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."

Comments

Too commercial?

[trilks]

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?

Re:Too commercial?

[maxchaote]

isn't a non-profit a non-profit, no matter what kind of ads they run?

I can see it now... Wal-Mart's non-profit subsidiary, "The Friends of Sam Walton" (not a real charity) using their non-profit status to reduce Wal-Mart's advertising costs by over 50%.

I'm afraid checks and balances have to be in place, even if they occasionally slow something like Firefox down.

Re:Too commercial?

[ndogg]

Yes, but the NYT is a private organization and so is allowed more leeway in their definition of "too commercial." We can argue about it, but ultimately the answer to that question is up to NYT.

Re:Too commercial?

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

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?

Re:Too commercial?

[whome]

I think it's more likely that the New york Times' advertising department will decline the ad because they're pissed off about Firefox users blocking all their popups.

Re:Too commercial?

[Fizzl]

Well, the short story:
$250k is peanuts and shrinking daily.

Re:Too commercial?

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

Since the $250,000 was _FOR_ the ad, how is it shrinking? Since this is the Firefox FanBoi Project, no one seems to be interested in asking exactly what's going on, just trust them with 250k?

Re:Too commercial?

[allism]

Or about the bugmenot plugin keeping them from requiring a DNA sample from people who want to read the articles.

Re:Too commercial?

[bay43270]

Being a non-profit has nothing to do with being commercial. Non-profit companies provide commercial services every day (that's what cooperatives are all about). They just can't make too much money at the end of the year without loosing their non-profit status (even that has *some* leeway).

The Times' is just trying to give charitable organizations a break on price, and their criteria seems to be very subjective. If it were set in stone they wouldn't have misused phrases like 'non-profit'.

Re:Too commercial?

[roj3]

The New York Times has an advocacy ad review board. An advocacy message (save the whales) is seen differently than a commercial message (buy caffeinated soap). The review board provides feedback, etc.. it's not a hard and fast line.

Rob

Re:Too commercial?

[goon america]

They have every incentive to charge legitimate nonprofits less, because this lets them split the ad market up and charge each segment the maximum that it is willing to pay. If the NYT allowed pseudo-nonprofits like the hypothetical "Friends of Sam Walton" then they will lose money. It's pretty clear that the system will be accurate based on the nature of market forces here.

Re:Too commercial?

[91degrees]

It's probably determined more or less as they see fit.

The NYT is ultimately only responsible to its owners. They can decide Disney is a non-profit entity if they so choose, or decide that a company that rich can afford to pay double. There's no need for checks and balances. If the advertisers feel hard done by, they go to a competitor.

Re:Too commercial?

[tepples]

Show me some pr0n and I'll gladly submit a "DNA sample". But it'll be hard for the NYT to figure this out, as pictures of naked people do not arouse me in the way that one would expect "pr0n" to.

Re:Too commercial?

[christopherfinke]

Yeah, because your name is the same as your DNA...

Re:Too commercial?

[bob beta]

My name? I've had a NYT login so long now that I don't remember what name I gave back then in the first place.

Re:Too commercial?

[SmegTheLight]

Agreed !!

I donated my money to be used to put a full page add in the NYT.. My guess is that that majority of the $250K was raised with that in mind.

If they are sooooo careful to make sure the ad will only cost $50K, what happens to the rest ?

Are they going to take out 5 Ads ?

Is the firm/group/individuals designing the ad doing it pro-bono, or are THEY collecting the remaining $200K ? If so that sounds pretty fishy to me - This is Firefox, not a Faith Healer Religious TV Hour :(

Re:Too commercial?

[Doctor Crumb]

since they're actually a non-profit, they have to follow rules about how it can be spent. The extra money raised will probably go towards other advertising, or bug bounties, or any of the other worthwhile uses that help make firefox a better browser. They've already shown that they can find creative ways to spend their money; I imagine they will continue to do so.

Re:Too commercial?

[cheekyboy]

One such 'charity' is Redcross collecting blood for free which is on sold at $400 per pint, or $20000 per BARREL, much more valuable than OIL.

If hospitals want more blood, then they should cut a deal with patients. Offer reduced insurance costs and medical bills in exchange for 1pint 4 weeks before your in, and 1 pint when your in, and another 1 4weeks later. Ofcourse this cuts out the middle men, taxes etc... which is a NONO in super corporate america.

Re:Too commercial?

[Carewolf]

Yes for instance the power plants in Denmark are non-profit, but still charge for electricity. It basically means that too much profit results in price-reductions the next year.

Re:Too commercial?

[bay43270]

My last job was at a non-profit software company. They sold software to electric cooperatives in the US. They had to price their software at fraction of their competitors to keep from making money, which priced them out of the market for commercial electric companies (they wanted to spend more to feel better about thier purchase).

Re:Too commercial?

[slapout]

So that's why ad's cost so much? They have to pay a review board to look at them first?

Re:Too commercial?

[drsquare]

It's just resting in my account, honest.

If they mention using Firefox...

[jelwell]

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.

Re:If they mention using Firefox...

[madssj]

It's quite easy not to mention firefox directly. "The best crossplatform oss browser arround" and so fourth :)

Re:If they mention using Firefox...

[Jameth]

If they mention multiple browsers that support standards (Konqueror, Opera, FireFox, Mozilla) they would be just an advocacy group seeking to improve the web in general.

Re:If they mention using Firefox...

[Anonymous Coward]

If they mention using Firefox then it's going to be commercial.

How is that commercial? They're GIVING THE BROWSER AWAY to anyone that wants it, anytime, anywhere, for any OS, for completely free. Nobody makes a dime off of Firefox. It's completely free. It isn't even a free product from a commercial company. It's a free product from a non-profit, non-commercial public cooperative.

So exactly where is this "commercial"? That's like saying that advertising free dinner for the homeless on Thanksgiving day is "commercial" because your non-profit group is giving away free meals to homeless people which is competing with commercial companies selling $50 dinners.

Re:If they mention using Firefox...

[mrchaotica]

Well, to be fair, that homeless people feeding group would also have to be selling "Free Dinner!" T-shirts....

The reason...

[Adhemar]

The trouble for Mozilla's ad campaign is that about 1,000 of the contributors didn't follow instructions in submitting their names. Now Davis is going through the list manually and contacting contributors who submitted Web addresses, company names, joke names and the like to clarify how they want to be listed in the ad.

Now I can understand the delay.

After all, would we really like to see Osama bin Laden support Firefox in the New York Times?

Re:The reason...

[dkleinsc]

You forgot Biggus Dickus and Naughtius Maximus. Of course, those names are a little out of date.

Re:The reason...

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Of course, those names are a little out of date.

Yeah, they are wayyy out of date. I think those people endorsed Netscape 4.0 in the 90's or something...

Re:The reason...

[bob beta]

Is this a manifestation of the obnoxious advertising clause that gnu-ians always used to rant about with the BSD license?

Is a big hunk of text listing a bunch of names supposed to impress people into using Mozilla?

Re:The reason...

[AusG4]

Don't forget Biggus' wife, Incontinentia Buttocks.

