New year, new decade. But we still haven’t gotten past everything Web 2.0. We’re still dealing with the consequences of the social media revolution. The question is, which side are you on?
Pull the brakes?
We’ve seen people dumping Facebook and still not getting the Twitter mania, but here’s something pretty recent: the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine is making the meme rounds for those who suffer from social networking overexposure.
Most of the time we just hop on the bandwagon, publish the smallest details of our lives with abandon, and regret our actions only when it’s too late. Sites like My Parents Joined Facebook and Lamebook capitalize on those slip-ups, and we’ve all heard stories of people getting fired for something they posted online. A clean break from it all could be the answer. Or an exaggeration.
Interestingly though, Facebook has blocked the Suicide Machine. Thanks for playing!
Shift into high gear?
Tina Roth Eisenberg a.k.a. Swiss Miss tweeted that her unborn son already has a “gmail account, 3 domain names and a twitter account”. Pretty sweet, I’d say.
Again, this isn’t really a new phenomenon, but not many people are looking that far ahead. After all, who knows what the Web will be like in five to ten years. If domain names will still be the way to access websites.
Or maintain cruising speed?
Most of us probably lie in the middle and won’t think to axe their accounts or be so protective of their online identities as though they were real estate. Even if your new year’s resolution for social networking isn’t anything drastic, it’s still important to stay on top of your privacy concerns and online persona. Have you tweaked Facebook’s Privacy Settings yet? How about all the authorized third-party apps that have access to your Twitter account? Do you Google yourself every once in a while to see how other people find and paint a picture of you?
Bonus: try integrating a workout into those beloved websites. Now there’s a productive idea.
Here are three little tweaks that go a long way in improving one’s browsing experience and should become default features on every website.
Kottke’s unread posts notification in the title bar
It’s not just web applications like Gmail or Twitter that can enforce the “push” instead of “pull” format that is associated with the real-time web. If you spend a significant amount of time browsing Jason Kottke’s site you’ll probably notice the title bar changing when a new post gets published.
I added a new feature to kottke.org over the weekend: live updating on the home page. If you leave kottke.org open in your browser (with JavaScript on) and I post a new link, the page will display a message urging you to refresh to view some new posts. The page title changes too, so if you have it up in a tab, you can tell at a glance if something’s new. Right now the page checks for new posts every ten minutes, but that could change depending on server load, etc. Thanks to Twitter Search and Tumblr for the inspiration.
Developer hack: Kottke didn’t give details on how he did it, but this script is doing the work.
Infinite scrolling
Paginated websites make digesting content more manageable, but sometimes you just want to consume as much as possible too. Imagine devouring as many Google search results and Flickr images as you can.
Infinite scrolling—at least the hacks mentioned below—load the next page when you’re done browsing the current one. The next and previous page links are still there, so you have both options to choose from.
User hack: install Greasemonkey and the AutoPagerize user script.
Developer hack: use the jQuery plugin or the WordPress plugin.
FFFFOUND!’s keyboard navigation
Don’t underestimate the efficiency of the keyboard. At image-bookmarking site FFFFOUND!, using the keyboard is the best way to get around.
Developer hack: install paging_keys_js.
It’s been a couple of years since the height of the “kill IE6″ web campaigns, and it took that long to hold a funeral that finally seals its fate.
Of course, the IE6 Funeral is an arbitrary event held by the Aten Design Group last March 4, and this doesn’t really eradicate the browser on computers that can’t upgrade.
Over at TechCrunch, commenter Jeff Carlson jokes: “So if someone uses IE6 to browse the web tomorrow, will their web browser be a Zomb-ie6 browser?” You could say that. After all, IE6 is way past its expiration date, sucking the brains out of web designers and developers with its buggy, unstable, insecure features from an ugly past.
Even Microsoft acknowledges it’s time for IE6 to go, as it actually sent over flowers and this note:
Thanks for the good times IE6, see you all @ MIX when we show a little piece of IE Heaven. The Internet Explorer Team @ Microsoft
On March 13, Google will end IE6 support on YouTube, following the March 1 pull-out for Google Docs and Google Sites. Gmail and Google Calendar are next on the list, slated by the end of the year.
