what happened to the fourth estate?
Opera overtook Apple's mobile Safari as the most popular browser for a phone in May, according to data from StatCounter.
My daily trawl through the news sites is becoming a frustrating affair.
My latest gripe is many journalists seem to have graduated from reporting the facts to predicting the future. Case in point: an article in BusinessWeek today predicting the demise of the Pre, three days before its launch (?!). A word from the wise: stick to the facts; why risk your credibility? Leave the predictions to the experts.
But my biggest complaint relates to declining quality control and the rise of sensationalism. "Opera's Mobile Browser Surpasses iPhone's Safari" screams InformationWeek. "Opera... [is] the most popular browser" (see above).
Um, wrong.
First off, popularity and market share are not the same thing. 'Popular' has a couple of meanings, but in this context, the implication is that people favour Opera over the other browers or, if given the choice, would pick it over Safari.
Opera and iPhone Safari are not competing in the same market. For iPhone users, Opera isn't an option. Likewise, Safari isn't an option for people who don't have iPhones. Opera is competing with Microsoft, not Apple.
The claim that Nokia is in third place is equally flawed. Like Apple, Nokia doesn't make browsers for WinMob (as far as I know). The difference here is that Opera does make a Symbian browser. So how does Opera stack up against Nokia? We don't know because InformationWeek hasn't bothered to make the distinction.
The icing in the cake is the implication that downloads is indicative of market share. What about actual use? What about the fact that Microsoft, Safari and Nokia web browsers come pre-installed?
As far as I can tell, the only thing that you can deduce from these figures is that more people are downloading Opera. Don't get me wrong, this is a good thing, ya? I am happy for Opera. Let's just get the facts right.
