Too much, too early for Chrome

As of today, Google has started heavily promoting it’s Chrome browser on YouTube with the message: “Try YouTube in a new web browser! Download Google Chrome“. So far so good. YouTube it’s a Google property and it’s their duty to increase their market share by all means possible. The problem is that YouTube usage under Chrome is just another reason I stopped using Chrome. Aparently there is an issue between Chrome and the Flash Player (no matter what version) and this keeps crashing it.

If I would be an user that would download Chrome becuase of this ad, I would uninstall it after viewing 2 videos and never look bad again.

So, this is just bad, bad PR, too much too early

1. Upgrade was without issues
2. All my plugins work
3. The new backend is confusing for a few seconds but once you start using it feels great

On the bad side I’m so curious who was the genius that changed “Write Posts” to “Add New” and “Manage Posts” to “Edit”

So if you are eager to try it, go ahead and download your copy from here

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

a) Google Toolbar

b) Foxmarks

c) Stumbleupon

d) GTDInbox and Xoopit

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.

1. User Interface refresh.
2. AdSense now integrated into GA. (private beta only)
3. Advanced visualizations: Motion Charts!
4. Custom Reports!
5. Advanced Segmentation!!
6. The Google Analytics API.
7. Automatic importing of AdWords cost data into Urchin.

Go check all the juicy details (screenshots and walkthroughs) on the new features on Avinash’s blog

UPDATE: Here are the official posts from Google Analytics blog and Adsense blog

Via Techcrunch here are some videos presenting the new features:
AdSense Reporting in Google Analytics

AdSense Reporting in Google Analytics

Advanced Segments in Google Analytics

Motion Charts in Google Analytics

Digging more I’ve found out that  beside the new theme, a new feature has been added. It’s called “site stripe” and allows amazon associates to quickly create links to products or add the products to an existing aStore while browsing amazon.com

Not in a few days or weeks when you analyze your internal usage statistics and you realize that the visitors that have registered are not coming back. In that case there are strategies and strategies.

One set of strategies are to get back to the drawing board and see were you have failed. To see why your users were not happy and repair it. To add features that will keep the the users interested in you, to listen to your customers feedback.

And there are dirty strategies. One company has sent me today my username and password. As requested by me. NOT. It was my password but I couldn’t even tell what was that service about and when I have registered. Most probably because it sucked big time. It’s not a very popular service so I excluded the case where somebody has tried to brute force the account. The other explanation is that an internal bug triggered that email. But something makes me think that this was a marketing ploy. Dirty but CLEVER.

So. If you are in the position of having trouble with your users returning do this:

1. Start logging user activity.
2. Depending on your type of service set an internal threshold (let’s say 6 months)
3. Once an account has been inactive for six months, sent an automated email with BOTH username and password and make it look as it was requested by the user.
4. Analyze the results. See how many of the targeted accounts have been re-activated and how many of the re-activated accounts are starting to become active

Seems to have a lot of features and quite a pretty good degree of customization. What I like about it and Kampyle doesn’t have is that you can create views for your user leveles and this is quite important for a team website.

Practical applications:

• collect bugs
• use it in education oriented websites (colleges, schools, training websites) to provide help for your users
• e-commerce sites