Um, Where’s Twitter For Android On Twitter’s Top 10 Apps?
This evening Twitter CEO Evan Williams put up an interesting post about Twitter mobile usage. By just about every measurable metric, it seems to be skyrocketing. He also included a graph of the top 10 ways people are now using Twitter. This includes both Twitter’s own apps and third-party clients, but notably, Twitter for Android is nowhere to be seen.
I’ve confirmed with Twitter that this isn’t a mistake. It seems that Twitter for Android is in fact not in the top 10 ways people interact with the service. That’s incredible considering that Twitter for iPhone is number 4 and Twitter for Blackberry is number 5. Both of those were built by the Twitter team, just as the Android app was.
Even crazier, it’s behind third party clients TwitPic, TweetDeck, Echofon, UberTwitter, and even Google Friend Connect!
Obviously, Twitter downplays that in the post (and by downplays, I mean, doesn’t mention it), and instead only mentions Twitter for Android in the intro to say that it “launched a new version this week.” Remember, “new” is the best tactic to get people to try something.
In The Coming HTML5 Browser Wars, The Markup Should Remain The Same
On Monday, Google made a big splash with a customized Arcade Fire video page that showed off all the cool things HTML5 can do, from video, animations and 3D rendering to gorgeous fonts and choreographed windows. It’s all cutting edge stuff as far as what is possible with a Web browser goes, but there is one very big problem. It doesn’t work so great in all browsers, even browsers that supposedly support HTML5. If you go to the landing page that launches the video in Firefox or even the forthcoming IE9 (which isn’t out yet, but is very HTML5-friendly), it detects your browser and suggests you use Chrome instead. I received the following message on Firefox:
This site was designed with Google Chrome in mind and is unable to render properly in your browser. For the best viewing experience, we recommend downloading Google Chrome and trying this site again.
Happy Birthday Chrome, You’re About To Overtake Firefox On TechCrunch
As we pointed out earlier, today is Google Chrome’s second birthday. Since it launched in beta on September 2, 2008, it has come a long way (it’s already 6 versions deep). Back then, it was Windows-only, with official Mac and Linux support only coming late last year. But now it’s on the verge of another milestone: becoming the top browser coming to this site.
I’ve checked out our logs over the past few years to see how well Chrome has been doing compared to its rival browsers. The numbers are shockingly strong for such a new entry — particularly in the past year. Obviously, TechCrunch has a tech-centric audience, but I don’t think it’s off-base to say that you’re also a leading audience of early adopters that often point to where the general public will be in the future.
The numbers are clear: Firefox is in trouble. It has been the top browser since we began using Google Analytics to record stats back in 2007. By 2008, it was nearly 25 percentage points ahead of the next closest rival, Internet Explorer. As of yesterday, it stood just 3 percentage points ahead of the next closest rival, Chrome.
Here are the numbers. In August 2010 (the month that just ended):
- Firefox: 33.98%
- Chrome: 26.22%
- Safari: 18.40%
- IE: 13.23%
- Mozilla Compatible Agent: 5.46%
One year ago, in August 2009 (right before Chrome’s first birthday), the numbers looked like this:
- Firefox: 45.91%
- IE: 20.61%
- Safari: 18.85%
- Chrome: 10.09%
- Mozilla Compatible Anent: 1.83%
Two years ago, in August 2008 (right before Chrome launched), the numbers looked like this:
- Firefox: 55.63%
- IE: 31.21%
- Safari 9.76%
- Opera: 2.23%
- Mozilla: 0.62%
By September 2008, the month Chrome launched in beta, it had an immediate impact. But remember, it was Windows-only at the time:
- Firefox: 52.36%
- IE: 28.55%
- Safari: 9.18%
- Chrome: 6.58%
- Opera: 2.05%
And just for fun, let’s go back three full years, to August 2007.
