Joe's Random Blog: 02/01/2009

Fidelity Investment slips amid global recession - Boston Business Journal:

Overall, not a terrible year at Fidelity Investments, considering the global economy. Their total assets under management only slipped 22 percent for the year. I guess I'll keep my money there. Fidelity Investment slips amid global recession - Boston Business Journal:

Google Chrome Will Pass Safari in Browser Share With Chrome for Mac OS

Here's an image of Google's Chrome browser for the Mac OS, which should be out this summer.

Who should be concerned about a Mac Chrome, from a browser share perspective? Take a look at the browsers stats below for my site, UpDown.com, since Google Chrome for Windows was released.

Chrome has about a 5 percent browser share, all taken from Internet Explorer. Another way to look at the data is Chrome took 10 percent of Internet Explorer's share, from the operating system default browser.

Will the same thing happen to Safari? I think Safari will lose even more to Chrome, because Mac users tinker more with their setups and software, and Chrome has several great features, like the ability to launch a Web page as an application shortcut and dragging a tab to a new window, not to mention the minimized use of space for the application. There is currently no full-screen browser option for the Mac.

My prediction is that Chrome gains 2 percent more from Mac Safari, giving Chrome 7 percent and Safari 6 percent total browser share.

The United Countries of Baseball

I came across this image in Stumbleupon.

It's a great visualization of baseball fandom. I disagree with the size of the Marlins territory though and wonder if they have any fans outside of Miami.

See all Joe Ranft's favorites on Stumbeupon.

Comment on "The Death of 'Web 2.0'" on TechCrunch

It's inevitable that the term Web 2.0 would fade in usage, isn't it? It's like naming operating systems or software, the numbers wears out, seems old, and needs to be replaced by the next number (Web 3.0? No, please, no.) or a name (Web Vista? No. Please, no.)

I agree with the comment up above that the trend now seems to be toward "social media."

Sites, like the one I am product and designer manager for (http://www.updown.com), that have members and some social connections, are trying to figure out how to work in all of the other social tools, like Twitter, Facebook Connect, Google Friend Connect, etc., in a strategic way. It's not easy.

Too Little. Hopefully Not Too Late.

I agree with Krugman here. This stimulus bill is too small, but I also see the point of its opponents. The original bill was too complex, and its spending would have taken too long to have the impact over the first two quarters of 2009. I'd still like to see a few simple provisions: - 4.0 fixed rate percent mortgages for all - A payroll tax holiday What the centrists have wrought - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com