[UK] Google is advertising its Chrome browser using a wrap-around cover on today’s Metro newspaper in the UK.
The ad’s front page, continuing the theme of the video ad Google launched last week, describes Chrome as “A fast, new browser. Made for everyone”.
Inside, the ad explains why Google made the browser and details its features such as the unique way it handles tabs and its Incognito mode (often nicknamed ‘Porn Mode’ by users).
The rear of the ad lists items such as “10 days of holiday left, about to expire; 27 emails between my wife and I hatching travel plans; 7 potential travel plans generated on 4 travel sites, 3 playlists generated on Spotify”. It then goes on to read “6 tabs open, 0 crashes, 1 browser”.
Metro is a newspaper distributed for free every weekday morning in the UK. With Chrome still a minority browser in comparison to Internet Explorer and FireFox, Google has a prime opportunity to increasing marketshare by giving potential users a chance to read up on its browser’s benefits on a slow boring Monday commute.
UPDATE: Twitter user Technicalfault spotted this Chrome billboard ad in Manchester, UK this morning. It’s odd to see the masters of new media advertising using such traditional means to promote its browser. They’re clearly reaching out to the non-geek Internet Explorer 6 users out there.
Companies that use the ‘money no object’ law can turn into very dangerous entities.
Yes, this corporation’s advert cover the front and back pages of the Metro today, inside and out. I doubt many people read it, though. Most people aren’t that interested in reading about web browsers and corporate propaganda during their daily commute. Google wants Chrome to be mainstream, and pushes their products very hard using arrogant, patronising language that portrays all rival products as implicitly inferior and web users as stupid. I prefer Firefox and Internet Explorer.
I haven’t seen anybody yet fully covering the rationale behind this latest Google marketing campaign.
Google is trying to raise public awareness of Chrome in the hope that people will choose Chrome when Microsoft gives them the option, as they have now been forced to do.
Google and other browser companies lobbied and convinced the EU (probably the most bloated and corrupt public institution in the history of human civilisation) to force Microsoft to advertise rival products on Windows, and make its own products harder to get to.
Google deviously signed-up as an interested party, pretending to represent the interests of the web:
http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2009/02/browsers-powered-by-user-choice.html
Google then waited a while, and announced the launch of their own web browser.
**** Is it time to ban Notepad? ***
This text editing software has a uniquely privileged position in the market, because it comes free with Windows. Also, Notepad has become intolerably popular, because it does its job so well.
Rival corporations and their fan networks are not yet lobbying about Notepad, because they aren’t trying to push competing products yet.
The reason competitors lobbied the EU over browsers goes back to long before Google were in the desktop software business, it all started with Netscape…
Microsoft at the time were making up html standards and adding proprietary technology like ActiveX to Internet Explorer. By pushing these features out into the world through things like Frontpage (which was also very popular among early home web users), they were generating websites that would only work or render properly in Internet Explorer. So here you had a browser that couldn’t be deleted from the OS and that people HAD to use to get certain websites to work.
At a time when hard drive space was limited, why would anyone bother installing and using another browser over and above this one, when it was there and essentially ‘worked’? That’s why Netscape and others lobbied to make IE a removable/optional component of the OS. They couldn’t stop Microsoft from including proprietary bits and they couldn’t stop them from producing terrible code, but they could try and stop it from being forced on people!
So your notepad example is completely irrelevant. Notepad doesn’t force people to use it instead of other text editing applications AND it can easily be removed from the OS and replaced with your text editor of choice. Apples and Oranges.
“The reason competitors lobbied the EU over browsers goes back to long before Google were in the desktop software business”
No, the EC doesn’t make rules based on historical circumstances. The EC makes rules according on current circumstances. But I agree you that the case made by Microsoft’s rivals is more weak now than it ever has been historically.
“Microsoft at the time were making up html standards and adding proprietary technology like ActiveX to Internet Explorer.”
We could discuss this all day. Chrome and Firefox have proprietary standards too, even if you are not aware of this. Google has also adopted draft HTML specifications, e.g. Canvas, resulting in numerous examples on the web right now which only work in Chrome, many of them quite famous. Evidently your opinions are formed based on a lack of knowledge in this subject area. But yes, Microsoft introduced ActiveX, and with it they gave birth to Ajax which has revolutionised web applications. Things have moved on since then, and their current browser technology, Silverlight, is not an ActiveX control.
“At a time when hard drive space was limited, why would anyone bother installing and using another browser…”
This is one of the most contrived arguments against IE I’ve ever heard. Clearly, proponents of the case against IE are prepared to really “scrape the bottom of the barrel” to find justification for a biased, ill-concieved anti-MS stance.
