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Wow, so the reaction to the launch of our new FlucMedia site has been amazing with lots of positive feedback from design websites and from people who have visited the site and generally love it. Perhaps, what has been more amazing to our team has been the reaction to our IE6 Not Supported implementation - spurned from articles at Mashable and numerous other sites which have commented on IE6 and it’s viability as a browser. You only have to look at the numerous sites which have popped up asking users or corporates to ditch IE6 – Bring Down IE6, IE6 No More, Stop IE6 – the list goes on and on.

So what are the main issues?

The main problems with IE6 stem from the sheer age and out-dated technology associated with the browser. The primary problems with the browser are three-hold:

1. PNG Transparency – *.PNG image are not officially supported by the IE6 browser which significantly stops many websites across the Internet from being correctly displayed. *.PNG images can be compressed immensely (*.PNG8 images) in comparison to other images which significantly increases webpage load time. Accordingly, browser support of these images vastly increases the speed of the web and reduces bandwidth and so forth.
2. CSS v2 – The IE6 browser does not correctly support v2 Cascading Style Sheets and this infers that what works in IE6 won’t work to the same degree in other browsers. Most of the time, this substantially increases the size of CSS sheets as additional classes have to be added specifically for IE6 or a web team has to have an entirely separate IE6 style sheet just for IE6 – increasing development time and most importantly – cost. An option not always available to all companies (aka us).
3. Security & Reliability - IE6 is extremely susceptible to the new web because it was designed for the old web. Hackers can easily inject code into websites which can cause the IE6 browser to crash and cause major problems for users. This makes sense of course because the browser is 8 years old and was designed at a time when javascript was not king. Now of course, javascript is used extremely widely and requires heavy processing which IE6 was just not designed for. You just have to look at Wikipedia to see all the issues.

What is Microsoft response?

The increasing resistance from the web community has lead Dean Hachamovitch – the Head of IE team at Microsoft - to respond. In his blog post – he rationally justifies the existence of the IE6 web browser as one that is inherently left up to the individual entity – whether person or corporate. To quote him,

The choice to upgrade software on a PC belongs to the person responsible for the PC.

I tend to agree with this logic … up to a point. Increasingly it seems that many people are criticising the exclusion of IE6 on the basis of “users have no choice and are left at the whim of their corporate environment”. Even we have been criticized - you only have to look at the comments in this post to see that not everyone is happy about our exclusion of the IE6 Browser and I absolutely respect that opinion. However, as I commented in return – corporate entities take the view that they don’t have the time or the resources to update their software to support modern browsers – we’ll we certainly don’t have the time to code and spend resources on supporting their refusal.

Change always comes about slowly when dealing with new technology in large corporate entities. Most of the time, it only ends up changing in these environments when enough people advocate for change and become generally disgruntled at their working environment. The entire premise – as even Dean Hachamovitch from Microsoft stated – is to upgrade all PC’s to modern browsers for safety, security and speed reasons – Microsoft want this just as much as anyone else. And while I accept the notion of choice for corporate entities – I also believe that corporates much accept the notion of choice from technology companies in refusing to code just for IE6.

How have we handled it?

For us, it really has nothing to do with “doing anyone any favors” or “saving the Internet” by blocking IE6 users. The simple fact of the matter is that we are a small company and just don’t have the resources to devote an additional XXX hours to solve IE6 related issues primarily when support for the browser is undoubtedly waining. We would rather devote this time to focusing on, and building out, our product as opposed to sitting and attempting to figure out IE6 legacy browser issues. It seems that many corporate companies are taking that exact reverse approach – “we don’t have the time or resources to upgrade to IE7 – so everyone has to cope with it”. A view (as conveyed above) not supported by us.