Combined with the European government security warnings to upgrade browsers, could Google’s systematic phase-out be the final nail in the IE6 coffin, or is this slow death going to take at least another year?
I really hope this is it.
One of the most ambitious efforts to come out of the Googleplex (or anywhere, really) in ages is Google Wave, a real-time messaging, sharing, and collaborating service unveiled last week. Finally, Google’s crack at the Real-Time Web. We’ve been waiting.
Google’s Real-Time Web
You might recall ReadWriteWeb proclaiming the big G missed the boat on that, as Twitter rules over real-time search these days. However, Wave makes one realize there is more to the real-time web than 140-character messages.
It’s a new way of doing things. It’s decentralized, open-source, and poised to take over online communications the way email has, since it’s built as a fundamental protocol. But it’s not even just “the new email”, it lets you do a lot more than that. It was built to service needs knowing the capabilities of the Web today:
Ezra Pound once wrote: “”The artist is always beginning. Any work of art which is not a beginning, an invention, a discovery is of little worth.” And elsewhere: “Make it new!”
Even more than the application itself, I love the way Wave doesn’t just build on what went before but starts over. In demonstrating the power of the shared, real-time information space, Jens and Lars show a keen understanding of how the cloud changes applications.
When I saw Wave for the first time on Monday, I realized that we’re at a kind of DOS/Windows divide in the era of cloud applications. Suddenly, familiar applications look as old-fashioned as DOS applications looked as the GUI era took flight. Now that the web is the platform, it’s time to take another look at every application we use today, and ask the same question Lars and Jens asked themselves: “What would this look like if we invented it today instead of twenty-five years ago?”
This is not another reboot of the social network format the way Google redid email with Gmail and redid search with Google Search. But it does feel this is the way social interactions on the Web were supposed to be. Aren’t you tired of signing up over and over for the hottest new web service, OpenID/etc. not withstanding?
I love the diversity and downright chaos of the Internet, but the future has got to be seamless integration between all things. Text, photos, videos, blog posts, polls, calendars, petitions, lyrics, jokes, LOLcats, whatever.
Now when Google says real-time, it means your friend’s message appears on your screen by the character, instead of a “your friend is typing…” notice as you twiddle your thumbs. It also means you can reply to any part of your friend’s message, edit any part of a document, and replay exactly how everything happened when you’re done. See video above. It’s brilliant.
Terrifying ramifications?
That’s barely scratching the surface. I’m not sure if the protocol will succeed—not everybody lives in real-time online, or can handle this many features (see Twitter).
If it does succeed, it might become too successful that users are addicted, possibly trapped in this real-time space. We continue to blur the line between the real and the virtual, and even if at this point we can tell the difference between the two, will we ever reach the point of being “too” connected, transparent, hyperreal?
I’m not even sure if we should be trust yet another invention from Google—there has to be something in it for them, right?
Are you terrified yet? I think I am, but I’m pretty excited too.
Some chunks of good browser-related news at the turn of the new year: Firefox browser usage is more than 20% now, while Internet Explorer, especially IE6, is declining—forcibly and otherwise!
Firefox market shares are rise, IE shares decline
Browser market share from October to December 2008
For the first time ever, Net Applications is reporting that Mozilla Firefox market shares passed 20% while Microsoft Internet Explorer dropped below 70%. Four major factors are said to explain Firefox growth, from the US elections to longer weekends/holidays, and higher unemployment—all US-centric factors.
Browser version market share December 2008
Here’s a chart by browser version. IE7 remains the dominant browser in the market, while IE6 is still at number 2, having almost the same percentage as all Firefox versions combined. But it has declined from the 21-22% range in the last quarter of 2008.
Google Chrome barely leaves a dent at 1%, but surpasses Opera at 0.7%.
Google urges IE6 users to upgrade
Get faster Gmail notice in IE6 (image courtesy of Ars Technica)
According to TG Daily, Google’s Gmail is now sporting a message specifically for IE6 users to upgrade and “get faster Gmail”.
