Update to yesterday’s post and also an earlier one about Apple’s new version of Safari for Windows.

Why would Apple develop a product for Windows? Aren’t they arch rivals and bitter enemies? Gossip is flying that Apply did it just for the (gasp!) money. Can it be true? What would the shareholders say?

Apple isn’t talking, but others are. Get the dish here.

From a marketing standpoint, the interesting question is: How can something that’s free (Web browsers) make money for the people who created them and give them away?

Answer: When Firefox users use the Google search field in the Firefox toolbar (instead of going to Google’s home page), Google shares a piece of the financial action. It’s a tiny share (if I know Google) but Mozilla’s CEO admits it adds up to “tens of millions of dollars” a year for the open source developers.

Gee, why would Apple wants a piece of that? Only Steve Jobs knows for sure — but maybe the Fake Steve Jobs will spill the beans.

FWIW, Safari currently has around 5 percent of the browser market share, compared to Internet Explorer’s 78 percent and 15 percent for Firefox.

Safari for Windows is supposed to be faster than either Microsoft’s IE or open-source Firefox. Steve Jobs says it’s faster, so it must be true, right?

But that certainly wasn’t my experience. I found it much slower to boot and to load pages. (See the original post here.) And now Wired has run some comparative speed tests that confirm Firefox really is faster (although not by much).

Whew. Thought I was losing it.

Imus in the Morning used to promote itself as “This ain’t your mother’s morning show.” Actually, it turns out, it is. And your grandmother’s too.

The comments I’ve received suggest that Imus fans are not predominantly male, as one might have expected. There are lots of females, too, as young as college age and extending well into their 80s. A lot more older women than I would have expected.

Other comments reveal:

• They don’ t mind being called I-Hos. (Even the guys.) One told me, “Being an I-ho sure beats being a media ho!”
• Petitions are now being circulated to pressure MSNBC and CBS to bring him back.
• A rally will be held in NYC on June 29, when the petitions will be presented to the three media outlets. Imus supporters are coming from as far away as Washington State — now that’s a dedicated fan!
• Somebody has started a “fake” Imus blog. A commenter tipped me off to it, and I must say, it’s pretty funny. The guy writes like Imus talks, so if your ears are offended by vulgarity, don’t go there.Wait a minute, what am I saying? These are Imus fans!

With apologies to Steven Stills:

“If you can’t watch the Imus you love,
now you can read the Imus you’ve got.”

Don Imus and his abrupt (and unfair) ouster from the airwaves continues to stir passionate comments. 100% of the comments I got support the I-Dude, mostly in passionate terms. (Where are the others? The witch hunters and haters? Maybe they’re busy hounding other public figures.)

While the sample was tiny — OK, infinitesimal — the demographic range of the commenters astounds me. Who knew the I-Man had millions of fans in every age bracket, from a 76 year-old female in NJ (actually, just one of several in their 70s) to today’s most recent comment from a 21 year-old college senior named Michelle.

I found Michelle’s comments to be especially eloquent and insightful. They certainly reflect well on her and her so-called “slacker” generation. Take a look:

“Believe it or not, a lot of kids my age enjoyed the I-Man… If you go on Facebook or other social networking sites, you’ll see a lot of kids who are in Imus in the Morning fan groups. I fell in love with (the show) because I love politics, news, and comedy. While I enjoy The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, I think the Imus show was superior, simply because it had longer interviews, more discussion, and a great deal of humorous conversation.”

Like me (and you, no doubt) Michelle loved the variety Imus delivered.

“Sometimes it was a comedy show; sometimes it was news and politics; sometimes it was an activism/progressive show; sometimes it was a music program. It was really a marvelous thing… One thing I also loved… was that it was not a partisan hack program. Most news shows only offer the “left” opinion or the “right” opinion. Even though Imus and his cast mostly leaned Republican, they called BS when they saw it on *any* topic. I really appreciated that.

Watching Imus made her feel like she was pulling a fast one on advertisers while thumbing her nose at popular culture.

“As a young female, advertisers expect me to be obsessed with Gilmore Girls or Laguna Beach or whatever. Yet here I was… tuning into a crazy old man in a cowboy hat… The news reports (gave) the impression that Imus fans were nothing but a bunch of old ignorant racist Klansmen. To paraphrase one of the previous commenters, I am young, female, and educated – and proud to be an I-Ho.”

What about you? Are you also proud to be an I-Ho?

BTW, guys — does that term apply to us, too?

Want a sure-fire strategy for building a successful Web business? Line up customers first, then create a business to serve them.

It’s an approach that’s working for the UK’s David Carter, says Business 2.0. Carter identifies a business niche or a hot growth area like commercial real estate. Then he buys domain names around the topic. He saves money by shunning pricey domains for URLs with hyphens, such as commercial-property.co.uk/.

He builds the sites, adds content, and waits for customers. When inquiries come in, Carter steers them to an acquaintance or a local business he’s partnering with. In many cases, Carter simply becomes the middleman, using the Web to attract willing buyers that he hands off to others for a fee.

To satisfy a flood of eager customers, Carter turned his original AsbestosSurveys.com site into an actual business, called AsbestosServices.com. He took a half-week course, got certified, and teamed up with a friend. Today, once or twice a week — essentially whenever he feels like getting out of the house — Carter surveys a property, armed with a digital camera and notepad. He claims the effort will net the pair about $350,000 this year.

Not too shabby for a guy who knew absolutely nothing about asbestos when he started.

Carter’s way, in brief:

1. Identify an overlooked need for services kicked up by, for instance, relatively obscure regulatory changes.
2. Construct a first-rate website with a generic domain name that will draw in prospective customers.
3. With clients in hand, create the business, providing the service yourself or subcontracting to established players.