Flickr has find an interesting strategy to capture the visitors that arrive to the website through Google Image Search. Each time you arrive at a photo page using Google, Flickr will provide a yellow note just below the search with the text:
We found 262,353 photos matching [keyword]. Click “search” above to see!
Also the search box is prefiled with the query.
All in one, a simple strategy that could boost the pageviews by a few percents.
I’ve been using Google’s Chrome as a default browser both at work and at home since it’s lunch. I was pretty aware of the fact that’s a beta product and that some additional stress is mandatory. But after 2 months I’m done. Switching back to Firefox.
Here are my main reasons:
1. Is 2008. No browser is an island anymore. I expect from my browser to be connected to web services and my browsers from different locations. Scared by bad PR Google has done no integration with its services (that’s if you don’t count Gears) and that’s a big down for me. Here is what Google could have done or at least offer the options for the users to enable/disable:
a) Browsing history. In IE / FF, if you have installed Google toolbar, Google keeps a record of your history online and makes that searchable from any point. Some might complain about privacy issues but considering my daily activities the gains are bigger then the looses
b) Bookmarks. Google has a pretty decent bookmarking service. Of course you can use the bookmarklet option but there’s no integration with the browser default bookmarking system. Kudos for Foxmarks on that.
2. Again is 2008. Every user has a wide range of browsing habits and patterns. You cannot make everybody happy and because of that you make your software extensible. FAIL. Maybe in time extensibility will be added and extensions will be created. But I think that’s a distant future we are talking about. Core extensions I missed during this period
b) Foxmarks
c) Stumbleupon
e) Yahoo’s new Inquisitor (I wished for that from the moment I saw it available for Safari)
f) SEO for Firefox (DUHHHHH)
g) Twitterfox – this is the only app I use for Twitter. Usage pattern has decreased since using Chrome but that will be fixed from now
3. Plugins integration. That was one of the main causes of frustration and cursing. C’monnnnn is 2008 again. Make the god damn flash work. I’m depending on YouTube for my business and I’m a big fan of South Park, John Stewart and Colbert. Constant crashes (can’t remember if I ever played a clip without crashes), slow streaming and so on. Google Analytics is becoming unusable. And let’s not get to Silverlight that I need it for Live Mesh
4. Resources. Chrome is fast. Fast to lunch more precisely but that’s all. I was using DivxLand Media Subtitler that’s using my processor up to 99%. I cannot do anything on my PC and Chrome was dead. Not loading any page. Today I tried Firefox and works like a charm.
Conclusions
I won’t uninstall Chrome. But is not my default browser anymore. I’ll use it mainly for it’s incognito mode to login to multiple accounts without using all my available browsers (7 or 8 i think 
). Perhaps in about 1 year Chrome will get better but so far Firefox fits all my working/entertainment/communication habits.
This morning I’ve noticed that Google Analytics had a slightly different user interface. Due to the fact that usually this kind of changes is associated with new features I rushed to check but with no results. Now Google Analytics blog confirms that this is just a minor UI change. Bleah. No goodies today
Blogs in general don’t need custom or advanced menu. What comes by default in Wordpress or custom themes is enough for most of the users. But when you try to use Wordpress as a CMS platform for a medium size website you realize that’s not enough.
The challenge appears when you have too many static pages and you want to group them and show them to the visitors on certain conditions. In my projects so far, I have used GD Pages Navigator. This is a widget based plugin that does it job pretty fine.
Today I’ve stumbled across Wordpress Menu Creator that resembles features of other CMS systems like Joomla or Mambo. The resemblance might help more some users and developers to transition to Wordpress as a CMS platform. Haven’t used it yet, but I’ll sure give it a try on the next challenge.
Even though Technorati is not anymore what it used to be a few years ago, today I tried to create an account for a project. Big mistake. Is the year 2008 and Technorati is doing miserable mistakes in the registration form that not even the smallest underfunded startups are not doing.
Mistakes:
