Ready to be part of geek history? We’re counting down to download day. The day that Firefox 3 is going to set a world record for the most downloads in one day!

Here are the details:
http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord

The official date for the launch of Firefox 3 is June 17, 2008. Join our community and this effort by pledging today.

Yay Firefox! It truly is a great browser. And I love the built in spell check!

The past couple of weeks have been action packed. Netvibes announced that it is going to take it’s platform and make it open source in an effort to compete effectively with the big guys. iGoogle decided to take on facebook by integrating “open social” into it’s start page. And now we have Yahoo announcing it’s own social platform.

But is an open social strategy really going to help keep folks away from Facebook? I’m not so sure that it is. Why you ask? The reason is tied up in the brand. Now, I know, it has been a long time since I talked about brand strategy, but as the web becomes “whatever you want” on Google, Yahoo, MSN, Netvibes, etc. The value of the brand becomes even more important. Ask yourself this question. What does Google’s brand stand for?

That one is simple, search.

Now ask yourself what does Yahoo’s brand stand for?

In my mind this one is a little muddy because I think of a portal which means “anything”. And this is part of the reason why Google was able to place it’s stamp on search and claim it as a verb.

Now think about Facebook. People ask “do you have a Facebook?” And for those of us that do, having a facebook means something. It means, yes I have a social profile online where you can get some information about me, check up on random things I’ve posted, and contact me. It is like having a little online interactive yearbook where you can communicate with your friends.

Why is this important? Well in terms of brand perception that doesn’t happen with either Google or Yahoo. People don’t say “do you have a Google?” and they don’t say “Do you have a Yahoo?”

They do say “Google it”, and Yahoo has tried to get people asking “Do you Yahoo?” although no one can tell me exactly what that means.

My point is this. Google, Netvibes, Yahoo, etc can build social into everything, but until they have the brand perception it isn’t going to do much to stop the Facebook’s and MySpace’s of the world. I imagine the best approach would be to purchase Facebook or MySpace and build your services into one of them rather than dilute the value of your own brand. By Google going social platform with profiles it becomes less about search and this creates a bit of opportunity. What happens when Google becomes a diluted portal like Yahoo? Well, in my mind there comes an opportunity for a new type of search engine. Maybe something even more powerful than Google’s search that has some 2.0 features. Something that is focused on search, but learns from the web community. Not necessarily social with profiles etc but Maybe it could learn slang, or allow people to flag inappropriate sites, tag them, rank them and re-categorize them. Or hell, maybe they could flag advertising that is not appropriate or has nothing to do with the search and give companies honest community ratings along side the search. I guess this is similar to Digg, but rather than just be about headlines, it should be about the entire web.

Anyway.. To answer the question– Will an open social strategy get more people to visit? It will get some initial buzz and in the short term should get people to at least check out the new features, but as a long term strategy, as a reason to abandon the MySpace’s and Facebooks it faces some serious challenges.

Way back in 1999 when I was working as a Web Traffic Analyst I remember the mantra coming from the big internet portals (Yahoo, Excite, MSN, AOL and Alta Vista),they were all saying “Make us your home page!” Then came the personalized experience, you could give the page a theme, move around some information, and see your favorite headlines all in one place. The idea was that people could find the information they wanted quickly. That was when we heard “Make your personalized page your home page.” Then came Google, and the concept of an information cloud. Suddenly, the “portal” seemed dead, personalized homepages languished, and without asking too much people began setting their home page to this new, simple search box that pulled anything they wanted out of a cloud.

For years it seemed like the personal home page was dead in the water, and then came iGoogle, a MyYahoo re-launch, Live.com, and a surprisingly familiar mantra “Customize this page and make it your home page.” I had to ask myself, haven’t we been here already? The answer, to my surprise is yes… and no….

Yes and no you ask?? How is that? Well, yes –we have had a personalized portal, but it was not until recently that we had the ability to publish our personalized pages to communities, follow the activity of our friends, and watch twitter feeds all day long. Something changed in recent years. In a world of Facebook and MySpace where people follow friend activity, share music and videos, rate headlines, and create media online, all of a sudden we are no longer simply pulling information out of a cloud. Instead we are actively participating in the creation, organization, and distribution of media– and the big guys are trying to position themselves to be the platform of choice for doing so. Hence, open application interfaces, the modularization of content and applications, and a renewed breath of life for the personalized home page as the place where this can all live.

As we become more and more involved with the internet the personalized home page is changing. It is becoming the place where we follow our twitter feeds, our friend updates, our YouTube videos, and even a place where we publish our content. We’re beginning to see it as a place where we go to store online files, manipulate and re-create media, and access online applications. It is no longer just a personalized view of the internet. It is not just about getting information, instead it is also about creating and interacting with information. It is a ground movement that has caused the personalized home page to evolve into something much more than it has ever been. The new personalized home page has changed. You can now follow your twitter feeds, you can see your buddy information, there are applications that you can interact with and all of this cool stuff is being organized in your personalized home page. In short, your personalized home page has changed, it is no longer just a home page. In short it has become more of an internet dashboard. It is a place where you can access your entire online life. You can pull information from the cloud, you can see your friends activity, you can publish, you can create, and you can organize your life.

