Google Rollin’ on Chrome

By David Levy, Associate Director, Client Strategy & Development

As most of you have probably heard by now, Google has launched its very own web browser – Google Chrome. I guess you could say that this move was inevitable, with Google lining up Microsoft in its sights with every chance it gets.

As Google has noted, Chrome was designed to be clean, simple and to “get out of your way, and get you where you want to go.” Well, I’ve downloaded and played with it and there is no doubt it accomplishes this. However, I have a few other ideas about Google’s motives here:

1. Mobile – with the development of Android, Google needs a better way to put a headlock around linking the desktop and mobile experience. What better way to do that than thru the browser? To date, the only one I’ve seen do this is IE, and that’s only on devices that run Windows Mobile.

2. Display – as Google moves further into display, the key to better linking advertisers and consumers is thru data. User behavior data to be more specific. Google will now have insight into not only front end information (point-of-search and click), but click stream data in the post-search environment as well. Combine this with Ad Planner and Google Insights for Search, and all of a sudden, you’ve got some pretty powerful targeting capabilities.

2a. Of course, better targeting data also means more relevant search ads.

3. Cloud computing – Google (and many others) firmly believe that the future of the web exists beyond personal databases and hard drives. They believe in a world where all aspects of computing can be accessed from anywhere at any time, and on any computer. Of course, the access link that makes this possible is the browser.

Of course, with Microsoft’s IE browser at 73% market share and Mozilla’s Firefox at 19%, Google still has an uphill battle ahead of it. It will be interesting to see how many people adopt Chrome and if it in fact helps Google achieve the outcomes I’ve described here.