Seth's Blog: Firefox is missing the point

No. That's missing the point. It's got to stop. Social features are great for some things. Social features are not great if you shoe-horn them in a totally inappropriate way that doesn't add value. Life is better for me and the vast majority of its users if FireFox doesn't add pointless social features that I won't use anyway. I don't want to see people's ratings for sites, see grouped recommendations or communicate with other FireFox users. The people who do want this functionality can install extensions, and those extensions largely already exist.<p>Besides, this may mean I need to rewrite Halo's Law ("Every site expands until it becomes a social network, those that don't are replaced by those that do").

Actually I think that Seth misses the point as well. I don't care whether other people wear the same clothes as me. I recommend because I like.<p>Firefox's response to Chrome should be not adding new features but removing existing ones, or, at least, redesigning them to make the UI even easier.

<i>So, Firefox needs to add functionality that makes the surfing experience better for all users when more users use Firefox.</i><p>Totally. I have a couple ideas. One is to improve the Javascript library so that richer and more responsive applications can be written.<p>Another would be to pull the rendering components into their own processes so that I don't lose N tabs of state when one plugin decides to lose its mind. Getting a multiple-core performance boost would be gravy here, too.<p>Firefox got pretty good mileage out of being just a browser. URL in, rendered page out. Chrome stands to do the same thing to Firefox that Firefox did to IE, in that it represents a clean, simple, technically enhanced browser.<p>Google has come out and said "here is some stuff, please just copy it and put it in yours", and they'd be walking a really fine antitrust line for dubious benefit if they actually did have a large market share.<p><i>But the response to Chrome shouldn't be to launch new features.</i><p>I'm assuming this doesn't mean "add no features at all" because the rest of his article would make no sense in that context. I can only imagine that it means "the FF team's response to Chrome shouldn't be back end, technical features". (Sorry if I've built a straw man here, but I really can't figure out what else this could mean in this context.)<p>Why does nobody take the Chrome release and comic at face value? What causes this idiocy in the echo chamber saying GOOGLE is the NEW MICROSOFT, it's BROWSER WAR! Don't copy the FAST JAVASCRIPT it's a TRAP! Deploy TAG CLOUDS!<p>I'm completely mystified and would love to have someone explain this to me.

I think i missed his point. Maybe I'm retarded, but i didn't get what he was saying. Did he compare Firefox to fashion, religion, and an obsolete communication device?

Godin's desire to boost Firefox is laudable but...<p>(1) Flock made a Firefox heavy on social features, which hasn't caught fire; and..<p>(2) Potential social network-effect features are better constructed as services or websites than browser functionality; and...<p>(3) Even if the functionality needs a browser-based component, to implement that in an "only with FF users" manner would be counter to the open mission of Mozilla.

'I'm a devoted FF user, and have been forever.'<p>That's interesting, as according to Wikipedia version 1.0 of Firefox was released in February 2004. [1]<p>'But the response to Chrome shouldn't be to launch new features.'<p>Which new features are these?<p>'Here's the problem/challenge: when your friends switch to Firefox, your life doesn't get better.'<p>No, but when <i>you</i> switch to Firefox <i>your</i> life gets better. How many products or services are sold on the basis of making other people's lives better? Exactly one - charities.<p>'And the key to growing any piece of software (or just about any product or service, actually) is the opposite. People will recommend something if adoption improves their lives.'<p>Er, what?<p>'Fax machines?'<p>What machines? Fax machines? Oh, you mean version 2.0 of the telegraph?<p>'Life is better for me if you have one.'<p>The phrase you're looking for is 'network effect'. [2]<p>'Fashion? Life is better for me if I'm not the only one wearing this.'<p>Yes, everyone knows that a woman <i>loves</i> turning up to a party and seeing another woman wearing the same dress as her.<p>'Religious sect? Life is better for me if I'm not the only one in the building.'<p>Unless you're a hermit.<p>'So, Firefox needs to add functionality that makes the surfing experience better for all users when more users use Firefox.'<p>Say what?<p>'There are many ways to do this, and you can invent more than I ever could. Systems that allow for rating pages, or grouping them, or communicating (but only with FF users).'<p>Haven't you heard of the 'any browser' campaign? [3]<p>[1] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Firefox#History" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Firefox#History</a><p>[2] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect</a><p>[3] <a href="http://www.anybrowser.org/campaign/" rel="nofollow">http://www.anybrowser.org/campaign/</a>

Wow... that's incredibly awful advice.

Maybe I missed the point, but this article doesn't explicitly say 'social features'. It simply says that the firefox community is bettered by more people using it. Granted social features are the first that come time mind, but I can imagine some others.<p>* A standard platform for whatever plugins you like * Aggregated usage data

So his idea is to add a addon-like functionality to the browser itself? ...

I guess nobody clued this guy in on extensions. As Firefox gains more marketshare, it also gains more extension developers and users. It also allows the web to advance. That is the aggregated benefit of more marketshare for Firefox. The social features this guy recommends belong in extensions, and, incidentally, extensions with that functionality already exist.<p>I think the "social media" obsession has gone on long enough. I was so sick of "social [x]" for everything (social laundromat finder, wee!) more than a year ago, when's it going to wear out?

Seth's Blog: If there's a point here, you <i>will</i> miss it.<p>Anyone care to explain what on hell he was arguing for?