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1) Google never backed Firefox with a billion-dollar-a-year advertising campaign like they have Chrome for several years now. 2) It's not an accident that Goog

1) Google never backed Firefox with a billion-dollar-a-year advertising campaign like they have Chrome for several years now. 2) It's not an accident that Google's webservices work best (sometimes only) in Chrome. They're way past the "disrupt IE" goal. They're into the "tightly couple our web service and Chrome and try to force out other options" goal.

wodenokoto 12y ago
I'd like to see a source for the billion-dollar-a-year campaign, that sounds crazy. That's 3 times Mozilla's entire budget, if memory serves me right.
- whatusername 12y ago
  What do you think it would cost to put an Ad on the google homepage?
- hyperbovine 12y ago
  $1 billion is Apple's ad budget as of two years ago and a non-trivial fraction of Coke's overall annual ad budget. I call bs. (http://www.asymco.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Screen-Shot-2013-11-04-at-11-4-4.55.03-PM.png http://www.asymco.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Screen-Shot...)
- asadotzler 12y ago
  365 days a year for several years Google has had a Chrome banner ad on www.google.com showing to Firefox users. That page is the most lucrative property on the web in terms of eyeballs, so take your most outrageous ad rate you can find and do the math. It's billions per year worth of advertising.
  - SquareWheel 12y ago
    It's also completely free for Google to advertise on their own website.
    - valarauca1 12y ago
      Yes but that doesn't mean the economic value is non-existent. Theoretically Google could sell that space. They trade this potential profit to promote their own product, at a loss, of how ever much that space could be sold for. This is like economics 202, opportunity cost.
      - MichaelGG 12y ago
        It's not that simple. It's easy enough to claim that showing a Chrome ad benefits users and helps Google's brand. Showing third party ads hurts Google's brand and overall value.
        valarauca1 12y ago
        Only if the 3rd party project is subpar. largely chrome is a 3rd party project from the eyes of search. I'm pretty sure there isn't a massive overlap between search and chrome developers at google.
- bzbarsky 12y ago
  > I'd like to see a source for the billion-dollar-a-year campaign I can't find a source for the figure right now, unfortunately. And the whole thing is a guess, since Google doesn't release this information. All it releases is overall sales/marketing spending, which in 2012 was about $6 billion if I understand right (see <http://www.quora.com/How-much-does-Google-spend-on-advertising-In-Oct-2013-Google-nudged-ahead-of-Coca-Cola-in-the-top-100-global-brands-so-comparative-numbers-between-Coke-and-Google-would-be-especially-interesting> http://www.quora.com/How-much-does-Google-spend-on-advertisi...). That includes salaries for the marketing folks, etc, not just direct spending on campaigns. As I recall, the $1b estimate broke down something like 30% actual spend (primetime TV ads, ads all over the London Tube, etc, etc) and 70% in-kind placement (i.e. "every search you do on Google with another browser shoves an ad for Chrome in your face"). I'll see if I can hunt down where I saw that... > That's 3 times Mozilla's entire budget Yep.
  - espadrine 12y ago
    I recall seeing a heavy metro ad campaign in Paris. All the slots were used. The campaign cost listed[0] (Q-Massifs) doesn't even have a regular price. Extrapolating from the regular campaigns, it cost Google beyond a million euros a week, and the campaign lasted more than that, if I recall correctly. And that is just one city, one campaign. As for Google Search ads, let's take the number of search requests[1], an example CPC they give[2], an example CTR they give[3], the StatCounter portion of non-Chrome users[4], we get 1216373500000 * (1-0.3) * $0.10 * 0.005. That's $425,730,725 for a one-year campaign in 2012. Given the prominence of this ad (and its unintentional scare value), the CTR is probably off, so that's a very conservative figure. If that is indeed 70% of the whole campaign cost, the total is $608,186,750 per year. [0]: http://www.mediatransports.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Quais_gamme-impact-20142.pdf http://www.mediatransports.