IE 6 users should beware the Ides of March - or maybe a couple of days before
Published February 23, 2010
YouTube is set, this March 13, to become the latest big online player to dump support for Microsoft's ancient version 6 of Internet Explorer, a move which should have digital marketing professionals sitting up and paying attention.
IE 6 continues, despite its advanced age, to be the browser of choice for a significant fraction of the online public. Experts say that biggest reason for this is the fact that IE 6 came packaged with Windows XP, which is still the most widely used operating system. One Ecritic pundit asserts that this is support for his theory of the "digital path of least resistance. Folks will use whatever's provided to them. Do you honestly think anyone using IE 6 knows there's better out there? No. It's a 'it was there, so I used it' type of situation."
Digital marketing practitioners looking to target the less internet-savvy online customer will have to adjust their integrated marketing campaigns accordingly, since one of the web's most widely used sites will no longer function with one of the most widely used browsers.