Yesterday Google announced the release of its very own open source browser in beta, called Chrome.

According to research firm Net Applications, IE holds approximately 73% of the market, while Firefox has around 19%, followed by Opera with under 1%.  Apple’s Safari holds about 6%.

Chrome has some similar features to the new IE 8 and Firefox 3, which include, an address bar auto-complete feature, search suggestions, and a privacy mode called “Incognito mode” (similar to IE’s InPrivate feature).  It’s also possible for a user to perform searches within the address bar by typing the URL of the search provider and hitting tab key. The interface is simple and maximizes monitor space to display a website.

According to Google, one of the main goals was to improve the browser’s performance for loading rich web applications faster.  According recent tests, the browsers performance is significantly faster when running JavaScript.  Learn more at http://www.google.com/chrome

Till now IE has helped Microsoft keep their foot in the web pool. If Google’s browser takes the market share that IE currently holds, Google will not just be the king of the search but ultimately reign in as the king of the web.

However, we have already noticed some technical issues with the browser accessing pages, which will likely be corrected before the official release of Chrome.  It will also be interesting to see how long before third-parties start offering Chrome compatible plug-ins.

1. While typing a search query, the search suggestions will display related keyphrases, which also will display historical search queries, related feeds, and images.  This feature also has the added advantage of allowing you to easily toggle between different sources of the data. For instance, you may want to search Wikipedia only for a specific query.
2. Much requested find on page feature will allow the highlighting of entered keyphrases on a web page similar to the Google Toolbar feature.
3. While on a web page, a visitor will be able to highlight text. A new accelerator option will take the highlighted text and search maps, translate, or send email.  For example, by highlighting an address and with the click of two buttons, you will be able to open the maps tools. The set of accelerators can be extended by installing third-party accelerators.
4. Browser tab colours will display groups of related sites.
5. Web slice will allow website owners to provide sections of their website or any renderable media for display on other sites. With some modification to the website’s CSS class, a web slice will be defined and made visible to a website visitor who will be able to save the slice into their own website. Unlike RSS which requires the creation of an XML file, a web slice is much easier to setup, according to Microsoft.  If you want to see this in action, some sites are already using this feature include eBay, Facebook, and some MSN properties.
6. The visited website address will be displayed with the actual address bolded.  For instance, if you received an email from your bank to update your records and you clicked onto the link, it resolves to tdbank.spammysite.com.  IE 8 will darken the colour of the spammysite part of the URL and gray out the sub-domain to show the actual domain in which the site is resolved.
7. InPrivate feature, when enabled, will allow you to surf the web without any tracks - it will tell the browser that you don’t want any cookies or history data saved.  The InPrivate Blocking feature will allow you to stop any data from being passed from one website to another.
8. IE 8 is to be more web standards compliant with CSS 2.1.  The aim was to make it 100% feature complete.
9. Incorporated developers tools will have on page code view, script debugging, and profiler.
10. The option to view a website in IE 7 that may be having problems in IE 8.  The IE 7 emulator will allow one to switch back and forth.
11. If a crash happens while several tabs are open, there will be an option to restore all tabs and they will run as separate processes. Therefore all data in restorable tabs will be saved.

Pete referenced IE 8 as the “browser for web 2.0″.  However, it looked to me like more than that.  Although all the options may be a little intimidating to the not-so-savvy web surfer.  This new version of IE 8 has something for everyone, from the not-so-savvy net surfer, to the researcher or savvy web developer.

No official date was provide for the final release of IE 8, however, it’s important that as a website owner you ask your web team to download the new beta version and test how the browser will interpret your website.  This will allow you to make any necessary changes or even enhancements before its full release.

At 9th sphere, we design and develop a lot of websites. Most of our clients want a clean, professional looking site. Many also want to evoke an image of a big company. Understandably companies want to project a confident, credible, and desirable image which seemingly comes with a larger business. But suggesting that a company is bigger than it really is could also set unrealistic expectations for potential clients.

