Tabs – the most valuable screen real estate

As I’m writing this, I have 20 tabs open in my web browser. Of those, the five latest are newly opened and temporary part of things I’m currently researching.

15 tabs are fixed, they’re always the same. Those tabs contain the websites I visit everyday, my most important windows into the Internet. Controlling one of those tabs means you control 1/15th of the information flow I receive every day – I can’t think of a more important pathway for any company to fight for.

Google, a company that currently owns four of those tabs, announced that they’re giving up on one of them today.

It’s either a sign of just how ubiquitous your business is anyway, or a very bad strategic decision. I guess time will tell – it looks like a service that previously had no mindshare with me might get to take over.

This particular ocean is red.