Browsers and Brands
This morning, Rob sent around a short movie from Google Creative Labs.
Google asks 50 people in Times Sq. what a browser is and most people aren't sure.
My initial reaction was surprise. How could these people not know what a browser is? Don't they remember Code Rush from 1998 when browser wars were king? There are web ads, blogs, even TV ads for Safari, Internet Explorer, Firefox, and now Chrome. How could anyone not know what a browser is?
Patrick brought sense to the situation. Why should the average person care what a browser is? Browsers are a commodity. They come with your computer. They're usually free. They all work. People don't think about things that work.
Google's video would be akin to Subaru asking 50 people about their car engine configuration — comparing the common V configuration to Subaru's flat, boxer engine. I personally have no idea how my engine's configured but it works when I need it to.
Is Google's plan to first educate people what a browser is, then sell them on Chrome? That's pretty much what Mozilla had to do in 1998. Or, back to car engines, that's what Chrysler does with the Hemispherical combustion chamber. Neither of those examples were very successful.
Worse, Google now has to deal with marketing a commodity that nobody cares about under their brand. In a recent article, Andy Rutledge talks about how commodity companies — like gas companies — might be valuable, but they don't have a valuable brand.
When Apple markets their browser, Safari, does it dilute their pristine brand? Dodge has a refined brand, but nobody really cares about the hemispherical engine. Is marketing the "Hemi" detrimental to Dodge's brand?
Google certainly puts effort into their user-friendly brand. Could marketing a commodity browser hurt their brand? The people in Google's video all use Google for search because it's accurate and easy. Now Google's talking to them about really complicated computer-y stuff like Browsers.
Comments
I think Rob has it right -- I just asked my mother how she gets to CNN's website and her response was "I go to google and type in CNN and hit search." This is the woman whose name is on the patent for warm light flourescent bulbs. Labels are labels; using the ``right''' nomenclature is not important to the majority of web/InterTube users.
What does it say, then, that my homepage is "about:blank" ...? And my engine is a 1.8l I-4 turbo, chipped to allow 2 bar boost, instead of 1.2 :-)
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Visitors
Actually, I think all those people who said the browser is how you search for stuff are correct. What's the default homepage of almost every browser? A search engine. MSN Live (now Bing) for Internet Explorer, Google for Firefox and Chrome. Apple has a custom one for Safari, but they're an exception.
Want to find something on the internet? Start a browser.
Based on all the evidence they have, they're right.
(By the way, my car has a supercharged inline-4 1.6 liter engine with a 15% reduction pulley on the supercharger and a computer-controlled intake that opens up for extra air at 4500rpm... and I routinely use five web browsers, plus a few more for testing. Perhaps these things are related.)