Indeed, it may be antithetical to the logic that “most IE6 users don’t have a choice” – for us, the choice is really spending time on IE6 or spending time developing our product -we made the decision that the later is far more important. Our product supports IE6 – have no doubt – but when we calculated out the cost of solving IE6 issues for the website and more importantly the time required – the cost-equation just didn’t make sense in terms of IE6 users vs. new features we can develop. Additionally, it seems pretty clear that many of the big corporates are also pushing users away from IE6 – you only have to visit Youtube or Facebook or Basecamp or a plethora of other sites to see that IE6 is either no longer supported (Basecamp for example) or won’t be in 2010 (Youtube).

Microsoft are also pushing IE8 through their distribution channels – even offering incentives to upgrade from IE6 – in addition to Chrome, Firefox and Safari – so it doesn’t really make sense to spend hundreds of hours ensuring that every works in IE6 when the browser will start to hit a brick wall from next year – 2010 – on a lot of websites. I would also argue that it’s very website dependent – if you are a site that is going to primarily targeted by other website publishers – then it’s fair to assume that they are not going to be using IE6 – on the flip site, news sites are targeted by the masses so you undoubtedly have no choice but to support IE6. In this regard, the nature of the website is also fairly important in the decision making process as to exclude IE6 entirely and the users attached to this browser.

How can you exclude IE6 if you want to?

So in order to exclude IE6 we have used some really easy code commenting. If you checkout FlucMedia you can see how we have done this -

Through the insertion of comment which redirects the IE6 browser to the IE6NotSupported.html page. While many of you may not accept the logic of excluding users to our website – our rationalization is that as a small company we are more product focused in rolling our new features than supporting almost 9 year old legacy browsers. Feel free to copy & use our implementation if you want too – a linkback might be nice too :)

Conclusion

As Microsoft stated – it’s all about choice. Our choice is not to support IE6 and we believe it to be a justified one :)

Agree or not? Drop a comment.

You know, it’s amazing – the slogan “The Wonderful World of Disney” no longer makes me think about Disney. I have since destroyed this one fantastic childhood slogan that was instilled in me from the age of about 3 and replaced it with “The Wonderful World of Free”. Yes, it’s perhaps a little sad but working on a technology startup tends to do that too you when you are trying to establish viable revenue streams for your business.

You see the world of “Free” has really taken over the Internet. Content is now consumed on the Internet at a rate that has never been witnessed around the world before, and people who access the Internet expect this content to be free. The predominant reason for this is that people pay for their access to the Internet and believe that this is the ceiling point for their use of products and services on it. Take content for example, I read an article on the NY Times website from a fantastic author regarding the state of the Internet. If this author intended on charging me to read the article – I am presented with two options:

1. I can simply pay for the article because the authors writing, style, opinion and experience on the topic supersedes any other content available and the value equation of his writing exceeds any other content available (or that I can find).
2. I can simply scour the Internet looking for similar articles which comment on adjacent subject matter that is relevant to the thought process I am attempting to collate in my head. If the end justifies the means and I discover relevant content which is free – no need to pay and my value equation is satisfied.

You see Internet users now expect content on the Internet to remain free. The age of “charging” for content – or any products or services for that matter – is only valid when the consumer cannot get that particular content, or that particular product or service anywhere else. The value equation for the user has to reach the climatic point where attempting to search for similar content can, and simply does not, satisfy the users needs. It’s at this point, and I believe only at this point, that a user will cough up some hard earnt dollars in order to satisfy their desire to pay for products and services on the Internet.

If we take another example that is more prevalent in this day and age – Facebook. People use and consume content on Facebook everyday and just expect the services to work. The mere fact that it costs Facebook millions of dollars per month to provide these users with this service is irrelevant to those whom consume such said content and use it daily. After all, the service started out as free and users expect it to remain that way – right?

Of course, that’s right – it’s Facebook duty to monetize their business and ensure that they keep providing their services to their users otherwise they will simply change to another service. It’s important to recognise that Internet users are fickle and perhaps they have every right to be – the Internet has an abundance of information and hands the power back to consumers to find the best offering at the lowest value – whether this be in real economic terms or in ‘free’ terms.

