Summer thoughts

Internet traffic tends to slow down for the summer.  Most of us are spending more time outdoors and less time in front of our computers.  Here are some other trends that are a bit worrisome.

Two million iPads sold.  

The iPad will undoubtedly have an effect on the domain industry.  With Apple’s recent announcement of 2 million iPads sold, two million people are now surfing the web in new ways.  Many of them are using Safari on this new device, but others are using dedicated apps that create small walled-gardens of content.  If you want to read the New York Times you can surf to NewYorkTimes.com or you can download the New York Times app and just click on an icon.  In this case the expense of the app limits the number of people who will subscribe, but in many cases people are opting for the one-click simplicity of apps instead of surfing with a browser that can’t even render simple flash elements on a web page.  

Traffic to apps means less traffic to domains.  This is but one recent trend that threatens domain traffic.  

Chrome to the Rescue

Google’s Chrome web browser recently emerged from beta for Mac and Linux systems.  (it’s been out of beta on Windows for some time.) If you haven’t tried Chrome you should – it is lightening fast, even compared to FireFox.  Chrome is another threat to type-in domains because of how it resolves search terms typed into the address bar.  In some past browsers you were taken to a dotdcom domain when you enter a term in the search bar.  This is less and less the case. but only with Chrome you are automatically given a google search when you enter a word of phrase into the address bar.  Essentially the address bar and the search bar have been merged.  Chrome users are rewarded for typing search terms in the address bar.  Over time the habit of adding a “.com” to a search term will diminish even more.