Quick – how many Web browsers are on your mobile phone?

Now I realize this question may confuse you, but please read on, as I may be talking about something completely new to you or something you know about but didn't realize its full impact and the challenges that come from it.

The Mobile Web Is Still a Thing

With the growth of mobile devices and apps, many predicted the Web would be less relevant. With advances in Web design, namely the concept of responsive Web design, where a Web site will adapt or :respond: to the size of the screen it is presented on, Web sites are still viewed on mobile devices, and this will certainly continue.

To view Web sites on a mobile device, like on a PC or Mac, you use a Web browser. This in itself is an app, and on the iPhone the “native” browser is Safari and on an Android phone, it's Google Chrome. As well, you can install other browsers like Opera or Firefox. Just as on the desktop or laptop computer, some people just use the native browser and others use another. Some use more than one, realizing one may present a Web page differently than another – that difference can be slight, or to the extreme the Web site functionality may not work at all. Unfortunately there is no strict standards that a Web browser must follow to display Web pages, thus the differences.

The More Not The Merrier

As you may guess, the more Web browsers there are, the greater the chance these differences – or errors – may occur. I personally have encountered this many times as a regular Web user, as well as someone who owns and builds Web sites.

To compound the number of apps out there that are Web browsers are apps that serve a unique purpose but also have a Web browser built into it.

Again, my apologies if I have confused you... Web browsers in apps? Which ones? And how many different ones? And why? Where I have some answers to these, I am not a mindreader, though as someone who has designed products as well as software, I will share with you my thoughts as to why, and their impact.

As for the which and how, the image at the top of this post shows 8 apps I currently have installed on my iPhone that have an in-app Web browser. Eight! One is Safari, the iPhone native Web browser, and the other 7 are inside apps. As for the why, this depends on the thought and design of the app owners and developers.

Here's one thought as to why: the chief reason is the user experience – click a Web link in an app and you stay within the app. Granted you can launch a separate Web browser on your mobile device, but the user is then leaving your app, where you want them to stay. Talking with some Web app owners off-the-record, they have also said this, as well as functionality of the app they would like to leverage in the Web browser. So as I said, they have their reasons.

Challenges All Around

After this setup, it may already be obvious as to what the challenges to in-app Web browsers are, and who they impact, including:

Challenges to App Users – Thats you and me folks, the end consumer of these apps and their browsers. There's a real-world example tha

t happened to me that first brought this to my attention.

I went to an eCommerce Web site to make a purchase, one I have been to man times on a mobile device as well as my Mac. However a popup window that normally comes up as the last step of the process to complete the order did not appear. I tried and tried a couple of times and it still did not complete the order. It wasn't until I realized I was in an in-app Web browser and not Safari, which I had used in the past. I then opened Safari on my iPhone, tried the order again and it worked just fine.

Even for someone like myself who considers himself a high-end user, I didn't think twice on what app I was really in, and once I did, it still didn't matter, as I wondered why the Web page didn't work?

Challenges to Web Site Owners and Developers – One of the greatest challenges to those who run and build Web technology is that their Web sites and Web applications work in browsers. This may be even more challenging than the site being of value and compelling to the end user.

Going back over 20 years there have been the need to test and verify Web sites on all PC and Mac Web browsers, as well as on other computer operating systems, which back then you could count on one hand. Add to it mobile devices, tablets, watches and multiple brands of browsers on each, not to mention different versions (not everyone is on the latest version!) it can be overwhelming.

Overwhelming, and expensive. The need for a quality assurance (QA) lab, equipment (basically at least one of each piece of hardware), staff, third-party consultants, services and software... you don't even need to be technical to realize the magnitude of it.

Challenges to App Owners and Developers – If you decide you need/want a Web browser in your app, you are basicaly doubling the functionality to build and support in your app. A Web browser is a beast all into itself – and now you have one. You need to test your browser with the latest Web technologies and standards, consistently. You also need to keep up with the competition – standalone Web browsers – as to their features and how they deliver Web pages. And where you have the staff to develop your app, you will need to expand it for the Web browser functionality as well.

This goes beyond the technology and into your product management and development. Where it may be ideal to have that tightly integrated browser, the overall question must be, at what cost?

Supporting not Scaring

As business needs and technology are always a moving target, it's good to have an idea of what may be in case you ever lose scope or focus on it. I hope after reading this I haven't scared you – saying you have almost a dozen of something when you had no idea can be a bit much.

