By Robert Lockard

That’s right. Google Chrome is the best Web browser by far, according to a study by Jacob Gube, the founder and chief editor of Six Revisions. Chrome v. 3 beat Firefox v. 3.5, Safari v. 4, Opera v.10 and Microsoft Explorer v. 8. Take a look at the results below.

You should definitely check out the whole chart by clicking on this link to the blog entry, “Performance Comparison of Major Web Browsers.” Fascinating stuff. I’ll discuss some of the highlights and their impact on ecommerce and Internet marketing.

I’m a Firefox user, myself, so some of this study’s results came as a surprise to me. I’m not sure if they will change my mind about which browser I use right now, but it’s definitely helped me think more about why I prefer one over the others. Here are some of the highlights of the study’s findings:

JavaScript Speed

Chrome won this competition with an average download time of JavaScripts in just 542.3 milliseconds. Safari was No. 2 with 863.9 milliseconds and Firefox was No. 3 with 1,230.6 milliseconds. Explorer was last with a comparatively long download time of 6,305.5 milliseconds.

JavaScripts are important because they are heavily used on websites like Digg, as well as in Gmail. It’s no surprise Google is the leader in this category because it definitely wants people to be able to quickly use its own applications.

Page Load Time

This study measured how long it takes each Web browser to download Yahoo’s main page. The trouble with these results is that they might be affected by how many other people were using the site at the time the study was conducted. Bearing that in mind, it’s interesting to see how close all of the Web browsers are to each other.

Firefox was the fastest with a download time of 1.34 seconds. The slowest time was 1.61 seconds and it was shared by Explorer and Safari. The difference between those two times is so small that it hardly matters which browser you use to download a website like Yahoo.

Browser Cache Performance

The same is true for both Page Load Times and Browser Cache Performance. Browsers often save a cached version of a Web page you have already visited so it can quickly bring it up again when you return to it. The download times of a cached page ranged from 0.72 seconds to 0.89 seconds, which statisticians would say is probably not a “significant” difference. Chrome had the fastest speed, while Safari had the slowest.

Other categories in the study had a wider variety of results, but I thought these ones were the most interesting.

This is all fascinating information, but what does it all mean? Why are fast download times important? If online users have to wait several seconds for one of your Web pages to download, they might just give up after a while and decide your site isn’t worth the wait.

We want our ecommerce websites to be fast enough for people, no matter which browser they use. But we should definitely focus on the most popular ones. That’s the subject of a whole other blog entry, though.

Keep coming back to the Submit Solution Website Design Services Blog for great discussions on topics like this.

This is a complete version of the eHarbor Blog post: “Which Web browser is the best?” The graph of the results of this study is the copyright of Jacob Gube and Six Revisions.

By Robert Lockard

In the Wall Street Journal article, “Why Email No Longer Rules,” I found a fascinating argument against email and for social-media sites, like Twitter and Facebook. Email is on its way out as the primary means of sending online messages.

For a dozen years or so email was the freshest, easiest way to keep in touch with people over long distances without having to pay big phone bills. Now it’s old hat. Basically, the paradigm of online communication has changed and we’re all going to have to change with the times.

What do you think? Is it a good thing that email is being replaced by instant communications? I think it’s great for ecommerce. With the aid of instant messaging, tweets and wall posts, online marketers can serve their customers much better and faster than ever before.

Response times for online communication have shrunk from hours to minutes, to now just seconds. By responding to our customers’ needs at a rapid pace, we can increase our customer-retention rates and make sure the people we do business with feel valued and respected. We can also quickly identify and assist potential customers and other leads who visit our ecommerce websites.

I don’t think email will go away anytime soon, though. It’s still a great tool for holding somewhat private conversations away from the peering eyes of other Internet users. There is definitely something to be said for privacy and discretion online. We don’t want to reveal confidential information in public forums, but we want to have a positive presence on Twitter and Facebook. It’s a fine line we have to walk.

As search engines keep working harder to add social-media sites to their search results, the value of tweets and Facebook updates could increase. Just make sure your social-media communication points people to your website where people can actually make purchases and build your online rankings.

If you would like help getting a great website design, I recommend you contact Submit Solution’s professionals. They are extremely effective at delivering captivating website designs that help increase your conversion rate of visitors into customers.

This blog entry is a complete version of the eHarbor Blog post, “Is email finished?” Keep coming back to the Submit Solution Social Media Blog for more exciting updates like this.