If prospects think that you are bigger; whether in man-power, resources, competitive landscape, or experience, their expectations will also be greater. With an exaggerated depiction of who you are, you may be setting your new clients up for disappointment and setting yourself up for a potentially wide range of customer service complaints.

The truth is that not all prospects want to deal with large firms. Some business owners prefer companies that are small and nimble. Define the market you want to target and build an image accordingly to attract that market. If you are in a situation where your market is big business and you are a small shop, don’t give off the wrong impression. Consider illustrating your credentials, awards, and accomplishments and building your company’s credibility that way. Illustrate why a prospect would have a better experience with you than with a larger company. Being up-front and establishing realistic expectations ensures that clients understand your capabilities, which increases likelihood of positive customer feedback.

Don’t set yourself up for failure. Instead of trying to design for a big company mentality, project the right website image that attracts your kind of target market and focus on what makes you better then the rest.

The conference was a great opportunity to see and learn about the strategies and techniques being used in the SEO industry nowadays and to get some fresh ideas. Although the quality of the speakers was great, I think the advanced sessions could have been more technical.

Social Networking and Social Media are hot topics that were discussed during many of the sessions. A lot of Internet marketers use this to drive traffic to theirs sites. How do you determine if the campaign was successful? Orion panel: “Measuring Success in a 2.0 World” was an attempt to answer this question. Some parameters are easy to track, like unique visitors and profit. However not all traffic is equal. The main idea was that you need to setup your metrics and measure your success according to your business plan and business strategy. Apparently there is not a universal solution yet.

Topics such as search user behaviour, universal and blended search, getting found on maps and local searches, and tracking social media success, caught a lot of attention. Gordon Hotchkiss talked about the evolution of the “golden triangle” and could not refrain from mentioning how Rogers forgot to buy paid search traffic to support their iPhone announcement in Canada.

SEM Canada is the next big industry event this year. I hope more Canadian businesses will recognize the importance of Internet Marketing and as a result we will see more recognition and more events like SES Toronto in Canada.

It’s simply not enough to request a website design without providing any direction. The critical information that defines your company is in your hands. It is crucial to provide this information to the web design company before they start on any creative design. For favourable results that save time and money and for a website design that is sure to earn you praise, we recommend that you assemble the following details.

1. List your business goals and objectives. List the goals and objectives for your website. Do your business and website goals and objectives align with each other? They should. Have they changed since your last web design? Does your current website fulfill your goals and objectives? If not, why?
2. Who is your target market? Has this changed?
3. List your competitive advantages. Have they changed? Does your current website play up these advantages? If not, why?
4. Has your brand changed? Would you like to change your brand?
5. What’s the feedback on your existing website? What is working, what needs reworking?
6. Examine your top competitors. What are they up too? Are they doing anything that you would like to try yourself?

Considering your goals and organizing your information will instigate a more strategic decision making process. Details of this nature are extremely helpful in determining which changes to your current website will be most effective. Based on the details provided by you, the web design company you’ve partnered with will be in a much better position to suggestion solutions you may not have considered. It may even turn out that a complete website re-design will not be necessary.

The right website can improve your company’s efficiency, profitability, and provide you with a leading advantage over your competitors. More than just a clever image with a means for business contact, a website is the first opportunity a company has to make a lasting impression. Take your time and take it seriously.

Currently anyone can locate the owner of a domain name through a WHOIS search, which displays the person, organization or institution name, address, telephone, fax, and email address. Information of this nature can serve a range of purposes, including unwanted advertising efforts.

On June 10, 2008, CIRA’s new WHOIS policy will protect the personal information of new dot-ca domain registrations. Anyone wishing to contact a domain owner will be able to do so through an online contact form. Domains registered before June 10 will not be affected by the policy.

We have yet to see how CIRA will manage the contact form and communication process. If it’s anything like most registrars’ WHOIS privacy feature, the registrar will send an email or mail to the domain name owner with the third-party request. The domain owner will then decide if they wish to respond.