I welcome your thoughts on multiple Web browsers in the comments of this post. I promise not to scare you anymore now... on this topic anyway!

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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So, how is your day going?

Whenever asked that question, or just now as you read it, you may have begun it with a sigh or groan, or some insincere sense of enthusiasm. As much as we can plan days and focus on whatever we need to do, there are plenty of factors working against us and disrupting our momentum. These disruptors will never go away, and our only choice is to try to bring elements in to manage or counter them.

When I heard about the book Manage Your Day-To-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus and Sharpen Your Creative Mind I said to myself, “self, how can I pass on reading this?” The book is a collection of writings and interviews with 20 “creative minds.” Where some I have heard of, like Seth Godin and Tony Schwartz, most of the rest I had not. Yet each of the contributors were very intriguing, yet practical. Manage Your Day-To-Day is a good read that gets you thinking about your own routines and practices and how to get the “most” from them, whatever “most” means to you.

As I read the book, my takeaways from it were not from the specifics of the book, rather from its big picture, and are as follows.

Misery loves company, but only if you want to be miserable together – As I read the dozen pieces from the 20 authors, nobody was saying that they have overcome chaos and their lives are exactly as they want them. Yet they did admit to challenges and offered both general and specific advice on how they are conquering what challenges them.

You deserve a break today – How many times have you been working on something and someone asks you about lunch, and you are thinking, “gee, I just had breakfast!” (Ok, you can put your hands down now.) I have written man times here at The Hot Iron about the creative process – or if you are so inclined, simply thinking – and the need to get away to change the scenery, recharge the brain and come back with a fresh focus.

In my current role, in the employee handbook for my firm it actually mentions taking breaks during the day just for that reason. As a matter of fact, I am writing this very blog post on one of those breaks. And on the way to the Starbucks where I am writing this, I was able to easily think through something for work that my brain kept tripping on. Where I thought I dropped the ball on something, I actually did not, and completely followed through. A nice thought to have in my head as I return to the office.

Where was Scrum? – As I read this book after reading Jeff Sutherland's book on Scrum, using Scrum would be a perfect way to help you manage the creativity. As a matter of fact, I recently setup my own scrum board for myself, with tasks such as writing this blog post and fixing the closet doors in my kid's bedroom.

I recommend Manage Your Day-To-Day for anyone who is looking for ideas and encouragement on improvement of their productivity or just to add some calm into their lives. This book is one I bought myself after reading about it somewhere – sorry, I forgot, as I have had the book for a while. As I always pass along books, for this one I placed it on a shelf in the kitchen of my office with other books people have left there as a mini-library. It will be interesting if anyone takes it, and even more so if they took it after reading this blog post!

Have you read Manage Your Day-To-Day? I welcome your thoughts on the book in the comments of this post.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Editor's Note: Google Contributor is no longer operating for general use as indicated below, and this post was edited to remove links to their Web site and embedded elements that are no longer functioning.

Would you pay money to read The Hot Iron? And what if by paying you saw less ads on the site?

I know I have asked this question before when I added CentUp to this very blog. Another new revenue model for writers has come about from Google called Contributor. As I have no illusions (delusions?) of grandeur in earning a living from this very site alone in itself, I was more intrigued to try it to how it really works.

How It Works

Google Contributor allows a Web user to contribute money monthly for ads to not be shown on Web sites it visits. The ads specifically are ones from Google’s own ad services, AdSense and DoubleClick. So if a banner ad comes from another source other than Google (and there are many) that ad will still appear. In the place of the ad it may be blank or a thank you message for supporting the particular Web site.

From the Web site owner’s perspective, if they are displaying on their site through Google, rather than getting the money for someone seeing and clicking on an ad, they are getting money from the user’s Contributor account, in a sense offsetting the cost of the ad usually paid by the advertiser.

A few items of note on Contributor. Currently it only works in the US. By someone contributing money, either US$2, US$5 or US$10 a month, they are still going to see ads. As shown in the chart below, by contributing those 3 previously mentioned dollar figures, they will see respectively 5-15%, 15-25% or 25-50% fewer ads. These fewer ads are across all Web sites with Google ads not just one in particular. So if you contribute $10 a month, thinking it will all go to me for reading The Hot Iron, it will not.

Is It Worth It?

That’s a great question – is it worth it? I honestly don’t know, as I have just set it up on the blog, and I have also signed up as a Contributor at the whopping US$2 a month level.

