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Firefox New York Times Ad, Soon
An anonymous reader submits "CNet has an update on the status of the New York Times Firefox ad. According to the article, the delays are largely because of the decision to go with 10,000 names rather than the original 2500. The amount of content means each change to the ad requires 15 minutes of rendering. They also must be careful in crafting the ad, so that stay on the advocacy side of things. As a non-profit, they can still qualify for the under $50,000 rate, but if the ad is too commercial, they would need to pay the $130,000+ business rate. They say they're close to finishing, and the ad should run by mid-December, or at the latest, by Christmas. Firefox is also close to 10,000,000 downloads in the first month of release."
They have to pay $130,000 if the ad is "too commercial"? How is that determined? And isn't a non-profit a non-profit, no matter what kind of ads they run?
You won't hate yourself in the morning if you don't get up before noon.
If they mention using Firefox then it's going to be commercial. Although the author of the ad says they have a special guarantee about the pricing, so New York Time's standard pricing may not matter.
Just because they're a non-profit doesn't make them a good cause. If they advocate using more standard compliant browsers rather than just Firefox or Mozilla browers they're more likely to qualify as an advocacy group rather than commercial entity. But based on the promotional drive I don't see how they can not mention Firefox directly.
Joseph Elwell.
Who said otherwise?
Now I can understand the delay.
After all, would we really like to see Osama bin Laden support Firefox in the New York Times?
Hmm, so the ad runs at 11 users per second.
Solution obvious! We either overclock the New York Times, or we lobby the printer industry to break the Adobe monopoly by supporting Firescript (originally called Postzilla, and occasionally still referred to as Lexscape by some marketroids at A Certain Very Big And Very Evil Corporation), the new page description language interpreter that provides for enhanced security, usability, and performance on phototypesetting equipment of all types!
10,000 flies can't be wrong -- eat shit.
That said, Firefox isn't shit, but the most reasonably standards compliant, light weight, cross platform web browser ever made. I wish them all the luck in the world, and sincerely hope they become the new standard to which -all- web developers adhere. I hope it means the end to any regard what so ever to that other worthless browser.
Rendering the Firefox New York Times ad.
Lots of people can't move from windows because the sites they need to look at only work in the Windows version of IE. If the marketshare for IE goes down because of FireFox, sites will follow by making their pages work on it. At the same time, people will have a familiar application they can use when switching, so I would guess that this may help other platforms.
on that day by atleast a few thousand. Yet another instance of open source promoting business.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
...Will this do any good? Seriously, will some AOL user be sitting, reading the times, see the ad and go "An ad for 'FireFox'? 'Better Browser'? I better switch!" Probably not. After all, AOL already gives them a "better internet." Damned AOL ads.
Smells like a troll...
Anywho, I'll take a shot at this. Firefox and other Free, multi-platform software (Thunderbird, OpenOffice.org, etc.) reduce dependence on Windows, because people aren't stuck with Windows-specific programs. For me, the only thing stopping me from moving to Linux is gaming (I don't believe Cedega supports the games I play). Basically, Microsoft's got my "patronage" hanging by a thread, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
If anything, Firefox moves people yet another step away from Windows. The more people see the futility of hanging onto M$ products due to superior alternatives being available, the more likely they will say "Hey, why am I still using Windows anyway?" I, for one, plan to migrate away from Windows 100% and this is a step in the right direction.
Eventually they will see the golden island... but for now they can stay on the sinking ship if they want to. I think most of the community is hoping that this will show the majority of people that open source is the better alternative. I haven't recieved one piece of adware since I switched to Firebird (and later to Firefox)
Actually, I think it helps migrate people to Linux because it gives them a browser they are already familiar with.
;)
Just FYI
Just out of interest, why are the running it just before Christmas?
It's not like they are going to hit the Christmas rush in browser downloads when families get PCs for their kids.
Surely it would be better to do it late in January?
will there be any room left for branding and/or blurb?
