Screenshot of new Microsoft campaign.
In an almost bizarre twist, Microsoft itself has started a marketing drive to get people to leave their old browser where it should be: in the trash.
The “You wouldn’t drink 9 year old milk” tagline might not hold up under too much scrutiny (IE8 is by now several month old milk, at least) but we appreciate the sentiment. We also notice that they couldn’t help putting a dig in against Firefox, Safari and Chrome, but I guess that was to be expected. Komosion has long advocated to its clients that they should not use IE6, and in fact we had to issue a special note letting clients know that if they did use it after this month’s upgrade to Komodo CMS v6, then not all of the features and improvements that we had built in would be able to work properly. That’s not because of any omission on our part, but simply because IE6 is so old there are just things it cannot do.
Still, it does say something: when a software company is so embarrassed by people still using its most outdated offering that it actually campaigns against it.
Facebook > Google graph.
For a full week in mid-March, social networking site Facebook.com replaced search engine behemouth Google.com as the most visited web site in the United states.
According to Hitwise, an online monitor, Facebook.com received 7.07% of all internet traffic, just ahead of Google.com which had 7.03%.
The figures do not take into account searches made through the Google toolbar, or people accessing Gmail or Google maps.
With the web now potentially more sociable than searchable, marketers will certainly start to view Facebook as a proper marketing platform.
Let’s face it, the advertisements on it are pretty hokey at the moment!
Ever tried to hunt down a cool and affordable hotel in London but can’t seem to find one after scrolling through pages of Google?
Well, Google has launched a new product that has the potential to make it easier to track down the type of hotel you are looking for by linking into your social network.
Launched in October 2009, Google Social Search has only recently been made available to the public at large.
The new search will now include sites that your friends have either posted content on or bookmarked – including a positive post made on Trip Advisor.
You need a Google account and a Google profile to get the search going. And while Google says you then link into your friends on your contact list and through various network sites such as Twitter and Flikr etc – it seems your friends must also have Google profiles for your searches to work.
The implications for companies are potentially significant. With this new Social search creeping in as people join the network, companies could find their once high rankings on the old school “SEO” way reduced. Komosion advises companies to check their rankings each week and take note if they are going down.
How popular Social search will be is a guessing game. But one thing that jumps out immediately is that Google admits that after you create your Google Profile, it’ll take “a few weeks” before you start seeing ’socialised’ search results.
This makes is hard to immediately gauge the effectiveness of the tool, and in a climate where there’s frequent discussion of social network switch-off, Komosion is wondering whether people will create the bare bones of a profile, not see any benefits, and forget about it as they click through to something more immediately engaging.
Rest in Peace: Internet Explorer 6
For those of you who haven’t heard it (that’s right, all four of you) – Google is officially dropping support for Internet Explorer 6 in it’s applications.
The following are some excerpts from an email that they sent out to all Administrators of GoogleDocs accounts yesterday:
“In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance… over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.
Google Apps will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above…
Starting this week, users on these older browsers will see a message in Google Docs and the Google Sites editor explaining this change and asking them to upgrade their browser.” (emphasis ours)
Komosion couldn’t agree more.We have been saying as much in all of our recent public presentations and information nights: IE6 is now over 9 years old. For a piece of software, that is positively archaic. And in an environment that changes as much as the internet does each day? That’s just crazy.
Here’s an interesting one.
Stephe’s wife was recently having some trouble completing an order on E-Bay. She went through all the possibilities, and jumped through their hoops, and eventually got into an email discussion with the support staff at E-Bay. This was their response:
> Thank you for writing to eBay’s Customer Support. My name is Grace and I
> appreciate the opportunity to assist you with your concern.
>
> I’ve investigated the situation for you, and the problem you are
> experiencing is due to a browser issue.
>
> In this case, I suggest that you try to use either Firefox or Internet
> Explorer as your browser since they are the ones supported by our
> system.
…
> Warm regards,
>
> Grace A.
> eBay Customer Support Team
She was using Safari at the time, on her Mac. Now, why wouldn’t E-Bay support that part of the user base?
Personally, at Komosion we support IE6 and up, Firefox 2.0 and up, and Safari 2.0 and up.