The link leads to a page that promotes Chrome and Firefox 3. “Browsers are getting faster and better at running web applications like Google Mail that use browser technology to its limits,” the page reads. “In order to get the best experience possible and make Google Mail run an average of twice as fast, we suggest that you upgrade your browser to one of the fastest Google Mail supported browsers that work on Windows.” The page offers direct download links for Firefox 3 and Chrome. IE7 and Apple’s Safari are listed as supported Gmail browsers.
Several modern browsers are listed in the linked page, and unfortunately Opera is no longer qualified on that list. At least Google is trying to be fair by mentioning competitors to its own browser, Chrome. More importantly, at least it realizes that the browser share for such an old and run-down browser are alarmingly high. Looks like it’s getting costly to maintain backwards compatibility for JavaScript-intensive web applications like Gmail.
This is not the first time that a large company is forcing its hand. Apple’s MobileMe recommends only 2 browsers: Safari, which it owns, and Firefox.
There is hope!
With the combination of natural factors and some nudging from the big, influential companies like Google and Apple, the obsolete browser that is IE6 might just retire sooner than we expect, sooner than never.
Between Apple computers gaining popularity and Google remaining just as powerful, their influence on which becomes the default browser in controlled environments will be needed to level the playing field, ultimately pushing the capabilities of web browsers forward.
When Obama Wins scours and displays tweets containing the phrase 'when Obama wins'
I’m fascinated by the single-purpose websites that have been cropping up for the past year. I’m not much of an internet historian to track down exactly when the first of their kind came out, but they officially entered meme status when Jason Kottke wrote about it back in February.
In the era of 140-character microblogging and 10-inch subnotebook computing, brevity is king. But these straight-to-the-point sites aren’t exactly the iPhone-friendly versions of our increasingly bloated, self-centered homepages and bookmarks. (That’s a different phenomenon altogether and worth discussing in a separate article.)
They’re in a different group themselves, in a peanut gallery of sorts, poking fun at the rest of the all-too serious internet population. Stop worrying whether websites need to look exactly the same in every browser, you should use tables for layout (give up?), Diet Coke will kills us, graphic design is art, Barack Obama is Muslim or muslin or President, or it’s Tuesday, April Fool’s, Christmas, or a leap year yet.
The color of the Empire State Building on November 11. On November 11 it was Purple, Purple, White. As of writing it's White, White, White.
Of course some of these one-trick ponies are web apps and mashups that do exactly one thing really well, whether it’s helping you look forward to the day when Obama wins, decide if you should bring an umbrella today, bitch and moan about our dear Adobe, or figure out whether Twitter, Gmail, the Apple Store, or some other site is down or it’s just you.
Not to mention spell definitely and other words correctly, insert angled quotes », «, ›, ‹, discover your IP address, and play a instant rimshot.
Visit A List Of Sites for more of the madness! Or go through them randomly ala StumbleUpon.
Philipp Lensen of Google Blogoscope shares a comic about Google’s open source web browser called Chrome. TechCrunch has posted leaked screenshots too. I suggest you read all those links as they explain very nicely the many, many features Google Chrome has, then try it out for yourself.
With all the revolutionary new features planned for this web browser, do the rest of the factions of the more-than-a-decade-long Browser Wars stand a chance? Let me run through several points that may or may not convince you that the ‘Wars are over:
Reworking web browser concepts
“Chrome”. Google Chrome is so named because the developers wanted to weed out all the unnecessary interface elements that get in the way of an optimal user experience. Google is pretty good at this—see Gmail.
Omnibox. I’ve complained about this before. We have too many blank bars in our browsers, why not stick to just one? Combining the ambitiousness of Firefox 3′s “AwesomeBar”, search keyword shortcuts, and Google’s mighty search engine, users might not need any other button in the toolbar.
Independent tabs and sandboxing. Chrome runs tabs as separate processes to isolate any unruly behavior, whether it’s a memory leak or malicious code.
Using Google’s assets
Webpage testing. Google will use its large—an understatement—collection of crawled websites to test if their browser is working properly on them. It will prioritize by popularity to be efficient in testing the millions, billions, and trillions of pages, of course.