They might be non profit company making free software but they are threatening other companies' buisness model. Time will tell...
Fucking a fat girl is like riding a scooter... it's fun 'til someone sees you.
That is actually a really nice idea, and a clever way to promote open source.
It would perhaps be better to have the source code in the advert, but the idea remains that they are free to do that kind of thing, as only open software can.
Check out transgamings new game database. With the release of 4.2 a lot of new directX 9c games are supported.
This amount of time is ludicrous in this day and age. I'm not even trying to troll but I sure suspect they are using a mac or linux for their design needs. I highly doubt the entire print ad is being 'rendered' out of a 3d app. I think you are using the term rendered way too liberally. I think the correct term is pig-slow machine coupled with crap software. Get a box with 3 gig of ram and dual xeon hyperthreading cpus with a meg of cache each. Then tell me it takes 15 minutes. And yes, I am a professionally-employed graphic artist so I know what I'm talking about.
Just goes to show that thousands of people can't be that wrong.
If all else fails... RTFM
I usually move from doors, moving from windows is too much impratical, and it looks suspicious to neighbors they call the cops when seeing you do that.
I currently am using the Mozilla 1.7 package, but it looks to me like they may be trying to push everyone towards firefox and thunderbird. I sort of like having everything combined in one package, but don't want to get left behind. It seems that firefox and mozilla are getting far enough apart that even some of the extensions don't work for both anymore. Can anyone convince me to switch?
They should buys some popups advertising for the popup-blocker
I think you're talking about corporate and intranet applications. I haven't used Windows or IE in years, and I can't think of one useful site I am unable to use because I surf exclusively in Mozilla/Firefox.
.. Ah: I can think of one site that won't let me shop with Firefox -- Pitney Bowes (see sig). But I can complete my payments over the phone or through the mail, so it hasn't stopped me from using their service.
Marketshare would assume a commercial site; even my bank lets me use Firefox.
I'm curious about the timing of the ad. The last two weeks of the year are when most corporate executives take vacations ... meaning they may not keep up with news in the Times ... meaning if the goal is to convince these guys to use Firefox in their corporations, they may miss the target market entirely. I suppose you could make the case that these same guys now have more time to sit on a beach and read the Times, but has any thought been put into the timing of this thing?
I wonder if the amount of press coverage they've had about the ad will give them more exposure than the ad itself.
I think people must come to open source software in general, before they start migrating to Linux. Still, the reputation of FOSS in the general public is not so good, Firefox could change this (although I have heard lots of complaints about it too, like the unability to automatically sort bookmarks out-of-the-box).
--
Roman
www.ontographics.com
Roman Kennke
10,000 names on a page are so many that practically none of them will be readable and it will create confusion by people reading the add wondering why there is soo much background in a full page add.
If they try to get 10.000(!) names on such an area, what resolution will they have to use so that the names are still readable?
It is a step in the right direction towards the general population using open source software. People will soon relize how much better Open Source once they become edicated on the topic.
~Patience is a virtue
No it doesn't. If you can have the same web browser on both platforms, would logically that encourage or discourage someone to explore the other platform?
If Microsoft Office was out for linux, many of the people that can justify not moving to linux can no longer justify it. The less Windows-only applications being used, the less Windows-only environments.
Do they really have to stick with Firefox? With a name like FireBush, I'm sure the NYT will give them the generous non-profit discount. It's even a biblical reference!!!
10^6 wolves can't be wrong -- eat moose.
100*10^6 Microsoft customers can't be wrong -- eat shit.
8*10^9 people in graveyards can't be wrong -- drop dead.
If I'm going to go with the majority, I'll go with the wolves.
See what I've been reading.
The could just take a full-page ad and have it say "1337"
Service Not Available? Is slashdot.org itself slashdotted?
Roman Kennke
Psst, there's more to life than making everyone else use your operating system. Although I realize that very idea is just anathema to some people.
