Slashdot Mirror
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."
Because everyone on Slashdot already KNOWS about Firefox. They're targeting average Joe who thinks Internet Explorer is "The Internet".
How abt other papers?
Why does yahoo do this
If I lived in NY I would definatly go for this. Instead of getting a $15 t-shirt this kind of endorsemnt is more unique, and seems like a great way to send the message that Firefox has arrived.
This ad won't be run until Firefox 1.0 is complete, I hope.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
If they download Firefox and have any problems with it at all they will go back to IE and never consider Firefox again.
why? Almost ALL people have problems with windows constantly, yet they do not switch to a Mac and never consider Microsoft again...
you overestimate people.
For now, I've got our IT guy's blessing on running FireFox on my computer, but if they find out that it bypasses their fancy card-based security system...
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
Talk about facts. My website which is mostly hit from slashdot referrers throughout the day has stats that look like this:
1 12576 38.70% MSIE 6.0
2 12435 38.27% Mozilla/5.0
Now, I realize that browsers can fake this information but let's assume that it's basically correct. Just about any hit that comes from a referrer outside of slashdot is not Firefox/Moz.
The newspaper campaign is not entirely about switching instanatly. Its about 'recognition'.
Next time the executives are playing golf and one of us techies who was lucky to be there mentions Firefox in some offtopic conversation, the exeucutive might respond: "Right. Right. I remember something like that in NYT a couple of weeks ago. Remind me again in the office tomorrow".
And then you know that you have made a breakthrough.
Remember the golden mantra of marketing: Its all about brand recognition.
Free XBox, PS2
Nothing is ever completely ready. If you want to wait for absolute perfection, you'll never make it in to the world.
Furthermore, technology doesn't have to be 100% to become widely adopted. If you look through the relatively short history of IT alone, you'll find plenty of examples where something not quite perfected became widely adopted and examples of elegant technologies never gaining a foothold.
The questions Firefox advocates have to ponder is if Firefox is Good Enough and is IE (not to MS bash, but that's the competition) market / mind share showing cracks. I believe the answer to both is 'yes'. YMMV.
Experience is subjective. But I'm seeing Firefox more often these days. My household uses Firefox when they would refuse to fire up the old Mozilla even after I installed it. I see Firefox on more and more desktops... even those who are fairly strong Microsoft fans. And I've over-heard conversations among non-techies where Firefox was recommended several times.
None of this is earth-shattering. And it doesn't eliminate the bugs and issues facing Firefox. But it does show an adoption rate that I just didn't see with the old Mozilla. And that implies that Firefox is getting something right that neither Mozilla or IE did or does.
Firefox has a chance to take it's shot right now. It might be a risk. But there are indications that the time is right. And if it doesn't take its shot now, when it has its chance and standards are still mostly open and adhered to, it may not have that chance in the future.
I have been a fan of Firefox since before 0.1 and just bought $80 of stuff from the Mozilla Store, but I do not like the way the Mozilla Foundation is going.
5 6302&action=view> by the powers that be is that Firefox 1.0 be distrubuted under what they call an "end user license agreement" that disallows modification or distribution, and that restricts what you can use Firefox for--similar to the terms of Microsoft's software. If this happens, I will not be using Firefox in the future. It might even be argued that developers of Mozilla's software should have taken head of warnings about the NPL and MPL by FSF et al. This is an example of why copyleft is superior to less-restrictive licenses (especially ones that put less restrictions on certain organisations as special cases).
Personally, I think if they better integrated themselves with the FOSS community and started using traditional FOSS methods (as well as enocuranging the FOSS community to spread the word), this would help their marketing a lot better than an ad in the NYT. I do not object to the ad of itself--it may be a good idea--but it is an example of the way MF are thinking--specifically thinking ("monopoly"..."stagnant"...) about abusing their power over what is a brilliant piece of software.
>>in open source history<< (from story)
The *real* *question* is whether Firefox is free or open-source? My real objection is the attempts of people at MF to make Firefox neither (i.e.: proprietary). The whole thing about making the name and artwork proprietary a while back was not so bad (although it certainly led people to question MF's morality), as it was easy to remove references to "Firefox" or "Mozilla" and all the relevant artwork (but it still means that official builds are not free and do not follow DFSG).
The latest proposal <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=1
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
I downloaded the latest Firefox version for OS X but it just doesn't cut it for me. I use Safari and I love the minimalist interface. Even the way Tabs are presented in Safari is perfectly thought out. Firefox is slowing gaining ground in the interface department but it's still too 1997. It has a few extra features but I don't have a pressing need for any of them. I also don't see any speed advantages. I wish them luck against IE for Windows world, but Safari already won that battle on OS X.
With this line of thinking, we should instead be taking out ads on KFC buckets.