Ok, ok... no more Monty Python references from me........

Release Bwyan!

15 minutes of rendering

[Tackhead]

> 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.

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!

Re:15 minutes of rendering

[wfberg]

Or just edit the list of names in their favorite text-editor, and only paste it in whatever spawn-of-satan wysiwyg gui they're using (or into the xsl:fo) when the list is done already..

Re:15 minutes of rendering

[ikkonoishi]

Imagine what we could do with a beowulf cluster of overclocked New York Times!

Power of the masses

[liangzai]

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.

Re:Power of the masses

[WIAKywbfatw]

Two points, both of which will no doubt get me flamed to hell and back:

1. If 10,000 flies can't be wrong, what does that say about the millions that buy Microsoft products? From the viewpoint of the majority of the readers here, aren't those Microsoft customers wrong? Quantity never implies quality, my friend.

2. It might not be open source, but Opera perhaps meets your description of "the most reasonably standards compliant, light weight, cross platform web browser ever made" more than Firefox does. Opera is available for more platforms, is smaller in size (even with a greater feature set that includes an email client, etc), better integrated and more polished.

Yes, there are some very, very minor incompatibility issues but the Opera development team has always done a good job of ironing out any wrinkles that do appear. And, as you've alluded to yourself, there's no such thing as problem-free browsing (at least on any non-Microsoft browser) nowadays.

Other than that, well done to everyone who's contributed to the development of Firefox, no matter how great or small their contribution.

Re:Power of the masses

[bairy]

I love Opera and I would still be using it (if only for that gorgeous "I'm still loading the page and this is how fast I'm loading it" bar). The only gripe with opera is it doesn't support plugins or nice stuff that firefox can (such as external toolbars), nor can you customise things like the search list. Otherwise, Opera would be top of my list.

Re:Power of the masses

[Bluetrust25]

While Opera has some interesting features like mouse gestures, it's really hard to imagine that anyone who's spent any amount of time using both would actually prefer Opera. I spent years using Opera as my main browser. I even purchased it.

When Firefox came along though, it won me over. It simply doesn't crash like Opera does.

Re:Power of the masses

[internic]

In reply to your points:

1. That 10,000 people use it doesn't make it good, but the existence of the ad argues a lot of people use and like it, so it might be worth a look. Everyone who uses the web has heard of IE and MS, but not necessarily Firefox. This may convince them to check it out, or to take the advice or a friend or coworker who said they should try it. The only thing that should convince them it's good is how it performs once they try it. Another nuance is, it's not just that 10,000 people use it, it's that 10,000 people payed good money to put the ad in for no direct personal gain (in most cases). I don't know if that would be clear to readers, but you must admit you'd be hard pressed to find people doing this for MS products.

2. I used to use Opera; I even payed for it at one point. The reason I switched for Mozilla/Firefox was that more sites seemed to work well in Mozilla and it seemed to be more polished and well documented in a lot of ways, with a more active community. That may have changed since Opera 6.0, but my point is that I think they both qualify fairly well on those points. I think the important point here is the other, tacit qualification, which is that it's free. Many people won't pay for a browser when they can get one for free (and banner ad free). I know I have felt that Opera and Firefox are pretty competitive, but Opera is certainly not so much better (in my opinion) as to warrent paying the money or suffering the banner ads.

Re:Power of the masses

[narcc]

"we have so few users we can actually list them by name".

I think the message is more along the lines of:

"Look! 10,000 users willing to donate money for a product that they already get for free. Look at how valuable they consider this product!"

Nothing has value until someone is willing to pay for it. Or so conventional wisdom goes.

Re:Power of the masses

[Too Much Noise]

Last time I checked (which is about a month ago), Opera would choke on xml documents using xslt transforms that both Mozilla and IE (duh!) rendered just fine. Maybe I'm just a corner case, but that's one 'less compliant' instance for Opera.

Re:Power of the masses

[bairy]

I did try editing the search.ini and could never get it to pick up my modifications. This was back in 7.2 I think. I tried all combinations of edit/restart but it just ignored em.

Op does indeed have an excellent popup blocker. As I said I love it, just wish it supported plugins.

Re:Power of the masses

[Mr.Progressive]

In reply to your first point, I think there's a difference between 10,000 people who choose to use an alternative product versus millions that accept what's provided with nearly every personal computer sold today. 10,000 people making conscious decisions are more powerful than millions of people simply using what's in front of them.

Re:Power of the masses

[WIAKywbfatw]

In a work environment, people might be "simply using what's in front of them" but that's not the case when it comes to their home PCs, is it? Whether they bought a PC with Windows pre-installed or a retail copy of Windows off the shelf then that's a conscious decision. Surely you're not disputing that the number of retail sales of Windows runs into the millions? Or don't they count?

Re:Power of the masses

[Saeger]

it's really hard to imagine that anyone who's spent any amount of time using both would actually prefer Opera.

No it isn't.

I still use Opera in Win&Linux on fast&slow machines for three big reasons:

1. It's MUCH faster than FireFox, especially when using mouse rockers to go backwards and forwards through cached browser pages; with Opera it's instantaneous, but extremely sluggish in FireFox.
2. A session saver that always works. If Opera crashes, or my computer freezes and reboots, Opera NEVER fails to restore my previous session of open tabs, page positions, etc. The "Session Saver" extension for FireFox, on the other hand, doesn't work nearly as well, and it's buggy - if the last open window is a popup, and firefox crashes, you end up with an unusable UI when you relaunch.
3. The handy F12 Quickmenu for toggling my privoxy proxy on/off, user agent string, animated GIFs, etc.
4. Opera's faster.

The only thing I use FireFox for is web development and viewing flash and other embedded media (w/ the MPlayer plugin).

Re:Power of the masses

[starseeker]

1. The difference is, people who use Microsoft (or companies) were told - here, pay and use this product. If you use it and don't pay, look out. Firefox, in contrast, can say "look, we say use it and you don't have to pay, but despite that 10,000 people volunteered to pay use EVEN THOUGH THEY DIDN'T HAVE TO." How many people would donate $$ to Internet Explorer when they didn't have to?

2. Fact of life on the internet: $0.00001 vs $0 - $0 wins by a landslide. Not to mention the assurance that Firefox can be developed so long as there is interest and will remain free. Isn't that a feature? To me at least it is a killer feature.

Re:Power of the masses

[Richard A Lake]

What opera did you use when you stoped?

Re:Power of the masses

[toddestan]

If you've installed many Opera versions in the same directory, you'll end up with several search.ini files, along with other configuration files all over the directory structure. You have to be sure you're editing the right one.

Re:Power of the masses

[toddestan]

Opera almost never crashes. It was kind of bad back in the 6.0x days, and there were a couple of lemons in the 7.xx days (like early versions of 7.2x, and a few of the beta versions), but I have found the 7.5x branch to be extremely stable.

Also, I spent some time on someone else's computer, where they had Firefox, but no Opera. After several days of using just Firefox, I was seriously missing Opera. There are just so many little things that make the difference to me.

