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NYT Firefox Campaign Raises $250,000

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the mo'-money-mo'-money-mo'-money dept.

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."

18 of 384 comments (clear)

  1. Other side of coin. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ""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.

  2. FeedTheLizard.com by exnuke · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Anyone interest in a similar campaign for Mozilla? I'll donate FeedTheLizard.com and FeedTheLizard.org to the cause.

  3. Seems a shame to waste it on a newspaper ad by smartin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.
    1. Re:Seems a shame to waste it on a newspaper ad by bogie · · Score: 5, Interesting

      What good is all the development money in the world if nobody ever hears about your product? Or to put it another way, ask Microsoft which is more important. Designing a good product or marketing?

      --
      If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
  4. Re:How about a campaign.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If Slashdot switched to an HTML standard... any standard... that validates (even almost validates), then I'd buy another subscription. Also, if they switched to PNG, I'd buy another subscription. Until they do, they're just wasting money and I won't have them waste anymore of mine.

  5. Firefox is gaining momentum allright by Lisandro · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Firefox is gaining momentum allright by Travis+Fisher · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Dealing with TRUE mass market desktop applications is something the Open Source community is just now broaching. Several million installs of a piece of software that is probably the most commonly used thing on somebody's desktop - that's getting seriously mainstream. And mainstream means dealing with mainstream idiocy, infantile children, illiterate adults, and all the other annoying people in between. I'm not saying we shouldn't care about user friendliness, on the contrary, I'm saying that it's hard to maintain user friendliness supported by the community when the community stops being a bunch of tech-saavy hackers and starts being a bunch of idjits.

      The parent message is insightful! As this advertising campaign shows, the great success of Firefox has been its ability to reach out to people, to have a larger community. But a larger community means a different set of community dynamics. Its like the change from a frontier settlement to an established city. For the community dynamics to work well you need to put more institutional structure in place, like police, or maybe even the tax man. And in the process you lose some of the closeness of the community.

      On the other hand, I think there are solutions. Mozillazine just needs to adapt to have better moderation, to get more useful comments and discussion to more prominent positions. Maybe even they should switch to something more like a wiki format for discussion less transient than the day-to-day babble.

      But yes, it will be interesting to see how this develops. I really do expect to see free/open source software take over -- eventually -- for all of the mainstream uses. But it will be a long bumpy ride between here and there. This is just the beginning!

    2. Re:Firefox is gaining momentum allright by imroy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Gee, sounds a lot like Slashdot. See my three-digit uid? I've been here almost since Slashdot began. It was nice back then. Everyone was pretty nice. The occasional disagreement broke out, but all-in-all it was a pretty good discussion. Since then it's grown. The trolls have become downright professional. The flames are pretty vicious. Everyone's on a hair-trigger to jump out and defend any slight against their favourite OS, distribution, browser, MTA, MUA, or whatever. I don't know about everyone, but a lot of comments seem to be pretty self-concious about what they write, careful not to offend anyone or give the wrong impression. I know I usually am.

      It's kinda sad in a way, but I guess it's what happens when any open-forum grows past a certain size.

  6. How about a campaign.. by dema · · Score: 5, Interesting

    to get slashdot to be standards compliant.

  7. Re:Is it just me that feels slightly uneasy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    By that logic, we should figure out the worst problem on Earth and put all of charitable resources into it. If it's hunger, so that means ignoring cancer, AIDS, diabetes, etc. Is that how you want to run the world?

  8. Re:Why NYT? by BenFranske · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Get to CxO's.

  9. Just got back by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    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.

  10. I think this is a step in the wrong direction by _aa_ · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  11. Re:Why NYT? by tinla · · Score: 4, Interesting


    Because the NYT is the famous one. You (and most other people) seem to have missed half the point - they haven't even bought an ad yet and they're getting huge press coverage. The advert is going to generate 'x' new users. The press coverage about the advert being bought will generate 'y' new users. I suggest 'y > x'.

    Is marketing really so hard for geeks to understand? The buying of the advert in the NYT is a story in its own right. The manner of the advert's funding and the advert being in the most highbrow and famous of news papers is what makes it worth talking about.

    --
    0daymeme.com: Great stuff.
  12. Re:How about a campaign.. by BenjyD · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They're even trying to hide from the validators:
    W3 validator is 403'd
    Actual results on the current front page not good

  13. a million cd's by codepunk · · Score: 1, Interesting

    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?
  14. You probably won't see one for IE by timothy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.)

    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 ... and just like the local public broadcasting station, it seems like MS doesn't like to get just one donation.

    timothy

    --
    jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
  15. This is fine and dandy, but.... by amemily · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...I don't see Firefox making any large-scale penetration onto the corporate networks unless you can manage it with Group Policies.