Thursday, March 30, 2006

One of the many reasons I'm an avid user of the Firefox open source Web browser is its customizable search tool built into the location bar. If I want to search a specific online resource, like Wikipedia, I no longer have to take the time to visit that site -- I just select "Wikipedia" in my Firefox search and enter my query. Believe me, all those avoided clicks and page downloads can add up to significant convenience and saved time!

There's an ever-expanding list of Firefox search plugins that Firefox users can add to their search option list. These are created by independent developers. One thing that's struck me is that very few of these plugins are designed to search specific news organizations. For instance, there's no ready-made Firefox search plugin for my favorite local paper, the Denver Post.

From what I understand from talking to developers, building a Firefox search plugin is a fairly simple technical task. Firefox is steadily gaining market share, and the upcoming Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 will offer similar search capability (see toolbar search box), so offering a search plugin for your site might be an easy, low-cost way to gain audience goodwill and make your content conveniently accessible.

For a jump start on developing your own Firefox search plugin, try the free Rollyo tool, then have your developer tweak its results to display your logo. However you create your search plugin, first test the results then make the tool available via your site and MozDev.

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