It's Getting Foxy Around Here

Firefox 3.0 is out! OH, you aren't using the Fox yet? So what are you using, IE? Silly person, check out what you have been missing.

In case you need some more data, here are the numbers.

• In the first 24 hours over 8 million people downloaded FF 3.0 to set a new world record
• Firefox is said to have cured ringworm in 29% of the cases
• As of today almost 12 million have downloaded it since "download day" on June 17th
• Studies have shown that the installation of Firefox on a computer reduces the chance of ingrown toenails by 42%
  
• There have been almost 600 million downloads to date. The 500 million mark was hit on Feb 21st 2008.
• People who use FireFox are reported to have minor hair growth in areas where there once was no hair.

So there you have it. What are you waiting for.

 

It's Nice To Hear Someone Else Say It.

For years I have have been saying that less is more when it comes to advertising. Print ads, direct mail and corporate collateral need to have a minimalist approach when it comes to copy.

Get your message across and move on to the next touch. But nooooooo, people don't like to listen to Big Pappa. Maybe because I ate too many cream cheese danishes when I was a kid. Maybe they don't like my bald head. Bald chubbiness aside, you can now listen to me! Why? Because other people with big names are backing up what I have been saying all along.

Jakob Nielsen, referred to as the "guru of web page usability" by the New York times, claims that " On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely." Eye tracking studies only confirm what Nielsen is talking about. Headlines and keywords all get scanned very rapidly allowing the user to determine if they want to dig deeper.



One big stat in the cited research was the maximum amount of text that a user was even able to read. As it turns out, a web browser, is only able to read at most 28% of the text if they spend the "normal" amount of time on any one of your site's pages. But more importantly, "users read half the information only on pages with 111 words or less."

So what does this mean? Well, the way I see it, there are several things you can do to increase the probability that your content will get read.

• Focus on engaging headlines and "pull outs."
• Use "read more buttons" more frequently. This will give the user the opportunity to choose whether or not they want to go deeper
• Find out what your customers want to know and give them just a touch less than that. This will illicit a contact and that is where sales begin.
  

Some other fundamental concepts that I have been trying to convey for years - The newest generations of internet users want information as easy to get to as possible and they want it NOW. This same generation is typically lazy and won't read everything you intend for them.

The challenge of course is keeping your content short and maintaining the appropriate levels of keyword density.

"If you target a broader audience or have sales cycles that are shorter than 5 years, you'd be wise to put your word count on a strict diet," said Nielsen. Well said sir. You have once again restored my faith in humanity and have added legitimacy to the one they call Big Pops.

I know this is a random closing thought, but as I was looking through some of the research, I came across this 1999 article about the top 10 design mistakes. For some reason I am obsessing about #2. He says that you shouldn't have links open in a new window. Given the fact this was written in 1999 before the invention of tabbed browsing, I will give him a little slack.

I completely disagree with this point. Maybe there is something wrong with me, but I want things to open in a new window/tab. In fact, I am so used to using ctrl+T, ctrl+W and ctrl+left click in FireFox that I don't think I could go back to old school browsing.

I like it when PDF's open in a new window. I like to be able to open the first 10 results of a SERP in a new tab and hit ctrl+w when I realize that there is nothing of interest on that page. I like my original window to stay in tact and to be able to go back to it when I want to. Especially if the page has a LOT of links that I want to explore.

What do you think? Do you like to have links open in a new window/tab? Let your voice be heard. Big Pappa wants to know.

 

SiteHoppin Toolbar Baby!!!

Here it is. Finally! Max from Sitehoppin has it all tweaked ready for beta testing. I was very fortunate to be one of 20 lucky bloggers that he released it to. I was also given an extra perk. You, the readers of The Big Bald Blog, will be able to beta test it too with my special code.

All you need to do is go to the Sitehoppin tool bar download area and enter the code: bigpappa

This will allow you to download and test out the new Sitehoppin Firefox tool bar. If you are wondering what it does, you need to check out this video on Josh Whitford's site. It's more-or-less like Stumbleupon except you rate the sites with beer. Instead of a simple thumbs up or down you have a rating system of 1 through 5. AND if the site doesn't have a rating of at least 3 beers or more it won't show up in the hops. There's even a bonus. It the site is complete garbage or is total spam, you can hit the "puke it" button and it kills the site. Head on over and give it a try.

