The people who will help make this video go viral will of course be missing the real point.

The real point is not that some random people at Times Square don't know the difference between a browser and a search engine. Just like the late night shows which pull the same trick, Google of course had to run through a lot of people in order to get not just the wrong answer, but the specific kind of wrong answer they were after. And that wrong answer helps shine a light on what Google is after with Chrome.

For Microsoft their key product that leverages their monopoly is the OS, namely Windows. For Google, it's search. That ubiquitous white box that produces Google search results with Google AdSense ads, the real source of Google's income. While Microsoft tried to leverage its OS monopoly for a monopoly in other areas, such as office software or browsers, Google leverages its search monopoly to extend its search monopoly. And Google clearly sees the browser as just a tool for driving traffic to its search engine.

That's why Google has rolled out Chrome Frame, like a virus determined to embed itself even into the browsers of users who won't upgrade manually. Google doesn't really care whether you install Google Chrome. There's no financial or geek incentive. Google Chrome is just another way that Google uses to embed itself deeper and deeper into the lives of millions of users in order to protect its search monopoly.