Top Internet Strategy, Marketing & Technology Links – Feb 2, 2010

fleur120

Apple represents the “auteur model of innovation,” observes John Kao, a consultant to corporations and governments on innovation. In the auteur model, he said, there is a tight connection between the personality of the project leader and what is created. – Steve Jobs and the Economics of Elitism (NYTimes)

It’s no surprise to anyone who follows Apple that Steve Jobs is a major influence (or control) in all designs that come from the company. He has a vision for what he wants a device to do and expects the design to just work. He’s assembled a team of similar-thinking designers and so far, the products they’ve developed are almost all winners.

One of the main reasons a lot of websites fail to deliver is because they’re made according to the specifications of the company that ordered it. Don’t get me wrong. It’s good for a web builder or usability expert to find out what the customer wants. But it’s not enough. – Webdesign process: is the customer king? (Web Usability Blog)

Companies often think they know what their customers want and so they have their websites designed to those specifications. Unfortunately, companies often think they know what customers want, but, in reality, they’re just projecting their own perceptions of what they think they would want. Want to have a great website? Design it from the point of view of those who are going to use the site. What do they want from the site? What do they want from the product or service the company offers? What benefits are you offering them? What value do they get from the product or service?

Mozilla has officially introduced Firefox for Maemo, the first officially launched version ofFirefox for Mobile. It’s been in testing for some time, but now it’s available for download for those of you who own an N900 smartphone. – Firefox for Mobile Makes Its Debut (Mashable)

It’s nice to see Firefox come out with a mobile version, although I’d like to see them improve their normal browser. It still is fairly slow and chunky. But, mobile is an important market for the future and it’s good for current mobile browsers to have competition. Unfortunately Mobile Firefox is supposed to be available for iphone or Blackberry anytime soon.

Microsoft is many things, but one thing it’s not is a successful web company. And it’s time Redmond faced up to that. – Admit It, Microsoft: You Suck at the Web (GigaOM)

Microsoft does have some pretty cool technology (surfaces, silverlight), but they also seem to be behind the game. It used to be that it was ok not to be first to market because you could buy or develop a competitor later and still win marketing share (think Windows, Netscape vs. IE browser wars). But that tactic doesn’t work so well in today’s world – or it might if you could move quickly. Microsoft doesn’t seem to move quickly anymore (at least in the online space), so while I did laugh out loud at GigaOM’s article title, I also had to heartily agree.

Google is continuing to kill off support for Internet Explorer 6 in its services; the search giant has announced that two more of its Web properties will stop supporting IE6 as of March 1. – Google to send Internet Explorer 6 users packing come March (Ars Technica)

Google isn’t just dropping support for IE 6. They are also going to stop support for browsers older than Firefox 3.0, Chrome 4.0, and Safari 3.0. However, Google is using this opportunity to offer its own browser to users who need to upgrade. Microsoft still has to support IE 6 because it’s still support Windows XP until 2012.

We post links to stories about how to use the web for business throughout the day on Twitter, Google Reader Shared or Delicious. Also, if you have a post or link you think is worth sharing, please let us know!

Liked this post? Consider subscribing to our RSS feed or our free email updates or following us on Twitter.

Technorati tags: internet strategy, web strategy, online strategy, internet, web strategy

Reader Interactions