Sure, pay $15000 for an obscur ad promoting open source only to those who already knows about it. How productive. Don't target a broader audience, noooooo!
Microsoft holds almost 100% of Web browser market share for many years.
People want Microsoft's domination to come to an end.
Open-source project finally gives Microsoft serious competition.
Microsoft's Web browser may finally be coming to an end.
Linux zealots still bitch.
Goddamn, you guys are unbelievable. Open-source software will never catch on with the kind of ignorant attitute displayed by the OSS community.
My company does pre-press work for marketing campaigns. If they need 15 minutes to render a postscript file (or PDF) they need better hardware. We use off-the-shelf gear (PC and Mac, none of it SMP) and nothing we do that is full-page size takes 15 minutes, even at 300 dpi.
What're they using, a PII-400???
What "names" are they talking about? And a 15 minute ad?! Are they fucking insane?
My experience with firefox has been if I tell someone to use it they do, most of the time without questioning why. Not a hint of concern about 'publicized' IE security flaws of Microsoft failings. Seems most users just want to surf the net, take care of business or whatever. I guess this can still be claimed as a victory for firefox...
occasionally still referred to as Lexscape by some marketroids at A Certain Very Big And Very Evil Corporation
Lexcorp?
You can't take the sky from me...
Since when if the aim of Mozilla to get people off windows and onto linux? Though not everyone here feels the same way I'm sure....I think the support for FireFox is that there's finally a great browser on and off Windows. It doesn't matter to me if my neighbor stops using windows or not.
Better than Flickr - Manage, Share, Archive
Yeah, gaming. It's pretty painful not to be able to play most games in Linux. We have more of our share than first person shooters, though. :) Also, if it weren't for the video card on my laptop, I'd be playing NWN.
I may soon inherit another PC and am seriously contemplating keeping it Windows-based for games and some web dev. As for a general advantage, Windows still has a better software-install system. You run it, it installs, you're happy. With Linux, sure you've got various package managers but it's still a hunt for compatibility. Of course you can do what firefox does and install it in ~/ -- which I'm not too fond of.
I prefer and use linux on my main PC...but occasionally have to borrow a Win32 machine to open stuff and access some windows-only cruft.
Case in point: MLXchange, an on-line real-estate database which ONLY supports new versions of IE....i'm guessing this is the case because they took advantage of certain flaws in the software?
How many of the New York Times readers will even know what a browser is?
I think web site promotions will at least be targeting a better audience. In Massachusetts a couple local sites have now started doing so:
Here's an article discussing it further.
Ach, I did not mean for them to do the NYT ad like that. It's just a good idea for another ad.
It would make more people understand what open source is about if you could say 'You hold the entire product, and all it's secrets, on the piece of paper in your hand.'.
Making it clear what open source is, and what it means is very important. Otherwise, it's just another software ad, and people will just glance over it.
I don't understand why Firefox is blowing 50K to put an ad in the NYT. A single ad is not going to cause anyone to adopt the browser - it is well known that ads take a lot of impressions to get someone to get action on it.
As a "thank you" to the community it is pretty weak as well. It thanks only the NYT bottom line.
A well-hyped $50K 1.0 launch party would be a better way to generate press and motivate people to switch to the browser. It would get far wider coverage than a single page in one edition of the NYT.
Except that would take up more space. You'd need two hexadecimal characters to represent each character of every name, so the resulting text would be twice as long.
were you expecting to see a sig here? perhaps you'd rather see the inside of an ambulance!
I wasn't able to see the ad in Firefox. Only with MSIE. Just another reason why MSIE is superior!
Look into Neopost, Hasler and Postalia (now Francotype?). The secret is to switch from one to another every few years, so that you are always getting their low, introductory rates. If you're using the small, one-piece machines, that's eminently practical.
See what I've been reading.
