Kamalesh Thakker

Opera Pushing For Better Awareness in North America

Saturday, 19. September 2009, 01:52:23

Interesting article in BBC about Opera raising awareness of their innovative desktop and mobile browsers in the US & Canada. Opera CEO, Jon von Tetzchner, is in the US and consider their options on how to make it happen.

Given Opera's giant share in Russia (36%), Ukraine (43%) and other countries, I've always found it strange that more users don't take advantage of Opera in the U.S., given its user-friendly benefits (too many to name now).

Advertising can't be the reason because how can Russians or Ukrainians perceive Opera to be so great with zero advertising? I mean, 43% -- FORTY-THREE -- of Ukrainians actually went out of their way to download Opera for a better, faster web experience...instead of using the default IE browser (no Apple presence there yet, it seems).

Any ideas why? If you're in Russia or Ukraine, would love to hear the Opera buzz there.

Secret Feature in Gmail (Opera-only)Google Half-Disses Opera - Again

Comments

danaleks # 22. September 2009, 07:14

The most recent numbers from StatCounter shows that Chrome has a slow but steady growth in North-America. Google are putting their ads for Chrome in front of other ads on their network. This clearly indicates that ads are the way to go in the U. S.

By the end of October, we should see the effects of Opera 10.

leirom # 23. September 2009, 03:29

Yes, ads and brands are important in USA.

Maybe quality is important in Russia and Ukraine?

Chas4 # 26. September 2009, 16:20

I use Opera and I am in the US

kamalesh # 27. September 2009, 19:59

Yeah, maybe ads/branding is important in the US, but shown by Google paying big bucks to Sony to pre-load Chrome on Vaio laptops, just hoping for downloads isn't easy -- or even doable.

FF's growth is a testament to their great community effort, but also, to Google's support. Advertising FF on every Google site and testing it for not only compatibility, but for speed cannot be understated.

(Note that Google is leaving off Opera from the browser pop-up for Google Wave.)

Chas4 # 28. September 2009, 01:05

Google does have Google Chrome ads on TV