By Robert Lockard

Have you heard? Google and Bing are adding new social-media search capabilities to their search engines in an attempt to keep up with these innovative websites. Bing already has a beta version of its new search engine designed specifically for Twitter results while Google is holding back at the moment.

Google and Microsoft are caught in an escalating fight over who will dominate the search-engine market for social-media sites like Twitter and Facebook. I read about this in the PC World article, “Real-Time Search: Google and Bing Rivalry Intensifies on Facebook and Twitter.” This article refers to the Google-Bing rivalry as a chess match. Quite an apt metaphor, in my opinion, because I love all of the strategy that goes into a seemingly simple chess game.

Social media has been a thorn in the side of major search engines for a few years now. Facebook and Twitter are simply updated too often and too fast for search engines to keep up with them. It looks like that might be changing, though.

Microsoft has already made deals with both Twitter and Facebook to give Bing access to the sites’ tweets and wall posts, respectively. Bing’s solution for Twitter is to have a tag cloud of the most-discussed topics on tech news, Twitter, followed by some of the newest tweets and links to sites being referred to frequently. For Facebook, Bing will include status updates in its search-engine results pages.

Google is taking it a bit more slowly. It could be several months before it starts earnestly including tweets in its search results. Its new Social Search service, which is also not yet launched, will provide an interesting twist on tech news indexing Facebook updates. With this service, Google users will only be able to search for updates related to topics that their friends and fans have added on Facebook. That’s pretty cool!

Facebook users can choose whether or not to allow their updates to be included in search engines like Google or Bing. That should help protect people’s privacy. What do you think of these search engines’ attempts to dive into social media? Keep coming back to the Submit Solution SEO Blog for the latest updates on Google and Bing, as well as other major search-engine trends.

This is a complete version of the eHarbor Blog entry, “Bing and Google launch social-media solutions.” The photo of the chess match is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of marcusrg.

By Robert Lockard

The other day, I had an image in my mind of a strange object and I wanted to find a picture of it online. The only problem was I didn’t have a clue what it was called. The image in my head was of a scene in “Superman II” when General Zod’s henchman Non is in the Oval Office and he’s staring intently at something. It’s five metal balls tied to strings in a row and the ones on either end keep hitting the four still balls, causing the ball on the other end to bounce away and come back again.

Maybe you already know what I’m talking about.

I turned to one of my coworkers here at eHarbor, Inc. and asked her to help me. She could picture it, as well, but she couldn’t put her finger on the name. I tried searching for “metal ball attached to strings hitting each other” on Google, but I didn’t find what I was looking for. Luckily, my resourceful coworker found it on Amazon.com, I believe. I could now put a name to an image – Newton’s cradle!

This story illustrates my need for a visual search engine and not simply a text-based one. Luckily, Microsoft and Google are both heading in that direction. I read about their efforts in a CNN article entitled, “Microsoft, Google expand search-engine tools.”

None of the Bing Visual Search galleries look like they would help me find Newton’s cradle because they mostly include people, entertainment and electronics. But it’s new, so I’m willing to cut Microsoft some slack. I’m sure they will get better as they get a feel for what people are (literally) looking for.

Microsoft is still trying hard to break Google’s domination of the search-engine market. The CNN article cited a comScore study showing that, in June, about 65 percent of online searches were done through Google, while just 8.4 percent were done through Bing.

I’ve talked about the race between Microsoft and Google to develop a stronghold over a variety of online and software industries before. You can read about it in my blog entry, “Google-Microsoft face-off good for ecommerce.” Their rivalry is bringing great innovations like these visual search engines. I’ll hopefully talk more about Google’s Fast Flip in a forthcoming blog entry. For now, I’ll say adieu.

This is a complete version of the eHarbor Blog entry, “Finding Superman image on Google no easy feat.” The photo of Newton’s cradle is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of ƒяαиcєscα яσsє.

By Alyssa Udall (@udallyss)

Just like any emerging online trend, Twitter has been infiltrated by spammers, many of them making claims like the one you see below:  “Make money with Twitter!”, etc.  While the spammers themselves are incredibly annoying (and their claims  baseless) there is some truth to that statement: Make money with Twitter.  Obviously, this is not to be done the way the bots are suggesting you do it.  Rather, Twitter can be a great tool for e-commerce businesses looking to gain exposure.

