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NYT Firefox Campaign Raises $250,000
ScytheBlade1 writes "The Firefox full-page NYT ad campaign finished off today with an impressive $250,000 over 10 days. Impressive to say the least, and it goes to show just how much momentum Firefox has."
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And congrats and not being vulnerable to the latest IT URL spoofing flaw. That one's so easy even a kid can do it.
Not that New York is the only place on earth I'd want to advertise FireFox; I've been signing it from the mountaintops for months now and haven't looked back. Are there any further marketing plans by the Mozilla group to spread the good word? Aside: I'm a little disappointed in myself for not having remembered to contribute. Oops. Guess it's T-Shirt time ...
But the NYT site uses popups! Won't Firefox block 'em? ;)
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
""The Firefox full-page NYT ad campaign finished off today with an impressive $250,000 over 10 days. Impressive to say the least, and it goes to show just how much momentum Firefox has.""
Or just how badly we want to get rid of IE.
An individual contribution of $30 will get your name included in the ad ($10 student rate).
The problem with $250,000 is that the ad might be 99% names, and 1% content.
On the guy that came up with the idea, Rob Davis.
Anyone interest in a similar campaign for Mozilla? I'll donate FeedTheLizard.com and FeedTheLizard.org to the cause.
That kind of money could be better used to finance developement.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
How much does an ad in the NYT cost?? 250K is enough to buy a house, or a superbadass server farm, or a Ferrari! You can't seriously tell me that an ad in the times costs as much as a Ferrari, that's ludicrous. They definitely need to take that extra money and go for some television ads. Or even give some to the developers, they deserve it.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
A mention of the spreadfirefox website on popular website slashdot.org brought new woes to the spreadfirefox team:
;)
"We completely went over our bandwidth for this month, and I was just served with a bill over $250'000 for this month's bandwidth usage!!"
to get /. to show correctly in firefox.
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The average user thinks the IE *is* the internet.
The key point then Is to educate the user that the browser is not the internet, but just software that accesses the web. And that Firefox is better at doing that and protecting them from intrusion.
Mozilla is dead...Long live Mozilla.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Notice that they were preparing for about 2,500 donors in 10 days at first. And at the end of the 10th day we have a donors from over 80 countries. Quite amazing.
If you don't remember, the original campaign was for 2500 people in 10 days (so we'll assume they'd raise about a quarter of the money ~$62,500) and even then they said not all of the money would go to the ad but to fund additional publicity for the launch. If we assume the ad costs the same, you see they probably have $200,000+ for other publicity... or a big slush fund.
Some of that 250K should go in development directly given to the mozilla foundation. They made firefox and they could always use more help financially. Who doesn't?
:D
Some of that other 250K should go in advertisement such as being a sponsor in rally events or something? We see HP/Compaq logos on McLaren in F1 so why not the Firefox logo?
http://www.nytadvertising.com/was/displayads/pages /contentDisplayAds/0,1024,,00.html?l1Id=6&l2Id=115 0/
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I see it among non tech-savy people. I have friends coming and asking me if i've tried it; in the cybercafe i work it's installed on every PC and something like 7 out of 10 clients choose it over IE.
I'm very happy to see this. I still like Opera better, but Firefox is a terrific browser. And the price is right.
Congrats to Firefox on the $250K! This is the stuff that sends ripples through the market and makes the CEOs stop and take notice. You don't just raise a quarter million dollars in less than two weeks unless you have something seriously good, or illegal!;-) Anyone in the browser or browser add-on business is going to have to take notice of this because it is real. Browser stats from various web sites are nice, and so are download stats. But at the end of the day, money talks louder than all of that, and $250K is some pretty loud speech!
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
"I was surfing in the net. And then, like, bleep bleep bleep bleep bleep! And then, like, half of the web page was gone. And I was, like, Huh?"
There is no big deal - someone just thought they'd like to see their name in lights by posting a nonsense bug to a popular mailing-list.
The New York Times is probably the most widely distributed newspaper in the world!
