere existence of xRank is a damning indictment of society. Whilst it has a certain curiosity value the first time, what sort of person will regularly return? Maybe just the celebrities and their stalkers.

The good news is that, unlike the decidedly flawed Sound Index, Cliff Richard is in the xRank index: currently at 97 after a sudden fall of 54 places.

Free Microsoft Software for Students

Microsoft are making a number of software products free to students: Visual Studio, Expression Studio,XNA Game Studio 2.0, and Windows Server 2003. You currently need to be a student in either Belgium, China, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK or the US.

This is a winning move for both students and Microsoft. Microsoft creates great software, but it is often out of the price range of many students. This move will prevent the students moving to less user-friendly open source equivalents whilst hopefully getting them hooked on Microsoft products for life.

Reflections on Google's Share Price

A posting by TechCrunch has caused me to reflect once more on Google's share price. I have posted on the Google Share price twice previously:
- How quickly could Google stock crash? (when they crossed the $600 mark at the beginning of October)
- Google shares at $700 (at the end of October)
Whilst I initially said that I would (theoretically) sell at $700 and never look back, the rapid growth made me think it would probably be worth hanging around for the $1,000. My first instincts, however, were correct, reminding us once more of the dangers of being too greedy on the stock exchange. Now, with Google shares falling rapidly to $495 the question on everyones lips is how much further will they fall?

Whilst Google shares have lost a third of their value they are only back to their August value. The rapid rise can be seen as a momentary aberration, any big downturn in the economy is yet to show in the share price. So my latest Google share prediction:
The shares will bob around the $500 mark until Microsoft's buyout of Yahoo is confirmed, at which point it was drop down to the $450 mark (possibly even as low as $400. Extremely slow growth, or even recession in the US will then see shares fall to $350.
What can Google do? Buying Yahoo would be seen as desperation, and I doubt they could match Microsoft's offer. Basically they have to just keep doing what they are doing and hope that more people don't start questioning whether or not they are living up to 'do no evil'. Personally I find myself slowly breaking the Google spell and typing ask.com more often.

Google is Unhappy...Good.

Personally I wondered how much an effect a Yahoo-Microsoft merger would have on the Google train, but Google's blog reaction seems to suggest they are definately worried and are going to try and play on consumers' lingering anti-Microsoft feelings. Although I wonder whether Google should really be playing the anti-monopoly card? Definate case of glass houses.

There is only one story: Microsoft offer $44.6bn for Yahoo!

I have not had a chance to check out the blogosphere today, but I am guessing that there is only one big story, Microsoft's offer of $44.6bn in cash and shares for Yahoo. Whilst the rumour has been spreading for a while that either Google or Microsoft would buy out Yahoo, it is still a shock to read that the offer has been made. Personally I would like to see Yahoo compete successfully as an independent company, but if it has to be bought I would rather see it bought by Microsoft than Google.

Google is too powerful a web presense, especially in the realm of search. Having a single organisation that provides access to all the information on the web doesn't really bare thinking about, but that is the situation we seem to be (sleep)walking towards. Surely we have passed the point where Google's success in web search has meant that it has broken its "do no evil" philosophy.

This is the wake-up call that we need to start breaking the Google addiction. Personally I will be heading to Ask.com for my searching...as long as I remember.

Who really won Facebook?

You couldn't really describe the Microsoft investment in Facebook as breaking news, the story seems to have been going on for weeks. The final outcome, a 1.6% stake for $240 million, valueing Facebook at $15 billion. If Facebook is worth $15 billion, then I'm the Queen of Sheba.

Whilst I think that it is an outrageous price, it will probably work out quite well for Microsoft as it will tie Facebook into their adverts for the forseeable future. Whereas I don't think it is necessarily a good deal for Facebook, they should have sold a little bit more whilst they had the chance, their stock is unlikely to be riding this high forever and they need to capitalise on it ASAP. Zuckerberg talks about going public in two years, by which point it will probably be worth half as much.

The other big social networking sites are going to continue innovating, new social networking sites will enter the market, the mobile market is going to become increasingly important, and teens are going to decide they want to hang out somewhere different to their parents. The market is constantly shifting, but the $15billion price tag seems to reflect a continued status quo. Yesterday Techcrunch published the growth rates of a number of different social sites, and the fastest by far is IMEEM a site that has managed to pass me by up to now. Whilst I have yet to have a close look at IMEEM, it serves to illustrate the point about emerging sites; it may be the next big thing, it may not, the point is nothing will stay the same.

However the future of social networking pans out, one thing is for sure: Rupert Murdoch got MySpace for a bargain price.

Major Live Search updates

Microsoft have announced their biggest update to Live Search since its debut. Unfortunately whilst everyone seems to be talking about it, noone is raving about it; whilst it is accepted as an important piece of news, noone seems to think it is a particularly exciting bit of news. The general belief seems to be that the search wars are over (at least in the U.S. and the U.K) and that Google has won. Personally I live in the hope that the existing players manage to take back some of Google's excessive portion of the search market, and that there will be serious new entrants in the market.

I hate the fact that Google currently deals with over 60% of all searches, and feel ashamed every time I find myself typing in 'www.google.com' in a zombie-like trance; no single organisation should have such powerful influence over access to information on the web. When Google entered the search market they raised the bar of expections for search engines, and as yet (many year later) the other search engines have failed to succesfully reply. That is not to say they won't, but rather that it is going to take something truely new and innovative. The new search engines at the moment seem to just be rehashing old ideas, with some being a repackaging of a directory and others going for the conversational English that failed in the original Ask Jeeves.

As more users start creating on the web, rather than just consuming, there are many new sources of information for a search engine to tap into; rich, formated information. The successful search engines are likely to be those that find the best ways of making use of this new information.

Tafiti search engine launches...and I like it

Microsoft have just launched a new search engine using their Silverlight technology. Taking advantage of their Wondows Live ID users can drag results from the search engine off to one side where they can be tagged and returned to at a later date.

Whilst the general feel of the search engine is nice, there are a few oddities, such as the tree view:


..and other bits which take a while to get used to, such as rather than 'more' taking you to another page of search results, the search results are added to the bottom of the page.

Rather than its primary purpose being a new search engine, it seems to be to promote Silverlight, nonetheless I like it, and will try to use it on those occasions I remember to stop typing "google".