I've downloaded Firefox 1.0 for these machines>
2 Co-lo server 1 & 2
2 Personal Computer (Dual boot Linux & Windows)
1 Old games box (pre Direct X 8)
1 Laptop
1 G4 Tower
1 iBook G3
1 Wife's Computer
9 just by me. Maybe reduce it by a factor of 10 to be close to a true estimate of users using Firefox. It bugs on my Mac though since the middle click on my mouse (yes I use a 3 button mouse) doesn't open tabs but it will in Safari? Strange. Safari needs to add a block-popup allowed filter like Mozilla/Firefox too.
...and go with a "And Many, Many Others" tag at the end of the listing or something like that.
If they're the kind of people giving money to an open source browser project, I doubt they're going to raise much of a fuss if their name doesn't get specifically mentioned.
What "names" are they talking about? And a 15 minute ad?! Are they fucking insane?
The Magic Clue-Ball(tm) tells me the New York Times is a newspaper, not a TV station. That means no moving video. Some things should be spelled out. Others belong to that category I like to call "general knowledge everyone but you seems to know".
and your point is?
It's precisely the attitude of Linux elitist uber-geeks like you, that is keeping the chasm between Linux and Windows, uncrossable.
The REAL reason for people to have less reasons to move off Windows is because they DON'T find their favorite Windows software on Linux.
So, people need to adopt Firefox as part of their "favorite Windows software", and guess what, it's ALREADY on Linux!
What Linux REALLY needs to overthrow Windows, is a multiplatform RAD environment for C++ (and maybe *cough* Visual Basic *cough* equivalent), so Windows users will start developing multi-platform apps without having to code everything by hand.
Paraphrasing Archimedes: "Give me a cross-platform RAD, and I shall move the world".
So far, Firefox doesn't only give us a great cross-platform browser, but also XUL. And that does much more to help people build bridges between Linux and Windows, than your "screw windows users" attitude.
S'wunnerful, but pop-up and ads drive many sites, so don't expect too ringing an endorsement from sites which get zip-nada revenue from Firefox surfers. Expect many sites to continue to endorse IE, since it helps their bottom line.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
You knew there might be a lot of people and your name would get squeezed down a little. You also knew the primary point of this was to raise funds, the ad is a "reward".
A fast one would be if they weren't printing the ad at all. They are, your name will be on it, stop whinging.
And if that isn't enough for you, even amongst 2500 peeps, you really think you'll be any more recognisable than amongst 10000?
Get paid to search..It's geniune and
um...15 minutes? You might want to learn to read.
The Braying and Neighing of Barnyard Animals Follows.
Maybe it hurts Linux but it helps free software because it introduces people who don't know what it is to it and give them a good first impression.
But it probably doesn't hurt Linux either because if every software could run both on Windows and Linux like Firefox does then the only reason to stay with Windows would be if you thought it was better than Linux, not because your app doesn't run on Linux.
It also helps Linux because should a Firefox using company/user decide to try Linux it gives them something familiar to feel a bit more at home, making the transition easier.
So your assertion that it hurts Linux certainly is debatable.
Well, I guess IHBT, IHBH so I will HAND.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
This is a story about an advertisement. Check that, it's an ad that hasn't even been printed. For free stuff.
How in the fuck of all fucks is this news?
Maybe they could compress the list of names with bzip2, then print the resulting hex?
"I think it would be a good idea" Gandhi, on Western Civilisation
The definition of freeware is software, for free. The definition of a paid service as this ad is, is you hand over some money and get something in return, in this case your name in an advert. Whether you choose to have your name in or not is entirely your choice and won't make a shit of difference to your firefox application. Therefore this isn't a "sell out" this is a marketing campaign designed to pull some donations in and you get something back for it.
Get paid to search..It's geniune and
The Magic Clue-Ball(tm) told you it's the newspaper instead of the website? You read slashdot?
Are you retarded? I mean, wow, we're on slashdot, we get tons of nytimes.com posts here, everyone here knows about the New York Times website. And you assume it's a paper newspaper advertising a browser?
Wow. Just wow.
