US data shows that MSIE 7.0 is in a dominant position, with Firefox 3.0 in the 25% range of market share. This trend extends into the North American data, which is heavily influenced by the US trend.

MSIE 8.0, still reports a lower distribution than Firefox 2.0. This data is most likely based on the usage of MSIE 8.0 RC1 version, as MSIE 8.0 was only released in GA last week. It is highly probable that these stats will change in the very near future with the release of MSIE 8.0 to Windows Update.

In the EU, where fear and loathing of Microsoft runs deep and true, Firefox 3.0 is approaching parity with MSIE 7.0. Also, the perennially favoured native son Opera makes a very strong showing with their 9.6 release.

Asia is a Web designers nightmare, with MSIE 6.0 continuing to be the most reported browser. This is concerning, not simply for design reasons, but for web compliance reasons. Effectively Asia has throttled Web development to an old warhorse, but to such a degree that there must be some overriding advantage to using this browser.

As an example, the statistical comparison of four Asia nations is broken out below. We’ll start with Japan where MSIE 7.0 has a clear lead in the statistics.

However, when China (People’s Republic), India, and South Korea are added into the analysis, the pull towards MSIE 6.0 is massive.

This trend needs to be studied in greater detail in order to understand why MSIE 6.0 is so popular. Is it because of licensing? Continued use of Windows 2000? Compromised computers? The data doesn’t provide any clear or compelling reason for this trend.

Moving to Oceania shows a return to the trend of MSIE 7.0 being the predominant browser with Firefox in second place, with these two browsers showing a substantial lead over the remaining field.

South America sees MSIE 7.0 as having the largest market share, followed by MSIE 6.0 and Firefox 3.0. Effectively there are no other browsers with substantial market share at present.

These statistics show that the three most dominant browser platforms by market share are the two MSIE platforms followed by Firefox 3.0. This is likely to change with the MSIE 8.0 GA last week and its predicted release to the masses via Windows Update in the near future.

However, the release of MSIE 8.0 may not be as exponential as is predicted. Corporate IT policies, which have been slow to embrace MSIE 7.0, are likely not going to make a giant leap to MSIE 8.0 overnight. Adoption among the general population will also depend on the ability of existing Web applications to adapt to a more standards-compliant browser platform.

Noticeably absent from most of these statistics is Safari in a position to challenge the three leading browsers. This indicates that even hardcore Mac users continue to use Firefox as their primary Web application and browsing platform. StatCounter backs this up by indicating that within their data, 8.36% of visitors from the USA were on Macs, while 3.15% of visitors used Safari.

Trends to watch in the near future:

• New browser releases (Firefox 3.1, Safari 4.0) and their effect on browser distribution
• Uptake of MSIE 8.0 once it is released via Windows Update
• Browser distribution is Asia

Today, I repeated the picture. Much more chaos.

Customer Generation

How can you use Web performance measurement data to outperform your competition and impress your prospects. Read it here!

Customer Retention

Impress your customers with your skill and responsiveness, and keep the competition from sneaking in the back door. Read it here!

Business Operations

Know how you are doing against your competition and prioritize what you need to do to stay ahead. Read it here!

Technical Operations

Know what to measure and how often to keep a detailed eye on your internal systems and external performance. Read it here!

Why is Technical Operations last?

This part of the conversation is the last, mainly because it is the most mature. A technical audience will understand the basics of a distributed Web performance measurement system, or a Web analytics system, or a QA testing tool without too much explanation. The problems that these tools solve are well-defined and have been around for many years.

Quickly thinking about these types of problems makes it clear, however, that the kind of data needed in a technical operations environment is substantially different than that which is needed at the Business Operations level. Here, the devil is in the details; at Business Operations, the devil is in the patterns and trends.

What are you trying to measure?

The short answer is that a Technical Operations team is trying to measure everything. More data is better data at this level. The key is the ability to correlate multiple sources of system inputs (Web performance data, systems data, network data, traffic data, database queries, etc.) to detect the patterns of behavior which could indicate impending crises or complete system outage, or simply a slower than expected response time during peak business hours.

And while Technical Operations teams thrive on data, they do not thrive on explaining this data very well to others. So the metrics which are important in one organization may not be the key ones in another. Or they may be called by a completely different name. Which is why Technical Operations sigh and throw up their hands in despair when talking to management who are working from Business Operations data.

How do you measure it?

Measure early. Measure often.

This sums up the philosophy of most Technical Operations teams. They want to gather as much data as possible. So much data that the gathering of this data is often one step away from affecting the performance of their own systems. This is how the scientific mind works. So, be prepared to control this urge to measure and instrument everything with a need to ensure that the system is operationally sound.

Summary

Even in the well-developed area of Technical Operations, there is still opportunity to ensure that you are measuring the right things the right way. Do an audit of your measurements. Ask the question “why do we measure this this way?”.

Measure meaningful things in a meaningful way.

• Dallas, TX (USA)
• Virginia (USA)
• London, UK

All of these location have been graciously provided by the team at e-planning.

Thanks to all of you who volunteer your machines and bandwidth for this project.

As always, we are looking for as more measurement locations. It would be great if we could get some data from the Asia-Pacific region.

Currently, the Newest Industry sits at #1,106,225 in the Technorati Charts. I’m looking to break into the Technorati 1,000,000 before Christmas.

If Chris Brogan can get into the Technorati 100, I know I can do this!

Help me break into this elite group!

</sarcasm>

FriendFeedHolic (ffholic) has taken the base knowledge that exists in FriendFeed and added a ranking mechanism to it based on input and output. In fact, they weight the participation in the FriendFeed community more heavily than participation in other communities.

This is important. Although FriendFeedHolic is separate from FriendFeed, they have found the way to isolate and target those users who are most likely to participate and create conversations. These users, be it Scoble or Mona N, are where advertisers and marketers can target their money.

How would they do this?

Think about it. If someone that is a large commenter or conversation-creator on FriendFeed creates new content, they are assigned a higher ranking in the new conversation-driven ad-discovery model that advertisers will have to create to succeed.

This new targeted advertising logic will be forced to discover:

• The content of the conversation
• The context of the conversation
• The tone of the conversation
• The participants in the conversation

This model will be able to identify when it is an inward-facing conversation that involves mostly super-users, or if it is a conversation that engages a wide-spectrum of people.

Conversations among super-users will lead to more passive advertising being shown, as that is a spectator event, with only a few participants.

Conversations created by super-users, or that involve super-users, but have a higher participation from the general community will get more intelligent attention to ensure that the marketing messages and advertising shown fit the four criteria above.

In this new model, advertisers will have to see that they can’t simply slap a set of ads up on the popular kids web sites. They will have to understand who leads a community, who generates buzz, and who can engage the most people on a regular basis.

In this model, the leader has far less power than the community that they create. And maintain.