Now, if we could just get some file storage, all creative suite apps and MS office applications integrated into the dashboard so that I can stop storing files on my hard drive, and stop spending thousands each year to update software. Microsoft, Yahoo, Google… which of you are going to do it first? The fighting bell has rung, let round two begin!

There are several small battles going on across the internet as companies come out with niche products that cater to one service or another. But the true “online world war” has been between three companies. Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo. According to ABC news:

In March, Google captured 54 percent of Internet searches, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. Yahoo had 22 percent of the market and Microsoft’s MSN/Windows Live Search had 10 percent.

Google, the search juggernaut, has had an advantage online because of its ability to monetize search. This has allowed the company to create a variety of other services that all direct and drive search traffic.

Microsoft’s advantage has always been its dominance of the software market. Because its software is inescapable (even on a Mac you probably have MS office), it has significant opportunity to direct customers to its own online properties and services.

Yahoo, the darling of the dot com era, has a very significant offering of games, community tools, IM, news and entertainment, making it a very valuable property. Just imagine how many people use Yahoo’s fantasy football tools. Those people are checking into Yahoo 20 times a day!

In addition to battling with each other all three face a variety of smaller, yet very significant challenges online, social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook are real threats, and even Google decided it was better to purchase YouTube rather than try to build its own video site. For Yahoo, the rise of social networking sites led to the purchase of Flickr, and Microsoft , well it has teamed up with Facebook.

The challenge for all three of them is monetization of traffic. And at the moment Google has the advantage, but a Yahoo Microsoft partnership is a major shift. Microsoft will obviously benefit from Yahoo’s experience and expertise online. It’s only a matter of time before they are monetizing traffic direct from the desktop and from within applications, and with the ability to leverage Microsoft’s unique software market dominance the new Yahoo/Microsoft will have a very real advantage. Google will have to pull some new tricks out of the bag to keep up.

In my wildest dreams this partnership will push exciting new things out of each company. Eric Schmidt is already sitting on Apple’s board and it’s only a matter of time before they are further connected. Maybe we are close to finally seeing an always connected virtual PC or MAC, with all the software and storage that you would need, accessible from anywhere and 100% connected to all the social activities you desire. Imagine having the information and power of the internet integrated into all of your software applications. Things like urban dictionary services integrated into Word so that the program could understand slang, or video services being integrated into PowerPoint, or a real selection of royalty free art providers integrated into Photoshop. The possibilities are endless.

So, is the partnership desperation or a stroke of genius? If they have the imagination necessary to execute on an extreme vision then I would say genius, if they simply merge without figuring out how effectively innovate, well, then desperation isn’t what I would call it. It would be more like stupidity. And there is still that issue about neither Microsoft nor Yahoo being able to monetize search traffic as effectively as Google. That is something that will have to be addressed. But I do have to say, I have a lot of confidence in Microsoft and Yahoo. You don’t get to be the number one software provider in the world without knowing how to innovate. And you don’t get to be number one, two, three, or even four or five on the internet without being able to stay ahead of the curve. The fact that these companies are who they are, in the position that they have means that we can expect great things. Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo are all great competitors, with very smart people, I’m sure they will do things none of us on our own could dream of. I just can’t wait to see it.

For more info check out what some of the pundits are saying:
Microhoo? Purchase of Yahoo by Microsoft Could Challenge Google’s Dominance

Running the Numbers on a Possible Yahoo/Microsoft Merger

Shock and Awe: Microsoft Bids $44.6B for Yahoo

Microsoft’s open letter : Breaking News: Microsoft offer to buy Yahoo!

In the last Pulse of the Web I mentioned Inbox 2.0: Yahoo and Google to Turn E-Mail Into a Social Network, Google offers API for Outlook migration to Gmail, and a few other headlines. The gist was that the future of the web seems to be pointing to an open community centered world where successful companies make it by enabling the community to socialize, produce content, and create tools. There was also a bit of information supporting the migration to online applications and more open source competition for Microsoft.

This week we see continuing movement to develop online applications, increased focus on how to advertise and extend company reach through social networking sites like FaceBook, and interesting developments in the legal realm for search results providers like Google.

Here are the headlines to watch:

Watchdog says Google has not done enough to distinguish between sponsored advertising links and the search links

Google will go before an Australian court in June next year to defend allegations made by the nation’s competition regulator over alleged misleading sponsored advertising links …… The watchdog says Google has not done enough to distinguish between sponsored advertising links and the search links that result when customers type keywords into Google’s search system, which it asserts are deceptive.