Dot-com domains have a similar WHOIS privacy feature, but it’s dictated by the registrars themselves and not ICANN (equivalent of CIRA that operates dot-com and other top-level domain names). To protect your information for your dot-com, simple enable WHOIS privacy with your registrar.

Next time you register your Canadian domain name, your personal information will not be disclosed to the public.

Total internet sales hit an estimated C$62.7 billion in 2007. That’s a 26% increase from 2006, mostly from the B2C market.

eMarketers’ latest article, Canada E-Commerce Growing Quickly, reports that ecommerce is still only 2% of total operating revenue in Canada and only 8% of Canadian companies sell items online.

We have updated our Online Canadian Statistics, eh! article with these new numbers.

As a website solutions firm, we are pleased to report an increase in requests for Canadian eCommerce website development. The typical attitude of small to mid-sized organizations, up to the first quarter of 2007, was apprehensive. Clients didn’t feel ready for ecommerce and didn’t think it would work. The sentiment is much different now.

Some of the most popular social bookmarking tools you might enjoy include, Stumbleupon, del.icio.us, ma.gnolia, and Furl.

Province and city level extensions were once commonly used to identify the location of a registration. For instance, if you had an Ontario provincially registered business your domain extension was - name.on.ca, or if you were a sole proprietor in Toronto, it would be - name.toronto.on.ca. This format was later removed and dot-ca was opened for registration by anyone/anything “Canadian”, proof of Canadian citizenship not required.

If Quebec were allowed its own extension (.qc), without the dot-ca, how would the rest of Canada respond? Most likely, on principle alone, other provinces would want their own extensions as well. And that could very well lead to the end of Canada’s internet nationalism - our proud-to-be-Canadian, dot-ca.

No doubt, for the benefit of a province’s revenue, having its own extension may be advantageous. Many smaller countries have released their own extension in an effort to profit and form a clearer identity. And most have succeeded. Even the previously held dot-tv used to be owned by one of the Polynesian island nations, Tuvalu.

Nothing against the beautiful province of Quebec, but I hope this form of separation doesn’t become a reality, as the all-Canadian dot-ca could start to loose the global presence it’s steadily acquiring. Read Canada’s One Million Domain Names.

So where does that place Canada in comparison to other country-level domain extensions? Here’s where dot-ca ranked in the fifteenth spot back in February 2008, according to “Global Domain Name Statistics“.

And these are some generic extensions.

We decided to run an analysis using these statistics. We wanted to know the percentage of domains specific to each country based on its population. Here’s what we got.

*population numbers form the CIA World Factbook 2008

Out of 25 countries Canada ranked in 13th place in our analysis. Countries like Netherlands, Denmark and Germany rated highest. Does this mean that we are less willing to appeal to our fellow Canadian consumers? Does a dot-ca registration or any other country level extension make you more patriotic?

One could say that the Internet savvyness of a country may affect the number of domains registered. However, country-specific domain registration in many ways could also reflect the effort made by a country to target its particular market and populace. A dot-ca domain name for instance, directly targets local markets, sending the message that a website is proudly Canadian.

It’s true, English speaking countries have a larger competitive market to contend with and have more domain extensions to choose from. There may be less incentive to differentiate Canadian targeting with a dot-ca, when you can opt for the better known dot-com. A dot-com domain name may widen the demographic scope of a website, but more times than not, a focused demographic tends to fare better.

According to CIRA, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, 75% of Canadians prefer to shop on a dot-ca website. Privacy and security issues often deter Canadians from online shopping across the border, along with extra costs associated with shipping and duties. CIRA reports that in 2005 Canadians ordered $5 billion worth of goods online and 63% of these purchases were with Canadian vendors. For some small businesses, a visible dot-ca website could be the deciding factor for sustenance.

If your Canadian website is an established dot-com, why not register your dot-ca domain and at the very least, direct it to your dot-com.

For more information on choosing a domain name extension, read Dot-Com or Dot-CA?

Researched & written by Marta LeClair