It's not just advertising in New York, Jeez!
Kids these days!
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
I think they should seriously consider doing a double full-page ad in the New York Times given how much they've raised. And see if they can do it in full color, too. =)
What are you smoking?
250K MIGHT buy you ONE 30 second spot in prime time!
You reach MANY more people with a newspaper.
They also have the time to read all the information that is presented rather than getting up to go to the bathroom or pushing the ">>" button on the Tivo.
And, yes, this is a fair price for the ad. It's just the laws of supply and demand.
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
Ummmm.. shouldn't that be 42? Jeez what a non-geek you are.
People contributing to a fund is not momentum, it's charity.
"Just goes to show how much charity Firefox can endear" would be
more accurate statement.
I still say they should've bought the ad in USA Today instead. NYT has limited average-Joe distribution. USA Today is sold in all the cheesy work cafeterias where America's IT workers take their morning coffee. It's in every 7-11 (well, those in the States anyway) where the non-IT workers take *their* morning coffee. What the blazes is a NYT ad going to do, other than waste precious money?
Don't get me wrong, I'm typing this post in Firefox right now, it's undoubtedly a great browser, but wouldn't $250 000 be better spent fighting third world poverty or providing clean drinking water?
Of course, when one compares it to the vast sums of money spent on unnecessary gas-guzzling 'SUVs' it doesn't seem so bad after all..
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
or just go nytadvertising.com,click 'display ads',click '2004 category rates'.
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The 99% name list is the content. It sends a clear message.
to get slashdot to be standards compliant.
Open two tabs. ,firefox displayes the url you've just typed in the address bar.
In one tab open a url, and wait for it to load.
Then open another URL that you know will take a while to load
Switch to the other tab and back again.
Firefox now displays the url of the old page in the address bar.
Way to go, maybe try mistyping the url in a blank tab, switch to another tab, switch back... wow it's blank, cheers for blanking out my typo firefox.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Yeah, even Osama Bin Laden could get modded up on Slashdot by posting that. michael would probably post a submission by him, too.
And I'm wondering if it's still possible to send in a donation?
-kidlinux.
"While it's an unusual situation in advertising to have a special interest group endorse rather than criticize a product, it's not unheard of," said Toby Usnik, director of public relations for the New York Times.
Sounds kinda like a certain political race taking place at this very moment.
Deltron 3030 - Virus (music video)
From my sister's house after she got infected by ad/spyware through IE, it completely corrupted Windows meaning a reinstallation was necessary, after doing that I instantly installed Firefox as default (with AdAware), somebody else who will not be using IE again (I made sure to drum it into her) and now she's surfing via Firefox and loving it.
No more racing to close 1,000 pop-ups every time the browser is opened or she goes to a website.
IE is rather like a virus, in a bad way, now let's make Firefox spread and spread through word of mouth like a virus.
IE, your time is up, just like the 90s, and now there's a new kid in town.
Yeah, just yesterday my sister asked me why I don't have the internet on my computer I replied to her by blatantly asking, "What the fuck are you talking about?" Of course her reply was where did that Internet Explorer icon go. Just to show you how IE is dominating the damn browser market, people don't even know there is other software that can be used to visit websites (other than AOL users).
I just tried it. Here I thought I was going to be all smug. Guess it's time to put FireFox on my Mac too.
"terrorism" and "pedophilia" are the root passwords to the Constitution
In my opinion, this is money that should be awarded to developers, and used to further the project. I'm glad that people love firefox so much, but did apache ever buy an ad in the NYT? Apache is the most popular web server in the world by all estimates. They never had to launch a massive media campaign, because they were simply the best product. That's the way firefox should be.
Also, Microsoft is going to see this as a direct threat. They have far more access to media (MSNBC anyone?) than mozilla ever will. If they were to launch a counter-campaign, which is exactly what they're being baited into to doing, they could scare a lot of people away from firefox, and all open source projects.
The money should be given to the developers who go relativly un-rewarded, and to foster the development of mozilla.
