How’s this for some super-smart marketing?

Let’s say you’ve got a web browser that competes with the number one player in the market. And let’s also say that your name is Google and your competitor is Microsoft. Now, if you wanted to provide people with a strong motivation for switching from the other guy’s browser to yours, what would you do?

Most reasonable answers would include:

• Make your browser faster
• Make it more secure
• Have it be compatible with more websites
• Don’t force people to upgrade from one version to another to get new and improved functionality – just add those features invisibly in the background

Google has done all of that.

Yet Microsoft’s Internet Explorer continues to dominate the browser landscape, albeit with a smaller position than they once enjoyed.

So what to do? Well, how about you reach out to Rovio, the software publisher responsible for the most successful time-waster since Solitaire, namely, Angry Birds – and convince them to offer a free version of the game that can be played on the web – but only in your browser.

Done and done.

If you happen to use Chrome, steer your browser over to the Chrome Web Store and pick up your free copy of Angry Birds (complete with some Chrome-inspired web-exclusive levels).

And of course, if you don’t use Chrome, I’m sure Google is hoping that this was the incentive you were waiting for.

[Source: Techland]

Update: Well ok here’s what happens when you don’t quite do all your research… Despite the fact that nowhere on Rovio’s blog announcement does it say this, it turns out this game works just fine in IE 9, Firefox 4 and Opera too. So, feel free to ignore all of the not-so-clever explanation above and just enjoy all of the Angry Bird goodness, regardless which browser you happen to be using.