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Qu... [1]: http://www.internetlivestats.com/google-search-statistics/ http://www.internetlivestats.com/google-search-statistics/ [2]: https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2375420?hl=en https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2375420?hl=en [3]: https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2615875?hl=en https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2615875?hl=en [4]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#Summary_table http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#Sum...
- kalleboo 12y ago
  The "billion dollar" number is speculation, since the Google front page ad space that Chrome got isn't for sale to anyone else. "Priceless" would possibly be more accurate.
BinaryIdiot 12y ago
> It's not an accident that Google's webservices work best (sometimes only) in Chrome. A web service that only works in Chrome? Maybe you mean web application (web service would be really odd to work in just one browser). Do you have a source for this regardless? I hadn't heard of this.
- ______ 12y ago
  An example of this is Google Drive's offline mode, which only runs on Chrome (https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2375012?hl=en https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2375012?hl=en)
  - BinaryIdiot 12y ago
    I can't entirely blame them for this one considering the alternative is either using something standard (localStorage) where they're only going to be able to store a really insignificant amount of information or creating something proprietary for multiple web browsers which is difficult to maintain. If there was a web standard way of caching 5GB of files locally then I would be annoyed.
    - comex 12y ago
      IndexedDB is supported on all major browsers by now.
      - BinaryIdiot 12y ago
        Hmm you have a point though I don't know how well Chrome supported it when they first came out with the offline drive support. May be an issue of legacy needing to be upgraded. I also can't find good performance benchmarks for very large blobs in IndexedDB. But yeah I suppose they could use that now.
- bzbarsky 12y ago
  I mean the services Google provides to users in the form of web applications, yes. The terminology is sucky. As for concrete examples, Hangouts only works in non-Chrome browsers (including ones with WebRTC support) if you install a Google-provided binary blob. Which you may not be able to do. Gmail only supports offline access in Chrome (see https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6557?hl=en https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6557?hl=en the "two exceptions" bit). Whether not having offline access to your mail counts as mail "not working" is up to you, I guess; for me it counts as "not working". Various Google properties use UA sniffing to deliver degraded content to non-Chrome browsers. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=921532#c9 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=921532#c9 is an example. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=973754 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=973754 is an example where as far as I can tell they built the feature around non-standard Chrome-only functionality even though Firefox supports the standard version. Google news menus don't work in standards-compliant browsers because they rely on a Chrome/WebKit bug. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1083932 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1083932 Google patent search uses UA sniffing and locks out various browsers as a result. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1013702 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1013702 Google Translate will fail to work in Firefox unless you have Flash installed (good luck on Mobile).... or spoof the Chrome UA string. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=976013 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=976013 They do fix these bugs sometimes (the UA sniffing ones, where they just got the sniffing flat out wrong, tend to get fixed once someone diagnoses them). And sometimes not.
skrowl 12y ago
You are correct. If you try to go to inbox.google.com, it says "Sorry, this only works in Chrome."