Search and anti-phishing. I’ve mentioned the Omnibox. Google will incorporate its search into the singular browser bar to make finding websites a breeze. (I think AwesomeBar sounds better though.) And since Google is a pretty good keeper of blacklisted sites, Chrome also detects when a website is potentially harmful.
Google Gears. Another obvious move. Google Gears was created to make web browsing more responsive and efficient by linking together the online and offline, so it’s mandatory for Chrome to incorporate this feature.
Inspired by the best of other worlds
WebKit. WebKit is possibly the fastest and smartest browser rendering engine out there. It powers Safari and several Mac OS X applications, as well as Google Android and now Google Chrome.
Privacy Mode. Microsoft is set to introduce a history-free, cookie-free browsing feature in Internet Explorer 8 called InPrivate (though everyone else calls it “porn mode”). Now Google follows suit with “incognito browsing”.
Better JavaScript performance. Mozilla recently announced it was able to dramatically improve JavaScript loading by up to 37.5 times, a feature coming to Firefox 3.1. (Another comparable feature to Firefox is the previously-mentioned Omnibox.)
Speed Dial. Opera has sported this feature since version 9.2.
On to the questions…
Why? My answer? Because they can. Google’s answer? Watch it here. Google is the epitome of a Web 2.0 company, having revolutionized search, then e-mail, then every other activity that can be done online. It rehashed old elements of the Internet, and doing so on a browser feels like a natural extension of their work.
Does Google Chrome comply with Web Standards? Since Chrome is going to run on WebKit, can we trust that we won’t have to debug for yet another browser? Unfortunately, it failed the ACID3 test (which, on the other hand, Safari passed in version 3.2.1).
Will Google end its “search bar relationship” with Firefox and other browsers? Now that Google has its own browser, does it still need to push for the search bar feature in browsers like Firefox, IE, and Safari? Probably not. But most users will still use Google—the search engine—one way or the other. And if you’ve watched the video linked above, Sergey Brin says the general goal is to get people to use “alternative” browsers such as Firefox. (Of course, assuming that Firefox and Chrome remain minor players in the game.)
Is this a milestone in web browser history? Put another way, is this the best thing since tabbed browsing? I can’t really answer a resounding yes. Web browsers must pay attention to detail and reduce bloat—it’s a difficult balance. Google Chrome is a lean browser that contains only a few notable features. We’ll have to wait for a few more releases to see where they’re going with this.
Do you trust Google to browse in its browser? Between a proof-of-concept security flaw discovered hours after the browser’s release and a questionable (but recently modified) license agreement, are you confident in using yet another Google product? This is perhaps the biggest question of all.
It seems the online world is the perfect place for all the madness taking place every April 1st, but I’ve noticed some of the pranks circling the Web today are really good ideas and worth discussing here on Wisdump.
Gmail users have long wanted a send email in future time feature to avoid unnecessary follow-up and back-and-forth emailing, but Google spins it around. In addition to “never delete another email again”, there’s “never send another late email again”. You can send an email timestamped as far back as April 1, 2004, which is when Gmail was launched and a clue right there how legit this feature is.
Many people would love to have custom time/date stamps on their emails—I know I would. But it becomes a case of deception versus productivity. Will Google continue to draw the line? Do you see this happening in the future? If you can do it with blog posts, why not emails? If you’ll remember last year’s prank, Gmail Paper, it’s another great idea that asks “why not?” too. (And, if anything, testimonials don’t make a product believable.)
Also check out Google’s other pranks for this year:
- Virgle (see also Larry and Sergey’s video), the first human colony on Mars
- gDay, which lets you search content on the internet before it is created
- Google Wake Up Kit, a system that sends increasingly annoying alerts (SMS, water bucket, bed-flipping device) to wake you up – it’s potentially a good idea, but it’s not as subtly executed as Gmail’s pranks so I won’t elaborate on it
Whew! Google’s been busy this year!
Darren Rowse on ProBlogger has launched a way to monetize Twitter with PayPerTweet. This totally makes sense because we’ve long wondered how Twitter could possibly be penetrated by advertisers, and we get a pretty viable answer.