“So your notepad example is completely irrelevant. Notepad doesn’t force people to use it instead of other text editing applications AND it can easily be removed from the OS and replaced with your text editor of choice”
No. IE doesn’t force anybody to use it. Moreover, good alternatives have always been available. I was using Netscape two decades ago. Browsers are free. You can install and uninstall IE as much as you like. Your counter-argument is flawed. My Notepad analogy still stands.
Well if you’re going to take all of the points I was making completely out of context, then yes, it’s all going to sound like nonsense! Everything I was saying was historical (note the constant use of the past tense), but you seem to be arguing as if I was saying they were true today.
I clearly wasn’t making these arguments based on the situation and technology of today, I was merely explaining that the history of the EU browser rulings goes back to a very different time, when Google had nothing to do with it.
I’ll go further though and say that I completely agree with the ruling. Making IE a removable/replaceable component of the operating system (which it certainly wasn’t when this all began) is a good thing for the consumer, it has forced both Microsoft and their competitors to improve the quality of their browsers since switching between browsers is now a far easier thing to do.
“I completely agree with the ruling. Making IE a removable/replaceable component of the operating system (which it certainly wasn’t when this all began) is a good thing for the consumer”
I remember when IE4 was first released, and it seemed to take over Windows 95. I must say though, it was like an upgrade; the operating system was greatly improved by IE4. These days the products have matured, and it is easier to separate a browser from the OS.
Competition is indeed a positive thing for the consumer, and I welcome it. Choice is good in its own right.
*** But what the EC has done is not good for competition. ***
In fact, the EC is acting against the interests of the consumer on each and every possible level. This is in fact a classic example of politicians putting the interests of friends in major corporations above the interests of ordinary people.
The EC decision does not improve competition. Microsoft has essentially been forced to advertise rival products on Windows. Have you noticed that those same rival companies are not advertising Microsoft products on their platforms? This is not competition; clearly, this is an unfair advantage to Microsoft’s rivals. It is blatant hypocrisy and double-standards. (It’s healthy to keep powerful companies in check and restrict monopolies, but very unhealthy in the long-term to punish a company for developing products so good that almost everybody is using them.)
The EC has created an obstacle for consumers wanting to access the web on Windows. (My grandmother doesn’t want to use IE, and she doesn’t want to have to choose a web browser either, she just wants to use the Internet.) And remember, IE8 is the most secure web browser, so the EC decision actually reduces security for European users by making it harder for them to get to it.
The EC has bowed to a powerful lobby. A lobby which includes Apple and Google — two competing companies sharing board members which is cartel-like and absolutely not in the interests of competition and contrary to the interests of the consumer.
“At a time when hard drive space was limited, why would anyone bother installing and using another browser…”
I can’t resist highlighting this argument once again.
This is so typical of the sort of diatribe that is wheeled out against Microsoft. This is so typical of the quality of arguments advanced and regurgitated by Microsoft’s commercial rivals and their fanboy networks.
Dude, seriously, if you delete a web browser from your hard drive you have released the disc space and can use it for whatever you like. Disc space does not force you to use IE. Nothing and nobody forces you to use IE.
Personally, I use IE because as an experienced web developer I know it’s as good as or better than other web browsers. I also use Firefox and Chrome. There is no silver bullet, different software products exhibit different pros and cons.
Who knows what on earth a browser is though?!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4MwTvtyrUQ
Proof!
Non geeks rock!
@Tim Acheson “I use IE because as an experienced web developer I know it’s as good as or better than other web browsers.”
IE6 was my favourite iteration and I often wish it hadn’t been superseded by more standards compliant editions. I’ve missed the *hilarity* of certain *totally valid* webpages I designed displaying totally differently each time I refreshed the window. Good times.
I still have nightmares about IE6. I do still aim to support it.
Is the back page a code like Google does sometimes, me and my work mates are trying to work it out with no luck
The rear of the ad lists items such as “10 days of holiday left, about to expire; 27 emails between my wife and I hatching travel plans; 7 potential travel plans generated on 4 travel sites, 3 playlists generated on Spotify”.
It then goes on to read “6 tabs open, 0 crashes, 1 browser”.
I think it’s a webpage, the last bit I think is COM
C = 6
O = 0
M = 1
anyone know if this is a code or am I just mad as I wouldn’t think Google would just write random things like this without a purpose.
Anyone else noticed the grammar mistake “between my wife and I”?
Would have expected better from the likes of Google really…
Nice write up Martin, I spotted a huge one today at Worthing Railway Station http://bit.ly/chromead !
its a perfekt site for trading … http://dtrade.ws
Do you use Chrome? I do when I need two browsers open– it is stripped down, and seems like less of a memory hog than Firefox. I’d be interesting in hearing about the case for using Chrome apart from that– most of what I want from a browser are extension type things, and since that is exactly what Chrome is not, I wonder why it would be anyone’s default.