So there are Apple and Google. Apple makes iPhone; Google makes Android. Oh yeah, I know about Blackberry; it’s ancient. (Did someone say Windows Phone? Didn’t think so.) A phone is pretty simple, actually. Reading and writing. I need an on-the-go device to read emails and articles and to dash off frequent chunks of text. [...]]]>

So there are Apple and Google. Apple makes iPhone; Google makes Android. Oh yeah, I know about Blackberry; it’s ancient. (Did someone say Windows Phone? Didn’t think so.)

A phone is pretty simple, actually. Reading and writing. I need an on-the-go device to read emails and articles and to dash off frequent chunks of text.

For reading and writing, the iPhone is okay; it really isn’t bad. But Android is bad. I repeat: this phone is BAD. As in, it blows out the goodness meter. Overuse of Android can cause nightmares, paranoia, and irrational fears. A smartphone so smart, you fear it.

For writing: The keyboard’s word correction is phenomenal, often guessing words with half the letters wrong. But I don’t use that feature any more. After trouncing the iPhone on typing corrections, Android made its own breakthrough obsolete with an incredibly accurate voice-recognition software. It terrifies me. I dictate emails of several paragraphs without error. For quick notes, I use my phone, then send it to my laptop. You heard right — my phone is literally a superior input device. Badphone.

That’s not all. Google not only solved the writing problem, they solved reading as well. I read dozens of articles a day on my tiny Android device. I just double-tap the page and Google figures out which text I want to read, then zooms it perfectly into view. Every time. Here as well, iPhone can’t compete. Badphone.

I didn’t mention that Android runs on every major provider and every major phone manufacturer. Apple can’t keep up with Android release schedules; whenever they announce a new iPhone, pretty soon an Android phone comes along that beats it to a pulp. Motorola’s Atrix, for example, has a dual core processor. A dual-core tablet, honestly, is ho-hum, compared to a dual-core phone. Badphone.

Of course, there are other things besides reading and writing. I take pictures, play sermons, listen to my Bible, record my messages to email church-members who couldn’t make Sunday School. There are solid apps for those things on both phones. For fellow droiders, I recommend the YouVersion Bible app. HiFiCorder is the best recording app, I think.

So, Apple is all about marketing. Not about me. Apple is about looking real. Google is about being real, and solving real problems.

Android, not even Google’s major thing, gives the Apple flagship product a run for its money. More than that, it totally body-slams the iPhone on the fundamentals. This phone is Einstein. No, it’s Einstein’s worst nightmare.

To recap: Apple makes the fancyphone. Google makes the badphone. (And I can’t wait for the badcar.)

Controversial topic? Naw, I’m sure you have nothing to say.

I want results NOW! You would be amazed by how many times we hear that from clients who want us to do SEO for them. They expect to be on the first page of Google results by the end of the first day. Sorry, folks! SEO doesn’t work that way – it takes patience. I [...]]]>

I want results NOW!

You would be amazed by how many times we hear that from clients who want us to do SEO for them. They expect to be on the first page of Google results by the end of the first day. Sorry, folks! SEO doesn’t work that way – it takes patience.

I play the euphonium – if you are not familiar with it, it is a small version of the tuba except it has the range of a trombone… Ok, but what does that have to do with SEO? Well, when I first started playing the euphonium in 7th grade (many, many years ago), I could barely get the notes out. I had to be persistent in my practicing to play well. The same goes for SEO – you can’t expect to be #1 for your keywords immediately.

Some of our clients have taken a long time, even a year, to get to a good standing for their keyword phrases. I can tell you that they weren’t really pleased to be on pages 5 and 6, but we kept telling them it takes time. Now they are consistently on page 2 and even have some keyword phrases on page 1.

Depending on your industry and the competition for specific keyword phrases, you may find you appear in the first few pages pretty quickly. However, it may be different if you have a heavily competitive industry. Don’t give up!

What can I do NOW?

Analyze the competitors appearing on the first page for a specific keyword.

• How many times does the keyword appear on their site? How many times does it appear on yours? Try to utilize it on your page as many times as they do on theirs.
• What links are pointing to their site? Are these links you can get as well?

Create a press release to submit to press release sites such as PR Web.

• Are there any big events that your company has been involved in?
• Has your company been given any awards or recognition?
• Have you recently finished any projects?
• The list goes on – be creative, but include keyword phrases.

Tweak content and add pages with keyword phrases.

