14 DAY TRIAL // It appears that Microsoft’s strategy to have Internet Explorer 9 put websites at the center is working. Part of this strategy involves providing a modern, slim, sleek graphical user interface focused on core functionality; delivering as much screen real estate space for web experiences as possible, and really pushing the browser into the background.
But there’s an additional key IE9 feature that plays an important role in having sites take center-stage on the desktop.
IE9 users running the browser in Windows 7 are able to pin websites to the Taskbar/Superbar just as they would any other application.
According to the Redmond company, sites that have taken advantage of the Pinning capabilities of IE9 have experienced a boost in user engagement.
“Huffington Post built a news experience taking advantage of Pinned Sites in IE9. Overall, they saw an 11% increase in page views and 14% lower bounce rate. More interesting they found that users that pinned HuffPost spent 49% more time on the site,” revealed Microsoft’s Ziad Ismail.
“hi5 built a social gaming experience taking advantage of Jump Lists in IE9. Overall, Hi5 saw that pinned users viewed 15% more pages. These users also became much more active responding to 3x more social requests (like new friends, game invites, messages).”
In order to pin a site to the Taskbar all that users have to do is launch the URL in IE9, then click on the website’s favicon (the small icon that appears in the One Box) and drag it to Windows 7’s Superbar. Yes, it’s that simple.
IE9 hit the Release Candidate development milestone last week, with the last pre-RTW Build having been downloaded in excess of 2 million times in just a few days after launch.
The RC is a chance for users to test the feature-complete Build of IE9 before the browser is released to web.
IE9 RC Supports HTML5 Geolocation, Advances Interoperability
IE9 Privacy and Security Evolve with the RC, Tracking Protection Now Available
IE9 RC Performance Superior to IE9 Beta, to All Rival Browsers
Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Release Candidate (RC) Build 9.0.8080.16413 is available for download here.