Google Chrome is the more-or-less unsung hero of many a tech evangelist. Until recently, Google did not do much of anything to show off its browser. But within the past month or two, we have seen increased publicity through Chrome’s being featured on the Google homepage and through a series of very artsy videos on YouTube. Now Google is bringing out the big guns: they have purchased what seems to be a somewhat higher tier advertising package from Hulu to spread the word about their browser. That’s well and good, but one has to wonder what Google thinks they have to gain by participating in the browser wars.
As the king of search, Google is in a pretty nifty position as they win regardless of which browser is popular. People are going to search Google on Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, and all the rest. The actual development and advertising push that Google is giving to Chrome suggests that the company sees some value in actually having a place in the browser market. But what that place brings with it is still nebulous.
This is not to say that Chrome’s popularity is useless. It is quite good for the end users that Chrome exists as it is a faster and more lightweight browser than all of the other major players in that market space.
One possibility is that Google is trying to gain a foothold with Chrome in an attempt to change the ways in which developers code websites. This is an area in which Google does stand to see profit as it owns many web applications (Google Docs, Google Maps, and Gmail, just to name a few) which could benefit the whole company from increased popularity. If the browsing experience is snappy enough for the users, maybe some people will start to leave Microsoft Office behind for whatever the paid version of Google Docs will be.