The great thing about e-commerce businesses is that they all have the common ability of being social.  That is, social media strategies can be implemented into their business structure.  Having trouble seeing this?  Here are some ideas to making your business more social and using that connection to generate interest, traffic and, ultimately, profits:

1. Publish new items to your Twitter account
2. Announce new blog posts
3. Connect with other professionals
4. Create “Twitter Specials”: coupons that can be used on your site
5. Generate interest with contests and competitions
6. Connect with customers to build a great customer support reputation
7. Announce sales, promotions, holiday specials, etc.
8. Give away free samples
9. Get more first-time buyers and keep them with Twitter support
10. Have exclusive one-day sales

This list of Twitter ideas is purposefully vague.  No matter what category or niche your online business is in, you can apply some or all of these ideas to fit you specifically.

If you’re still having trouble coming up with ways you can apply this to your business, try searching for companies in your niche.  See how they are using Twitter to generate traffic and leads.  This could be a great way to come up with affective social media tactics for your online business!  Remember, the worst mistake you can make here is to do nothing.  No matter what you’re selling, Twitter can work for you!

By Robert Lockard

Are books about to take a quantum leap forward? I just read an excellent article on CNN called, “E-books catching on with readers.” I’ve covered this topic before on the eHarbor Blog, and much of what I read in this article harkened back to the thoughts I offered in my blog entry, “Will Kindle hurt book publishers?” In that blog post, I focused solely on the Kindle DX, but now many other companies are jumping into the fray.

The e-book industry certainly looks promising. It’s attracting top booksellers like Barnes & Noble and Amazon, as well as tech giants like Apple, Google and Sony. Technological advances keep coming, making e-books thinner, easier on the eyes and more affordable every year. In fact, according to the article, they could become as thin as a piece of paper within the next five years. That sounds amazing!

The reason I am so excited about this development is that it has the power to dramatically cut printing costs and open the doors to up-and-coming authors to show off their work. Imagine someone writing a great work of fiction and selling it through Amazon at a fraction of the price it would be if it had to be printed, shipped and stored. That author could start earning revenue almost immediately.

This also gives new opportunities to people engaged in ecommerce. Instead of having to mail cumbersome documents about their services to customers, they might be able to offer them in digital form. I know this is already done via email and on websites, but they could become more mobile and they wouldn’t have to be printed out if they could be accessed on an e-book.

Right now, e-books only account for about 3 percent of the revenue earned by the publishing industry. But industry insiders, like Book Oven CEO Hugh McGraw, are expecting their share of the publishing industry to grow to as much as 20 percent in 2014. It will be interesting to see what the future holds for the publishing industry.

Aren’t you glad to be living in the future?

This blog entry is a complete version of the eHarbor Blog post, “E-books on the verge of explosive growth” The photo of the e-book inside a book is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of timonoko.

By Alyssa Udall (@udallyss)

September 8th, 2009

The extraordinary boom of Twitter’s users, popularity and publicity sparks many interesting questions.  How many now frequent Tweeters knew about Twitter six months ago?  I know I didn’t.  Is there anyone on the Internet now that has not heard about Twitter?  It seems impossible that a moderate Internet user would have been able to avoid the insane amount of conversation going on about the micro-blogging service.  No one is immune to that amount of advertising.  If there are some select individuals who in their daily Internet use have not at least heard the name Twitter in passing, I would like to congratulate them on having an incredibly impermeable personality… and I may even suggest using this gift to fight crime… somehow.

Having said this, I would now like to bring up an interesting corollary: MySpace. MySpace also experienced this crazy popularity surge a few years back. What has become of MySpace now? It has become a network devoid of adults and full of half-famous music groups.  Can you imagine your mother on MySpace? Didn’t think so. MySpace is not a place for mothers.  Why not?  Sadly, MySpace now resembles an Internet dating site: it lacks substance and class.

What does the MySpace case tell us about the future of Twitter? Just like any fad, it will eventually fade away. Just like my favorite orange sandals I wore in elementary school, made of a jelly-like substance and aptly named “Jellies,” Twitter will eventually go out of style.  How ridiculous would I look if I wore Jellies into the office tomorrow?  My coworkers would most likely see my footwear, do a double-take, then whisper conspiratorially behind their hands to each other, “Jellies? Are your serious?! I bet she uses MySpace too.”

How soon will Twitter become a thing of the past?  It’s too soon to tell.  In order to prepare for this post-apocalyptic world of social media, TwiTip suggests making memorable connections with those you meet on Twitter, exchanging information and establishing relationships.  See more tips in their article, “5 Steps To Take To Prepare For A Post Twitter World.”

Stay tuned for more Social Media news, tips and tricks from Submit Solution.