Why is this important?
Because if the watchdog group wins the case it has huge implications for the way that text advertising is placed not just on search engines, but across all websites. The president that this sets could dramatically impact click-through rates. I’m not saying that I think it is a bad thing. I personally don’t like deceptive ad placement, but I do realize that many companies rely on that placement for revenue.

New version of Zoho Writer allows offline editing

Okay, Zoho Writer is a cool set of apps that enable online colaboration and basic “office” functionality like word processing, spread sheets, etc. It points to some momentum around online apps. But, the coolest part is this:

The offline functionality has been added using Google Gears, an open source browser extension, currently only available in beta, that enables web applications to use JavaScript APIs to allow offline working.

Why is this important?
By using Google Gears and its JavaScript APIs we are seeing the integration of web applications to the desktop. This is by no means perfect, but it is another stone thrown at the MS Office suite of applications. What would be really cool would be if MS Office launched a counter attack and came up with a free MS Office web application of it’s own. They have launched Windows Live, but just imagine if Word and Excel came in a free online version. It is going to happen at some point, it is just a matter of time.

Understanding Web Design by Jeffrey Zeldman

Way back when I worked as a product marketing manager for many of Jeffrey Zeldman’s books and his site is one to watch for information on trends in web design. In this article Zeldman reminds us of what web design is:

Web design is the creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity; reflect or adapt to individual voices and content; and change gracefully over time while always retaining their identity.

Why is this important?
The article makes several points about what web design is, and what it isn’t. Those interested in developing sites for personal or corporate use should use the above definition of “what web design is” as a mantra. This simple statement is a key component of web philosophy and reflects the trends of the web today. By encouraging human activity we are encouraging community creation, and expression. The statement implies empowering users to achieve and create and it demonstrates where the web is heading.

Hotmail founder announces online offline productivity suite, Live Documents

As I stated earlier:

What would be really cool would be if MS Office launched a counter attack and came up with a free MS Office web application of it’s own. They have launched Windows Live, but just imagine if Word and Excel came in a free online version. It is going to happen at some point, it is just a matter of time.

Well, it *is* only a matter of time.

The co-founder of Hotmail has joined the rush to move office applications from the desktop to the web. Like Google Docs and Microsoft’s Office Live Workspace, Sabeer Bhatia’s Live Documents provides a web-based word processor, spreadsheet and presentation applications that can be accessed from any platform.

Why is this important?
The trend is pointing toward the elimination of Desktop computing. At some point everything we normally store on our computer will happen through the internet. This means no software to download because it will be online. No need to worry about hard drive space because it will be unlimited online, and connections will be a secure, free, and always on. You’ll have 24 hour access to all of your information from your car, phone, television, or personal home console, or work console. For companies dabbling in web-based software there is a gold mine coming. For those reaping huge profits from software that needs to be installed… Well, all I can say is that the decline is on the horizon. It may not be for several years, but it is coming.

Time for another “Pulse of the Web” update. In my last Pulse of the Web there were several interesting headlines related to the rise of open source, alternative operating systems such as Linix, the Android OS by Google, and interesting tidbits of information about a possible direction of Microsoft in the Social web arena.

In this weeks Pulse of the Web well look at a just a few interesting developments:

• Inbox 2.0: Yahoo and Google to Turn E-Mail Into a Social Network

Ignore Orkut, OpenSocial, Yahoo Mash and Yahoo 360. Google and Yahoo have come up with new and very similar plans to respond to the challenge from MySpace and Facebook: They hope to turn their e-mail systems and personalized home page services (iGoogle and MyYahoo) into social networks.

Why is this important?
This is a significant shift in strategy for the companies. Rather than compete head on with MySpace and Facebook this strategy is more of a way to make MySpace and Facebook irrelevant. Here’s the idea. Originally the web was all about communication and facilitating communication. That led to things like instant messenger, online email, and profile pages with web logs (blogs). Then came along Social networking where you could claim your friends and join in the online popularity contests for friends. The cool thing was that you could find people just as strange and wonderful as yourself within a few clicks. The fear on the email, and IM service provider side of things is that if they don’t get people to keep using their tools, social networking sites are going to make them defunct. So, rather than wait around they are trying to shift focus back to the applications by integrating social features that, if all goes well, will make the social sites seem “old news”. Instead users will be able to be social through the traditional apps. I’m skeptical about the plan because the reason people go to places like mySpace and Facebook is because it is like going to an online club where you can find your friends. It is a little different than just using an application. None the less, the app providers are sooting off their guns, and they are aimed at MySpace and FaceBook.

