The growth of the Firefox web browser is one that’s been spurred on by word-of-mouth referrals, volunteerism and community-funded advertising campaigns to raise awareness. Over the years, the alternative web browser slowly chipped away at dominant Internet Explorer’s market share, despite its competitor’s advantage of coming bundled with the Windows operating system. By January of last year, Firefox topped 20% market share and by December, it reached 22%. But now, that growth has stalled. Actually, it has declined a slight 0.18 percentage points over the past month. Meanwhile, IE declined by 0.60 points.

And what’s to blame for these drops?

None other than Google Chrome, the speedy WebKit-based browser from the Internet search giant which will soon be the basis of a new netbook operating system by the same name.

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Chrome Gains While Others Drop

Between January and February, Google Chrome was the only browser to gain market share, reports Ars Technica, who gathered their data from Net Applications. By month-end, Chrome reached a 5.61% market share, a decent slice of the pie and more than other browsers like Apple’s Safari (4.45%) and Opera (2.35%), both of which have been around far longer.

You could argue that Chrome’s growth has to do primarily with who makes it: Google, of course. Thanks to advertisements for the new browser right on the Google.com homepage, Google has a platform for getting word out to an audience of millions quickly. However, those ads have been gone for some time now and Chrome still climbs. Why is that?

Interestingly enough, it’s not due to an advanced feature set. Chrome has been notorious for lacking even the most basic browser features, having initially launched without support for RSS feeds, extensions or a Mac version (all of which have been added now, RSS support via an optional extension, though). Yet despite these missing features, Chrome managed to capture 1% of the browser market within the first day of its release back in September 2008.

Chrome is Fast, but Not the Fastest

One factor that may make the browser so appealing is its speed. Based on the open source Webkit engine, which also powers Apple’s Safari browser, Chrome easily beats out Firefox and IE in a number of browser speed tests. However, speed can’t be only reason for its climb – independent browser Opera beat Chrome in several categories including browser boot-up and Javascript performance, for example. And with the latest Opera release, the company claims they’ve created “the world’s fastest browser for Windows.” And our own Frederic Lardinois confirmed this by doing speed tests.

Chrome’s Rise Due to Extensions and Mac Version?

So if it’s not speed alone, what else may be driving Chrome’s growth? Besides the release of a long-awaited Mac version in December, another factor could be the launch of extensions for Chrome. These add-on software applications put the Google browser more firmly on the same playing field as the others in the market. Many heavy web surfers rely on particular extensions, having grown comfortable with their favorites over the years. Some would even say they require them in order to work effectively on the web.

Or Is It Bookmark Sync?

In addition, Chrome recently released a handy “bookmark sync” feature last month. This lets Chrome users keep their favorite saved websites synced in between multiple computers just by associating a Chrome installation with their Google account.

Still, no single Chrome feature can account entirely for its rapid growth. Opera is faster, Safari is speedy as well, all offer extensions and Safari supports Mac and PC, too. So perhaps what’s really appealing about Chrome is its simplicity. With a design that eschews search boxes and heavy toolbars in favor of one big combo search/address box, only four navigation/action buttons and just two menu buttons which are labeled with icons, not names, Chrome keeps the focus on the web, not the browser. And that may be its best selling point of all.

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Do you like getting paid?

Today, RackSpace Cloud announced a new cloud partner program designed to bring new business to reward partners for bringing hosting to the cloud offerings with the company.

Now with the Rackspace program program, resellers can receive direct rewards in the form of percentage points on the back-end and join in the financial benefits of cloud hosting.

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Where Did This Idea Come From?

We got a chance to speak with the Rackspace team. They emphasized customer feedback and testing with beta customers as key drivers for this program. From what we can see, the developers said “pay me” and “make it simple”. And that is what Rackspace aims to offer.

“As a leader in cloud computing and a company that is committed to maintaining tight bonds with our partner community, we have aimed to create one of the most compelling partner programs in our industry,” said Emil Sayegh, general manager, The Rackspace Cloud.

How Does it Work for Resellers?

Rackspace Cloud customers who want to buy our hosting services directly and re-sell them to their own customer base. A reseller may divide our hosting services into smaller bundles so they are able to generate a profit from their customer fees, or build an application and attach it to the Rackspace infrastructure.

In a way, this model is like a reverse app-store, where instead of paying 30% like app developers pay Apple to be on iPhone, app developers get paid for bringing business to the platform.

If this program takes off, it could be a signal of a major sea-change where applications developers – rather than system integrators – are the one’s being rewarded for bringing infrastructure together.

And now the company has extended it’s offerings to offer a Windows product it is broadening it’s appeal even further. The new Windows beta allows Cloud Server users new and existing features including control panel and API access for create, delete, reboot, and rename functions. Showing that the cloud is encapsulating the server into common functions and administration is one move towards consolidated infrastructure.

From the press release. “The Rackspace Cloud Reseller Program offers discounts of up to 12 percent for resellers selling large volumes of cloud hosting across Rackspace Cloud’s services.”

This also might be a good approach to monetize great open source solutions. The software is free, but when installing it you run it on a slice of the cloud and get paid as part of the whole bundle from the infrastructure provider.

How Does it Work for Affiliates?

“The Rackspace Cloud Affiliate Program is designed for companies that have offerings or content that attracts users interested in a cloud hosting solution. It is offered as a text or image link from a site, blog, or tweet.

Members can earn from 5 to 7 percent (depending on the total number of referrals) of a referred hosting customer’s payments for a period of up to three years.”

If you see a button like this one on the web, be assured that the company presenting it participates in the revenue stream if they sign up for RackSpace.