Think of the billions spent on the colonial war in Iraq. Now THAT is money that could have been spent in a better way.
And compared to that, $250.000 is nothing.
Privacy is terrorism.
If they have any sense they'll ghost the names in as 30percent grey text behind the real ad, so that you can read them, but they're not getting in the way.
That way they get across the fact that they are a community effort with broad support while still having space to make a few points about their focus on security and standards.
The Google of web browsers?
If I buy a quarter million happy meals for 10 million starving kids in Africa, that doesn't make a whole lot of long term difference. Some of those mico-loan programs might make a difference with a quarter million, but the limiting factor there is usually not money to lend, but people willing administer the program.
On the other hand, 250k in advertising could seriously have an impact on my personal economy. If fewer websites are built that are somehow IE only, and I have to deal with fewer viruses, then that makes a real difference. I think the 50k NYTimes ad will save the economy a lot more in wasted productivity due to IE problems.
They beat Blender, which required 100 000 Euro to be raised in order to buy out the source into GPL. But nevertheless I find the Blender fundraise more impressive as it didn't have a full page add for offering but "only" a cool piece of special software and a cool community.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Rob Davis is a marketer. He knows the importance of setting an exciting, simple, clearly-defined goal "Get a pull page ad on the NYT".
It's the kind of detail that makes the difference between "yeah, that's cool" and "I'll give some money NOW".
Open source needs more people like that. More ideas like that.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
A full page ad containing "Congrats on reaching version 1!" followed by a list of obscure names of geeks who donated will unfortunately have little or no impact with typical home users who are inexperienced or couldn't care less.
How many of these individuals can even tell you what version of the AOL InterWeb they are using now? Ask my mom which browser she uses and she'll say "MSN."
Personally, I'd rather see that money spent on an advertising campaign that communicates WHY people should use the browser in lieu of IE in very non-technical terms. Granted, 250g's won't get you much high-profile advertising, but it could still be used effectively.
Hopefully, this one ad isn't all the Spread Firefox group has planned.
zeia award
http://www.up0.com/
On the contrary, it goes to show the monumentality of the zeal in the small concentrated minority which constitute its supporters.
Makes sense. The best way to advertise a movie is to say how excited the masses are about it and how much momentum it has.
Ok. I hate MSIE but I wouldn't give 25$ to a free software www browser to advertise itself and pay the salary of the manager who spread rumors about its momentum.
People should calm down. There are 10 "extremely impressed" firefox advocators who flood the internet with the product. Take it easy.
The Times of India has a distribution of 2.14 million copies a day, and is by far the most widely circulated English daily in the world. Some Chinese language newspaper might be able to beat that though.
What percent of users (NB, not slashdot readers) would even *consider* turning off Javascript in their browser?
Although this specific campaign is over, you can still donate to the Mozilla Foundation at:
http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/donate.html
in any amount you choose...
Slashdot in 5 Paragraphs
Who modded this insightful? Damn it - this made me laugh out loud I wish i had mod points because Id be modding it funny for sure. Something about the self righteous use of the words "Monumentality of the Zeal" did it for me.
I wouldn't mind donating but I don't want my money going ot NYT.
uh, endear doesn't mean what you think it does. It's not what you'd use in that context. Hint, it means 'give pleasure to; be pleasing to'. You could use engender if you like.
I'd also take issue with your idea that momentum should be replaced by charity. The original quote was
"Impressive to say the least, and it goes to show just how much momentum Firefox has."
I interpret this to mean that Firefox (or implicitly the 'Switch to Firefox' movement) has a lot of momentum, as demonstrated by the fact so many people are willing to fork out cash to pay for the advert in support of it. You can't say (at least in any variation on English I'm familiar with)
"goes to show how much Charity Firefox has" (or even can endear)
So this was one of the least agrammatical stories I've read on Slashdot in a while. This was a public service announcement to prevent the abuse of the word 'endear'.
NYT sucks John Kerry.
