The Sidebar Syndrome
Written by Bilal Hameed from the Startup Meme blog
This week we've seen evidence of a new trend in the Web, which I've termed "The Sidebar Syndrome". Before I analyze the effects of this trend, let's first take a look at the services that may ultimately become flag bearers of the Sidebar era.
Google Talk "IM in the Sidebar"
Google Talk was originally launched as a desktop client, but it can now be integrated into your browser sidebar. This is certainly a great feature and will allow users to stay in touch with friends, without the need to periodically click on the taskbar.
Mozilla "Social Network in the Sidebar"
Mozilla recently announced Project Coop, which is a social network service for your browser sidebar. The product allows users to "subscribe" to friends in the browser. It also features avatars displayed in the sidebar. Adding friends will enable you to share a wide range of the Web's exciting content with friends, including Flickr photo feeds, del.icio.us tag feeds, MySpace profiles, Youtube Favorites and more. Sharing content is a breeze, all you need to do is drag it from the webpage and drop it on an avatar in the sidebar.
del.icio.us "Social Bookmarking in the Sidebar"
With the launch of its latest add-on, del.icio.us has joined the war to capture the user's sidebar. This new add-on allows users to see tags and bookmarks in the sidebar. Users can also search and modify bookmarks easily.
Future Implications of Sidebar Syndrome
These three services are just the tip of what is about to come. Other companies will roll out browser sidebar add-ons for their services in a rush. But there is an irony to it, which is that users can only have one sidebar! So either a person will put an IM client in their sidebar, or a social network. A user certainly cannot have both, because that will turn their browser into a startup page. This limitation will hinder the use of the sidebar as a tactic to acquire users and eyeballs.
Nevertheless sidebars will turn into a battlefield, because it is such a prime spot for online services to capture. The big players will likely enter into partnerships with browser vendors to have their sidebars ship with the browser itself, just like the tool bars of today. So stay tuned for the "Google Sidebar", which will have multiple Google services shipping with Firefox.
Indeed note that Google already has a partnership with Mozilla to have its toolbar ship with the browser Firefox ship with Google's toolbar, in return for a share of ad revenue that Google generates from searches made from the toolbar. The annual revenues that Mozilla reaped from this partnership amounted to $28 million in 2005. So the sidebar is likely to be just as attractive to Google and others.
UPDATE: Mozilla's Asa Dotzler clarifies the Google/Firefox agreement: "The Google Toolbar doesn't ship in Mozilla's Firefox. Google ships a version of Firefox with the Google Toolbar. Mozilla Firefox doesn't ship with any third party toolbars."
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Sidebars are like alcohol:
they might provoke the desire,
they take away the performance as well.
Posted by: Edwin | April 6, 2007 5:25 PM
interesting…more and more sites will Fight for client browser
Posted by: branson.z | April 6, 2007 5:29 PM
I've decided to stick with Netvibes for bookmarks, feeds and being social instead of cluttering up my browser.
I think I will even pass on any Firefox version of the Sidebar trend and hope it will be "optional"
Posted by: John | April 6, 2007 6:28 PM
You said, "...Google already has a partnership with Mozilla to have its toolbar ship with the browser, in return for a share of ad revenue that Google generates from searches made from the toolbar." This is very much incorrect. It's actually that Google ships Firefox with their toolbar. Not the other way around.
Posted by: CorrectionGal | April 6, 2007 6:32 PM
CorrectionGal is correct. Google will in fact *pay you affiliate fees* for linking to the page they have set up to download their build of firefox that has their toolbar pre-installed.
Also, you can have as many sidebars *installed* as you want, and swap them out using hotkeys or using a sidebar manager extension, it's just that most people don't know how because they haven't had to learn, because most people don't use sidebars. With widescreens becoming more common, however, this may change.
It's also worth pointing out that the wireframe for this shows the coop sidebar on the *right* and it's narrower than most sidebars, meaning that potentially you could run this with another sidebar visible on the left. You'd really want a widescreen to make that work out! But monitors are getting more pixels all the time (I love my 1680x1050 laptop), so...
And John, yes, it's an addon, not baked into the browser, hence completely optional.
On the whole I like the look of co-op, but I think I'd have it turned off during work hours!
Posted by: Seth Wagoner | April 6, 2007 7:55 PM
For what it's worth, the delicious plugin works fine without the sidebar. It's there to mirror the Bookmarks sidebar functionality already in the browser. I rarely use the sidebar myself; I go to the site out of habit.
Posted by: Joshua Schachter | April 6, 2007 8:52 PM
I hated sidebars i really did i mean i hated them with a pashion... that is until i got a 22" widescreen monitor with high dpi... It was like day in night at 4:3 it just took up too much real estate but at 16:9 with a sidebar open for vista and even the sidebar in IE open for my favorites or the sidebar in vista with the 2 sidebars in vs.net its just a wonderful feeling....
Its a case of the hardware really making the software viable in the end :)
Posted by: NexTechNews | April 6, 2007 10:23 PM
Another Sidebar service is Me.dium. At the moment their in upgrade status but me.dium is a social community where users are able to share their active webpages, they are looking at.