This is offtopic but it has been bugging me. How are all the recent top affiliates spots taken by Turkish webmasters on Spreadfirefox? Turkey is a country where not even 20 percent of the population is connected to the net. These bastards might be using scripts to pump up their button referals, to promote their sites on spreadfirefox. There is no way they can get so much more recent referals than a heavily trafficked site like broadbandreports(dslreports).
This isn't a branch of government. We're talking about the New York Times. Surely they can decide whether to charge Firefox the correct rate based on the message.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
10,000 people on slashdot criticizing an ad they haven't even seen yet.
Personally, if a person looks at the ad long enough to wonder why there are so many names on the page they're NOT EVEN LEGIBLE, then I think that accomplishes the task at hand -- promoting firefox.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
There's only one thing worse than computer ads done by advertising people who know nothing about computers, and that's computer ads done by geeks who know nothing about advertising.
Be sure and create a version in Gimp that somehow still looks second rate, not because Gimp is incapable of producing first-rate graphics, but because none of the drooling fanboys who promote it are *anything* like professionals. (I'm not a professional, but at least I *know* that my work isn't that good).
Damn, I fucking hate geeks sometimes.
I have to say, Postalia's website is one of the funniest things I've seen in a while. From the "any excuse to use a cute girl" on the homepage, to some of the english language translations within. Wow. You just really made my day.
I downloaded firefox 17 times.
What about the people who download it once and use it on multiple computers? Not only in a home network, for instance, but for organizations. The numbers game goes both ways.
Only because all related stories have clearly pointed to the fact that it's a "full-page ad" to be run on a specific, yet-to-be-determined date "in the New York Times." I don't often refer to an ad (or article, story, etc.) being "in" a particular website. Though to be fair, such language was not used in this article summary, the only clue to its printed nature being that the ad will be "run."
Honor Among Slackers. A veri
As an Apple user, I always thought it odd how we Apple fanatics got excited enough about advertisements to discuss them in public forums. Are there forums where people get all hot and heavy over Microsoft advertising? :-)
Currently hooked on AMP
The names are people who have paid to have their name on a full page New York Times ad for Firefox.
Get paid to search..It's geniune and
Could someone who has donated change their name to Bill Gates please? Thanks!
I like muppets.
So? To me, I fell that getting people to switch to open, cross-platform standards and programs is much more important than switching people to Linux/*BSD/Mac OS/insert non-MS OS here. Firefox is available on all current, mainstream platforms (Windows, *nix, OS X). If we get Windows users to see the benefits of open source software that conforms to open standards, then whenever they move to Linux/BSD, OS X, or Da Whizbang OS 2010, their data would move seamlessly without lock-in because of proprietary, closed-source "standards" (cough MS Office cough), not to mention that the only things that the users would have to relearn would be things related to the operating system.
Besides that, Firefox is helping to solve one of the biggest problems in Windows Land: malware. With a firewall behind the connection, and a Firefox guiding the Internet, Windows users would be much safer than using Internet Exploder.
Finally, Firefox is bring awareness to the general computing public that not all computer users use Windows and Internet Explorer. Whenever we're browsing on our *nix boxen, Macintoshes, or secure Windows machines, trying to check our credit cards, look at music, or browse other sites, the last thing that we need is for some message to pop up saying, "You're not running an up to date browser. Please intall Internet Explorer 5 or later." No, we want our website! Thanks to the efforts of the Mozilla project as well as makers of other browsers (Opera, Konqueror, Safari, etc.), us non-Windows users can browse almost whatever site we want to.
So, when you say that Firefox running on Windows will hurt Linux adoption, remember the long term goals. What do you want, a world where everyone runs your favorite OS, or a world where everyone can choose their OS, but be able to run applications that share open standards.
Is my money safe? :P
And if that isn't enough for you, even amongst 2500 peeps, you really think you'll be any more recognisable than amongst 10000?
