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Firefox New York Times Ad, Soon

Posted by timothy on from the uebermorgen dept.

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."

8 of 389 comments (clear)

  1. Too commercial? by trilks · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
    1. Re:Too commercial? by Saeed+al-Sahaf · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Not sure why the price tag is an issue since according to reports, they took in better than $250,000. Wonder where all that moo-lah is collecting interest?

      --
      "Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
  2. Expect NYT sales to surge... by GillBates0 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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
  3. Timing by telstar · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?

  4. Exposure by zerosignal · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I wonder if the amount of press coverage they've had about the ad will give them more exposure than the ad itself.

  5. I can already see how this will turn out by suso · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  6. i don't get this. by jimmyp9999 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  7. Norway by Earlybird · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.