Iam new to linux and the default browser that comes with DSL is too bad...[glinks-h]
Why does yahoo do this
Actually, the name "Mozilla Browser" is dead. Firefox will keep its name for good now, as will Thunderbird, Sunbird, Nvu and Co.
SCREW THE ADS! http://adblock.mozdev.org/ Proud user of teh Fox of Fire - Registered Linux User #289618
It's great that there is that much support... but I can think of some better things to do with 250000 dollars, such as hiring 5 full-time programmers for a year to work on all those open-source projects that most volunteer programmers don't want to work on... you know the stuff that isn't fun to work on. I'm sure the firefox ads will adopt a few more users, but overall will provide little bang for the buck. As far as advertising, I would have much rather seen a mass-mailing of CD's... just like what has worked for AOL. AOL got so popular because it was just thrown out to people. I don't really think nearly as many people would have gone out and downloaded the software if they had seen an ad or heard about it on TV. People can't be counted on it bite for anything... even if it's free. You have to make it very easy for them and you have to present some kind of prize to make it worth there while.
Blender And Linux Fan
Hell stamp out a few million cd's and get every damn convienence store in america to put them on the counter. I think the NYT ad is a cool thing but send out cd's just like the aol punks did.
Got Code?
Got into a tangle with some intolerant liberals, eh? They really are haters.
Oh, sure, Microsoft could (under a suitably bizarre set of circumstances) devote a full-page ad to promotion / defense / apology of Internet Explorer, but basically don't have much reason to. (In short, it's not a money maker.)
... and just like the local public broadcasting station, it seems like MS doesn't like to get just one donation.
However, that's not what I mean: what I'm saying is that Microsoft's users ("customers") and developers ("employees") don't love IE. They're not going to donate money to an advertising fund for IE simply because they think it's so good that everyone with a computer ought to at least consider it.
Now, you could say that Microsoft's customers are donating money, in part, to an advertising fund for MS and getting some "free gifts" in appreciation -- like spyware, viruses, Internet explorer
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
ah, your cover is blown. you know what a hard drive is. Now if you had said it was in you "white box with the blinking lights" or in your "screen", i might have beleived you.
"Nobody writes jokes in base 13." - Douglas Adams
As opposed to the rage Eric Rudolph showed bombing clinics in Birmingham, AL? Go stick your head in the sand and pretend you live in Plymouth, MA in 1720. Stupid bible-thumper...fairy tales are for kids.
...I don't see Firefox making any large-scale penetration onto the corporate networks unless you can manage it with Group Policies.
But on to the real topic, GJ FIREFOX!!!! I LOVE YOU!!!
Now be a good little browser and thank your friends, family, and god - even if you don't believe in one.
Yep. please tell the morons of sites like this:
Redmont Slaves
that you are an investor who just had to pass on the opportunity 'cause you could not read it.
This is *exactly* what keeps me from recommending FF to corporate clients. If you can't keep the user from adjusting their proxy settings or screwing with trusted domains, you will be doing more work and they will be doing less as time goes by.
Because the name "Mozilla" sounds childish and silly.
If your Nautilus is rendering web pages you've probably installed the nautilus view from Galeon, or you're using an ancient Nautilus version that rendered HTML with the now mostly defunct gtkhtml library...
If Microsoft see it as a threat... good. It may push them to fix their bloated and buggy browser.
Mozilla has had significant performance and reliability problems since it's creation. I am saddened that their apparent "solution" to this problem is to remove functionality (mail, news, irc) and then launch a massive marketing campaign to rebrand saying "hey, it IS fast and stable now". When Microsoft uses that type of strategy, we all circle jerk about how lame it is.
Firefox is still far slower than IE, especially under Linux and/or a five year old computer. The $250k would definitely be better spent fixing performance and stability issues--it's absurd that Halflife runs more responsively on many machines than Firefox.
For all the fanboys and fangirls about to mod me as a troll, here are some tests you need to go run:
1. Compare IE vs Firefox startup from cold boot. The "IE runs in the kernel!" argument is BS--both untrue and irrelevant.