Re:Power of the masses

[internic]

Actually, I was really refering to developer community, I guess. At the time Mozilla seemed to be adding new and innovative features more quickly. Certainly Opera has had its share of innovative features, but as I said, Mozilla seemed to have coopted most of those and was adding things more quickly. Opera had mouse gestures first (as far as I know), but Mozilla quickly got a lot of different versions, so you had a lot of choice. A bit later there were things like Baysian spam filtering. That's the sort of stuff I'm talking about. Also, some features like the password manager and customizing searches were not as well documented and a bit more cludgy.

Generally I'm a fan of Opera. I always thought it was a really good browser with a lot of really nice usability features. At the time I switched to Mozilla, I used both and found Mozilla to be slightly slower but a bit better for compatability with web pages and more feature rich. I could easily believe that now Opera is better again. For me, however, it's really unlikely the difference is enough to put up with banner ads or pay for an ad free version. I think that is the reason that Opera will have a niche market among serious web surfers for a long time to come, but would have problems being a serious competitor to IE. Though things like new forms of pop up adds might make suffering through banners seem like a decent trade off. At least the Opera ads are target toward your interests.

Re:Power of the masses

[internic]

Ok, first, Minimo is a red herring. I wasn't talking about embedded browsers. I honestly have no idea if it's any good, though it's likely if nothing else it's too new to be good. And for all I know, Opera may always be the best in that arena.

"You mention several different gesture packages as "innovation" even though it came after Opera's. That's not innovation. That's confusion."

This is a matter of taste. What you call confusion I call choice. There is an extension for mouse gestures like those in Opera, or you can use, for example, pie menus. I like the latter a bit better, though both are nice. It is a nice thing to have a range of options.

"Bayesian filtering was not invented nor implemented first by Mozilla. By the way, I heard that Mozilla's filtering isn't really Bayesian, but who cares, as long as we can use buzzwords, eh?"

My point was that it was implemented in Mozilla before the any other popular desktop mail client I was aware of, including the integrated mail client in Opera. As to whether it's Baysian, its behavior would seem consistent with being Baysian, but it would be difficult to be sure (though you could look at the source). But I don't really care if it's "Baysian", just that it does a pretty good job for me, which made it an advantage of Mozilla.

I switched from using my paid for version of Opera 6.x over to Mozilla, back before Opera 7 was released. That's about all I can tell you about when I switched. As for why: For a few months I used each and sort of alternated. I found Mozilla seemed a little slower (but not terribly) but pages rendered and behaved properly in Mozilla more often. That was really the main reason I switched. At the time my impression was that Mozilla had a similar feature set with more choice, and it looked to me like they'd be adding features more quickly. It was quite a while ago and I didn't take notes or anything, so I really couldn't tell you the specifics of what features it was I was interested in at the time.

When Opera 7 came out, I considered switching back again, and I tried out the ad supported version. I found the features fairly comparable, though I recall that search customization and the password manager seemed to be less well documented, which I found annoying. But ultimately it was the fact that I couldn't see putting up with banner ads or paying the money to have a product comperable to the free one.

This all comes down to a lot of subjective judgements. I think which you choose is a function of a lot of things. It has to do with which features you prize, how much you value choice in features, how much disposable income you can devote to purchasing software (or how much you dislike banner ads), and a host of other things. I found that Mozilla fit the things that I wanted as well or better for a lower price. I can easily see people who prize some of the unique usability features of Opera more than I do, and who have money to spend on a web browser, choosing Opera. Again, that's why I think it will continue to have a niche market but never become dominant, in a situation much analogous to Macs.

New distributed computing project

[Anonymous Coward]

Rendering the Firefox New York Times ad.

Re:Firefox Hurting Linux

[LEgregius]

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.

Expect NYT sales to surge...

[GillBates0]

on that day by atleast a few thousand. Yet another instance of open source promoting business.

Re:Expect NYT sales to surge...

[Nonesuch]

Isn't the NYT sold at a loss? I don't think that you correctly analysed the economic consequence of a bunch of nerds just buying the NYT, cuting out the Firefox ad and trashing the rest.

It's a newspaper, not an X-box. The NYT isn't going to print any extra copies on "Firefox day", any unsold copies of any day's edition are themselves a loss, sent back to the distrbutor to be recycled into cat litter.

Generally the wholesale price of a newspaper just barely covers the cost of paper, ink, and distribution. Advertisers (like the firefox project) cover the costs of content and infrastructure -- newsgathering, layout, printing plants, plus a healthy profit margin for the publisher.

Re:Expect NYT sales to surge...

[ornil]

NYT's daily circulation is over a million. Do you really think they'd notice?

I wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

...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.

Re:I wonder...

[lilmouse]

You fool! It's not supposed to be a religious tablet!

Seriously, it's supposed to be like all advertising - getting the name out so that people are aware of it. People like the neighbors of a friend of mine, whose computer is soooooo slow because of adware, but didn't know there was an alternative to IE. If they see an ad like this, then a year from now, they might mention it to a friend "Oh, yeah, there's an alternative to IE....fire...something..." and the friend might find it. But the name is out there, and it will spread. Slowly, but it will spread. (Until it reaches critical mass, after which it will really take off!)

--LWM

Re:I wonder...

[MoonBuggy]

As another poster has mentioned, getting the name out there is always good, but another effect is further boosting the credibility of OSS. Even the pointiest-haired of bosses can see that the NY Times is big and respected - "if that's the kind of thing those open-whatever hippies are associated with, maybe theres something in it after all..."

Re:I wonder...

[vsprintf]

But the name is out there, and it will spread. Slowly, but it will spread. (Until it reaches critical mass, after which it will really take off!)

You mean it will spread like Wildfire? Great, now I've got that stupid Michael Murphy song running in my head.

Re:I wonder...

[Frogbert]

No, its about brand recognition. Tell someone about Firefox at the moment and you will get a Richard-Dean-Anderson-esque blank stare. After this perhaps you will get a "Oh yeah, I've heard that name before I think"

Re:I wonder...

[westlake]

any loon with a cause and money to burn can get their one-shot at fame in the Times. but there is a reason these advocacy adds sell at discount: only the true believers actually read them.

Re:I wonder...

[gardyloo]

Dude, that had better not be a rip on Richard Dean Anderson. Not only does he have way too many names, but he'll take you out with a wad of bubblegum and piece of grass.

AND THE GRASS IS *OPTIONAL*!

Re:I wonder...

[Xith]

The other way around, as well. Someone could have been bugged by a buddy about getting FF, but kept forgetting to check it out, and seeing an ad for it in the NY Times could make them finally go download it. Though that'll probably be less common than hearing about it first from the ad. So many folks who still don't know to stop using IE.

Re:Firefox Hurting Linux

[Tyrdium]

*cough*
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.

You've gotta be kidding

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Firefox Hurting Linux

[aklix]

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)

10,000 names??

[bazmail]

will there be any room left for branding and/or blurb?

Re:10,000 names??

[bairy]

Dunno why this is modded down (looking at posts of the last few days a hell of a lot of good posts are getting modded down).

It's actually a good point. I don't know how big the NYT is so I can't even guess what font size they need to use to fit 10,000. But I do wonder if they're actually gonna have much room to fit in anything else.