• Don’t stuff your site with keyword phrases! If you are adding new pages, write them to be relevant to the true audience, your visitors – not the search engines.

Record where you are now.

• Check later to see how you’ve progressed!
• I use Word documents that show the keyword phrase, the date I checked, and where each phrase was in the Google results.

Search with a computer you have not searched with before.

• Or, log out of your Google accounts and clean out your cache. If you don’t, your results could be skewed since Google looks at your cookies and activity to see what would be most relevant to you.

And most of all.… BE PATIENT! You may not witness change overnight. Sometimes it takes six months or even a year before you start seeing the results you want. My advice –  don’t give up just keep on keeping on!

As someone who has been interacting with computers since preschool (maybe even before then), it’s hard to remember that some people don’t know what a URL is or the difference between a browser and a search engine. We all have at least one friend or relative that can hardly operate a computer and always needs [...]]]>

As someone who has been interacting with computers since preschool (maybe even before then), it’s hard to remember that some people don’t know what a URL is or the difference between a browser and a search engine. We all have at least one friend or relative that can hardly operate a computer and always needs help doing some mundane process. It’s easy to write off these people, because surely they must be a miniscule percentage of internet users. But with the popularity of social networking sites like Facebook that connect people in a way we couldn’t have imagined ten years ago, more of these people are interacting with the world wide web.

On February 10th, ReadWriteWeb.com posted an article called “Facebook Wants to be Your One True Login”. The comments then began to fill up with confused and frustrated Facebook users wanting to know how to log in. This grew to about 300 comments. When I first read these comments, I couldn’t figure out what was going on. It soon became clear: many internet users use Google to “access” the internet. In this case, they were typing “Facebook login” into the search bar and clicking the first link. In this instance, Google’s new feed was at the top, and RWW article was the first result.

Comment #85 confirms this: “for those of you that want to get in face book now just go to Bing..put in face book and search (or it will pop up) hit on face book login and it takes you to your password page…i did it.… if this ever gets back to normal I will use the address bar from now on.….”

It also goes another level: Probably influenced by Facebook’s recent layout redesign, many, if not all, of these commenters couldn’t tell that they were on a blog article and not Facebook itself. They thought this was part of the redesign process.

No wonder phishing scams work out so well!

Is it really this hard to log on to Facebook? Google has become the gateway to the internet for people, and they likely don’t wander too far. While it’s good comedy, it’s an eye-opening look into how some people use the internet. Is it ironic that this happens just weeks after the iPad is announced and techies debate how it has no place in the market?

It’s hard to tell how many users utilize Google in this way, for some may have realized they were in the wrong place before attacking the comments box. Unfortunately, we can’t change how users behave, but maybe through incidents like this we can better understand how they interact with the web. So why doesn’t the actual Facebook login page come up when you type “Facebook login” into Google? Do users actually see a link or some design element or feature you implemented? How do you get them to do what you want? Are we making the internet too hard for people?

You can learn a lot about the web in places you might not expect. Take Superbowl ads, for instance. Anytime a company invests about $3 million just to show you something for 30 seconds, it was probably well-thought-out. If you watch closely, and can get past the bright lights and loud noises, you can learn [...]]]>

You can learn a lot about the web in places you might not expect. Take Superbowl ads, for instance. Anytime a company invests about $3 million just to show you something for 30 seconds, it was probably well-thought-out. If you watch closely, and can get past the bright lights and loud noises, you can learn a lot. Here are three ads that stood out to me.

A great product still speaks for itself. All Google had to do to prove it is still way cooler than Bing was to show its product in action. Could you make a compelling 30 second ad solely from screen capture of your site or application? Think about it.

Plan for success. If you are going to spend $2 million on a 30 second ad, make sure viewers can follow your call to action. Two minutes after watching the Dockers ad that ended with “dockers.com/freepants” I visited the site from my iPhone. Oops. Maybe it was hosted by GoDaddy.com.

Quality still counts. I’ve never been particularly impressed by Hyundai automobiles, but I loved their commercial about quality. They claimed their plant in the US employs 3300 people who are each considered quality specialists. Is quality something you tack-on at the end of a project or is quality the job of each and every team member?

What did you learn about the web from Superbowl ads? Watch them all on Hulu.

