Archive of TheNextWeb.org
Written on December 2, 2008 – 1:13 pm
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
Google’s new Browser Chrome hasn’t been making much of a dent in the browser markets yet. And they don’t have to to. Google seems patient and will slowly but decidedly keep working on their product until it starts gaining momentum. This is a market they want, and should, be in. Read this great background article at Wired for some insights into their plans and history.
a few months ago we visited an Internet start-up where the CEO told us a funny story of how one of his developers used an Ad Blocker. He took the developer aside and explained to him that their whole business, his company and his salary depended on income on ads. He explained to the developer that if he wanted to work in this business it would be odd to fight the economic systems that pay for your food. The developer ended up removing the ad blocker.
The reason I’m telling you now is that Google, a company that depends on ads for 95% of its revenue, is now inviting developers to come up with an ad blocker for Chrome. Really.
Listed in the Chromium Developer Documentation are several references to an ‘AdBlocker’. Is is part of “some types of extensions that we’d like to eventually support” in Chrome, according to the document. Now I know the principles behind innovation and cannibalizing your assets but I’m still surprised that Google would invite people to build one for Chrome.
What happens if the feature becomes the number one Chrome add-on, and Chrome becomes the number one browser on the web? A web without ads? Does Google secretly think that ads are just a temporary way to make money until they can start charging for their products? Or is this just a product of a developer who wrote a technical document and published it without checking with PR or Management?
I hope you like that post!
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Written on November 13, 2008 – 1:08 am
Zee, Internet Marketer, Design Connoisseur & Web App Devotee
Google’s latest developer version of chrome has been released and includes a far more feature rich bookmarking manager.
With the latest version, available for download if you’ve subscribed to the Chrome developer channel, you’ll find you can search bookmarks, create folders and drag & drop bookmarks to new locations.
Of course, this is highly unlikely to excite devoted Firefox users but for those devoted to Google and Chrome, this has been a highly requested feature.
There are further less signifcant features outlined in the release notes found here.
via CNet.
Written on October 28, 2008 – 10:48 pm
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
Yeah, now I see it too!!!
Written on October 14, 2008 – 3:26 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Interesting news about Chrome. Colin Barras, online technology reporter for Short Sharp Science, has been keeping an eye on the Global Marketshare Statistics of Clicky (the web analytics service we use, approve, and recommend). He noticed that the Google browser peaked when it was the talk of the town, with a 3.1% share. Yet since then it has dropped to 1.5%, sometimes even 1.4%.
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (around 60%) and Mozilla Firefox (around 30%) caress their steady figures. Barras expects Google to “have a job on its hands if Chrome is ever to rival Firefox, let alone Internet Explorer”. He also notes that the Chrome download link disappeared of the minimalistic Google frontpage - for reasons unknown.
To me it all makes perfect sense.
Google launches a beta version of a browser.
People check it out.
Google has enough test users and takes the link off the frontpage.
The folks who love Chrome wait for a stable version and start using their old browsers again.
Some hardcore fans stay.
Google launches a new kick-ass version and resumes its quest for world domination.
Hat tip: Bright (Dutch only)
Written on September 12, 2008 – 12:55 pm
Guest blogger, sharing views on The Next Web
This is a guest post by Dutch New Media student Edial Dekker
In 1986 Richard Stallman wrote his famous manifesto ‘The Free Software Definition’. It was later published by the Free Software Foundation. The text defines free software - free as in the ‘free as in freedom’ sense. The canonical lines of the text became the cornerstones of the GNU Project (later Linux). Today, the manifesto has been published in 39 languages. Open source isn’t new, it became viable when the first computer-like machine came down on earth.
Stallman wrote an impressive politically charged artwork of propositions and highly influential ideas about how free software should and could look like. Today, open source is, maybe more than ever, used as a very powerful political tool. Open-source has become a mean to become a serious competitor of large corporations like Microsoft, Apple and other giants. Led by Google and Mozilla, open source applications are a serious force to be reckoned with.
Chrome is a recent example of Google trying to make sure the competitors do not grow to large and competition is still on. Stallman formulated it this way:
‘The paradigm of competition is a race: by rewarding the winner, we encourage everyone to run faster. When capitalism really works this way, it does a good job; but its defenders are wrong in assuming it always works this way. If the runners forget why the reward is offered and become intent on winning, no matter how, they may find other strategies—such as, attacking other runners. If the runners get into a fist fight, they will all finish late.’
Obviously, getting a large piece of pie, or the whole pie for that matter, gives you a lot of advantages when you try to control other businesses. And even when you are not making enough money to keep your head up, going open source is a good way to strike back. No wonder Yahoo was celebrated for going opening up her search platform (BOSS), and no wonder Reddit is back on track and with many cool offspring’s every day.
Open source has become THE tool to fight the giants that can otherwise be very difficult to challenge. While the popularity of open source applications is growing by the minute, large corporations, who are trying to protect their monopolization, are losing ground every day. Google uses Chrome and Android to achieve this.
When will there be a serious open source search engine that will challenge Google?
Written on September 1, 2008 – 8:45 pm
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
In an amazing turn of events Google seems to be working on their own open source version of a full fledged webbrowser. Although unconfirmed by Google the details presented by Google Blogoscoped are detailed and exciting.
We will post more details as they come available but in the mean time go and visit Blogoscoped and check out the specs and illustrations.
UPDATE: Now confirmed by Google on the official Google blog. More detailed reviews and first impressions can be found on Techcrunch, ReadWriteWeb and the official Chrome website (oops, down again).
And a real screenshot:
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The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show of, the future of the Web. (