Mind, if they do run on the numbers theme, that many names will sell the ad for them.

Re:10,000 names??

[mrchaotica]

I'm guessing that the NY Times is normal newspaper size (normal for the States, at least -- dunno about Europe) which would be 12.5 inches wide by 22 inches high (it gets folded in half so it's not quite as unwieldy as it seems).

If I were the one making the ad, I'd fill the whole page up with names, and then superimpose the other text on top.

Re:10,000 names??

[factoryjoe]

The ad is 13" x 21". The font I'm using is Univers 67 Bold Condensed for the names. They're set at 4.5pt/4.6pt, tracking set to -25. I have enough room for 1.75" of white space on the page.

Since I'm designing it, I didn't do exactly what you would do, but you've got the right idea.

Chris

Re:10,000 names??

[mrchaotica]

Ah, cool. By the way, have you considered posting the revisions online somewhere? Even if there wasn't a suggestion mechanism (and I don't really think there should be -- it would slow things down too much) it would be nice to see the work in progress.

Re:10,000 names??

[factoryjoe]

I originally wanted to get the ad out to the community for review, but there were a number of complicating factors... and now that we're almost ready, I think that it actually works to our advantage to make it a surprise. I've had a lot of eyes from the immediate Mozilla family look it over (mostly the core developers and the good folks at SilverOrange) and we think that the ad stands up well and will be well-received by the community.

In the interest of process and history, I'd love to post all the revisions that the ad has gone through so far once it runs, starting with my initial sketches to the final piece... Excellent idea! Thanks!

Re:10,000 names??

[mrchaotica]

You're welcome! I was hoping to see them now, since I'm impatient, but I suppose suprises are nice too.... : )

Re:10,000 names??

[sweede]

I have to ask, what file format are you using to create the file that takes 15 minutes to render a single page?

I would assume you would be using standard postscript or PDF, but nothing we do at work (i work in prepress) takes more than 15 minutes to render (even an 8 page imposition) except for DSC 2.0 files. They can take 15 minutes for a 8x10.5 to an hour or more to render even a single 19x30 poster.

Re:10,000 names??

[factoryjoe]

Well, I was able to get an Adobe Engineer (thanks Dave!) on IM today and he showed me the error of my ways... Apparently Illustrator CS introduced a hidden feature known as the "Opacity Mask" which solved add my problems... Rendering time is now neglible... NYTimes here we come!

"non-profit"

[kennycoder]

They might be non profit company making free software but they are threatening other companies' buisness model. Time will tell...

Re:"non-profit"

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

bulging patent portfolios

Damn, that makes me all hot and flustered just thinking about it!

Re:"non-profit"

[bairy]

Then surely that will encourage other companies to create an even better browser.

Remember when netscape was 60UKP, suddenly IE got good (well... free), and they had to drop the price and improve the product (sadly they didn't work too hard on that). Point being, IE is shit and Opera is inflexible (and those are just the Windows side) so a threat will be a good and necessary kick up the arse for those two.

Re:"non-profit"

[_Sprocket_]

They might be non profit company making free software but they are threatening other companies' buisness model.

There are plenty of non-profits out there that threaten business models. Nobody is guaranteed a profit. And business models are not the guide to behavior.

Re:"non-profit"

[vsprintf]

They might be non profit company making free software but they are threatening other companies' buisness model.

With Microsoft bundling/downloading IE for _free_, how does Firefox threaten the business model of other companies? I can think of only one company currently trying to sell a browser, and more power to 'em, but that's an uphill battle, and Firefox is not their biggest competitor.

Re:Instead of names

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Firefox Hurting Linux

[FictionPimp]

Check out transgamings new game database. With the release of 4.2 a lot of new directX 9c games are supported.

I can't believe it's actually going to happen.

[Mr. KFM]

Just goes to show that thousands of people can't be that wrong.

They should buy popops.

[Anonymous Coward]

They should buys some popups advertising for the popup-blocker

Re:They should buy popops.

[LadyVirharper]

That would be a novel popup...no, really. A popup telling someone how to get rid of popups. Of course, everyone is habitually trained to automatically close them without reading, so it might not work due to that.

Re:They should buy popops.

[vsprintf]

They should buys some popups advertising for the popup-blocker

That's modded funny, but it makes some sense. Why not a popup saying, "If you were using Firefox, this ad wouldn't be in your face. Use this link to download now."

Re:They should buy popops.

[sangreal66]

Because that is what every spyware popup says

Re:They should buy popops.

[VanillaCoke420]

And it works, since people apparently click everything they see.

Re:They should buy popops.

[vsprintf]

Really? I've been using Linux/Mozilla/Firefox for long enough that I'm not familiar with the whole spyware problem. I guess it's not a good idea after all.

Re:Firefox Hurting Linux

[jvagner]

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.

Marketshare would assume a commercial site; even my bank lets me use 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.

Timing

[telstar]

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?

Re:Timing

[Rude Turnip]

Trust me, it's more like the end of August. In December, everyone is in a crunch to meet their numbers by the end of the year.

Re:Timing

[ToKsUri]

I don't want to be a Troll, but in christmas or not, I can only imagine corporate executives skipping the ad in one second flat. Maybe their unconsious mind retains a vague idea of the ad, but it wont be very useful unless they are bombarded with it more than once.

Only geeks like us would look at the ad more than 5 seconds (some will even cut it out and hang it on its office wall). But the people who are totally away from FF (Aka corporate executives) will probably just ignore it one way or the other.

Sorry for being so pessimistic, but it is just a thought.

Re:Timing

[snuf23]

I don't know if this ad is the way to go but I will say that the press FireFox has gotten has reached upper managemeent. Both the president of our publications division and the COO have asked me specifically about FireFox. The reason being? They saw an article saying it helps prevent spyware and popups. As just about anyone using a PC is aware to some degree of popups and spyware - often times aware and feeling powerless/clueless to handle the problem.
They also realize that cleaning out spyware can be a drain on IT resources which equals money out the door.
This awareness has helped me to begin to roll out FireFox on employees computers and given me the backing up to shoot down anyone who complains about missing Internet Explorer. (In all honesty that RARELY happens)

Re:Timing

[john_uy]

firefox is not enterprise friendly. there is even no msi installer to be deployed in the corporate intranet (official from mozilla.) there is no available group policy object for firefox that can be integrated with active directory. so they have not yet thought of actually deploying it in big corporate environments.

Re:Timing

[Delita]

I know it's not from the Mozilla Firefox team, but here is the msi you're looking for.

Re:Timing

[grammar nazi]

corporate executives don't ever read the Times. They read the Journal. ...and yes, they even read it on vacation.

Exposure

[zerosignal]

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

Re:Exposure

[arvindn]

You mean like the Apple 1984 ad. I think there's a serious chance that something like that might happen.

Re:Exposure

[rabbit78]

You mean that the NYT will be real-world-slashdotted by the number of Firefox fans that only buy the NYT because of the ad?
--
http://www.ontographics.com/

Re:Exposure

[bairy]

That's actually a really good point. It's unlikely this publicity will reach companies as presumably they are hopeful of doing, but it has hit a lot of online forums so home users ought to have rocketed.