2. Compare IE vs Firefox "New Window" latency.
3. Start Firefox under Linux. You will see a 5-10 second delay on most hardware. Sorry but Slackware, Gentoo,"-march=pentium4", etc, do not make much difference.
4. Open a link in a new window in Linux firefox, and try to scroll in the original window while it loads. Note that it's unresponsive for two or three seconds--despite Firefox using 5-10 threads.
5. Load a 16MB text file in Linux Firefox. Enjoy the kernel OOM killer and/or heavy swap thrashing.
6. Load a ~25 byte malformed HTML file and watch Firefox crash (google "mangleme" for further info). Note how it takes out ALL browser windows when it dies.
7. In terms of security: note the recent libpng problems (which are not really Firefox's fault, but the $250k could perhaps be used to fund an audit of the core libraries).
8. In terms of performance: some of the problems may result from poor code generation in g++ etc. So dedicate some of the money to the compiler guys and get it fixed, or rewrite critical sections in assembly for major arches, etc.
Anyway Firefox still has a long way to go. Given the complexity of their codebase I am afraid we may need to develop a new browser from scratch to have a truly high quality open browser. Otherwise I would love to hear a response from the Firefox devs about what is being done to address these problems.
Firefox is opensource. You could certainly pay someone a modest fee to disable the proxy/trusted domain options from the menus, meaning that most users won't mess with it. If you need "actual" rather than "apparent" security, why are you using Win32? Microsoft platforms have almost no legitimate local user security.
Microsoft's revenues from OEM sales are up 10% from last year, which means that something like nine million XP systems ship each month with IE6 as the default browser. You could argue that SP2 has already put the brake on migration to alternative browsers. Browser Statistics
Decision makers do read the Times. The problem is that anyone with a cause and money to burn can buy a page in the Times and eventually you begin to page these things over without thinking, out of boredom or self-defense. Tomorrow's edition will always bring with it some new prophet of doom or salvation.
I can't see the Firefox add as anything more than a clever fund-raiser for the Moz Foundation, and on that level, if no other, it has been succesful.
Did you have a random dictionary word selector write this post for you?
does that mean they'll incorporate "children popup books" technology into newspaper ads?
:(
ACK!
There is a question/answer thing at Activewin.com, submit your Q's to Bill Gates right now. This isn't an ad, I'm just saying, I'd be really interested to see what the slashdot crowd would ask Bill Gates.
Even when the slashdot bug has already been filed for Firefox, it won't be available until Firefox 1.1 (aw crap).
/. won't fix their webpages to a CSS layout? I mean, look at what can be done with CSS! Look ma, no layout!
In other news, Slashdot would REALLY do Firefox users a favor if they implemented things like this (Main page here, article here).
I mean, isn't this what web developers have been saying for AGES? "It's NOT the browser, but the WEB DESIGNER'S FAULT!".
So, can somebody explain to me WHY
Well, if their going after the CEOs and CFOs of the world, I would think that they'd be better of going with the Wall Street Journal. Not that the New York Times is horrible, but the WSJ is much more a business rag.
Furthermore, while getting large companies to switch their employees to using Firefox would be great and possibly snowball into a massive switch by all. I would like to see more home users make the switch which would be better served by an ad in USA Today. It can work both ways, top-down and grassroot, but who cares what an employee use at work, wouldn't it be great if we could reduce the number of zombie (IE/Outlook) computers in homes?
What will the Mozilla foundation do with the other $200k?
You do realise, of cource, if I see a popup ad like the one you describe in the next 6 months I'm holding you responsible.
all those "liberals" on the editorial staff like william saffire and david brookes.... i really see your point.
In my personal opinion...the firefox logo is not very clear as to its usage, I'm a tech savy person and i have to stop and think, 'ok click the orange thing for internet' a generic globe icon may be better. perhaps making the fox green or something, any artist types have ideas?
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