Um, yes... he'd be exactly 4 times more recognizable.
I use IE but I only browse Slashdot and Yahoo.
For your parents who can get lost in the internet, Firefox is a great way for them to not pickup spyware while they're there.
God spoke to me.
The Magic Clue-Ball(tm) tells me the New York Times is a newspaper, not a TV station. That means no moving video.
I used to take LSD before I read my newspaper. That way I got colourful *animated* banner ads, just like on the web.
Then I remembered that it was so fucking annoying on the web that I removed Flash. Can't do that with LSD.
I had a damn leprechaun trying to sell me mobile phones all afternoon. When I closed the paper, he kept popping up elsewhere.
Kids, don't *ever* do LSD whilst reading the papers (unless it's one of Rupert Murdoch's).
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Excuse me as I think I haven't seen a NYT since many years ago, but usually the resolution of images, pictures and adds overall in press suck. Even in glassy paper magazines I can hardly imagine 10 000 names in one page. Is it a double page ad? B/W or color?
I know I am wrong, but right now i can only think of a blurry page.
__
Sig: Marine Stock Photos
The most important thing to be done is to ensure that applications work cross-platform.
I'm gradually replacing proprietary software on my Windows machine with open cross-platform software. Then, one day, I'll get a Linux box set up and wave goodbye to Windows. I'm not going to go setting up Linux and have to run two entirely different bits of software for two systems.
True. I've installed Firefox a couple dozen times from a USB key I keep on me.
Yeah, a full page ad in the most widely read newspaper in the world won't get any attention.
I think it's more a case of a high profile project promoting the quality and stability of open source software, surely in the long run this would help Linux.
This can only help the internet as a whole. If we could get a widely used browser alternative to IE, companies with an IE only site will have to sit up and take notice or lose customers. Hopefully these companies will then redevelop their sites using web standards.
Don't know where to start with this one... I'll just avoid the redundancy of explaining that Firefox doesn't hurt Linux AT ALL, and instead tell you why we *NEED* Firefox, and I think I can sum it up in one term: MSHTML. Why oh why must MS re-standardize everything (rhetorical)? Firefox is good because it sticks to the standards. Web dorks don't have to create two sets, or one mangled set, of HTML & CSS. It is true that not everything is defined in the standards, and much is left to the implementation, but standards are our friends, and we shouldn't have to cater to the person who happens to be in control, bending the rules. I also feel bad for those people who deal with popups and millions of windows all over the place, not knowing that a perfectly good browser is full of the features they're wishing for (and please don't give me some elitest crap about they deserve it). We need Firefox (or Opera, or Safari, or any Standards-compliant browser that vows to stick to the standards) to swoop in and save us.
In related news, this poster is appearing all over Oslo, Norway. Spotting it the other day was one of those unwordly moments where you're seeing a little-known niche thing becoming mainstream. Then yesterday I had a meeting with the IT manager at a government agency; those guys have always been Internet Explorer users, and now Firefox was running on the guy's desktop. The fact that Firefox is actively competing with IE now is going to be good for the Internet.
Couldn't an enterprising young naive college student(me) choose, of my own free will, to start a non-profit club of "low-price seekers", make pamphlets of good deals, then decide that since I love Wal-mart sooooooo much, that I'd like to let people know how awesome the company is?
Then, of course, take a portion of the money saved by wal-mart paying the lower price and buying that Nissan 350z I've been lusting over for the past year.
i use linux and windows oh god how can i have an opinion
I can tell ya', one ad is a waste of money, unless it's absolutely shocking and controversial. Why? People are bombarded by ads every day. I have advertising salesmen who tell me not to bother with one ad because studies show that people in this day and age need to see a marketing message, I believe, more than 10 times before they actually remember it, or it sinks in. Honestly, I wouldn't ever remember it. This is more of a PR stunt, actually, but really, for anybody not in the circle of super geeks, they won't know what in the hell it is, and they won't remember. Hence, this will be a big waste of money.
