http://www.google.com/chrome

At Google, we have a saying: “launch early and iterate.” While this approach is usually limited to our engineers, it apparently applies to our mailroom as well! As you may have read in the blogosphere, we hit “send” a bit early on a comic book introducing our new open source browser, Google Chrome. We will be launching the beta version of Google Chrome tomorrow in more than 100 countries.

So why are we launching Google Chrome? Because we believe we can add value for users and, at the same time, help drive innovation on the web.

All of us at Google spend much of our time working inside a browser. We search, chat, email and collaborate in a browser. And in our spare time, we shop, bank, read news and keep in touch with friends — all using a browser. Because we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if we started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that’s what we set out to build.

On the surface, we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple. To most people, it isn’t the browser that matters. It’s only a tool to run the important stuff — the pages, sites and applications that make up the web. Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go.

Under the hood, we were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today’s complex web applications much better. By keeping each tab in an isolated “sandbox”, we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites. We improved speed and responsiveness across the board. We also built a more powerful JavaScript engine, V8, to power the next generation of web applications that aren’t even possible in today’s browsers.

This is just the beginning — Google Chrome is far from done. We’re releasing this beta for Windows to start the broader discussion and hear from you as quickly as possible. We’re hard at work building versions for Mac and Linux too, and will continue to make it even faster and more robust.

We owe a great debt to many open source projects, and we’re committed to continuing on their path. We’ve used components from Apple’s WebKit and Mozilla’s Firefox, among others — and in that spirit, we are making all of our code open source as well. We hope to collaborate with the entire community to help drive the web forward.

The web gets better with more options and innovation. Google Chrome is another option, and we hope it contributes to making the web even better.

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A top Digg user with a popular ratio of 34% has been getting paid well for promoting articles on Digg. His/her popularity has allowed numerous stories to reach the Digg Home Page, and when that happens he/she gets paid even more.

Invesp scored an interview with this person (who wishes to remain anonymous; for the purpose of this article, let’s call them “Digg Throat”), and provides quite an interesting look into the behind-the-scenes world of Digg marketing.

“I have worked for many popular blogs and I know most top users do,” explains Digg Throat. “As of now I am involved with three blogs/companies that I regularly help with social media promotion, especially on Digg. To put it in short : my status and reach within the community allows me to help businesses leverage their opportunities by reaching a different crowd and a large crowd for that matter.”

Digg Throat has been charging up to $700 per article for his/her promotion, and if a particular item reaches Digg’s home page, he/she gets another $500. Now that’s some easy money. Too bad it’s frowned upon by Digg, and Digg users alike. However, paid promotion is just a fact of Digg. It’s not a surprise, and users who have a real problem with it, will likely just find another site to read.

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RSS is fast becoming an obsession for me. I didn’t plan for it to be that way. It just happened. I have been interested in RSS for a couple of years now but it was only around this time last year that I started taking a serious look at this little syndication standard that’s changing how we communicate on the web. Really Simple Syndication. Simple phrase but it changes everything…

I figured what better way to get to know a subject than to write about it. Going through the vast resources of the Internet, blogs, forums, ebooks to collect what information I needed for my ebook and articles. The Internet is one huge storehouse of knowledge that more than supplied me with enough material to write a hundred articles.

Coming from a fine art background, I also knew the only way to really learn about a subject was ‘hands on’ experience. So at the same time I started to really implement RSS tactics on my own sites to get ‘first-hand’ evidence to prove or back up my articles and writing. I concentrated on website RSS techniques that worked with the major Search Engines; starting my own blogs and RSS feeds to enhance my sites and manipulating the search engines, feeding the spiders with very legit content to build targetëd traffíc to any keyword or market sector I wanted to promote.

Experiences that have opened my eyes wider than they have been since kindergarten and RSS is still surprising me at every turn. Only after I had started researching and writing about RSS did it dawn on me that I had no idea just how Big a Player RSS is becoming and will become in the very near future. The impact will be felt in all areas of the web.

Some of the major ones:

Google Blog Search - Which now opens up the whole area of blog content and feeds to the one search engine that counts. Google also finally embraced RSS despite its major investment in the other syndication standard - Atom. Google bought Blogger.com a while back which promotes the Atom feed.

Microsoft’s Windows - The next version of Windows - Vista - will have RSS embedded into its operating system. This will open up RSS to the mass market. This will put RSS center stage for computer and Internet users.

Google Sitemaps - This XML powered system lets you update and quickly index your site’s pages in Google.

Podcasting - The enormous popularity of sending audio files or podcasting is opening up a whole new audience for RSS.

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