Google Chrome needs more than hype
When Google announced its new Chrome browser on Tuesday there was a tremendous amount of buzz in the media, Silicon Valley, and Wall Street. But what about John Q. Public? Average Internet users couldn't care less.
Google introduced Chrome with a ton of technical mumbo-jumbo about rendering Web pages and running applications written in Ajax and JavaScript. This dialogue may put most users to sleep rather than get them to switch browsers.
So what does Google really need to do to make Chrome a success? Here are a few suggestions:
Find a few killer applications. Whether its YouTube or some gaming application, Google needs an extremely popular Web application that runs demonstrably better in Chrome. This will attract a community of users that Google can learn from and build upon.
Focus on security. The other side of running applications well is maintaining high levels of security. Firefox gained popularity when Internet Explorer was deemed insecure by many security professionals. Google should take its show on the road to the RSA Conference and Infosec Europe to gain visibility with the security in-crowd. Before choosing this road, however, Google must be ready to talk about its development process, bug tracking, and software patching in an open and honest way.
Gain a few distribution partners for Android. I'm assuming that Chrome will be tightly integrated into Android. If Google can strike a deal with LG, Nokia, or Research In Motion, its mobile browser may pave the way for Chrome on the desktop.
Aside from its search engine and Web advertising muscle, a lot of Google's endeavors have been more sizzle than steak. We geeks will surely check out Chrome and may even decide to use it on a regular basis. Yup, Chrome may achieve the status of "geek chic," but without a lot of partners and shrewd marketing, it won't gain popular appeal.
Jon Oltsik is a senior analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group. He is not an employee of CNET. 
The day this is possible, it will rock!
Chrome is spyware mascaraing as a browser.
What's that? Technology enthusiasts from the middle east? Oh, I see you meant chic, not sheik.
And that handwavy nod you gave to CSS and Javascript fails to acknowledge that the internet has been home to browsers that failed miserably to do javascript and CSS _right_. Any pressure to standardize internet markup is positive IMPO
BUT, Google legally owns all of your contributions to the WWW if you use Chrome to make them, which is definitely less than ideal.
Bundling Chrome with Android, the so-called iPhone killer, if ture, is all the more suspicious. Can't Google learn from MSFT's mistakes? Google claims that more than half of the smart phone access points to the Web are now through iPhone ? so there sure seems to be a smoking gun here. How retro. What's the matter with competition? Sorry ? "not for Mac users" just "don't cut it." And yes, I know that the Mac is the best Windows platform in the world ... but I refuse to open my system to all of the collateral damage from Windows '85 corruption.
"VONBOB1" - Not opening it up to the Mac population? It IS open to the Mac population, you can actually check the status of the development of thier Mac/Linux Versions. From reading what they said, they wanted the Windows version out there first to get some feedback etc... but there is no implications of denying anyone access? Not sure where you're going with this???
Bundling Chrome with Android, the so-called iPhone killer, if ture, is all the more suspicious. Can't Google learn from MSFT's mistakes? Google claims that more than half of the smart phone access points to the Web are now through iPhone ? so there sure seems to be a smoking gun here. How retro. What's the matter with competition? Sorry ? "not for Mac users" just "don't cut it." And yes, I know that the Mac is the best Windows platform in the world ... but I refuse to open my system to all of the collateral damage from Windows '85 corruption.
As far as I can tell, the only articles that make sense to me are the ones that show me numbers; solid, proven benchmarks - all of which show Chrome is faster than IW, but slower than Firefox and Safari, although it blows the rest of them away in Javascript.
As far as the browser's future dependance on Android, Google has already stated that they were developed entirely seperately, and don't have any plans on incorporating them since Android's default browser is already one of its big features.
I realize Google has somewhat devalued the term "beta", but you should probably keep in mind that's what we're looking at. Google is trying to attract savvy users instead of casual ones because THE PROGRAM ISN'T FINISHED YET. Yes, you want John Q. Public to use your product -- but you don't want him to beta test it.
As for "focus on security" -- well, somewhere in that "ton of technical mumbo-jumbo" you've read I'm sure you must have seen something about process jailing. Security IS something the developers are focusing on, from the ground up; I'll grant that it remains to be seen how that works out in the long term, but my guess is "better than IE".
Lousy article. loaded chrome, still getting used to it but it's fast and I guess we'll see... I agree the importance here is in the guts of the browser and not in the Marketing announcement or this article. The last time I saw 'Mumbo-Jumbo' there was Rum sprayed to the cardinal points and a chicken had it's neck wrung and it's blood sent to the cardinal points as well...
Back to IE
- by thechromeguy September 3, 2008 7:19 PM PDT
- Chrome is not just about Hype. I've used it and have made it my default browser. Its performance advantage is easily demonstratable, all we need to do is visit "heavy" applications like Gmail or Yahoo mail etc - the load time is much faster and so is the responsiveness.. I've written more on it here - http://googlechromecommunity.com/bb/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=28
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