Specialty Browsers: Is Your Site Ready?

Web Hosting Provider Explains

We all have our favorite browser. Let your web hosting provider explain about specialty browsers.

Some people use Internet Explorer from Microsoft. Some use the browsers that are built in to their portal sites like Yahoo and AOL. But coming on strong over the past couple of years is Mozilla’s Firefox, a powerful browser that’s lightning fast and delivers completely customizable features, truly making it your browser.

Recently, Firefox released the beta version of Flock 1.0 – one of the growing number of specialty browsers that cater to different market segments. While Google goes for sheer volume of indexed pages (in theory, editorially neutral) specialized browsers deliver increased utility and complete customization of content.

Firefox Specialty Browsers

With the phenomenal growth of Firefox since its launch on November 9, 2004, we can assume that this browser is a player, as in here to stay. And instead of employing Google’s indexing model (Get it all), Firefox has a series of specialized browsers designed to target specific audiences.

Currently, Firefox offers several different browser editions, and while all employ the underlying power of the original Firefox 1.0, each edition offers singular features that users can’t resist. These browsers, from Firefox include:

The Avant browser equips you to browse multiple sites simultaneously. It also comes with a powerful pop-up blocker (of interest to site owners who use this form of promotion) and a Flash smasher (again, of interest to those who promote using Flash animations). This browser also delivers a built-in scrubber that clears all traces, maintaining your privacy. (If your site employs cookies, Avant is the cookie monster.)

Firefox’s Campus Edition is super fast, with built-in security for those plugging into the campus intra-grid. This browser obviously appeals to a younger demographic making it a perfect tool to stretch the marketing budget for those online businesses catering to the college crowd. The browser comes loaded with links to music download sites, social networks and other links to sites of interest to the 16 – 24-year-old user.

Firefox’s eBay Browser is, obviously, designed for those auction addicts with programmed bidding software to get that one-of-a-kind whatever – the serious eBayer. The browser allows you to log in once and stay securely logged on to eBay (your favorite site) without logging in again each time you start your computer. You can customize individual bids, track auctions and stay one step ahead of other bidders.

The Companion Page of the Firefox eBay Browser

Songbird is Firefox’s browser for those who just can’t get enough music downloads. One reviewer put it this way. “If Firefox and iTunes hooked up, their hatchling could very well be Songbird. Still in beta and plenty buggy, [WSS: site owners take notice] it's nevertheless a fun app that's a Web browser and a music player.

The app scans Web sites for MP3s then lists them in a window at the bottom of the browser for easy listening. Links to major music sites and blogs are included, so finding the latest tunes is a cinch. Or, you can switch to the media player, which plays music from your hard drive. Building playlists from these disparate sources is as sweet as a hummingbird feeder. Songbird's no gray pigeon, either, with two skins and a bird theme bolstered by a clean layout that takes its structures, if not plumage, from iTunes.”

For Mac users, Firefox introduces Camino with a ton of Mac-only features including the ability to stop a download midway and start it up again, a simple-to-use address book, a bundled Java plugin for super smooth performance and stability in a PC-dominated cyberworld.

Firefox’s latest release, Flock 1.0 is designed for the new, more interactive, more interconnected web. It comes standard with a built-in social networking monitoring sidebar that makes staying in touch a breeze. This browser equips you to drag and drop pictures into Flickr. Flock will access and deliver messages from friends from lots of different sites (you pick ‘em), it has document finder, a blog search feature and all of the other goodies that continue to make the web the place to spend more free time.

What Does All of This Mean to the Small Site Owner?

Obviously, this is not some passing fad. Specialized browsers are being developed by all the major portals. Google Docs and Spreadsheets is an OSS download that helps users keep track of word processing documents in all formats as well as spreadsheets that are delivered via email. No reformatting required.

With these specialized browsers, there’s less reason for search engines since the content that interests you is delivered automatically. The fact is, computers equipped with one of these specialized browsers enable owners to enjoy the web experience without ever leaving their browsers.

As a small site owner, these targeted browsers have a good and bad side to them. On the one hand, you can target your market with much greater specificity. However, it’s still safe to assume that browser-based web trash will receive the same user response that we see today. How quickly can you hit the delete button?

Thus, small site owners will still have to deliver quality content to the reader, regardless of which specialized browser s/he is using. That won’t change. But with an increased ability to target a market, your promotional dollars will go further.

The downside? If your site doesn’t fit the target demographic of a specialty browser, you won’t necessarily be picked up, limiting access to significant portions of various web populations. However, if you re-think your marketing strategy to fit the new technology of specialty browsers, you can take advantage of the topic specificity these browsers provide.

The Future of the Specialty Browser

Bright and sunny. This is only the beginning of a new, improved web experience. Easier, faster, completely customized to your interests or work needs, these browsers deliver the right content and features while adding layers of additional security – a critical factor for today’s online businessperson.