Posted by: Johannes Troeger | April 7, 2007 1:19 AM
I never use the sidebar for anything. Despite using a large desktop size and having the browser maximized I still find it gets in the way and distracts me.
For that reason I don't download anything that uses the sidebar; I know I will just end up turning it off.
Posted by: Andrew Rickmann | April 7, 2007 2:50 AM
I don't use the sidebar as well, despite having a big screen.
The only thing I do have is the All in One Sidebar plugin for firefox which takes up probably like 125 pixels on the side.
I guess with websites moving to a standard of 1024 width having sidebars open just makes it more annoying to surf. Maybe once I get a widescreen then I will look into it.
But currently with my 1280 X 1024 22" screen it doesnt sit well for the amount of browsing I do. I hate sideways scrolling.
Posted by: Ali | April 7, 2007 3:35 AM
I am sorry for confusing searchbox with toolbar. Mozilla does not ship Google´s toolbar in firefox pre-installed. However what they do is ship their browser with Google search being the default option in the search box.
Marcus Pincus reported the revenues from shipping the search box defaulted to Google to be upto $30 million in 2004. See more here
http://markpincus.typepad.com/markpincus/2005/05/firefox_foxy_ca.html
Jason Calcanis, founder of Weblogs Inc reported in March 2006 that the revenues from the search box were around $72 million in 2005. More about it here.
http://www.calacanis.com/2006/03/06/firefox-mozilla-corporation-mozilla-foundation-made-72m-last/
Red Hat employee Christopher Blizzard, a member of the Mozilla Corporation board, who wrote on his blog that "it's not correct, though not off by an order of magnitude." More about it here
http://www.0xdeadbeef.com/weblog/?p=182
So if you guys just replace the "toolbar" in the post with default searchbox, rest remains in tact.
Posted by: Bilal Hameed | April 7, 2007 3:43 AM
Sorry guys its not toolbar. Its the the search box that defaults to Google. Mozilla generates most of its revenues from searches done from the searchbox. Mark Pincus noted on his blog in May 2005 that the revenues in 2004 were around $30 million.
While Jason Calcanis founder of Weblogs Inc reported on his blog that Mozilla made $72 million in 2005 because of the searches done from the search box. He further noted that most of this money came from Google.
Christopher Blizzard, a member of the Mozilla board, later addressed the rumor from Jason Calcanis by writing on his blog that "it’s not correct, though not off by an order of magnitude".
See notable events on the wikipedia entry of Mozilla Corporation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation
Google shouted fouls when Microsoft announced that it will be shipping the latest version of IE with Microsoft search as the default option. Microsoft later agreed to allow other search box options as well, and that users could switch the default search engine if they want.
This even though a fair deal was still a lose for Google. IE is still dominating the browser market, not because it is better but just because it ships by default with Windows. Not every single person on this planet is not a geek and we humans are inherently lazy.
Google knows it well that most users of IE will probably never change the default IE searchbox option, either because they wont be knowing how to do it, or because they would be too lazy to do it. This is exactly why Google has such affinity with Firefox (they are the default option in it). Google struck a deal with DELL in May 2006 to ship its PC´s with Google toolbar and co-branded home page, like the default homepage of firefox. Why ? Just to reach users by default, because they know default is power and most users will never change the default homepage and toolbar on DELL ever.
Some of you are saying and might actually change the sidebar options as well, but the majority will never do it and thats what counts.
Posted by: Bilal Hameed | April 7, 2007 4:24 AM
Mozilla´s Asa Dotzler further states:
"Second, I'd also like to point out that, contrary to what Bilal states in the post, a user most certainly can have multiple sidebars. They just don't all show at the same time."
Asa just conduct a user study to know, how many of the firefox users switch the search box option from the default Google Search to Yahoo Search or anything else for that matter. Don't they have the option to do so ?
Also do a study to find out how many of them use the "Manage Search Engines" option of the search box to add a new search engine, lets say Microsoft or Ask for example. Can't they add one ?
No browser vendor will and can ever restrict, user choice by tying them to just one search box or sidebar. As this will get them sued like hell. Providing choices is one thing, making something a default option is another.
I personally think Firefox will one day ship with Google sidebar that will be similar to Google Desktop search in options and look and feel. With the amount of Google services increasing by the day, Google certainly needs this and with the stakes offered, Mozilla will be enticed. However this is just a prediction.
Posted by: Bilal Hameed | April 7, 2007 4:53 AM
More and more people and companies are creating web pages. Some are even creating web apps, or pages with regularly updated info, which are valuable to consult regularly or for some long period of time.
But there's a problem with this: a browser window can only show one page at a time! We're heading into a war here as well...
Sorry, couldn't resist. :-)
Posted by: Stephane Fidanza | April 7, 2007 5:48 AM
More and more people and companies are creating web pages. Some are even creating web apps, or pages with regularly updated info, which are valuable to consult regularly or for some long period of time.