I don't respond to AC's.
New York Times? The same one with the ANNOYING stupid online registration that we complain about every time an article is posted?
Umm... sure, let's patronize them.. that makes sense....
I think some people are crazy.
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
"There's only one thing worse than computer ads done by advertising people who know nothing about computers, and that's computer ads done by geeks who know nothing about advertising."
Why is that worse? What is so special about advertising that it should be something only a select group of people can do?
To me, it's an irritant, something to be tolerated as a way of reducing the price of a magazine.
Professionalism is a strange thing. I subscribe to a lot of trade mags on fairly technical subjects, and the advertising in them is always basic, but very informative.
I guess if you want mass market appeal, where the advertising *is* the product (like most sugar water) then it's important, but other that that, I'd rather see some clear pictures and a spec sheet....
fine names of Iwanna Tingle, Hugh Jass and Pat McGroin in print.
Whoa, thanks for the info! World of Warcraft is fully supported, and Shattered Galaxy and FF XI may work! I may be able to switch to Linux after all!
You know, I bet you're the first person to have thought of this! You're brilliant! I'm sure that in the 100+ year history of one of the finest newspapers in the world, that NOBODY has ever thought of this, and if they did, they'd easily be able to pull the wool over the eyes of the advertising department of one of the widest read newspapers in the world. Oh sure.
I don't respond to AC's.
Borland C++ Builder you say?
:)
I really loved Delphi and think JBulder is one of the best Jave IDEs...
I will definatelty check out C++ Builder and see how it works for Linux
JBuilder is a memory hog !
Decent IDE but slow as hell
You speak the gospel brother...
I have been using C++ Builder for years... it has excellent visual components for both Linux and PC + outstanding database support.
Compiled code is lightning fast as well which is what brought be to try it
Professionalism is a strange thing. I subscribe to a lot of trade mags on fairly technical subjects, and the advertising in them is always basic, but very informative.
They know their market; good on them.
I guess if you want mass market appeal, where the advertising *is* the product (like most sugar water) then it's important, but other that that, I'd rather see some clear pictures and a spec sheet....
IMHO a lot of geeks are blinkered. They ostensibly want more publicity for their favored product, but a lot of these 'home-made' ads have an air of self-indulgence about them. They're not producing adverts, they're producing posters. They're preaching to the converted.
And yes, you have to decide what you're trying to achieve with the advert. But if Firefox comes over as a geek toy, then it's not going to encourage mass-market adoption.
But, of course, many 'professional' adverts are extraordinarily vapid too (hence my dislike of comptuer ads done by advertising people who know nothing about computers).
We want Firefox to be seen as smart and professional.
Incidentally, I love the Firefox logo. It's professional and stylish, whilst retaining some human personality and not smacking of corporate banality. If you want mainstream adoption, getting the small things like that right projects the right image.
Anyway, IMHO the advertising should project the virtues of the browser, without getting too bogged down in geeky details. It should say "this is a professional product", and I think that can be done without making Firefox look too much like a vapid corporate piece of puff.
Now, quite a lot of people tried to post this on Slashdot, but for some reason, these stories seem to have been rejected wholesale. I fail to see the reasoning behind this: Being U.S. centered is one thing, trying to supress the first example of an ad that the world has been holding its breath for quite another. It would be nice if the editors forced themselves to give a reason when they rejected postings or at least created a section where people can look at them.
How about 2,500 names?
And once you'd read them all, if I made up a name would you be able to tell me if it was in there or not?
My point is although the names would be bigger in font, with even 2,500 on there it's gonna be bloody difficult to isolate just one - unless their in alphabetical order of course. But then even if they are your average joe who's reading isn't gonna care less about fred jones over richard davis.
Get paid to search..It's geniune and
Meanwhile, a man squeezes blood from a turnip, an ad exec gets a sweet bonus, and a hearty kickback is paid to an "Open Source" organization member...
