What I hear you saying is...

I can't remember how quickly I've ever rescinded a ringing endorsement for a product, but let me attempt to break that record:

1) Turns out Chrome is dog slow on my wireless connection at home, while IE and FireFox run circles around it. What gives?

2) I finally got around to reading the "comic" PR piece. I don't care how great the product is -- you can double your douche-bag points for that piece of tripe. Ugh.

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I can't remember the last time a product release actually made me say "wow" out loud.

Wow.

I am generally one of the first in line to slander new products from G that don't live up to their potential (i.e. all of them except Maps and Mail) but my first impressions of Google's new "Chrome" browser is that they've completely captured the essence of what made their search engine so successful: Simple, fast, effortless.

The page load times compared to IE and Firefox on my XP machine are so wildly different, I'm not sure I'll ever go back to using either of these other browsers except to retrieve bookmarks or to test Topix site changes. And finally, a browser that really capitalizes on the user-behavior pattern of typing random search strings in the URL bar? That's just common sense.

Simply put, this is a change that I would recommend to my mother. And I don't think that's happened since I told her to dump Y! search in favor of G.

Another nail in the MSFT coffin.

For example, when composing a portrait, a photographer needs to consider where the subject is looking -- especially if it is away from the camera. All sorts of visual tension is created depending on how you frame your subject.

You'll often see this rule in action while reading newspapers. For example, if you have a person in the photo looking to the right, then that is where the page designer will try to position the text. If he puts it on the left, the article will seem disassociated from the photo.

Used effectively, it can create an interesting look. Used poorly, it just seems like bad photography.

Exhibit A:

Remarks: WTF???

However, when it comes to advertising I rarely see creative that uses visual tension without being completely intrusive and annoying. The window-shade, roll-down units are probably the worst, followed closely by the floating fly-bys for solicitations to register or take surveys.

So I'm intrigued with this new composition by Apple:

They've occupied both the 728 banner position, as well as the right rail. You've basically got Mac-guy and PC-guy having a conversation that physically (virtually?) flows across the upper-right corner of the content you are reading. Even with the sound off, I am intrigued to hear what they are saying!

Certainly, sustaining the dialog between these characters is a great (and obvious?) campaign-extension from the TV ads, but it's also neat how they're able to get my attention without being intrusive. And somehow I doubt shoving their two heads at opposite ends of a 728 banner would have been as effective.