Ever since the launch of Google’s new browser - Chrome, there has been a lot of hype surrounding the newest web browser on the market. Much of it in the negative, and much of it in the (ooh look how pretty it is!) *ahem positive.

I installed it to have a play, and to pretty much see for myself what type of monster google had created.

I have to admit on first impression, I loved the open interface, the color, and what seemed like a simplified, no bones approach to its primary focus… web browsing.

The all-in-one “search box” and “url box”, is refreshing, and particularly intuitive sending requests back and retrieving google suggest data.

I did promise myself that I would then uninstall. And I did. Thankfully.

Over the coming days, I began to hear news of its security flaws, and also being a web developer, I sadly missed my firefox toolbars.

Now, back on track.

In my eyes (dont you love it when someone starts a sentence like that… waiving all credibility..) there are about 4 different groups of browser users.

1) The general public
These guys dont give a hoot about what browser they have installed. As long as they can check their Hotmail, enjoy their facebook, and chat to their friends, they just use whatever.
2) The Tech Savvy
The people who are savvy enough to enjoy the more geekier side of the web, this includes gamers and such. More than likely a majority of these users are already using firefox, depending on their geek status.
3) Developers
Developers are similar to the above, while most use firefox, some still use IE mainly for testing purposes.
4) Die hard developers
The die hards are the fanatical, geeky types that honour the bible that is W3C standard. Usually run firefox, only have IE installed for testing, and love their Safari due to its standards compliance.

So far out of these groups I can only see 2 installing and actually using Chrome. The tech savvy who want to play with the latest toy, and the developers who are simply curious about what google are up to.

Soon enough the developers will give it up for favour of firefox toolbars, that coincidently make their life easier.

Leaving the Tech Savvy. Who of course, once the noise has throttled down a little will probably take it or leave it.

So where does that leave Chrome?

Probably with about the same % or perhaps a little less than the Safari browser.

It kicked up some news, but hey reality has to kick in at some stage.

Sometimes we in tech fields forget the momentum and the power of offline advertising. Even more so, we tend to forget about the social/networking circle that we work within on a daily basis.

Many times Ive found myself relying on what I all stranger traffic. Through methods of link building with others and numerous link spamming methods. Mainly, completely through online methods.

Then someone reminds me of just how easy things can be when you’re focused on a goal, and have a great, straight forward plan of attack.

I have a few examples.

#1 The travel website.
A friend of mine signed up for one of those (buy through us and save) travel site affiliate programs. He gets a nice chunk of a kickback from each airline ticket sold through this particular page.
What surprised me, was that this guy is simply not tech savvy. He took his old world knowledge, folded it into something that he didnt believe existed, and made it work. How did he do it? Simple. He has a lot of friends that travel. Through his everyday business dealings, he would mention his website. Tell them that its a great price, a recommendation as you’d say. They all know he travels alot himself, so they feel he is onto something. Bang. One sale after another. This guy is now adding an extra $2000 a month to his normal wage, without lifting a finger, but telling his friends about this ‘cheaper’ deal.

#2 The Gambling Site
Another friend of mine, is heavily into racing, horses, dogs, anything. He has been a successful gambler for years, and managed to make a living from gambling alone. Sure he’d hit some low points, and then some high points, but above all, this guy knows his stuff.
One day he wakes up, realising that he needs to look after his family, and decides that he needs a steadier income. So he pays through the nose for a programmer and website designer, to build him a website where he can put ‘on the fly’ tips up for upcoming races. His home designed analysis system, helps him by showing stats for winning and placing horses and their likeliness to win or place again, compared to the rest of the horses they are racing against. Easy job, he can sit around, watching his passion on the satellite tv, entering names and numbers, and taking in $50 per day per person, for use of his website. Last saturday, he pulled in $1100 worth of membership fees and he only put in the mornings races. How does he get his visitors? Simple, just as the case above, most of them are friends or business collegues of his, that have the same interests, and actually find his advice and website useful.

See these are people that simply are not technical, they cant program, if you asked them to design a website, they couldnt. They dont even know what a social bookmarking website is, they know nothing of forums, guestbooks, and arent particularly purturbed or bothered if they are even ever indexed in Google. But they took their real world business knowledge to see a niche, create a plan and simply MAKE it happen.

Sometimes we just have to step outside ourselves a little bit to make something work. There are massive opportunities out there in ALL industries. We just have to know how to take what we want, and make it happen.

Actually dont, please dont

Probably not the best title for my blog post, but hey if it gets hacked it gets hacked.

Onward.

Found this site today, whilst digging around a little, my initial thoughts were, how can these guys get away with making this information publicly available.??

Well on further investigation and a few hours spent, I have to admit, I actually enjoyed running through their forums, and they have this neat area where you can almost take lessons. More of an introduction to hacking, but opens your eyes a little all the same.

Go ahead check it out, do some of their missions. Theyve got basic web tutorials, and also realistic missions where you are left to try different methods of hacking certain things on their site.

Some may be disgusted, but it really is in your best interest as a webmaster to at least ‘know of’ this kind of stuff.

Without further ado.. http://www.hackthissite.org

For some reason, archive.org has not been working for me for the last week. At the moment its returning a 400 error. re..

Bad Request

Your browser sent a request that this server could not understand.

Not sure if perhaps they are having problems or that it doesnt like my firefox?

Anyone else seeing this problem?