Re:Exposure

[rabbit78]

sorry, no I didn't know it. Thank you for this hint. I just created the account and didn't bother yet to dig through all the options.

Re:Firefox Hurting Linux

[rabbit78]

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

I can already see how this will turn out

[suso]

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.

Re:I can already see how this will turn out

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention requiring the use of X fonts making the entire thing unreadable at any point size :)

Re:I can already see how this will turn out

[B3ryllium]

I heard that the design of the ad will be intended to resemble the Declaration of Independence. Therefore, 10,000 names should fit suitably, even at half the page. There should be room to have all the blurbiness they need.

Re:I can already see how this will turn out

[roj3]

We thought of that and the problem has been addressed.

Rob Davis

Re:I can already see how this will turn out

[factoryjoe]

Huh. Where'd you hear that? That's a pretty good idea, but not one that I considered while designing the ad. :)

Chris

Re:I can already see how this will turn out

[mrchaotica]

A full newspaper page is pretty darn big -- I just measured the AJC, and it's 12.5" by 22". I think they can actaully fit 10,000 names on a page that big and still have them be legible.

Re:I can already see how this will turn out

[B3ryllium]

Probably on Slashdot, around Sept or Oct. Guess I mis-read.

Re:I can already see how this will turn out

[mindriot]

Wow. You manage to find something negative in everything. Why not be a bit more positive and optimistic about it?

FYI, this is the ad that ran in the German well-known newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). This image is taken from an article in another well-respected German magazine called DER SPIEGEL. They've been reporting quite a lot about Firefox... and about this campaign. The ad text says:

FIRE! Together, hundreds of programmers develop a revolutionary Internet browser. The volunteer their time for it and then present it as a free gift to the whole world. Thereupon, 2403 people and companies finance this advertisement to tell you: Firefox 1.0 is out. Free download at http://www.mozilla-europe.org/de/.

Well... I think these ads are a fantastic idea. And to get back to your point, I think that is utter nonsense. Look at the image I've linked to. Sure, there are a lot of names. But you won't get confused by them! But the large list symbolizes the power behind this open-source browser movement very well. And with the FIRE! at the top and the clear message, it manages to catch your eye and give you its information extremely well, I think.

It's OK to not be overly optimistic about anything, but please don't be so overly pessimistic either.

Re:Which package should I use?

[Mifflesticks]

The next version of the mozilla package will be based upon Firefox and Thunderbird. Thus, you'll get them all at once in the future.

Re:Firefox Hurting Linux

[TheCubic]

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.

Re:Firefox Hurting Linux

[rabbit78]

Service Not Available? Is slashdot.org itself slashdotted?

Re:Firefox Hurting Linux

[mattgreen]

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.

15 minutes?

[boodaman]

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???

Re:15 minutes?

[Anonymous Custard]

Have you ever put 10,000 names on a page? Consider names are on average 15 characters long.

Re:15 minutes?

[Anonymous Coward]

A couple of considerations:
1. Your company is not the New York Times, and I doubt you have the imaging technology they do.
and
2. Calling 10,000 names from a database, justifying evenly, rendering down to postcript for a newspaper sized sheet and having room for the standard logo/disclaimer will certainly take at least 15 minutes in a professional environment (god knows I've spent enough time waiting around in Crystal Reports).

Re:15 minutes?

[thelenm]

Gecko.

*ducks and runs*

Re:15 minutes?

[. visplek .]

I bet they use the same machine they run the website on. It's terribly slow (when it responds at all) ;)

Re:15 minutes?

[aldeng]

I, also work with a lot of pre-press and general printing prep. One thing you have to keep in mind is that you have no clue what the ad looks like. If its flashy and eye catching then it seems very likely to me that it would take 15+ minutes to render a full newspaper page. Especially if it is a double page. Recently, rendering an image that was 30" by 41" took well over an hour on a brand new Dual 2.5 ghz G5 with 4 gigs of ram. Also, they might be making it with The GIMP and well... it's The GIMP. Not exactly the fastest imaging program on Earth.

Re:15 minutes?

[roj3]

C'mon, give us a little credit. We're obviously using networked TI-80s with a graphics app I wrote in 10th grade study hall.

Rob Davis

Re:15 minutes?

[theLOUDroom]

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???

That's a silly statement to make.
A PS or PDF file can be arbitrily complex for a given page size.

I've personally caused a single 8.5x11 page to take twenty mintues to come out of a fast laser printer.
All you need to do is send it a postscript file of something with a hundred thousand elements or so. (I'm my case, the VLSI layout for a microcontroller.)

If you're starting out with a bitmap then DPI and page size are dominating factors. When you're starting with a list of names in a scaleable font, you're talk about VECTOR graphics.
That is a "proper" way for a professional to work in this instance since they can then produce a result of arbitrary DPI or page size.

Re:15 minutes?

[factoryjoe]

Actually, I'm working at Mozilla on their shiny new Dual 1.8GHz G5 PowerMac with 1.25GB RAM.

The problem is that 10,000 names converted to outlines and intersected with a complex, gradiated shape isn't a task for mere mortals. But at the rate this thing is happening... Geez, Firefox 2.0 might be out! (j/k -- I'm almost done.)

Re:15 minutes?

[Zardus]

Bombing for peace is like screwing for virginity

If you know a better way to make more virgins, I'd like to hear it.

Re:15 minutes?

[snuf23]

Your point one makes no sense. They are making the ad and submitting it to NYT when it's done. This has nothing to do with the NYT's imaging.
Generally speaking, even with a nice press - newsprint is considerably less resolution than say a glossy magazine. The ink tends to spread out more on newsprint.
Odds are the rendering time has to do with translation of the postscript (vector) elements through a RIP (raster image processing) for output to a proofer. This can take quite a while for a significantly complex page.

Re:15 minutes?

[boodaman]

Scaling text is just a calculation.

Re:15 minutes?

[NotoriousQ]

I've personally caused a single 8.5x11 page to take twenty mintues to come out of a fast laser printer.

Does not take a lot to cause that actually. Just print out a powerpoint presentation with embedded bitmaps and excel graphics to a power point printer.

Here is what I have seen: PPT - about 4MB. PS in the printer queue 700MB. Total time to print was about 3 hours.

My job was next on the queue. God damn it.

Re:15 minutes?

[tolan-b]

Yes and calculations take time...

Rendering say an average of 15 characters per name = 150,000 characters, now how many curve points per character? Let's say *at least* 10, which is pretty unlikely = 1.5 million curve points, now render the curves....

but that's just a calculation right?

Re:15 minutes?

[factoryjoe]

What are you talking about? The problem was creating the proof-of-concept technique. The final ad would then be created once that it was established and the final, cleaned list of names was ready.

Besides, when was the last time you rasterized a type layer with more than 120,000 characters at 600dpi in grayscale? Try it sometime; seriously, it's a blast.

Re:15 minutes?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad factoryjoe! Bad!! Never EVER feed the trolls!

Re:15 minutes?

