What is a Browser, etc
Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 2:51PM This may be old news, but I saw the following video referenced by a Techcrunch story.
Google folks asking passerbys "What is a browser?":
Less than 8% knew. Most seemed to confuse it with the search engine. I particularly liked the men who offered an incorrect answer, authoritatively. This one should make the Mozilla crew happy:
Interviewer: What made you use Firefox?
Some guy: My friend came over to my house and erased all my other browsers and installed it and said "You're using this now."
We're in a Bubble
If you're reading this, you must be in the tech bubble with me. What are some other questions we could ask the average person in Times Square and expect 90% to get it wrong?
What is web 2.0?
What is bluetooth?
What is firewire?
What is a byte?
What is Wifi?
What is a server?
What is ADSL?
What is a social network?
What did I get right and wrong? Any others you can think of? What other concepts do we take for granted? (I'm not even talking platform-specific ones like Mac OS X's 'disk image')!
Reader Comments (8)
My Wife : "Can we get these photos off 's phone"
Me : "Probably. Does it have bluetooth?"
MW: "Yeah. I think so"
Me:
Me:
Me:"Since when did you know what bluetooth was ?"
My tech-phobic wife normally starts ridiculing tech terms if they get mentioned. She may be a girl going geek.
What is a program? (How is that different from data?)
If we had a document-based OS, there wouldn't be any difference between programs and data. You would have websites you looked at, Google searches you would run, text documents you would edit.
Based on this video, a lot of people do not know what programs they use to do work. If you abstract away the idea of a program and let the OS figure out what program to run when you open a text document or image, all the user has to worry about is their work. Their work could be a document or it could be a program, but to them, it's just what they do.
This reminds me of how, years ago, everyone I was around would call their text editor Microsoft, and not actually know that it was called Word. The could barely describe the difference between Windows and Microsoft.
But how could one blame them -- limited attention and limited memory mean that they must spend their time trying to -get things done-, rather than learn about the programs they use to do so. They would like a system like Luke describes -- but then would fall to using substandard apps, unless some benevolent force made sure that everyone was using the program on the market that was 'best for them'.
I also think the situation in the post is caused by how Internet Explorer has always tried to make itself synonymous with "The Internet," which blinds people to competing browsers.
I mean, why would a normal person look for an alternative to a product that is meant to not exist? That is, to some it might seem like you are trying to sell them an alternate to water, when really what you are selling are the faucets through which the water runs.
Thank you all for the great comments. I had an experience lately setting up a computer for my partner's elderly mother. We explained that there was no internet connection yet, so she wouldn't be able to use Google. She said, that's ok, she'd just use hotmail. It took some time to explain that many of these services she used came from the internet.
@Luke,
Even if we had a document-centric OS, there would have to be a way to handle new and better documents.
Unless there is no software market, users still have to deal with the notion of a program, or something that extends their computer so it can do new and better things.
(I'm interested to know how many people never add any software to their computer.)
Managed environments, like offices, labs, etc. of course do not have a user-level software market.
But in general I think the concept of a program is necessary for computers to be as useful as they are, because without it they would just be a static appliance.
And the difference between mere data and a program is important, because only a program can harm a computer.
Industry-specific bubbles have their own terminology that is unknown to the layman. Your risk is what you don't know when you "dabble" in an industry. For example...before all the financial mess, who knew or had heard of a sub-prime loan, derivatives, AIG, etc.? And yet, we felt it in our 401Ks, availability of credit, and downward spiral of home values.
Thanks Eileen,
Maybe you're right — many people have no idea what goes on under the hood of their car, or during surgery, or in the cockpit of the airplane they are in. I just can't think of any other industry where people think/expect/are expected to fix problems themselves. Or the same cottage industry of friends helping out other friends. Maybe the auto industry?
If your car breaks down, there is some tendency to have 'a friend who is good with cars' come and look at it, much like computers.