This is coming to you from cold, snowy Chicago at the Search Engine Strategies Conference 2009. I have to say at the beginning that the hotel this conference is at hosted is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!! But not only that, the sessions today have been very insightful. KEYNOTE: This morning the keynote speaker was Jeff Jarvis who is [...]]]>

This is coming to you from cold, snowy Chicago at the Search Engine Strategies Conference 2009. I have to say at the beginning that the hotel this conference is at hosted is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!! But not only that, the sessions today have been very insightful.

KEYNOTE: This morning the keynote speaker was Jeff Jarvis who is the author of What Would Google Do? He spoke in response to Rupert Murdoch’s plan to hide his sites from Google. Murdoch claims that Google is bringing poor leads to websites, but Jarvis responds stating that “Google gives [you] 100,000 opportunities a minute to create loyal readers and generate revenue for FREE” and “it’s your fault if you don’t know what to do with them.” The remainder of the time he spoke on the changes of how news is reaching all of us and how the “Gutenberg era is over.” He gave a quote from a college student in New York that summed it up pretty well — “If the news is important, it will come to me.”

FIRST SESSION:  “Search Analytics” with speakers Jim Sterne, Matthew Bailey, and Dennis Mortensen. I learned the most from Matthew Bailey who talked about how to segment your data – if you don’t segment you aren’t going to learn the right information from your analytics data. Dennis Mortensen spoke on what a lot of people would consider a radical idea – instead of search engine optimization we should be looking at search engine de-optimization. Don’t worry about having the highest ranking for a search term, but instead de-optimize to get lower in the rankings. This will allow you to have better leads and in the end more conversions. He did make the disclaimer that this will not work for all industries or companies, but it was an idea to think about.

SECOND SESSION: YouTube & Video Optimization with Greg Jarboe. YouTube receives 10 billion video views a month which is the same amount of search queries Google receives in a month. He gave 3 basic steps to do when creating a YouTube campaign – Discover, Watch, and Share. The biggest thing is that if you create a video that people are watching it won’t be worth anything if people don’t share it! 45% of videos are discovered from a video site like YouTube but 44% of them are found on blogs that have videos embedded on them.

THIRD SESSION: Link Building Basics with Debra Mastaler. She gave a quick overview of why links are important along with some tools that can help with with building links. She mentioned having a link policy on your site – tell people they can link to your site, but give them an incentive to do so (a free t-shirt, for example) and then use a press release to announce the incentive.

FOURTH SESSION: 20 Secrets of Top-Converting Websites with Bryan Eisenberg. He was a very energetic and entertaining speaker and even though I could give you all 20 secrets I don’t want to give them all away! He spoke on how to create your landing pages so that they will cause more visitors to convert. A few secrets that spoke out to me were:

1. Reinforce the offer sitewide – from the ad, to the landing page, to the form they fill out, to the thank you page make sure the same message is shown throughout including images, colors, text, etc.
2. Make your forms engaging even up to the thank you page. He made a good suggestion – put specials on the thank you page – never thought of doing that!
3. Appeal to multiple persona’s and segments. Realize that every person that comes to your site is going to have different needs and is going to act differently, so make sure your landing pages appeal to different types. One site that does this well is http://www.mint.com.

FIFTH SESSION (and final for this long day!): Beyond Googling: 5 Years Later, it’s a Different Audience with Bill Scott, Javed Panjawani, and Anne Kennedy. Each speaker spoke on where they believe search is going.

• Javed Panjawani from WolframAlpha believes that computation is the new trend in search – it is more of a personal type of search and WolframAlpha just released this type of technology this last May and has been very successful with it.
• Bill Scott from EaselTV sees suggested discovery as the new trend in search making search more of relationship-based. He said that search is going to start to be more relevant and that the consumer will be the one controlling their results instead of the search engines.
• Anne Kennedy sees search being more visual and mobile. One research found that people get info from visual data 28% faster than from reading text and the iPhone browser is the 4th most used browser in the world.

I know that these are only summaries of the sessions, but if I were to type up everything I learned I would be finding a book publisher! Check back tomorrow for a rundown of the sessions I’m attending and pick up a few more tips.

So last week, Microsoft and Yahoo teamed up and, with their powers combined, swung the boom hammer at Google. Microsoft and Yahoo announced a partnership where Micrsoft’s new Bing will power the search engine function on Yahoo’s sites. Yahoo, on the other hand, will continue to provide its content and portals, and will manage all [...]]]>

So last week, Microsoft and Yahoo teamed up and, with their powers combined, swung the boom hammer at Google. Microsoft and Yahoo announced a partnership where Micrsoft’s new Bing will power the search engine function on Yahoo’s sites. Yahoo, on the other hand, will continue to provide its content and portals, and will manage all ad sales involving searches. It’s a smack of epic proportions. But can this partnership work?? For Yahoo: Yes. For Microsoft: ???    