[Anonymous Custard]

Scaling text is just a calculation.

So is finding large primes, but that can take a while too. Rendering / rastering out a large page with a ton of text on it can take a while.

name branding?

[OffTheLip]

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...

Re:name branding?

[hackstraw]

I personally believe that the Firefox name kinda sucks for "normal" users. We all know what it is, but "Internet Explorer" is fairly descriptive. Albeit not creative, like most of Microsoft's product names, but easy to remember and intuitive.

I have a public account on my Mac for my friends and they could not figure out which thingy "got them on the internet". I created an alias for Camino, a Mac native port of Mozilla, on the desktop named "Internet", and the problem went away.

Re:name branding?

[mottie]

on the flipside of this, I've installed it for a LOT of people for varying reasons mostly relating to crippled copies of IE. Once a user actually uses Firefox, they rarely stop. Regardless of the "fancy" features like tabbed browsing, skins, etc.. its just faster.. which is all the average user cares about.

Oh that Luthor! : )

[Scrameustache]

occasionally still referred to as Lexscape by some marketroids at A Certain Very Big And Very Evil Corporation

Lexcorp?

Re:Oh that Luthor! : )

[EnderWiggnz]

Somebody SAVVVvavavVVVeve Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee....

good god, i'm watching way too much smallville.

Re:Firefox Hurting Linux

[senzafine]

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.

Re:Firefox Hurting Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Firefox Hurting Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

i don't get this.

[jimmyp9999]

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.

Re:i don't get this.

[LnxAddct]

We've still got 200k left over for the party! :-)
Regards,
Steve

Re:i don't get this.

[Headrick]

Perhaps it's more about the coverage that Firefox is getting because they are going to place the ad, rather than the ad itself.

Re:i don't get this.

[cmstremi]

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.

The only people who will go to or read about a launch party are the enthusiasts who already use and/or know about the browser. I doubt either will have a big impact, but the people who donated to create the ad did so expecting the ad. They can't simply change their minds about how to spend the money now.

Re:i don't get this.

[eMartin]

Right, because a party full of computer nerds is going to get everyone's attention.

Re:i don't get this.

[That's Unpossible!]

I don't understand why Firefox is blowing 50K to put an ad in the NYT.

1. The ad itself has already gotten $50K worth of coverage across the internet.

2. Firefox is not spending any money. People donated over $250,000 to Firefox because they wanted their name in an ad. So they spent the $50K on the ad, as promised, and held onto $200K for other ad campaigns.

As a "thank you" to the community it is pretty weak as well. It thanks only the NYT bottom line.

This was never offered as a thank you to the community. This ad was paid for by the community. Why would we thank ourselves? This ad is meant, pure and simple, as a way to get NYT readers to wonder how in the hell a program can be so good that it got 10,000 people to donate money to advertise it.

It has already worked, and it hasn't even run in the fucking paper yet!

A well-hyped $50K 1.0 launch party would be a better way to generate press and motivate people to switch to the browser.

This is why you are posting to slashdot instead of handling marketing for any products.

It would get far wider coverage than a single page in one edition of the NYT.

You mean like multiple postings on slashdot, CNET, and other highly trafficked internet sites? Oh wait... that's what has happened with this ad campaign.

Re:i don't get this.

[Dogtanian]

A well-hyped $50K 1.0 launch party would be a better way to generate press and motivate people to switch to the browser.

$50K is *not* a lot of money. I know people who would consider spending close to that on a wedding; you underestimate how much a decently lavish celeb-filled bullshit fest will cost to put on.

Re:i don't get this.

[slimyrubber]

I don't understand why Firefox is blowing 50K to put an ad in the NYT.

Look at all the publicity firefox got BECAUSE of the announcement of the ad. Even BBC ran a story about it.

Re:i don't get this.

[Tim Browse]

This was never offered as a thank you to the community. This ad was paid for by the community. Why would we thank ourselves? This ad is meant, pure and simple, as a way to get NYT readers to wonder how in the hell a program can be so good that it got 10,000 people to donate money to advertise it.

And yet, in the article:

The ad, according to Davis, is geared less to the Web-surfing public at large than at the community of Mozilla volunteers who have rallied around the increasingly popular alternative to Microsoft's dominant Internet Explorer browser.

So which is it?

I have to say, if the ad is targeted at 'the community of Mozilla volunteers', then what exactly is the point? They already know about Firefox, don't they? Sounds like a waste of $50,000.

Or is it so they can show the ad to sceptical friends/relatives and say "See! That kooky browser I was telling you about is advertised in the New York Times!"..?

Re:i don't get this.

[westlake]

This ad is meant, pure and simple, as a way to get NYT readers to wonder how in the hell a program can be so good that it got 10,000 people to donate money to advertise it.

Marketing types will be wondering what genius blows $60K on a b/w tombstone page two weeks before Christmas. You are competing for attention against the best efforts of every upscale restailer in the northeast.

You mean like multiple postings on slashdot, CNET, and other highly trafficked internet sites? Oh wait... that's what has happened with this ad campaign

Old news. Filed and forgotten a month before the add makes it into print.

Re:i don't get this.

[sharkey]

Well, yes. A hyped $50,000 party of just about anything will get attention, but will it generate the desired kind of attention? A well-done, highly visible ad in a respected newspaper should attract the attention and interest of many who would likely expect a geek party to consist of rousing choruses of "SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM" and a grand melee between the Kirk and Picard camps to close off the evening.

Re:i don't get this.

[geekoid]

"If I see any girls, I want to DO them!"

Re:i don't get this.

[forkazoo]

A well-hyped $50K 1.0 launch party would be a better way to generate press and motivate people to switch to the browser.

This is why you are posting to slashdot instead of handling marketing for any products.

Now, I do think the idea of a crazy hyped-up party could have some legitimate logic to it. If you can get somebody important to show up, you just might be able to get yourself mentioned in dozens of little news programs all over the place. Would that make any difference? I dunno.

Re:i don't get this.

[Dogtanian]

I am unemployed. $50k is damned fucking lot of money.

Yes. And a launch party would be extremely "fucking" expensive; like it or not, $50k wouldn't buy you a particularly noteworthy launch party when you consider that its purpose is normally to get media attention. I mean, you'd probably have to spend that much on gifts for all the freeloading celebrity scum just to get them to turn up.

When I said "$50k is *not* a lot of money", I'd have assumed it was damned obvious what the context was. For example, would you say "$50k is a damned fucking lot of money" if it was the entire budget for a manned mission to Mars?

Why don't you send me $50k. Hell I'll take $25k.

Why should we?

Who in the Mozilla organisation is paying graft to the NYT? Why not take the $250k and split it up among the people who contributed code?

Because the campaign was to raise money for an NYT ad, and get publicity for Mozilla.

Guess what? They aren't giving money to the NYT out of the goodness of their hearts. They're doing it to buy an advertisement. Can you understand that? They expect something in return. This is what Microsoft do too.

Of course, you're welcome to disagree with whether this would be worth the money spent. That would be a more productive discussion than saying that $50k is a lot of money, out of context, and not even considering *why* the Mozilla org is giving the money to the NYT.