Problem is, Twitter is a pretty trustworthy environment right now—you follow only whom you want to and the second they start spamming you, “unfollow” is always one click away. PayPerTweet is not just a prank but an addressing of the question we’ve all had on our minds: who will cross the line and bring advertising to Twitter? Are we there already? Will you tolerate it? Perhaps fake tweets like announcing PayPerTweet and other pranks—rickrolling is such a big thing these days—is the closest thing we’ll ever get to sneakiness (read: sponsored tweets) on Twitter.
Another great thing about the PayPerTweet announcement is that because it’s a blog-based prank, the comments section clearly shows who got punk’d and who managed to call BS. And you can discuss in a follow-up post the success (or failure) of your prank. We thus find out that PayPerTweet came from an actual proposal to advertise via Twitter for $20. Darren Rowse refused the offer.
Renowned information design expert Edward Tufte joins SlideShare’s board of advisors to help guide people in presenting visual information the proper way. The online slideshow service will employ technologies that automatically eliminate bullet points, chartjunk, and other distracting elements from presentations.
Even if you’re remotely interested in design, you probably believe the world will become a better place by throwing out crappy PowerPoint slides. But is Microsoft to blame for all the ugly, overloaded, and difficult-to-read slides? Can and should software encourage and impress upon its users the principles of good design? And since we know that PowerPoint, as well as Word, was made for business, should we expect people in non-design industries to have rudimentary design sense (i.e., should it be part of their job description)?
Darren Hoyt releases a WordPress theme that showcases the hottest web design techniques ten years ago. How nostalgic! When you click on the preview image, a JavaScript alert comes up, saying, “Happy April Fool’s — seriously, you were gonna download this?”
I wonder how many people actually clicked, or if Darren Hoyt kept track of how many did. Using this theme would be a really good April Fools’ prank; too bad no real theme files were created. Update (April 7, 2008): Somebody actually did a similar prank! Jasongraphix redesigned his site with the “90s look” on April 1st! There’s always the possibility that somebody out there actually finds this theme attractive. This got me thinking: did you really think that old school web design was tasteful back then? Do you think the current web design trends will be considered attractive in the future?
In 1998 I was a freshman in high school and we were supposed to create webpages on a slow, 16-color (yes, literally 16 colors only, not 16-bit) computer, with no graphics program, and had to make do with whatever images were installed on the PC. My geekier-than-thou classmates were fooling around with DHTML alerts and scrolls, and I was too flabbergasted at the limitations of the computer I was using to even see how it was possible to create a decent-looking website. Today, I see people worship the Apple aesthetic, but bash rounded corners and other bright, shiny, glassy Web 2.0 looks, then proceed to play tug-of-war between light, clean, grid-based minimalism and dark, dirty, anything-goes maximalism.
Update (10:48 PM):
The Serif announces that FontFont will release a Helvetica Serif, which is a digital recreation of the sketches by Max Miedinger’s granddaughter.
If the little nuances in the image above don’t already give away the impression that this is a less than spectacular typeface and couldn’t possibly match the sans serif that is Helvetica, that’s okay. But know that having a serif version of Helvetica is a really big deal, quite an impossible one actually. (Update 04/02/08: Stephen Coles of Typographica.org reports in the comments there’s Helserif by Phil Martin.) Helvetica stands for everything a serif typeface isn’t. Do you think Miedinger would come up with a serif typeface just for the heck of it? Do we need a Helvetica Serif? Who should be tasked to create it?
I hope you’re having as much fun this April Fools’ as I am. Don’t forget to check out the most popular April Fools’ Day pranks on the web then go vote for them here.
It is bound to happen, the Google Web Browser that is. For a company so focused on delivering online applications that compete with the old desktop variant, a reliable browser and the direct connection with the users it offers just sounds like the obvious choice.
So where is the Google Web Browser?
Some might say that Firefox is the closest to the Google Web Browser we’re getting, and that may be true, although a bit simplified. Sure, there’s a Google search toolbar installed per default, but the same goes for Safari, you know. Problem with the latter is that it sucks in Gmail, for instance, which isn’t acceptable since that’s probably the most used Google web application out there, right?
So why should Google do their own web browser? more
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