Specialty browsers such as Opera, Ask and My Simon have, in fact, been around for quite a while but these early attempts at demographic-specific browsers often limited content instead of expanding it. Some of these browsers have adapted well. Opera remains a favorite and Ask is coming along nicely after changing their indexing model to expand content links.

But one thing is sure. Specialty browsers are here to stay with Firefox leading the way. These tools will allow us to stay within our chosen browser, providing faster downloads and easier fraud detection. Opera even provides an anti-phishing feature that any e-biz owner will love.

Bottom line: as a site owner, it’s time to revamp your overall marketing strategy and, perhaps, your business model. Specialty browsers will change the way users surf. They will lessen dependence on search engines (in turn, lessening the value of a high PR) and they will only become more sophisticated in the pressure-cooker, web marketplace where competition drives technology at mind-boggling speed.

Is your site ready?

Web Hosting blog

Come back next week to the web hosting blog for more webmaster articles.

October Roundup: Keeping Up with Browsers and Search Engines

Internet Explorer and Firefox, the two most popular browsers, have both recently upgraded their browser versions. Many users will be upgrading to the new versions, whether or not they choose to (see the Internet Explorer section below). Do our websites still display properly in all browsers? Why should we care? And, of course, we have our usual search engine news.

Internet Explorer

Microsoft released the final version of Internet Explorer 7 on October 19. Starting on November 1, an automatic update will install it on computers that have legitimate copies of XP via Windows Update. Like other modern browsers, it now offers tabbed browsing and better support for Web standards, among other features. IE once dominated the world of browsers. In November 2003, it had 85 percent of the market. The latest statistics show it with under 61 percent. But 60-plus percent is still a big number, even carved up by the different versions of IE. IE7 is available only on computers with XP. So while the automatic update mechanism will make IE7 the default IE browser for most XP users (except for those who have automatic updates turned off or who don't have a legitimate copy of XP), those without XP won't be able to download IE7.

Firefox

In the past couple of years, Firefox has steadily risen in popularity. It now has 28.8 percent of the browser market. It's been leading IE in features it offers, and on October 24, Firefox 2.0 was released. As open source software, its bugs are fixed faster, new options are added often, and it's available to all computer users with Windows 98 and up. Firefox 2.0 features tabs that scroll instead of appearing in rows, spell-checking, and improved security, among other features. With the latest version of IE limited to computers with XP, Firefox may get another boost in popularity.

Your website in different browsers

Does your site display properly in IE6 and Firefox 1.5? Now it's time to check it in the newer versions of the browsers too. Because of IE's improved support for CSS standards, web pages may display differently in IE7 in particular. Minor differences are probably no problem. But if a section of the page doesn't appear in the right place, for example, the site looks unprofessional and is possibly unusable. When you install a new version of IE (or when the automatic update does so for you), the previous version of IE is lost. On this page, however, instructions are given on how to install multiple versions of IE. Having more than one version of the same browser allows web developers to check that their sites display properly in different versions of the same browser. With Firefox and other browsers, different versions can be installed at the same time by installing them in different directories or subdirectories.

Google and Yahoo news

Is Yahoo in a slump? According to this New York Times article, it is. Before Google bought YouTube, Yahoo had been in negotiations about purchasing it. Yahoo has also lost advertising ground to sites such as MySpace. However, Yahoo.com is still the world's most popular website. And new developments are still in progress — Yahoo has just released a new version of its toolbar. Some features:

• Bookmarking that works with search and saves thumbnail images, among other features
• Auto-complete that suggests words as you type
• The ability to create custom toolbar buttons

Both Yahoo and Google in the US are working at developing partnerships with magazine publishers. The goals are to work with magazines to sell advertising to create more traffic for the magazines' sites, and to have online advertisers advertise in print media too. Do you wonder what bloggers are saying about your company or products? With Google alerts, you can now subscribe to be alerted to your search terms in blogs as well as in the news or newsgroups or elsewhere online. If you're already subscribed to Google news alerts, you might receive Google blog alerts too without changing your subscription, according to Search Engine Roundtable. The Google site search engine that's available for webmasters has grown. With a Google custom search engine (still in beta), you can specify other sites to be included in searches as well as your own site. You can also choose to have those sites given higher rankings in a Web search done from your site. The search results page can be customized to have the same look and feel as the rest of the site. Ads appear with the search results, but you can make money from these ads. A Google custom search engine lets webmasters use their knowledge of the content area to tailor what site visitors find in search results. Most webmasters of commercial sites won't want advertising to appear with search results for their sites. Webmasters of websites representing organizations or points of view, however, may find a custom search engine more useful along with the advertising revenue it generates. On another note about Google, Google has updated its webmaster guidelines to remove the guideline that suggested not using "&id=" in URLs. It now indexes URLs that contain that parameter. However, Google still recommends rewriting dynamic URLs into user-friendly ones when possible, especially if they have more than two parameters.