Re:i don't get this.

[That's Unpossible!]

So which is it?

That is a mistake in their article.

This is a comment from Chris over at Spread Firefox:

"That's a misquote. The ad is targeted towards the general public... mostly those people who don't know what a web browser is (but desperately should learn!).

Chris"

Re:i don't get this.

[That's Unpossible!]

Old news. Filed and forgotten a month before the add makes it into print.

Really? Is that why we're on slashdot discussing an article in CNET that ran yesterday updating people on the progress of the ad, a week or two before it runs? And you know the day the ad runs, there will be more articles about it so people in the know can pick up a copy of the NYT, and other people that didn't hear about it will.

Re:i don't get this.

[That's Unpossible!]

Nobody that the general public cares about as "important" is going to show up at a geek party for a fucking web browser. Important people being celebrities and other famous folks.

You might get "geek celebrities," but that is it...

I think it is way more impactful to say, these 10,000 people donated money just so we could advertise this product they love.

Re:i don't get this.

[forkazoo]

I was assuming you would just use the 50 grand to pay a celebrity to show up in some guy's basement for pizza and off-brand cola...

Re:Instead of names

[sfraggle]

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.

Re:Firefox Hurting Linux

[RealAlaskan]

I can think of one site that won't let me shop with Firefox -- Pitney Bowes

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.

My guess is you need to reduce the count by a bit

[BoomerSooner]

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.

Man just run it already

[jayhawk88]

...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.

Re:Man just run it already

[Anonymous Coward]

I would, the only reason i donated is to get my name in the NYT.

I'm sure i'm not the only one.

You're an idiot to assume shit like this.

Re:Man just run it already

[Doctor Crumb]

I wonder how many times "Anonymous Coward" is listed in the ad?

Re:Man just run it already

[mrchaotica]

I can just imagine you reading through the names: Bob Smith, Henry Jones -- ah, here it is: "Anonymous Coward." Now I'll be famous!

Re:Man just run it already

[Malfourmed]

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.

Excluding people's names probably won't generate a lot of ill will.

But tracking people down to confirm their inclusion probably will generate a lot of good will.

Re:Is an explanation in the summary too much to as

[halivar]

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".

It's completely the opposite.

[Spy der Mann]

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.

Re:It's completely the opposite.

[Khuffie]

What's really stopping Linux is the million and one different distributions, with the thousand and one different way of packaging programs, and the utmost reliance on the terminal to do stuff that can easily be done in a GUI.

Re:It's completely the opposite.

[rabbit78]

> so Windows users will start developing multi-platform apps Since when do users (especially Windows-users) develop something? But I get your point. But remember, there's Wine, Mono & Java as well as lots of X-plattform-enabled development libraries like GTK, lots of stuff in Cygwin etc etc. X-plattform development is possible and IMO fairly easy these days.
--
http://www.ontographics.com/

Re:It's completely the opposite.

[toolshed7]

I hear this alot and here is my 2 cents. The different distro is what is stopping Linux?That is like saying Ford, Chevy, Nissan should make just one kind of car with no options.Does that make sense to you? Even windows has distros?(windows distros: datacenter, web, media, xp, w2k3 standard, w2k3 enterprise) But you think that one version of windows will work equally will on 8cpu server and p2 i386, and it should cost the same. Lets start at around $2000 a box....is that what you mean.

What makes linux powerful is all the different distros. Take a car for example, if all you want to do is drive to and from work then buy an old Ford escort(good luck with picking up chicks). I want the ability to chose, I drive a 4x4 suv, becuase it has the options I want and is packaged differently for me(it does not have all the options..but I add from different vendors..XM, alpine radio). 4x4 is not included with escort, more space, and v-6 supercharged engine, roof rack. Does any other OS give you these options? If you want one exe to do it all, then where is the innovation.

The terminal, this is what makes linux better than windows or gui os. Once a person gets proficent at using the terminal, everything is faster and everything is simpler. Also, anything that can run in terminal and be transformed into a GUI. Linux is not for everyone yet, but it will be soon. Your compliants will be heard, that is what distros are for...if enough people feel the way you do...someone create a distro for the masses...Just think before you speak..or ask it as a question.

Re:It's completely the opposite.

[Blakey Rat]

The next version of RealBasic will compile for Linux. The problem is it costs $300 and, frankly, Linux users are notoriously cheap... will they buy it? Or just pirate it while chanting "information wants to be free?"

If you need a product like that, you need to pay for it. If Linux users paid for things, in general, then they wouldn't need to encourage cross-platform development because companies would already be doing it! Look at MacOS X... OS X users buy their software and, as a result, they have high quality commercial software available to buy.

Re:It's completely the opposite.

[dingfelder]

"What Linux REALLY needs to overthrow Windows, is a multiplatform RAD environment for C++"

Interesting thought. Sounds like you are describing Borland C++ Builder, which has been around for years :)

It is a multiplatform development environment (Windows, Linux or Solaris) for C++

C++ Builder uses the Borland IDE that many consider much better than the other crappy C++ IDEs (like Visual Studio) and from what I gather their compiler is pretty darn good as well.

Here is the main page

The scaled down version is free on their download page

but the fully loaded enterprise version is a bit pricey

Re:It's completely the opposite.

[DogDude]

I agree. My company in no way, shape, or form can even *consider* Linux until there are some stable, proven, off-the-shelf, affordable point of sale and financial applications out there. If one is created any time soon, we'll run them on our Windows boxes for quite a while before we switch. But right now, there's a 0% chance that we can even consider it.

Re:It's completely the opposite.

[billbasher]

Bah While I do like Borland products, and agree the C++ Builder is the way to go for cross platform GUI C++ apps, I think it is unfair to compare it to Visual Studio or Visual C++. Visual C++ is so poor that comparing it to C++ Builder tarnishes C++ Builder's image :)

Re:It's completely the opposite.

[Zorilla]

What needs to happen is to provide a means to do all typical tasks (and most advanced) tasks via GUI. You'll be hard pressed to find a normal person who finds the terminal easy to use and intuitive. Thus, it should only have to be touched when used for automated scripting and network management for those who really wish to save time on a batch task and embrace the full power of the OS.

As long as there separate methods of doing something through both GUI and command-line as well as a good separation between frontend and backend throughout the OS, distros can please both general users and the more advanced ones.

Re:It's completely the opposite.

[Spy der Mann]

Hmmm. Questions...

* Is CBuilderX free for commercial use?
* Does it support wxWidgets?
* Do you happen to have a torrent? :D

I'm just asking, because i got kinda disappointed whith Delphi when they stopped distributing Delphi personal. Actually there's an article on Delphi that a friend of mine wrote (hope he doesn't kill me when he finds out i posted it on /. :P), so I'm kinda skeptic on Borland now. But I guess "you get what you pay for" :(

Re:It's completely the opposite.

[Zorilla]

I've always found that GUI frontends to text configuration files usually mangle the files. SuSE even has some arbitrary information stored in many of the files to tell the frontends just what is supposed to be happening and prevent problems.