So we come to the question that exceedingly enroaches on my mind daily – how can a service such as Facebook “remain free” ad-infinitum? Surely, an apex point will some day arrive where the cost of running the company entirely exceeds the value equation relating to revenue generation? Or perhaps more probably, the product that Facebook is offering no longer fulfills the desire of the millions of users who connect and use Facebook everyday. It is somewhat happening to Myspace, and it is possible that it will happen to Facebook. Facebook was inherently designed for a specific purpose – to share and communicate with friends – yet such a statement does have its idiosyncarcies. The world we are moving into is one where this statement is no longer simply enough – Internet users now, more than ever, demand real-time and up-to-date information in a format that Facebook might not be able to provide moving into the future. Even the design change on Facebook took months, if not a full year, to implement and users are still unhappy about it. But I digress from the purpose of this post (and perhaps this topic deserves another seperate post in itself)

They key question I am really trying to answer is what about all the other products and services out there who simply do not have 1/10000th of the financial capacity of a company like Facebook?

Well, it’s clear that such companies offering these free products and services will simply not cut the cheese in a rescissionary climate where advertising revenue no longer pays for development, hosting, marketing and the like. The days of offering a free product – no strings attached – are long gone in my opinion. The Internet is ruled by a fickle generation of users who demand – no – expect content and services to be free, and if they aren’t – they simply move on. For every paid product on the Internet, 5 more are competing with it that are free. For every service that is launched and becomes popular – another 10 spring up which offer the same service for free. 

So how is it ever possible to beat this seemingly caustic like trend?

The answer is simple – continually innovate. 

There is no other solution to the free problem that to continually innovate and offer features, products, services and content that no one else does, can or has the expertise to provide. Consumers will only pay for products when no other solution exists that meets their value equation. More poignantly, consumers will only pay when for products when no other solution exists that meets their value equation, and the solution that does exist exactly satisfies their needs. There is just no point in producing a great product that no one else has which simply sucks – you wouldn’t pay for it and neither would anyone else (me included). The ideology that needs to be entrenched in all companies (startup and Fortune 500 alike) is effectively this - why pay Peter when Paul is standing around offering everything  for free? Well, I contend that if Peter has something that Paul can simply not offer then Peter gets a new revenue source. If the converse holds true, Paul rears his ugly opportunistic head and takes Peters earnings. 

I believe this really is the unfortunate – nay, perhaps the realistic and capitalist minded truth. Innovation is the key to a great product or service, and a great service is the key to profitability. I believe it’s true to contend that the three are symbiotic in nature – that is, the correlation between innovation, great products and services and profitability is extrodinarily high. The dominance is, however, in my opinion innovation – loose that, and the other elements wilt. The consequence?

Darwinian theory tell us that something else will take it’s place.

Hi All,

I thought it would be a good time to post an article about the tough times ahead for start ups. Starting a business is never easy – let’s be honest. Starting a business in an economic crisis, when funding is non-existent and debt financing is almost impossible to secure – is arguably, just insane. So, the question I want to answer today is what is going to happen to start up companies and innovation – in general – over the next 12 – 24 months?

Well, here is my opinion on the situation.

Clearly, the economic crisis is going to be a real issue for all businesses, not just ones that are starting up and trying to get their products out into the world. Obviously, the difference is that established businesses already have revenue flows and are able to cut back on spending by reducing key sectors of their businesses which are “overweight”. That is, where spending has gone a little overboard and they are able to make significant cost reductions by simply cutting staff, slicing spending and so forth. Typically, this will start with marketing and communication departments and then be followed closely by human resource allocations – namely, people reductions. 

The key question is not to ask what is going to happen to existing businesses, but rather businesses that are yet to even open to the world and ones that are just starting out. During times of economic crisis, most start ups are required to run on an absolute shoe-string. This is not necessarily a bad thing – since it requires to the founders to more than ever focus on the bottom line and do everything in their power to keep the business running and get the product released. Decisions have to be made which are economically viable and which provide real value to the business – everything else has to go to the wall. There is no point focusing on sections of a product which are not going to deliver real value when it’s released – the focus has to be on sustainability and revenue growth. 