But let’s get this out of the way now, Yahoo’s the BIG winner here. I almost laughed as I watched Yahoo trade down after the partnership was announced earlier this week. Don’t be confused here — Yahoo has literall nothing to lose in this agreement. Their search engine currently is a very distant second to Google’s, and several people I’ve talked to were confident Bing would overtake Yahoo for the #2 engine by the end of 2010.

So Yahoo swept away the hot new search engine and added it to its ridiculously fast growing (and intensely loyal) user base. Y-Mail has topped 250 million users and Yahoo Messenger has 90 million users — not even close to Google’s Chat and Mail numbers; but we know people aren’t necessarily loyal to Google. Have you ever met a Yahoo user not loyal? Didn’t think so. The point is this: Yahoo is safe. All of these stories (like this one, this one, and this one) are bogus media-driven-premature-pushing-of-panic-buttons that are quite lop-sided. The real risk lies in the Empire’s court. That’s right — Microsoft has put a lot on the line with this merger.

We Invented Something Cool! Here, You Can Have It.
It’s amusing to see that Microsoft invented an engine — it spent years reinventing and tweaking, and then essentially handed it over to Yahoo for its sites. Now, as many would rightly point out, Bing will get a huge insta-boost of searches once it shows up on Yahoo’s sites. But what they’re not telling you is that Bing is catching on. Several reviews (like this one, this one, and this one) place Bing over Google. And many analysts thought Bing would actually tear into Yahoo’s search #‘s … not Google’s. So why go with Yahoo now? The attempted hostile takeover last year made sense then. But now? We can’t say time will tell if Microsoft made the right move, because we’ll really know. What we do know is that there was a chance for Bing, completely on its own, to compete with Google. So much for that.

You Want to Handle All of our Ad Sales? Sure! Why not?!
This one’s befuddling to me, and reasserts my point that it is Microsoft, not Yahoo, who’s being risky here. Why would you create a new engine, generate a bunch of hype and then hand over the ad sales to another company? Granted, it’s not like Microsoft is outsourcing their sales to an ad revenue company somewhere — this is Yahoo!, by the way — but again, Bing is clearly the hot, climbing engine right now — and they’re putting the potential fruits of their labor in the hands of another company!

To put this in more common terms, think of it this way: You’re a farmer who has been growing your own crops and then harvesting them yourself for years now. You’re an expert crop-grower, and you’re an expert harvester. Now, you’ve expanded your land, invested in tons of better fertilizer, and you’re now looking at by far the best season you’ve ever had. So along comes a competing farmer. They see how good you’re doing, and they offer you more land to plant your crops on in exchange for them harvesting your entire crop for you … and taking some skin out of it … all for land you may not have needed to put their crop out of business. Would this make sense to you? Apparently, it made sense to Microsoft. Hmmmmm …

I’m Bing. But Wait, Now I’m Ninja-Bing Slipped Under Yahoo. Call me Bingoo!
Not since Jeeves has a search engine suddenly faced such an identity crisis. What will become of Bing? Where is the user supposed to go to look something up: Yahoo or Bing? What differences will there be? While most Internet savvy people either know the answers to these questions (or simply don’t care), there’s about to be a lot of brand confusion. (For more on brand confusion: See GM.) I’ve yet to see an answer for this one, and we’ll just have to wait and see how it all unfolds.

Bottom Line:

Really, my whole beef about this thing is that Yahoo is taking flack for this deal, when really — they have very little to lose. If you count the sick-nasty investment Microsoft probably made to create Bing, then you can see that suddenly teaming with Yahoo is downgrading the potency of your brand. Sure, Live Search needed Yahoo, but did Bing? We’ll never know the answer to that one …

One answer we will know though is whether this was the right move; but we’ll probably know it later, rather than sooner.

How does Google Web History figure into your personal life? How does Google Web History figure into the life of your business? Read this article to find out.]]>

Last month, fellow Worthwhile Web Strategist, Chris Rackley, asked me to Google something about one of his “most popular” blog posts he had written. He was surprised he was still #1 in the rankings.

I queried. “Chris,” I said, “you aren’t even on my first two pages!” He and I both supposed I had queried incorrectly. I double-checked. In fact, my verbiage was a match with his.