Here is a screenshot of this blog with an ad appearing at the top:

Here is a screenshot of this blog without an ad appearing at the top:

I know – the difference is amazing!

It will be interesting to see how often I notice the ads not there. Last year was the 20th anniversary of the Web banner ad. As I heard somewhere – and I forgot the source – it was marking 20 years of people ignoring banner ads! So even if it technically works, it will be interesting to see if anyone notices.

Are you a Google Contributor? Did I convince you to join, or not join? I welcome your thoughts in the comments of this post.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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It’s been said over and over that all good things must come to an end. Where some ends are because something is broken or changed, it can be simply because something has come to its natural conclusion. That latter case is what I am doing with a writing journal, as I have recorded thoughts on its last blank page.

In the past I have talked about how I write out most all of my blog posts. Call me old-fashioned, but it works for me. Of course sometimes I just put fingers to the keyboard (all 2 of them) For those I have written (read: printed) most were captured in a journal.

This particular journal is a college-ruled composition notebook I bought at Target on September 5, 2012, and I only remember that as it was a Target-brand notebook, and the day I bought it I wrote my first post in it, Remember Team Morale During Work Stress. Since then it has captured many blog posts, brainstorming for blog topics, scratch paper for other uses – such as my kids stats from their last doctor’s appointment – as well as a doodle pad for said kids. Where many things were written from front to back, others started from the back to front, and the last post I wrote in there, My Takeaways From The Book 52 Motivational Quotations For Salespeople By Tom Cruz, was about two-thirds of the way through it. That being said, it was a very organized collection.

What To Do?

So what do I do with a journal that has traveled just about as much as I have over the last several years? Do I simply recycle it, shred it, or save it? I am not about to start saving notebooks, especially as I am trying, with moderate success, to declutter my life. But as I simply can’t discard it altogether, I cut the spine from it and fed it into my Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner, saved it as a PDF document, and have archived it with my other personal documents. That way, if 100 years from now someone wants to know how The Hot Iron was created, they can look at a PDF file rather than yellowing pages in a dusty box. That is if that dusty box wasn’t long tossed out by my future grandchildren first.

This post you are now reading was written out in another journal I bought at a Walgreens last summer and wrote my first post on the book Scrum, as that day I did not have my other journal with me and I needed something to capture my writing, It too has had some other uses, some I hope to share in the future.

What do you use to capture your creativity? Please share in the comments of this post… and let me know if you typed it straight from your mind or after transcribing it from paper.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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We all sell. Whether the word “sales” is in our job title or not, we all “sell” in some regards. From persuading a solution at work to convincing someone to date us to everything in between and all around, there is some element of selling in our lives.

Where we can succeed in selling, many times we do not. And when we do not, we can react to it in any number of ways. Whether we like it or not, we have to try to sell again. For some, getting back into the proverbial saddle is easy, and for others or just other times, we may need help. One way to get that help is from words of encouragement.

My good friend Tom Cruz has had the word “sales” on his business cards over his entire career (and when I say good friend, I stood up in his wedding and once flew live lobsters out to his house in LA from Boston, but I digress). When I heard he wrote a book titled 52 Motivational Quotations for Salespeople, I knew I had to read it. Of course it is always to support a friend, bit I knew it would be a great collection and motivator as well.

Friend bias aside, I enjoyed this short book. Each quote is on a separate page, allowing you to tear them out and hang them up. As with any book, I had a few takeaways from it:

We need to find what works for us – Reading through a book of motivational quotes in itself won’t necessarily make it a better day. Or maybe it will. We have to find what works for us, though trial and error, and it may be a third-party sharing something with you.

Explore beyond words – We often hear names of people and quotes that have been attributed to them. But who are these people? Were they business or religious leaders? Were they ax murderers or musicians? Does the quote define them or just confuse you? As I went thru this book I ended up searching several names I did not know.

Write your story – Where these quotes are just that, individual sets of words from others, combined they are part of my friend Tom Cruz’s life journey, and thus tell part of his story. We all have a story to tell or at least record for curious others – now or in the future – whether our child or a stranger. No matter who, our story may be of interest to someone someday.

Note Tom did not ask me to write this, nor did he give me a copy of it. I will make sure to give him a signed copy of my future book someday! As I pass along book I read to others, I am sending this one to a common friend of both of ours, who also works in sales, and should publish his own book too.

Were you intrigued or inspired to get 52 Motivational Quotations for Salespeople? Have you thought of publishing your own quotes? I welcome your thoughts in the comments to this post.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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