Web Browser Sacred Cows Finally Put Down!

One of the sacred cows of internet marketing is making sure that people can actually view your content.  It’s kind of hard to sell your goods if you’re only creating pages properly viewable on IE 9 beta or using features that are only available for browsers running the latest version of Chrome.

Another sacred cow –and one that drives me crazy- is screen resolution.  Keep  it above the fold or else no one will buy!  And the data backs that up.  If you can’t say the important stuff above the fold, you’re certainly not meeting the 8 second rule, and a sale is probably rarer than an honest person on Capital Hill.

Right.

So, what’s the point?  In a nutshell, all that stuff you learned half a decade ago is pretty much obsolete by now.  1024×768 is no longer the default browser size AND IE6 is virtually non-existent!

According to the latest data, just this year have seen IE6 drop from 10.2% to just 4.8% browser share!  IE7 is not far behind, commanding a decent 7.2% share.

Internet Explorer as a whole, in October of 2010, has dropped below 30% browser market share for the first time!
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

Further data tells us that 76% of browsers have higher than a 1024×768 resolution.  You can break down the stats here:
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp

This data couldn’t be better.  It means that everything that we ‘know’ about internet marketing is beginning to change and we can finally start rolling out some new innovative ideas that we’ve been too worried about leaving too many people behind.  Forget it!  And let’s start testing these new theories and finally be done with some of the most closely hallowed sacred cows of internet marketing design!