But there's a problem with this: a browser window can only show one page at a time! We're heading into a war here as well...
Sorry, couldn't resist. :-)
Posted by: Stephane Fidanza | April 7, 2007 5:49 AM
how about tabbed sidebars? ;)
Posted by: Andrew Parker | April 7, 2007 6:04 AM
I guess as more and more people are on wide screen display,.. this sidebars thing will work?
Posted by: Jibone | April 7, 2007 7:46 AM
thank you veryy veryy much nice wan clor spedyy veryy veryy nıce much...
Posted by: patent | April 7, 2007 7:55 AM
I guess I hate these things. Don't know but my laptop is kind of crappy with a lowres 15 inch screen. Can't afford to have taken half of my browser away by $handyappx.
Posted by: brainwashed | April 7, 2007 12:16 PM
Simple solution, just add tabs to the sidebar to allow for multiple. Most people don't require constant use any of these sidebars anyways, thus switching is a no brainer.
Posted by: Ben | April 7, 2007 1:03 PM
The side bar will have its own tab system.
Posted by: shroomery.org | April 7, 2007 1:03 PM
The sidebar really isn't all that bad, and your only real complaint is that there's one sidebar. Except with the all in one sidebar extension for firefox, in which case you can have every sidebar hidden and just set a shortcut to pull it up, and it hides when you're not using it.
Posted by: David | April 7, 2007 1:05 PM
"users can only have one sidebar"
i think this is a limitation for us :(
Posted by: iyiz technology | April 7, 2007 1:10 PM
I made some screen shots just to show you what I meant.
This is normal browsing non intrusive, and I've got every tool and more that I need at my side and bottom, as well as important things like bookmarks, history, and extensions just a shortcut away.
If I do a quick 'hit' of the right side, the tool bar comes up, and when I move my mouse off it, it's gone.
All together this is a little resource intensive, so you definitely won't want to do this on a computer that's any more than a few years old, but people who need something like a Google sidebar shouldn't be worrying much...
Posted by: David | April 7, 2007 1:20 PM
Blog sidebars are similarly up for grabs.
Look at this site alone, there are at least 10 different widgets/ideas in the sidebar.
There comes a point when the mind can only take so much and the rest just becomes clutter (and frustration)
Posted by: todd | April 7, 2007 1:24 PM
the whole Gtalk sidebar thing
to the best of my knowledge was not a intentional Google product
someone found where the Gtalk gadget was located and found a great use for it in the sidebar
Posted by: atomic1fire | April 7, 2007 1:37 PM
I think this mostly stemmed from the Opera web browser. Opera did it first(?) and Opera did it best.
Posted by: Brice | April 7, 2007 1:46 PM
Hello, if I hear of chickens me badly the bird flu to have we of China get now the Chinese to have from the USA google gotten. Unfortunately neither of them gives a vaccine, unfortunate or for. I would like to mention still one the bird flu to have we soon in the grasp
Posted by: Herko | April 7, 2007 2:18 PM
Hey, this site has a sidebar!
Posted by: mike | April 7, 2007 5:40 PM
"Asa just conduct a user study to know, how many of the firefox users switch the search box option from the default Google Search to Yahoo Search or anything else for that matter. Don't they have the option to do so ?"
Search engines are not sidebars. We already have two sidebars, History and Bookmarks. If I was to follow your logic, then I'd expect that users would only use History or Bookmarks and not both. Well, that's not the case. Users can and do open both History and Bookmarks sidebars.
Where I think you get confused is trying to connect search to sidebars. Search is one feature with several providers. Users are usually happy with the default (because we chose our default based on what most users are happy with). Sidebars are not one thing with several providers. Sidebars offer a wide variety of featurs, some of which have multiple providers, but some not.
Your very own examples put this silly search analogy down. Are Google Talk, Mozilla's Coop, and Delicious Bookmarks all the same feature? No. They're different and users can bring them up when they need access to that feature. By your logic, we should only have one menu in Firefox because users won't use a second menu when they've already got one. So, which menu should we go with? I like "File" but others like "View" and some like "Tools".
And I suppose offering users multiple folders in their Bookmarks hierarchy is silly since apparently users can only handle one folder and will never use a second.
- A
Posted by: Asa Dotzler | April 7, 2007 7:08 PM
Where is the Microsoft one?
Posted by: Jeremy Kandah | April 7, 2007 7:55 PM
All is well and good with cool new sidebar items, but where does it end? There are some sites with sidebars that are miles long...
Posted by: Alan | April 9, 2007 4:46 AM
I never liked using that sidebar at all. I prefer a full screen while surfing the web.
I hope this isn't something that will require you to have it open because I can't stand the thing IMO.
Posted by: MacBros | April 9, 2007 9:17 PM
I agree with john (#3) - sidebars look like a dead end when you have netvibes tabs with Meebo, del.icio.us feeds, to-dos, feeds for your email and so on... All one click away, but with nearly no screen estate. Just lacks (more advanced?) sharing features/widgets.
Posted by: NatC | April 10, 2007 1:11 AM