The under-appreciated business of browser extensions
Are browser extensions finally having their moment in 2021?
Once upon a time in the desktop web browsers…
Well, extensions have been around for years. If you’re an early 2000s internet user like myself, you may remember those annoying Internet Explorer (R.I.P) toolbars.
Then, in the early 2010s, come Firefox and Chrome, both support extensions - a small software module sitting next to the address bar that enhance your browsing experience. As these browsers start eating market share from Internet Explorer, users start finding extensions more useful.
I bet many of you have Google Translate, AdBlock, Grammarly installed on your browser. But how many people would occasionally go on and discover new ones? I guess not much. Because something else caught our attention.
Smartphones come along and take over
During the same time, smartphone quickly gained the spotlight and soon surpassed desktop as the main internet communicator. The presses cover stories of indie developers earning fortune and fame overnight. Smartphone app stores democratize software development and distribution. Users turn to apps as the medium for consumptions. Mobile apps spending reaches record high in 2020 and still growing at double-digit.
But browser extensions did not sit still in this period, they are just less… known. Chrome (now holding 63% of browser market share) launched its own web store, a billion-dollar business is built entirely on the concept of browser extensions, a few cool ideas got covered on the news, but that’s it. Out of 188k extensions available, 87% of them have fewer than 1,000 installs, feel like a ghost town. For 2.94 billion Chrome users, extension is surely an underutilized use case. And that’s why businesses should look into it.
Businesses need to stand out in the crowded marketplace
App Store and Play Store are flooded with app. Android has 2.7m apps and iOS has around 2m. It has become critical for businesses to innovate, differentiate, and establish distribution channels. Relying on store alone is not sufficient as only a third of consumers found traditional discovery method (app store recommendation, searching, ads) are helpful. Mobile users are not loyalty either. 71% of app users churn within the first 90 days.
Many people are bullish on building community to solve the customer acquisition and retention issues. I agree with that, but I also believe in the case of building a browser extension, for three reasons:
- It’s a much less crowded place: average number of users per extension is 11 to 25 times higher than per app. That leave a lot of opportunity to reach potential users as well as advocates who realize the underappreciated use of extensions and refer them to new people. Mobile-first has become a norm for app experience design, but if everybody else is doing it, it means you invite yourself into a competitive landscape. Maybe starting your customer journey somewhere else would increase your total addressable market (TAM) by including use cases that are non mobile-first.
- The real estate is limited, and that a good thing. With just a small space next to the horizontal address bar left for extensions, the winning ones would have no issue catching user’s attention, increasing engagement and stickiness. Comparing to mobile, you must compete with at least 80 apps spanning multiple home screens.
- PC is here to stay. PC shipments climbs 13% during the pandemic, highest over a decade. When old is new again, people find themselves needing a bigger screen and a keyboard. With 63% of users use multiple devices sequentially to accomplish a task, there is no doubt that PC still play an important part in customer success. And unlike the mobile counterpart, Microsoft and Apple (dominating the PC space) do not force the store model in their OSes, leaving web browsers an opened portal to access the internet and its contents. Extension would, therefore, act like an enhancement to the overall customer experience.
My favorite newfound extensions
With that saying, over the past few months, I found myself discovering and incorporating new extensions into my daily web browsing. Here are some of my favorites.
Toucan — Learn a language while browsing
Education | https://jointoucan.com/
Currently a French learner (cependant, je parle français pas bien 🙈), I know how hard it is to build a habit, which is deemed as crucial when learning a new language. Mobile apps like Duolingo, Memrise are working hard on that with curated gamification. Toucan’s offering as a browser extension, on the other hand, seems so effortless! If Toucan started as an app, it would have needed to compete for your screen time. But as an extension, the learning experience flows naturally, you’ll be using Toucan as you browse the internet. That’s stickiness!
Dex — Contact Management
Productivity | https://getdex.com
Dex is a modern approach for your phonebook. Its browser extension replaces manual data entry, scrapping information right from your connection on LinkedIn, Twitter to add as new contact, making the cross-platform experience more seamless. Dex’s browser extension is also designed as part of a self-serve bottom-up journey. Once enjoyed using the extension towards a certain limit, customers will discover a paid plan to continue.
Fready — Reading mode + Web bookmarking
Productivity | https://fready.co
This is an interesting take on read-it-later extensions (the like of Pocket or Raindrop). Fready provides a solution that helps you stay focused while reading in this distracting online world. I found it superior to the built-in immersive reader mode. Its digital health awareness approach seems very appealing to attract customers. Fready’s use case then expands to pdf reading as a paid plan once users are convinced about its effectiveness.
Here comes the “But…”
What are opportunities without risks. Even though I’m very bullish about focusing on browser extension for customer acquisition, engagement and retention, here are a few risks that the initiative may face:
- Too niche: Given the limited types of content that browser extensions are giving access to, there may not be a lot of use cases to begin with. Not to mention, extensions download would not be as big as the app's consumption on mobile. During the pandemic, apps downloads rocket, PC shipments rise again, browser extension installs boost?— no news.
- Chicken and egg: the mobile app or the extension, which one to start with? Given how niche and less attractive the extension use case is, it can be difficult to scale, developers would, therefore, go with mobile app most of the time.
- Mobile experience coming to PC: the biggest assumption for browser extension to succeed is the desktop environment continues to be open. Apple still honors that when releasing its Mac M1 series. However, we all know that both Apple and Microsoft are chasing the marketplace model for their OSes. Would that happen, apps will become the main medium for consumption again, just as on mobile. Features like inter-app communication and handoff would replace current cross-device experience provided by extension.