Thanks again Max for including The Big Bald Blog and it's readers in the beta!

 

Firefox Passes Internet Explorer.

Well at least in MY stats report. For the first time since I have been blogging, the browser that has accessed my website the most is Firefox.

So far this month Firefox users have hit my site 8890 times and IE users have accessed it 7379 times. I wonder what this means. I knew that Firefox was gaining ground with over 400 million downloads but I have never seen my stats reflecting the Fox as #1.



I am curious, what are you seeing on your stats? Let me know.

 

FIrefox Is Getting Big

Not long ago I wrote an article about Firefox reaching the 400 million download mark. This was an impressive feat and an even more impressive story. Even though it is an open source browser the frisky little fox is making some serious bank. According to an article in The New York Times, Firefox reported $66 million in revenue, 85% of which came from Google.

From Google? Yep, they have a royalty contract with Firefox that has allowed this huge influx of cash. The New York Times is asking if the money and the success could spoil the principles that Mozilla was founded on. Currently the Mozilla corporation has in excess of $74 million in assets and they don't seem to be giving too much away in the form of grants. Other than paying their CEO $500,000 + annually, what are they, a non-profit organization, going to do with all that cash? "When the connection with Google was revealed more than a year ago, the question on popular tech Web sites like Slashdot.org was whether Mozilla was acting as a proxy in Google’s larger war with Microsoft and others." So is Mozilla hording a war chest to launch some kind of big initiative? At the point where Firefox overtakes IE as the preferred browser maybe we will know what is actually in store.

Tim Wu, a law professor from Columbia University says, "“We’re living in a cold war between open and closed systems, and Google is happy to lend support to entities that it sees as allies...”

With Google gaining ground every day in terms of search numbers, stock price and revenue, it will be interesting to see what develops in the Firefox camp over the next 5 years.

Your thoughts?

 

Firefox - 400 Million Downloads Later

In November of 2004, Firefox began it's grassroots campaign to build a better, faster and safer web browser. Nearly 3 years later, the proud little fox is boasting a record 400 million downloads.

Currently there are estimates that Firefox has a market share of 17.5 percent to 25 percent depending on who is doing the reporting. Microsoft is still the leader of the browser market with 63.9 percent but Firefox is steadily gaining ground. Contrary to these figures, as of today, my site stats are showing Firefox users have hit this site 2264 times so far this month with IE coming in second at 2071. The balance of browsers being Netscape, Safari, Mozilla, Konqueror, Galeon and Opera with 69, 59, 58, 21, 11 and 11 hits respectively.

With a host of plugins available and features that were ahead of the IE curve, Firefox's stable platform will no doubt continue as the preferred browser by those who have tried it. Now all that needs to be done is to get Dell and other manufacturers to deliver Firefox equipped computers.

Congratulations Firefox!

 

Firefox Vs. Internet Explorer - UFD

Over the past couple of years, as a matter of personal curiosity, I have been tracking the Firefox users vs. the IE users on the sites that we host. The numbers have been showing that Firefox is gaining slowly on industry leading IE. Just as I was wondering what the rest of the world was seeing, OneStat released findings that indicated that Firefox was climbing the ladder. FF is gaining about 1% per year.

Reported numbers are saying that Microsoft still has about 85% of the browser usage market and Firefox is at almost 13%. FF is showing a little bit better than what I was seeing but the numbers are real close. Typically I am seeing that FF is at about 10.5% of all searches with the understanding that the site demo dramatically changes the numbers.

Another UFD completely unrelated to the headline but I thought that I would throw it in anyway. In the US, is seems that browser resolutions are overwhelmingly 1024x768. The stats from all the research that I have done, indicate that anywhere from 53% to 81% of people have their monitors set at 1024 x 768. Only one source reported the 81% and I am willing to discount that one. The majority agree that 53% to 58% of browsers in the US are using the 1024 x 768 resolution.

Oh, and by the way, UFD in the headline = Useless facts of the day.