Your donation money at work. Makes me want to send them my paycheck.
Yet this same crowd doesn't think twice before sponsoring an NYT ad telling other people what web browser they *ought* to be using.
I can find only one explanation: Slashdot readers are far more likely to contract an Internet virus then to conceive children.
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Doesn't the latest XP service pack disable popups in IE by default? From what I've read, popups are the most profitable methods of advertising as well as being the most annoying. In order to block other advertisements with FF the user has to act independently with extension installs and most people probably won't bother
I do preflight for a major national daily and I deal with ads like this every single day. It should not be taking them 15 minutes to make a minor change to text.
The largest ads I've worked with were glossy magazine ads above 300MB in size, but they were only that large because of high res photos that have nothing to do with editable text.
I have an idea why the text is taking so long to render but I won't state that assumption here.
I'll just say that any decent page layout program like Quark or InDesign should be able to handle the text without this absurd rendering time. Once the ad's in final form, send the postscript file through Distiller and you have a pdf ready to send to the NYT.
I would love to point people to OOo, but it's just too damn big. To import all kinds of word processor file formats and stay hard is really that difficult? What on earth justifies a 100+MB download for an office suite when AbiWord does it for so much less?
If OOo were much smaller I'm positive people would migrate much faster but they can't be bothered to download 100+ MB's of stuff for what they can copy from work or family.
Man - Some Day Firefox will either BE the main stream browser, or force Microsoft to FIX iE.s HORRIBLE Png support.
Its time to move to transparency my friends.
"Comedy's a dead art form. Now tragedy, that's funny."
TSIA
In addition to the MSI mentioned, there's also this:
http://firefox.dbltree.com/
You can remove at least 49 downloads from that counter, because I've had to download it at least 50 times (probably more) before I managed to get one that didn't crash every time I clicked a link.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
"tabbed browsing".. "multiple pages all in the same window".. OH GOD I FUCKING HATE THAT. I HATE MDIs. PLEASE MAKE IT STOP.
From my experience, most non-techy computer people who have been persuaded into Firefox have absolutely no idea its open source, or what open source is.
after bitching and bitching about it, I downloaded it, and holy cow I was right, it sucks. Lots of pages I go to don't work anymore or they don't look right. Looks like I'm going back to using good ol' IE. OK.. back to non-bitchy mode. It loads faster, the browser itself looks clean (But pages that used to look great in IE look like shit now) I want to like this browser but they aint quite there yet!
If they put 250k in euros now, then when the $$$ goes down, they can transfer back and make even more of a profit.
At the least hedge it by putting 30% in USA gold certificates at kitco.com and 30% in Euro banks, and 30% in USA cash funds earning SFA.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I think the concept of people supporting sites with ad revenue is going to be moved away from in the next 5-10 years because users just aren't going to take it anymore. The infrastructure is going to be dirt cheap so people will finally produce sites for the love of it instead of trying to make a buck. Do we really need the sites that live off ad revenue? They can move to the pay-per-view model for all I care, but more likely they will close up. I for one can't wait.
I didn't see Maya Butthertz in there. Or Mrs. Butterworth, for that matter.
/sarcasm added through interpretive dance
I knew I should have got in while I had time!
SNACKS ARE AWESOME
The New York Times is a good buy. With ~$50k they reach an influential set:
NYT on Sunday:
6.5+ million people
600,000+ people who make network/Internet decisions
~1.9 million people who spent $500 or more on the Internet in the past year
80% have Internet connection and are 60% more likely to have broadband
And maybe not so influential:
2.2 million AOL users
What's the status of FireFox's ad in NaziMonthly?
OpSed
Clever signature text goes here.
http://stuff.techwhack.com/archives/2004/11/26/ope ra-more-productive-firefox/
http://www.gungfu.de/facts/archives/2004/11/22/why -i-love-opera/
Clever signature text goes here.
Why not go with a dual-boot system, so you can have the best of both worlds?
(unfortunately)