- Firefox: 48.81%
- IE: 40.61%
- Safari: 6.59%
- Opera: 2.29%
- Mozilla: 0.72%
Chrome has clearly taken a bite out of Firefox, IE, and even Opera’s already small share. Safari is up big over the past couple of years as well, but its growth has seemingly stalled over the past year — despite iPad browser usage (in terms of visits to TechCrunch) exploding.
Of course, overall traffic to TechCrunch is also way up over these past few years. It just appears that more and more people who are visiting are now doing so via Chrome.
Let’s look at the numbers from yesterday:
- Firefox: 34.68%
- Chrome: 31.09%
- Safari: 15.65%
- IE: 12.77%
- Mozilla Compatible Agent: 3.48%
Yes, it’s just a matter of time before Chrome is on top.
As a humorous aside, IE with Chrome Frame, the plug-in Google made to make IE behave like Chrome, is now a bigger source of traffic to TechCrunch than Opera Mini or BlackBerry. While still tiny, it too is growing.
Google Chrome Version 6 Arrives on Browser’s Second Birthday
Google Chrome is 2 Years Old
Only 2 years ago, Google has released the very first build of Chrome web browser. Now, two years later, company is celebrating its browser birthday with two new releases: stable and beta.
Google Chrome then
Google Chrome now
Google Chrome Turns 2 with Version 6 Release
Google is celebrating the second anniversary of its Google Chrome browser with the release of new stable and beta versions that have a cleaner and simpler user interface and increased speed and performance.
As the Google Chrome Blog points out, Chrome 6 is years beyond where most imagined browser technology would be when Chrome was first introduced just two years ago.
The Google Chrome Blog takes a retrospective look at how much browsers have changed over the past two years, remarking that when Chrome was first introduced in August of 2008, "JavaScript was 10 times slower, HTML5 support wasn't yet an essential feature in modern browsers, and the idea of a sandboxed, multi-process browser was only a research project."
In addition to some cosmetic changes, the new version of Chrome brings form autofill features, making it so you don't have to type in again and again that ridiculously long email address you now regret choosing. It also brings extension and autofill synchronization, meaning that your autofill data will remain the same from desktop to laptop to netbook.
Among the myriad features, the user interface seems to have an impact in the browser market. The soon-to-be-released Internet Explorer 9 looks like it stole a page from Chrome, adopting the clean and simple design that lets the browser step out of the way. Chrome's design manages to portray what we find most appealing about Chrome (which replaced Firefox as the default browser months ago now) - its lightweight operation. Just as it steps out of the way of the page, in terms of design, the browser manages to step out of the way of other programs, managing to run well (even on a netbook) without hogging all of the processing power.
If you haven't yet, we highly recommend giving Chrome a spin.
Google Chrome 6 goes stable, 2nd birthday celebration brings extension and autofill sync
It's Chrome's second birthday today, and in addition to posting some fancy-schmancy images to celebrate Google Chrome's stable channel has been bumped to version 6. For those of you still keeping tabs on version changes, it's only been four months since Chrome 5 went stable.
The update means that all Chrome users can now take advantage of extension and autofill sync -- both important parts of Google's desire to keep your 'browsing platform' uniform across all the computers you use.
Version 6 also brings the new consolidated menu, richer content settings (JavaScript, plug-ins, notifications, and the like), and the first-run search engine selection screen. There's also a faster V8 JavaScript engine under the hood.
No announcement yet from the Chrome Blog, but we'll add a link once their official post has gone live. In the meantime, the Chromium blog has a breakdown of some of the more important security updates and feature additions.
Google to Power AOL Search for the Next 5 Years
August browser stats show Android, Chrome on the rise
It's the beginning of the month again, and that means it's time for the big analytics guns to release their browsing snapshots once again. While there's not a lot of movement to report on for August of 2010, Google is no doubt pleased with the way things played out.