• Google offers API for Outlook migration to Gmail

The new migration tool will move e-mail from any system, including Microsoft Outlook calendars, e-mail, and contacts into Google Apps, or any other type of mail server to Premier, Education, or Partner editions of Google Apps.

Why is this important?
In the future the prediction is that web based applications will replace software. That means that applications like Outlook will be replaced with hosted applications with a constant free connection to the internet. With Google purchasing the new cell phone bandwidth, launching a host of free online application and moving toward open source it is clear that the web is changing at light speed. What will be interesting is to see if Google can get corporate users to switch from Outlook to hosted apps. This article is another indication that moving users is exactly what they intend. And it is no secret that Microsoft is on Google’s hit list.

• The 10 Worst Consumer Tech Trends

I don’t care about corporate interests or revenue streams. I’m the consumer, and as far as I’m concerned it’s all about me.

Why is this important?
This article is a great summary, and warning to all people doing business in the space. And, it provides an insight into where things are going. The short version: Consumers want everything open, without limits, and they don’t want spin.

• Facebook Offers $85 Million To Acquire Chinese Social Networking Site Zhanz

Facebook is said to have offered $85 million to acquire Zhanzuo.com, a Chinese social networking site with seven million users.

Why is this important?
Asia is the next big market and American companies are jockeying for position as the region gears up and grows. Chinese users are still largely untapped and if the markets can act anything like they did here in the US there is a lot of money to be made.

The Pulse of the web is a collection of the weeks must read headlines for web geeks. Each headline is coupled with a bit of background information that lets you know why you should care. Over the last few weeks here is the list:

$200 Linix Based PCs Sell Out at Wall-Mart

by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Q. Why is this important?
A. Wall-Mart initially ordered about 10K units. They have only been selling them for a few weeks and they are already sold out. This points to strong demand for affordable alternatives to the Windows based platform. The computers do most everything an entry level user would need. And, with the installation of Open Office or the IBM Lotus Symphony version of open office users are able to effectively do everything from word processing, to accessing the web, to creating spreadsheets, and even developing databases. It is a clear signal that people are increasingly comfortable with free, open source software as an alternative to more expensive alternatives.

Mac OSX Out-Sells Windows in Japan

Q. Why is this important?
A. Japan has long since been considered the trend setter. Over the years the windows opperating system has been plagued with security holes and many experts have questioned if this coupled with the iPod “halo effect” would lead to increased demand for the Macintosh opperating system over Windows. This quote speaks loads to how the trend is unfolding:

… while sales of Mac OS X increased dramatically between September and October, climbing from a rate of 15.5 percent year-over-year to 60.5 percent, Microsoft suffered from the reverse effect. Sales growth of Windows plummeted from 75.3 percent to 28.7 percent. The sudden switch provided Apple with about 53.9 of the total OS-only marketshare in Japan during October — a breakthrough for the company, BCN says.

Build a Hackintosh Mac for $800

Q. Why is this important?
A. There is a theory running around the web that users will find a way to get what they want and the companies of the Web 3.0 movement (yes this is past web 2.0) will be those that best enable open source and community development. This is beyond simple web 2.0 user generation of content in that it takes companies pushing complete open development. At the moment Apple has slowly began earning a reputation for not being as open as it could be. As mashups and peer to peer sites become more prevalent there is a debate around cost related to maintaining closed source systems, licensing, and other things like DRM (digital rights management). This article is simply another bit of proof that no matter who you are you can’t completely control what happens to your software. People hack it, mash it, and will do with it what they want in the end.

Rumors of Windows Building a Flickr Compeditor

by Thomas Hawk

Q. Why is this important?
A. With the launch of Windows Live it is clear that something is going on over there at Microsoft. They have consistently been behind the curve on the whole Web 2.0 thing and have recently been beginning to gain just a bit of momentum. Everyone knows they have Google in their sites, and they have just inked a deal with Facebook. Flickr is not a Microsoft ally and it would be a good thing from a competitive standpoint for the company to come up with an answer to the property.

Google Android OS Now Available | An Open Source Operating System for Mobile Phones

Q. Why is this important?
A. Well, it’s a stab at competing with Windows Mobile and the iPhone OS along with others. But once again, it is open source so development is happening all over the place and given it’s nature it may lead to reduced costs.

Ubuntu Home Server, possible competition for Windows Home Server?

Q. Why is this important?
A. Most people will say this is not going to be any real competition to Windows Home Server, but for those purchasing a Linix system at Wall-Mart, congratulations you have a solution to your home server needs

Honestly, it is important. It shows that there are other solutions and there is even an emerging demand. Microsoft, I’m sure, knows better than to act like this is not something on the horizon. Only time will tell what happens to it.

Google’s Acquisition of DoubleClick Rejected by EC

Q. Why is this important?
A. Internet advertising hangs in the balance. We all know there are not many large alternatives to Google Adwords and Double Click, for a long while was a good one.