wodenokoto 12y ago

I'd like to see a source for the billion-dollar-a-year campaign, that sounds crazy. That's 3 times Mozilla's entire budget, if memory serves me right.

whatusername 12y ago
What do you think it would cost to put an Ad on the google homepage?
hyperbovine 12y ago
$1 billion is Apple's ad budget as of two years ago and a non-trivial fraction of Coke's overall annual ad budget. I call bs. (http://www.asymco.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Screen-Shot-2013-11-04-at-11-4-4.55.03-PM.png http://www.asymco.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Screen-Shot...)
asadotzler 12y ago
365 days a year for several years Google has had a Chrome banner ad on www.google.com showing to Firefox users. That page is the most lucrative property on the web in terms of eyeballs, so take your most outrageous ad rate you can find and do the math. It's billions per year worth of advertising.
- SquareWheel 12y ago
  It's also completely free for Google to advertise on their own website.
  - valarauca1 12y ago
    Yes but that doesn't mean the economic value is non-existent. Theoretically Google could sell that space. They trade this potential profit to promote their own product, at a loss, of how ever much that space could be sold for. This is like economics 202, opportunity cost.
    - MichaelGG 12y ago
      It's not that simple. It's easy enough to claim that showing a Chrome ad benefits users and helps Google's brand. Showing third party ads hurts Google's brand and overall value.
      - valarauca1 12y ago
        Only if the 3rd party project is subpar. largely chrome is a 3rd party project from the eyes of search. I'm pretty sure there isn't a massive overlap between search and chrome developers at google.
bzbarsky 12y ago
> I'd like to see a source for the billion-dollar-a-year campaign I can't find a source for the figure right now, unfortunately. And the whole thing is a guess, since Google doesn't release this information. All it releases is overall sales/marketing spending, which in 2012 was about $6 billion if I understand right (see <http://www.quora.com/How-much-does-Google-spend-on-advertising-In-Oct-2013-Google-nudged-ahead-of-Coca-Cola-in-the-top-100-global-brands-so-comparative-numbers-between-Coke-and-Google-would-be-especially-interesting> http://www.quora.com/How-much-does-Google-spend-on-advertisi...). That includes salaries for the marketing folks, etc, not just direct spending on campaigns. As I recall, the $1b estimate broke down something like 30% actual spend (primetime TV ads, ads all over the London Tube, etc, etc) and 70% in-kind placement (i.e. "every search you do on Google with another browser shoves an ad for Chrome in your face"). I'll see if I can hunt down where I saw that... > That's 3 times Mozilla's entire budget Yep.
- espadrine 12y ago
  I recall seeing a heavy metro ad campaign in Paris. All the slots were used. The campaign cost listed[0] (Q-Massifs) doesn't even have a regular price. Extrapolating from the regular campaigns, it cost Google beyond a million euros a week, and the campaign lasted more than that, if I recall correctly. And that is just one city, one campaign. As for Google Search ads, let's take the number of search requests[1], an example CPC they give[2], an example CTR they give[3], the StatCounter portion of non-Chrome users[4], we get 1216373500000 * (1-0.3) * $0.10 * 0.005. That's $425,730,725 for a one-year campaign in 2012. Given the prominence of this ad (and its unintentional scare value), the CTR is probably off, so that's a very conservative figure. If that is indeed 70% of the whole campaign cost, the total is $608,186,750 per year. [0]: http://www.mediatransports.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Quais_gamme-impact-20142.pdf http://www.mediatransports.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Qu... [1]: http://www.internetlivestats.com/google-search-statistics/ http://www.internetlivestats.com/google-search-statistics/ [2]: https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2375420?hl=en https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2375420?hl=en [3]: https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2615875?hl=en https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2615875?hl=en [4]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#Summary_table http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#Sum...
kalleboo 12y ago
The "billion dollar" number is speculation, since the Google front page ad space that Chrome got isn't for sale to anyone else. "Priceless" would possibly be more accurate.

BinaryIdiot 12y ago

> It's not an accident that Google's webservices work best (sometimes only) in Chrome. A web service that only works in Chrome? Maybe you mean web application (web service would be really odd to work in just one browser). Do you have a source for this regardless? I hadn't heard of this.

______ 12y ago
An example of this is Google Drive's offline mode, which only runs on Chrome (https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2375012?hl=en https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2375012?hl=en)
- BinaryIdiot 12y ago
  I can't entirely blame them for this one considering the alternative is either using something standard (localStorage) where they're only going to be able to store a really insignificant amount of information or creating something proprietary for multiple web browsers which is difficult to maintain. If there was a web standard way of caching 5GB of files locally then I would be annoyed.
  - comex 12y ago
    IndexedDB is supported on all major browsers by now.
    - BinaryIdiot 12y ago
      Hmm you have a point though I don't know how well Chrome supported it when they first came out with the offline drive support. May be an issue of legacy needing to be upgraded. I also can't find good performance benchmarks for very large blobs in IndexedDB. But yeah I suppose they could use that now.
bzbarsky 12y ago
I mean the services Google provides to users in the form of web applications, yes. The terminology is sucky. As for concrete examples, Hangouts only works in non-Chrome browsers (including ones with WebRTC support) if you install a Google-provided binary blob. Which you may not be able to do. Gmail only supports offline access in Chrome (see https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6557?hl=en https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6557?hl=en the "two exceptions" bit). Whether not having offline access to your mail counts as mail "not working" is up to you, I guess; for me it counts as "not working". Various Google properties use UA sniffing to deliver degraded content to non-Chrome browsers. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=921532#c9 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=921532#c9 is an example. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=973754 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=973754 is an example where as far as I can tell they built the feature around non-standard Chrome-only functionality even though Firefox supports the standard version. Google news menus don't work in standards-compliant browsers because they rely on a Chrome/WebKit bug. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1083932 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1083932 Google patent search uses UA sniffing and locks out various browsers as a result. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1013702 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1013702 Google Translate will fail to work in Firefox unless you have Flash installed (good luck on Mobile).... or spoof the Chrome UA string. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=976013 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=976013 They do fix these bugs sometimes (the UA sniffing ones, where they just got the sniffing flat out wrong, tend to get fixed once someone diagnoses them). And sometimes not.

skrowl 12y ago

You are correct. If you try to go to inbox.google.com, it says "Sorry, this only works in Chrome."