Google Chrome has a big flaw and I'm not sure Google even sees that fact.

No, I'm not talking about the carpetbomb flaw. I'm talking about something that could curse the browser from day one and is caused by how smart all the guys at Google are.

Yes, I said caused by how smart they are.

So far, all the cool pluses of using Chrome are really technical in nature. All the comics in the world won't change the fact that Jim who uses IE7 really doesn't care if each tab is a process. He probably still doesn't know how to open new tabs anyway. Jim just wants an easy answer that browses the web. If your website doesn't work well with his browser, he's much more likely to browse elsewhere than to replace the browser.

All the geeks in the world (sans Microsoft) can't change the fact that all the coolness in Chrome really only appeals to those who really understand what's going on. Remember Betamax? The general consensus is that it was a better format than VHS but still VHS won out. No consumer cares how technically better Betamax was. Only the A/V geeks cared. If you don't know what Betamax or VHS was, take my word for it. The technically better product rarely wins in the market.

Chrome could easily fall into this trap. Firefox was embraced by Geeks worldwide and grabbed a part of the market, certainly. I would say given a finished product a large percentage of Firefox users would switch. But, those are also the same users who understand on some level what is better about another browser that still renders their favorite websites exactly the same way as their last one did.

The only way Google can win this war is to make GMail and Google Maps and perhaps even Google search work significantly and visually better only if you have Chrome. That's right - they will need to take a page from Microsoft's book in order to beat Microsoft at their own game.

If nothing else, it's going to be a fun ride!