The new browser markets

This rather long article on browser specs might not be of interest to most of you, and understandably so (though it is written well), but it does throw up a couple of interesting nuggets that go against the commonly held belief that Internet Explorer is the dominant browser. The first is the statement that Mac users, while a small minority, are a marketeers dream as they tend to be more affluent and demonstrate brand loyalty. They can’t use IE. This is rather like how the News at 10 used to be able to command high advertising rates despite lower audience figures due to the quality of that audience. This was when ITV news wasn’t godawfulshite, of course. Add on to this the fact that we now have a browser market, in that people who develop browsers earn money despite giving them away thanks to referrals from the search box. Firefox made $50m in 2006. That’s a heavy incentive to widen the user base. Opera going free, Safari being released for Windows, etc. They all generate revenue. Bring this together (along with the halo effect of people like me installing Firefox on our parent’s computers) and coding for IE only is not an option, no matter how dominant it is in the market. Hell, I find this stuff interesting… (via DF)