Android made a fairly major jump last month, climbing more than a full point -- from 7.91 to 9.22%. That gain came mostly at the expense of iOS and Symbian, both of which slid about half a point. Blackberry OS also continued to rise, finishing August up .5%.
On the desktop, Google surged ahead almost a full point to finish at 10.76%. That's nearly three times Chrome's user base from this time last year, and it's the first time Chrome has crossed the 10% mark.
And yes, Internet Explorer slipped yet again. IE is still dominant, yet it's also now dangerously close to slipping below 50% share for the first time ever. Perhaps the IE9 beta will help stem the tide -- it's due to arrive in less than two weeks.
How to Add Physics to Google Sketchup
Have you ever wanted to design your own catapult? How about a toy robot, or maybe a more complex machine you’ve been layout out in your head? If so, you might already be familiar with Google Sketchup. It’s a simple to use 3D modeling program for Windows and Mac that has been popular for years, and is used in such other products such as Google Earth to create the buildings. What you may not know is that you can add a plugin to Sketchup which will enable physics, turning your sketches into simulators.
Google Responds to Steve Jobs’s Android Activation Jab
FCC Questions Key Aspects of Google and Verizon’s Net Neutrality Proposal
Internet Explorer 9 vs. Google Chrome 7 vs. Firefox 4 (Hardware Acceleration)
As Google Chrome 7 (dev) now includes hardware acceleration, guys from DownloadSquad decided to test it along with Internet Explorer 9 (developers preview) and Firefox 4 (beta).
What are the results?
Google Chrome 7 utilized the most of the hardware resources, delivering better FPS (frames per second) than Internet Explorer 9 or Firefox 4, which took the last place.
However, as those are not the final builds, don’t draw your conclusions yet, things might change in the future.
Thanks to geek for the news tip.
Google, Arcade Fire deliver amazing, HTML5-powered music video from the future
It takes a lot for a music video to grab my attention anymore. Arcade Fire's HTML5 collaboration with Google, however, does a pretty damn good job.
Head over to The Wilderness Downtown, punch in the address of the home where you grew up, and watch the magic unfold. The "experience" is definitely one of the most interesting demos to come out of Google's Chrome Experiments thus far. It's a fantastic showcase of what HTML5 and modern browsers bring to the table.
As director Chris Milk told Wired, "[HTML5] is in its infancy right now, but I think the browser will be the next widely recognized artistic medium." He continues by adding "It allows such a larger dialog with the viewer. There's actual two-way communication going on between the art and the observer."
One parting note: is it just me, or was that HTML5 progress indicator every bit as annoying as the ones we've grown accustomed to with Flash preloaders? Yeah, that's what I thought.
Google Chrome Shows Off What HTML5 Can Do With Arcade Fire Video
Google is a big proponent of HTML5, especially for video and rich graphics in the browser. To show off what HTML5 can do, Google Chrome teamed up with the Arcade Fire and director Chris Milk to create a custom interactive video for their song, “We Used To Wait.” The experience is called The Wilderness Downtown and is best viewed in Chrome or other HTML5-compliant browser.
You start by typing in the address of the house you grew up in, then it loads a video of a guy in a hoodie running through the streets. Different windows pop open on your screen, some with graphics, some with videos. Google Maps and Street View images of your old neighborhood are incorporated into the video. All the video is in HTML5, different windows open up triggered by the music, and you even see a fly-over of your neighborhood based on Google Maps’ routing API.
Locked Out While Upgrading Your Gmail Call Phone? Try This Fix
For those who are looking for a free/cheap ways to make international call, Google has recently released the Gmail Call Phone feature that you can use to make phone call to any numbers in the World in your Gmail. I believe that most of you will have already played with it, and some of you (who are not located in the United States) might have even locked your account accidentally.
For those who are not aware of the incident, if you are not located in United States, and you click the “Upgrade your account” in the Google Voice dashboard, you will get the error message ”Google Voice is not available in your country”.
