Only 8% of People Know What a Browser Is as Google Discovers | iNet inSights - Internet Answers that Give you the Advantage

Only 8% of People Know What a Browser Is Google Discovers

20th June 2009

In my line of work, it’s easy to forget that often the most of basic of terminology is lost on the average man in the street as Google recently found out when it carried out a random survey of people in New York’s Times Square with the question “What is a Browser?”

Watch the video survey for yourself below to see the responses.

Now whilst this video is entertaining in itself for geeks and career web surfers like myself, the results (only 8% answered correctly to the question); indicate the uphill struggle that Google has in trying to get people to adopt its Chrome web browser against the major incumbents of Microsoft with it’s Internet Explorer browser and Mozilla with it’s Firefox web browser.

Even allowing for levels in knowledge between our American cousins across the pond and we Brits, I suspect a similar result would be obtained over here if the same survey was conducted in London’s Piccadilly Circus.

Watch the video for yourself and you’ll see that many people in the survey not only don’t know what a web browser is, but also demonstrate their ignorance regarding the differences between a search engine, the Internet and ‘the Yahoo’.

It’s Not Surprising Really

To be fair to anyone who’s reading this and doesn’t know the answers to Google’s questions, it’s not surprising really.

I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that the Internet world is one of those areas that is fraught with terminology and TLA’s (Three Letter Acronyms) and whilst many “I get by” Internet Users may have got to grips with some of the basic phrases and what they mean (I’m talking terms like “Link”, “Web Page” and “Broadband” here), the continuous exponential development of the web, its new technologies and trends; means there’s a constant stream of new terminology to learn if you want to make the most of the platform. As a consequence many people just don’t bother – or for that matter, care!

Try it for yourself; ask your colleagues “what is Bing?” or “explain a Tweet” or “what are RSS feeds are for?” Unless they are geeks or linked into the web industry in some form, I’ll eat my hat if they know! Yet these three items are prominent trends and tools that are happening on the web today and are worth knowing if as a business, you want to capitalise on the Internet.

Don’t Put a Geek in Front of a Customer

It’s for this precise reason that I feel it’s important that you shouldn’t rely on a “geek” to develop and promote your business online. Just because they know all the terminology, what it does and how it does it; doesn’t necessarily mean they know how to translate such features into workable benefits for your business.

Yes, you need specialists in their fields to design and build your website, promote it on the Internet and to deploy the needs of your business using the appropriate technology; however what you don’t need is someone to bamboozle you with meaningless terminology or someone who doesn’t understand the needs of your business.

That’s where someone like myself as an experienced Internet Consultant who has a foot in both camps and as such can work with a business by interpreting their needs and can then translate them into a language that the techies can understand and work with.

So if you’re looking to work with a web consultant that talks your language, lets get together for a coffee to talk about what you want to do.

I’ll buy.