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Firefox Seeks Full Page Ad in New York Times
blakeross writes "Join us over at Spread Firefox as we raise funds for the most ambitious launch campaign in open source history. A portion of each donation will go towards taking out a full-page ad in the New York Times celebrating the release. All donors will be listed in the ad, the signatories of a declaration of independence from a monopolized and stagnant web."
the signatories of a declaration of independence from a monopolized and stagnant web
That type of hyperbole does nothing to help spread free software. I certainly hope the print-ad doesn't lower itself to these levels.
Trolling is a art,
"...all these people use firefox! switch!"
nonetheless, it should be interesting to see...
Firefox will only get a single shot with most users. If they download Firefox and have any problems with it at all they will go back to IE and never consider Firefox again.
Firefox is still gaining ground against IE. It may be better to wait a little longer and let Firefox muture a bit more before trying to convert the general masses with this type of advertising campaign.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
In this case, the grass roots are doing the marketing...
It's quite ironic, actually incredibly ironic, that a process that is almost entirely driven by word of mouth would aim for promotion using above the line advertising.
Personally, and this is just an opinion, I reckon that money would be better spent on wining and dining journalists and trying to get Firefox on the cover of Times Magazine.
Or, alternatively, try to get Firefox banned for violating obscenity laws. That is usually excellent for publicity.
But a full-page advert? Seems kind of boring.
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Actually, unlike IE, pages render correctly in Firefox, including Slashdot. Just because a site isn't done properly and thus isn't displayed in Firefox as it is IE (which apparently will accept horseshit for HTML), doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with Firefox. I understand that this is not exactly what you implied, but it is a common misconception nonetheless.
On the other hand, there are VERY few pages that display weird in Firefox, with Slashdot being the only prominent example that I can come up with. However, many people are still only developing for IE, which is shit, and thus their pages are shit, and look like shit when rendered correctly in Firefox (though this is rare).
The bottom line is that you can't wait for the web to change. You have to make it change. Go download Firefox and at some point when browser usage is no longer 95% IE (and it already is much less on some sites), the web will change.
Why not USA TODAY? If the purpose of the ad is to spread awareness AND educate-USA today or the Wall Street Journal would be a better choice. Not to get into an argument about the political leanings of the paper, the Times readership tends to be more informed and better educated about this topic.
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The percentage of all web sites that are designed for Internet Explorer's bugs is tiny and shrinking. Serious companies that depend on their websites for business (banks, Amazon, online stockbrokers) got the message long ago; I haven't found a website that I need that I can't use with Mozilla or Firefox, in quite a long time.
Cutting-edge web designers, like Eric Meyer, have been leading the way to standards-based pages for years.