Two identical searches only seconds apart from 5 feet apart yields two completely unique results listings in Google. Whaaaat?!

Google announces Personalized Searching

From what I can see from Google searching (ironically), this technology existed in Google Labs format as early as 2004-05, not actually being used until around Spring 2007. (2005/11 article)

So, What does this mean?

• If you created a Google account after Winter 2007, the default account setting is to have “Web History” turned ON. If you don’t have an account, Google doesn’t store your information, from what I can tell from the sources I consulted, other than standard information which it gathered before.
• This means your searches in Google are “personalized” to you based on previous searches and history. So, if you are a fisherman searching for a new rod-and-reel, searching “bass” will likely not pull up a list of musical instrument websites. (Sounds pretty cool upfront, right?)

Good news/Bad news:

• Good news: Fewer individual irrelevant searches.
• Bad news: Google collects sensitive personal data from you, and you didn’t even know it.
• Good news: You can turn this feature off. (Best article on this subject.)
• Bad news: SEO experts can’t unequivocally promise specific placement in Google (even though they shouldn’t have in the first place). With the number of Google users skyrocketing, this technology will alter the face of SEO work in the near future.

What’s a business-owner to do?

I initially thought this Google technology would eliminate the need for SEO services. I then realized, this actually heightens the need for SEO work. With Google personalized searches, now people who are searching for the service or product you offer will see specific results, giving you a greater chance to be among them. BUT, now the question is, how have you set yourself apart from your competitors? If their site’s SEO strategy is better than yours, you may be placed lower. Confused? Don’t worry. We can help.

You’ve been informed. Act accordingly.

(full article from CNET on CNN) Google has announced an experiment to enable Gmail users to read, write, and search their Gmail messages, all while having no internet connection. You could probably remember that time when you got to a coffee shop, purchased a grande non-fat latte, set up shop, only to find out that [...]]]>

(full article from CNET on CNN)

Google has announced an experiment to enable Gmail users to read, write, and search their Gmail messages, all while having no internet connection. You could probably remember that time when you got to a coffee shop, purchased a grande non-fat latte, set up shop, only to find out that they were experiencing “technical difficulties” and the internet wouldn’t be up “for awhile.“
For me, I’m at Worthwhile or at home over 20 hours per day, having high-speed connections at both places, which makes me think — Even though this is cool technology, is the need really there in the market?
Of gmail users, how many would use their computers or mobile device where there was no internet connection? (The only places I can think of for me right now is in a car or at an airport.)

Of those same users, how many wouldn’t have mobile devices with internet capability?

I don’t have data for those questions, but from my observation, I wouldn’t say the percentage of people needing to use email with no internet connection is anything substantial. Or maybe I’m blinded and spoiled by the easy accessibility I have working for an internet company, where my calendar, to-do list, and email use Google as a platform and are integrated with the other devices I use.

I wonder if this technology isn’t akin in timing to the news several years ago that whole cities would be going wireless. This was exciting, until within a year, techies realized that you would soon be able to tether your laptop to your mobile device and get a faster connection than with a massive wireless network that would come with infrastructure, hardware, and security baggage. Plus, who’d be paying for this city-wide amenity, anyway?

So, is this an effort by Google to provide an uncharted service to a people who need it, or just another notch in Google’s tecnology belt?

Would this Offline gmail service benefit you at all? If so, how? And if so, do you have an internet-capable mobile device (iPhone, Palm, Blackberry, etc.)?

Leave some feedback.

Christmas is one of the most wonderful times of the year – a chance to reflect, eat tons of food and not feel guilty (until after you make that New Year’s resolution for the 289th time to lose weight and diet), share in gift giving, and spend time with family. So naturally I spent Christmas [...]]]>

Christmas is one of the most wonderful times of the year – a chance to reflect, eat tons of food and not feel guilty (until after you make that New Year’s resolution for the 289^th time to lose weight and diet), share in gift giving, and spend time with family. So naturally I spent Christmas day doing what any normal person might do – reading.

Now before you think to yourself what a nerd, let me clear a few things up. You’re absolutely right. I’m a nerd.

My selection of books had grown since Kris Kringle last came. I narrowed it down to two books: The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire and The Google Story. I decided to tackle the modern day empire of Google and leave the Romans for another holiday…

As I was reading the fascinating story of Google I came across their informal company motto: “Don’t be evil.” When I first skimmed over those words I thought, “Oh that’s cute and simplistic. Only Google could get away with something like that.” However, the further I delved into the book the more this phrase kept appearing over and over again. *Insert the proverbial light bulb above my head turning on – This motto must be important.

