On 10/6/05, Matthew Weymar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Frankly, I don't understand why. I mean, how many people use del.icio.us
> today vs. what's the size of Flock's target market?... And how hard is it to
> clone del.icio.us?...
What's Flock's target market? Perhaps it's not supposed to be a
browser for everybody?
Fair enough, but ...
...
> Notwithstanding Firefox's success, it's hard for me
> - again, knowing as little as I know - to imagine Flock succeeding. I mean,
> Firefox's success does seem to suggest that incumbent browsers are at least
> somewhat vulnerable; but it seems to me like Firefox's development model is
> part of its advantage - relative to how I (not knowing) assume Flock, as a
> commercial entity, is going about it.
Perhaps success is making the users its designed for, perhaps 1% of
all users, really happy.
Isn't "1% of all [browser] users" still a much bigger number than the del.icio.us user base?... I trust this data is readily available, but frankly, can't be bothered to try to figure it all out right now.
The following is as far as I can go right now:
Acc. to Browser News (a reputable source???...)
- "~10% typically use Gecko browsers," (i.e., AOL-Compuserve, AOL for OS X, Camino, Firefox, IBM for OS/2, Mozilla, Netscape 6+, etc.)
- "~2% typically use KHTML browsers" (i.e., Konqueror, OmniWeb 4.5+, Safari, etc.)
- "Roughly 84% use IE-based browsers, down from a high of ~94% as users switched to other browser families — mainly Gecko and KHTML."
Still, how many browser users are there out there?... We could look at Firefox downloads for some kind of indication - but who knows how this number actually correlates to *users* of FF, much less to Gecko browsers more generally - so I won't even bother....
Perhaps there's an expert in all this sort of thing out there.
How many del.icio.us users are there? Is this number publicly available? Or "deducible?..."
All I know is that it's got to be over 8000 since that seems to be the number of people who've bookmarked Slashdot, the most bookmarked 'site on del.icio.us (acc. to http://populicio.us/fulltotal.html).
TRYING! to get back to the point: I guess one question is "1% of all" of which users?... All users?... That's going to be a big number - much much bigger than del's user base - unless I'm terribly wrong about this.
Here's my point: From the BusinessWeek article, "[Bart] Decrem [Flock co-founder and CEO] concedes Flock has its work cut out for it -- especially since he's hardly aiming low. He hopes to have 100 million users within five years. 'There's not too many people crazy enough to do a browser,' he notes with a grin." (My emphasis.)
How does 100mm compare to del's (ex-Flock) 5 year out projections?...
I have no problem at all with not trying to be all things to all people, and just trying to serve a particular user profile particularly well. That would seem to describe most of the best work that's done in most any realm I can think of.
I wonder whether Decrem's with that program though. Are there 100mm people that fit the "particular user profile" we're talking about???... I doubt it, but who knows; maybe.
I suspect that instead he imagines - like George Bush thinks about Harriet Miers - "the more everyone gets to know her [substitute: the social software experience, etc., etc.], the more they'll like her [it]."
That seems like some pretty strong Kool-Aid - in both cases - but you never know. It'll be fun to watch - again, both stories, as they develop.
(Still, I'm stuck on: If you're aiming at 100mm users in 5 years, why aren't you rolling your own SBM instead of doing a deal w/ del?... Maybe there's more to it than meets the eye - like some sort of funding issue - a relationship [or overlap] between del's funders and Flock's, for instance. I don't know.)
I'm always surprised when "success" is
equated to "dominating the market".
I'm with you there. I'm just reacting to that 100mm number.
A little segmentation in the browser market will be good. Since
they're using the Gecko engine, it shouldn't cause too much headache
for site authors.
Tks a lot for your reply, Jeremy!
Matthew
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