by Jason Wilk on December 22, 2008
- Mozilla Corp, maker of the Firefox Web Browser is becoming displeased with their current relationship with Google.
- John Lilly, Mozilla’s CEO, said in an interview last week, “We have a fine and reasonable relationship, but I’d be lying if I said that things weren’t more complicated than they used to be.” (CW)
- What’s causing this animosity? Google’s own browser, Chrome, which is slowly gaining a share in the booming browser market. The interesting part of the newly competitive relationship is that Mozilla makes the bulk of their revenue from Google, not to mention brings in a nice chunk of change every year for the search giant. 88%, or about $60 million of Mozilla’s 2007 revenues came from Google. Google pays Mozilla for placement as the default search in Firefox as well as powers the search for Firefox’s homepage (they share the ad revenue)
- What will Mozilla do? Well, even with the launch of Chrome, Firefox has seen a 24% increase in users since the beginning of the year. Currently 1 in 5 people are using the browser. Firefox only cooperates with Google so that it can provide its users with the best possible search experience and the most relevant ads. Looking towards the future and further competition from Google, Mozilla said they plan to explore other search revenue partners, starting with international country-specific firms first, such as Ramblr in Russia, Baidu in China, Yahooo in Japan, etc. When asked about searching for revenues outside of the standard web, Lilly said that 2009 will be the year which Firefox makes its strong entrance into the mobile browser market (Fennec is the name of the mobile browser).
- Mozilla will do what it takes to compete with Google. There is no end in near sight to their relationship, but by no means will they retreat. Should Mozilla ditch Google sooner than later?
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by Jason Wilk on December 18, 2008
- Yes, it’s true. A farmer out of Japan places hand cut Apple and iPod stickers on his ‘about to ripen’ apples to give them tan-lines.
- Too bad they can’t play music.
by David Heyerman on December 9, 2008
- Project Better Place is making new country partnerships look like taking candy from a baby, with their latest announcement to include the country of Japan as it’s next place to develop electric car infrastructure. Technically, they didn’t sign the country of Japan on as they did in Denmark, Israel, Australia, San Francisco, and most recently Hawaii, they’ve simply joined a government pilot program with Fuji Heavy Industries, maker of Suburu vehicles called “Ministry of the Environment.”
- The difference between this program and Better Place’s program in Israel, Denmark and Australia is that they won’t be developing charging stations, they’ll be focusing exclusively on battery-swapping locations. The program will begin in January 2009 and will last 3-6 months, opening the first battery swapping location in Kanagawa.
- One thing I find curious is that Nissan-Renault isn’t mentioned once in the new Japan based program. Better Place established awhile ago that they’d be partnering with the car giant to provide electric cars, which is odd that they’d put themselves in cahoots with a competing Japanese manufacturer like Suburu.
- More to come, I’m sure.
E2T
by Jason Wilk on November 21, 2008
- Yahoo’s Paris-based comparisson shopping application Kelkoo, which they acquired in 2004 for €475 million is supposedly sold.
- A UK-based private equity firm called Jamplant Ltd purchased the site at or around €100 million
- It’s about time Yahoo, now sell off Yahoo Japan and get some money back to your investors.
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