So I began to mull over and ruminate on those 3 (well, 4 if you split the contraction) small words. What did they mean? Why say what you don’t want to be instead of what you do want to be? What does evil even mean?

Let me tackle a few of those questions:

1. What does evil mean? Google defines it jokingly as whatever their founders say is evil IS evil. After all, it’s their motto.
2. What did they mean by their motto? It’s an all encompassing motto for Google. No matter what they do whether it be Gmail, Froogle, Google News, or just searching – don’t be evil about it. Don’t try to crush the competition (oops). Don’t try and cheat consumers. Don’t go against everything the company stands for. Don’t sacrifice the Google brand and image for a short term profit gain.
3. Why use a negative motto? Google could have used “be good” or “do good” yet they chose to say what they are NOT going to do. So if Google knows what NOT to do…then what SHOULD they do? The door is left wide open in that area. They effectively eliminated all of the things they shouldn’t be in 3 (ok, maybe 4) words. That leaves a plethora of possibility for what they should be. This matches the Google culture completely – one of innovation, risk taking, and ingenuity!

Google used a motto that gave them flexibility. If they had used one like “Put Google in the hands of anyone with the internet” then they’d be out of business. Done. They’ve achieved their motto. By using “don’t be evil” they allow themselves limitless growth and a motto that is almost universally applied at their company.

So what does all of this mean for other companies? Ok, yes, duh. “Don’t be evil.” Treat your customers right – they are people not money machines. I could insert here a corny motto like “Don’t be Worthwhile” err wait “Be Worthwhile.” Lest I digress further let me wrap this up….Companies everywhere – treat your customers right (after all, you are here to SERVE them not SUBDUE them). Also, provide a culture at work that promotes fairness, honesty, and a place where employees know what is expected of them yet have room to grow. “Don’t be evil.”

At first I thought about writing concerning Google Chrome in regards to how to go about optimizing for this new browser (inspired by a comment a co-worker mentioned on Twitter the other day); however, I learned that Chrome is built on the rendering engine Webkit which is used by Safari, so there isn’t too much [...]]]>

At first I thought about writing concerning Google Chrome in regards to how to go about optimizing for this new browser (inspired by a comment a co-worker mentioned on Twitter the other day); however, I learned that Chrome is built on the rendering engine Webkit which is used by Safari, so there isn’t too much to write about concerning that. Even though I do a lot with web developing I’m also involved with customer service here at Worthwhile and the one thing that sticks out to me is how Google listened to its customers and then proceeded to create Chrome to make their experiences even better.

Since Google has the famous Google search engine they know what their customers are doing on the web — watching videos, downloading music, talking with friends, playing games, and since they noticed that the current browsers weren’t really making those type of experiences “worthwhile” they decided to do something about it.

Google started from scratch and made a browser that would make the activities they know their customers are doing even more enjoyable to do. One thing everyone has noticed an improvement on is how fast Chrome is. For the development of Chrome, Google used the Javascript engine (V8)which improves different AJAX apps such as Gmail and Google docs (Kevin Newcomb) . Chrome also does a better job of memory allocation with each tab being its own process (including its own buttons and URL box also known as the Omnibox) so if there is a bad element in one tab it only crashes that tab — not the whole browser — hallelujah!! That has been one of my beefs with Firefox and IE.

All in all, Google has taken the problems they have seen that their customers experience, noticed that none of the current browsers were solving those problems, and started from scratch to make a browser that would hopefully alleviate those problems. Not only that, but they made it open source so a customer could go in and make different changes to the process himself if he so desired to.

How many times have we been frustrated with Firefox or IE but there was nothing we could do about it — we just had to sit back and wait for the next release praying that the problem had been fixed. With Google Chrome you no longer have to do that — you can make the change yourself.

I applaud Google and what they have done with Chrome. They have developed it not to be the number one browser on the planet but to kick the other browsers in the pants so that they’ll get off their high horse and make the needed changes that will allow their customers to have a worthwhile experience on the Internet.

Learn from Google — listen to your customers. Find out what they are doing and how you can make their experience even more worthwhile!

Thanks to Kevin Newcomb from searchenginewatch.com for his great article — Google OS Arrives, In the Form of a Browser

Also, take a look at Google’s Comic Book for more information on how the Google Team came up with Chrome.