[Note: Author has asked management our position on this for sites like RWW]

Apple offers an afflilate program for the iTunes and the App Store. Many other online retailers offer similar features today on goods bought on the Internet, including Amazon with Amazon Associates.

When first released, there were some questions on the process and payouts that have been updated in this new release, including a cookie-tracking mechanic and easier ways to reporting on activity. It sounds like Rackspace isn’t giving up and instead is innovating further in making infrastructure a click-away from the web.

Will Amazon, Others Respond?

RackSpace is growing it’s partner network and incentives, and is offering a sales model that rewards applications resellers, developers, and web sites.

Amazon has an amazing affiliate outreach with it’s core store, we wonder if they will soon will offer more programs to attract software to bundle in infrastructure.

Will more and more software come with “infrastructure inside”?

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Microsoft President Stephen Elop says the cloud has created a “constructive disruption,” in the market, creating an opportunity to offer Microsoft Office on the Web at no cost.

It also looks like the cloud is disrupting Microsoft’s pricing structure quite a bit. The issue: cloud computing may be the future but the margins will drop.

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In an interview with Bloomberg, Elop said future updates to the Web-based Office suite may add Twitter-like functions that allow users to post short messages.

Elop is an interesting guy. The Bloomberg story is as much as a profile of this newcomer to Microsoft as a story about the the margins that will get squeezed by cloud computing.

Elop looks at the issue philosophically. From Bloomberg:

“In that cloud environment, we are not only selling them software but we are also saying, ‘We’ll take care of your networking, your hardware your operations, your customer support,’” Elop said in an interview. “We’re doing much more work for the customer. What that does is increases revenue and allows us to participate in more profit.”

Elop comes from Macromedia where he made Dreamweaver the most popular web-page authoring application in the market. You can tell he sees the market from a different viewpoint.

Many companies we cover look for ways its products can work on any device and perform on any or browser. Microsoft is different. Elop’s role is to walk the path that balances the need to prepare for the future while supporting Microsoft Office, a product worth billions.

From Bloomberg:

Elop’s Office unit is Microsoft’s biggest business, accounting for a third of the company’s $58.4 billion in sales last fiscal year. The shift to Internet-based versions of Office may cut margins by 5 to 10 percentage points, said Matt Rosoff, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft in Kirkland, Washington.

‘Have to Do Something’

“Elop’s challenge is to move carefully and not undercut the traditional software business,” Rosoff said. “You don’t want to give everybody free Office over the Web because that jeopardizes a highly profitable business, but you have to do something.”

It’s not an easy road. Elop is right. The cloud is disrupting the market. And he seems like the right guy to guide Microsoft through the complexities that Microsoft and the rest of market faces in the months and years ahead.

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The number of seniors actively using the Internet has increased by 55 percent to 17.5 million over the last five years, according to a new report from Nielsen.

Among people 65+, the growth of women in the last five years has outpaced the growth of men by 6 percent.

More seniors are also spending more time online. Time spent on the Internet by seniors increased 11 percent in the last five years, from 52 hours per month in November 2004 to just over 58 hours in 2009.

"The over 65 crowd represents about 13% of the total population and with this increase in online usage, they are beginning to catch up with their offline numbers," said Chuck Schilling, research director, agency & media, Nielsen’s online division.

"Looking at what they’re doing online, it makes sense they’re engaged in many of the same activities that dominate other age segments – e-mail, sharing photos, social networking, checking out the latest news and weather – and it’s worth noting that a good percentage of them are spending time with age-appropriate pursuits such as leisure travel, personal health care and financial concerns."

Online seniors participate in a variety of activities, from email to bill paying. Checking personal email was the top online activity for the majority (88.6%) of seniors in the last 30 days. Viewing or printing online maps and checking the weather were the second and third most popular activities, with 68.6 and 60.1 percent, respectively.

The most popular online destination for people over 65 in November 2009 was Google Search, with 10.3 million unique visitors. Windows Media Player and Facebook ranked in the second and third position with 8.2 million and 7.9 million visitors, respectively.

Overall, the number of unique visitors who are 65 or older on social networking and blogs has jumped 53 percent in the last two years. 8.2% of all social network and blog visitors are over 65, just 0.1 percentage points less than the number of teenagers who visit these sites.
 

Related Articles:

> Google Testing a Revamp of the Search Results Page

> Google Puts Its Own Dictionary in the Spotlight

> Critical Local Search Factors To Pay Attention To

 

 

Although it’s possible to quibble over percentage points, Google Chrome appears to be moving in a positive direction.  Matt Cutts gathered together statistics from several sources, and all of them indicate that Google’s seven-month-old browser is gaining market share.

Let’s start with the most optimistic estimate.  According to Google Analytics, 7.04 percent of the visitors to Cutts’s own blog (during the last 30 days) used Chrome.  That equates to about one out of every 14 people, which is pretty impressive.

Next, there’s the data that Clicky Web Analytics had to share.  Cutts wrote, "Clicky says that in the last 60 days, Chrome has gone from 2.099% to 2.479%."

Cutts also stated, "StatCounter says that Chrome topped 2% recently," and noted that "more people using Firefox and Chrome over the weekends."  This might mean Chrome’s gaining genuine play-with-it-at-home fans even if it isn’t present in the average workplace.

Finally, Cutts wrote, "Net Applications says that Chrome went from 1.15% to 1.23% in the last ~30 days."  Which lands us fairly well on the opposite side of the usage scale, with just one out of every 81 or so people using Chrome.

Still, Google’s no doubt happy to see all these numbers heading up.