Context Menu URL Shortener for Google Chrome puts bit.ly sharing links close at hand
There's a big crop new extensions showing up which take advantage of Google Chrome's new context menu API, and that's great news for those of you who can't live without your right-click menu.
You can see a pair of newer extensions in my screenshot -- and while I'm not certain I'll be using the tab switcher, Copy Short URL is probably here to stay.
Just right-click a link and left-click and a bit.ly or tinyurl shortened link is copied to your clipboard for hassle-free sharing on your favorite social sites. That's it. Nice and simple, just how I like my extensions!
The developer states that more truncators will be added soon, which would be a welcome improvement. API and account support would be a nice touch as well -- perhaps that will be tacked on as well.
How to Perform Site Specific Search With Google, Yahoo and Bing
Previously we have discussed how to perform a country specific search using any search engine. This involves filtering search results from a specific country which can be useful in certain situations. We have also seen how to perform language specific search on the web. In this tutorial we are going to learn how to use different search engines to perform a site specific search.
By site specific search I mean that you can use a search engine to find content from a specific blog, website or forum. Sometimes you may want to search a popular blog for some tutorial and it’s not always very comfortable to open blogs in different tabs and use their search box to find the content you are looking for.
Instead, you can search any website from Google, Yahoo or Bing. The advantage is that you can filter all the posts that match with specific keywords directly from a search engine.
Google Chrome dev channel hits v7 -- get ready for native code in Web apps!
So, what is Native Client all about? It's Google open source tech which allows native code (the kind of code which powers your favorite desktop apps) to run inside your browser. Assuming that browser is Google Chrome, of course, because no one else sports NaCl support yet. Native code in the browser should mean the arrival of Web apps that truly compete with desktop apps in terms of performance -- which could be a big boost to things like online media converters and photo editors. At the very least, you'll be able to play Quake in Chrome.
If you want to see Native Client in action, Google has a gallery of NaCl demo ports you can check out -- or at least you're meant to be able to check them out. Both Chrome dev and Canary responded with a "missing plug-in" message when i tried to load them, even though Native Client was enabled (as you can see in my screenshot).
The dev channel update was actually quite a major one, though it mostly contained bugfixes and cleaned up code. The full log of revisions is available here.
update: as reported in the comments, you need to add the --enable-nacl flag to your shortcut. I've done that, and the demos still don't load, however. The missing plug-in message did disappear at least...
Chrome Pig extension checks Gmail, takes screenshots -- and lets you set clipboard images as wallpaper!
In general, I prefer Chrome extensions which don't try to do too much. Do one thing, and do it well is a good general rule, after all. However, once in a while a Swiss-knife extension crops up which is filled to overflowing with useful features and just begs to be installed.
Enter Chrome Pig. Yes, it's weirdly named. Yes, it includes a somewhat random mish-mosh of features, but dang, are they handy ones. Chrome Pig can:
- Screenshot an entire page, the viewable portion, or a selected region
- Check Gmail for unread messages (you must be signed in)
- Open supported files types in the Google Docs previewer
- Edit a page's CSS to your liking
- Re-enable right click on sites which disable it
- Search the site you're currently browsing
- Open the current page in IE
- Set a clipboard image to your desktop wallpaper
I've put the last one in bold because it's a feature which you would think should be included by default in a Web browser. Firefox, Opera, and IE can all do this, but Chrome can't? Why? At any rate, problem solved! With Chrome Pig installed, just right click and copy an image, click its browser action button, and set the clipboard image to your wallpaper -- it will even resize, center, or tile.
Some of Chrome Pig's features -- lyric search, form fill, and translate, for example -- I can do without. The configuration page offers checkboxes to disable unwanted items, though they still appeared in the drop-down after multiple disable/enable attempt and a browser restart. Hopefully the developer will address this issue in a coming update.
That shortcoming aside, I'm happily adding Chrome Pig to my extensions -- it'll replace two other and add a couple additional features which will come in handy.