Evidently, businesses which require large start up capital to begin operations – such as biomedical and other medico companies – are going to find it extremely tough to innovate. Intellectual Property is the biggest ‘game changer’ for these type of companies and without it – global conglomerates can simply steal innovative products and reverse engineer them. Equivalently, companies starting out which don’t have real and sustainable business models are going to suffer as well. The times of ‘Facebook’ and ‘Youtube’ building products without any idea of how they are going to produce money are gone. These are, what I like to call, ‘boom-time’ companies that were created when money was flowing like water and capital was injected into these businesses with absolutely no worry in the world. The attitude of ‘we will figure it out later’ was uttered every time ‘business model’ was spoken.

Of course, on the flip side of all these arguments is that during periods of economic recession, businesses can really ’strut their stuff’. Innovation, in it’s purest form, is all about the creation something new. ‘New’ being a word that is very broad in it’s application and meaning. It’s clear that new and sustainable business models need to be the focus for emerging startup companies and a clear plan to profitiability needs to be the focus – without this, these startups will simply not survive. The days of ‘boom-time’ are gone, and so is the ideology of ‘we will figure it out later’.

One such business model that I really like is the the idea of a ‘fremium’ business and I am really certain this is where innovation will start. ‘Fremium’ is a basically the strategy whereby you offer a product for free, and then charge for extra premium features. The key to this business model is, of course, that what you are offering for ‘free’ – people actually want. If the ‘free’ part of a product sucks, then there is certainly not going to be any ‘premium’. Get the free part nailed, and then offer some really cool extensions that you can charge people for and that they will want to pay for. If you can do this, then you will really start generating some solid revenue which can keep things running.

Another really cool model that I think start up businesses need to utilise – is the model of ‘high volume, low cost’. That is, the idea that you produce a really cool product and charge almost nothing for it. If the product is really great and people can relate to it – then the psychologically behind charging $1 – $5 dollars is really easily to put to consumers. If you can get 2,000 to 5,000 people a month at say $1 – then you are generating some real revenue that can start paying off bills and easing the cost burden to the overall business structure. I think that starting with a model such as this, and then adding the ‘fremium component’ over-the-top is really something that I hope businesses can integrate. Not every business needs to be “completely free”. I don’t believe that all consumers take this ideology on the web, or offline, nowdays that ‘everything has to be free’. Of course if you are offering a great service – people should pay for it.

Further to this, if you are offering a service that people are paying for – don’t include advertising. This may sound like Business 101 – but I have seen it and it sucks. You need to balance out advertising integration carefully. If you are going to integrate advertising as a revenue source into the ‘free’ part of your product, make sure that it fits with what you are doing so that people don’t get pissed off by it. To me – in your face advertising screams ‘click me, click me’ and ruins the products feel. Remember – if you piss people off, they won’t use the free part – which means they definitively won’t use the premium part either.

So to conclude, do I think startups are going to suffer during the next 12 – 24 months? Absolutely they will, no question about it. However, do I think that innovation is going to suffer ? No, I don’t think it will. Humans are naturally thinkers, and with so many problems existing in the world today – solutions have to be created. Sure, funding is tight and therefore products that would have previously existed without the need for a real business model will suffer – but this will allow for other people to produce the same product with a viable business model – and so the cycle starts again. While the enteprenurial spirit continues regardless of the economy – there is no question that it needs to be aware of it.

If you are starting a company and have just read this – don’t give up hope or become distressed. Manage your money, manage your team and cut back. Startup Business life was never meant to be easy. Grab a pen and a peice of paper, and start thinking of features and extensions that you can add onto your product which will deliver real value instead of focusing on ‘extra’s’ that aren’t going to deliver revenue, but are going to increase the number of product users. They real challenge is just to survive through the economic crisis no matter what. Once you’ve done that, you’ll be better off and a more prudent business person for it.

Best of Luck to Everyone : )