I'm hoping something in Linux reaches the ease of the MMC. YaST is unbearably slow and it feels the need to write to 20 different conf files if you do so much as fart (at least in SuSE).

I'm also hoping for some sort of centralized device manager, but I imagine a HAL has to come first, so as to eliminate the need to compile your own drivers a lot of the time.

I think the first thing that needs to happen is to fix the damn menu system (at least in KDE - You can't even change Gnome's in Fedora). This is something an average user could break very easily (even I messed it up pretty bad in KMenuEdit in about five minutes). The way they did it seems to be done in a manner just to be contrary to the way it's done in Windows (which is odd for a window manager that also decided to copy the file browser-that's-also-a-web-browser annoyance). I never saw anything wrong with shortcuts placed in directories at the file system level, but KDE decided, for some reason, to use at least five different locations to place random crap. To this day, I still don't understand something that could have been very simple, but completely overengineered now. KDE has a huge task at hand trying to fix this if they can - since all KDE distros' packages are built around the messed up menu structure.

Re:It's completely the opposite.

[ozmanjusri]

What needs to happen is to provide a means to do all typical tasks (and most advanced) tasks via GUI.

I wonder how hard it would be to make a plugin for Firefox to do that? Instead of about:config you could do network:config or storage:config. That way even distros with odd /etc configurations could have a standard place for users to play with settings.

Re:It's completely the opposite.

[Zorilla]

Well, then you end up with another web-browser-is-also-something-else paradigm.

One program. One purpose. I've always been a believer in that. A web browser browses, a file manager manages files, and text editor does nothing more than edit text (quickly; at least Notepad gets right what KWrite and Kate don't).

Re:It's completely the opposite.

[krist0]

ah, but here's the thing,
yes there are different car makers, BUT, and this is a big american sized BUT,

the interface in ALL the cars is largely the same.

They all have a steering wheel, gears (or an auto), layout is reasonably the same, you can be sure of getting a speedo, fuel gauge....

if you can drive one car you can drive ANY (ok, with maybe one or two pedantic exceptions)

but linux? well yes, they all have a terminal of some description...but then you have kde, gnome, all the other windowmanagers, up2date, YaST, portage, rpm etc etc, Thats the equivalent of stopping the car, popping open the fuel tank, dipping in the ole rod and checking the level not to mention on different cars, you need a different rod, maybe the fuel tank is in the back, maybe the front.

so yeah, once there is some kind of uniformity in the whole linux experience, well, people will run away in fear.

Re:It's completely the opposite.

[orcrist]

The way they did it seems to be done in a manner just to be contrary to the way it's done in Windows (which is odd for a window manager that also decided to copy the file browser-that's-also-a-web-browser annoyance)

This statement alone tells me you know nothing about Konqueror, how it works, what the design philosophy is, and where they got their ideas. I'm too lazy for more than this short rebuke; so if you're too lazy to actually learn about the subject at hand than maybe you should save yourself the effort of typing anti-informative crap like this.

-chris

Re:It's completely the opposite.

[Zorilla]

That was nice and ambiguous.

No matter how you slice it, there's still a damn web browser in my file manager! One program, one purpose. I also disagree with the way it internally views text files, PDFs, RPM data, etc. It's much more flexible to associate files with separate, independent programs instead of relying on snap-ins.

Not to mention the bugs Konqueror has where it insists on internally viewing some file types (tar.gz and tar.bz2, hint, hint!) whether you configure it to or not. I shouldn't have to right-click on a menu to get tar archives to open in a separate program. I wouldn't mind the internal viewer if it weren't so slow (you ever see "stalled" a lot when doing file operations in Konqueror?) and didn't trash source directories (I've had too many compiles screw up, the problem turned out to be extracting it with Konqueror)

Re:It's completely the opposite.

[orcrist]

Re: ambiguous - Like I said, I was too lazy to get more verbose (and I should be working as well), but I'll bite on a couple of those comments, for the rest try airing this stuff at KDE dot news or the appropriate forums/mailing lists. Maybe you'll get some answers to help you, assuming you want it.

No. There isn't a web browser in your file manager because it is sliced, so to speak. There is a web browser part which is displayed in the Konqueror frame. If you don't want to use that part, don't enter a web url. Konqueror does have one purpose: To display files (you sound like a unix type, so you must agree that a directory is also a file) which can be referenced by a url or to start a program which has been associated with said file, depending on how you've configured it.

Flexibility means doing it either way: Konqueror allows this (see file-types->embedding), though I'll give you that changing the behavior doesn't seem to work properly for tars (bzip or gzip) on 3.3.0; still it does work for pdf and the like. For the tars and indeed for any file type regardless how it's configured see the next line.

To open a file externally: middle click. No right click menu necessary.

Slow? It used to be, I'll admit that, but not in 3.3.0 and they're already up to 3.3.2

Trash source directories? News to me, though I guess it's possible. Still, it sounds like you have used it more than I had assumed from your post. What version are/were you using?

There, I went and typed a lot more than I had intended - sigh. I'm just trying to say, maybe you should look into how flexible Konqueror is by asking in the appropriate forums... you might be surprised.

-chris

Re:Firefox Hurting Linux

[ackthpt]

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)

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.

Re:I'd like my money back.

[bairy]

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?

Re:Is an explanation in the summary too much to as

[-kertrats-]

um...15 minutes? You might want to learn to read.

Re:Firefox Hurting Linux

[Sri Lumpa]

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.

Re:Instead of names

[squidinkcalligraphy]

Maybe they could compress the list of names with bzip2, then print the resulting hex?

Re:Local Web Site Ads

[Feneric]

As the original poster of the mentioned article about Firefox in Saugus my point was that the New York Times article idea may not be the most effective because many of the New York Times readers are still reading newspapers because they haven't figured out the Internet yet.

I'd personally like to see the energy being spent to go into more effective advertising. The article promoting Firefox on Saugus.net is meant to be just one example... Saugus.net has a history of promoting free software, though; I'd like to see more local sites without such a history getting into the act.

Re:Why now?

[mrmcwn]

Momentum. If they wait until January the rapidly tapering buzz around 1.0 will be gone. Strike while the iron is hot.

Re:I THOUGHT LINUX WAS FREE

[bairy]

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.

Checks and balances?

[That's Unpossible!]

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.

Re:Checks and balances?

[cheekyboy]

Microsoft will probably spend $9billion to buy 51% share in NYT, then refuse the adds.

I also can already see how this is turning out

[That's Unpossible!]

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.

Re:Firefox Hurting Linux

[jvagner]

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.

Re:Which package should I use?

[bairy]

The clue was in "will be". That means future. That means not yet. You can't link to something that doesn't exist yet.

Re:My guess is you need to reduce the count by a b

[jrcamp]

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.

Re:Is an explanation in the summary too much to as

[UWC]

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."

Sign of a true fanatic!

[wealthychef]

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? :-)

Re:Sign of a true fanatic!

[TClevenger]

Yeah--the ones where they claim a TCO lower than Linux. :-)

Re:Sign of a true fanatic!

[_Sprocket_]

Are there forums where people get all hot and heavy over Microsoft advertising? :-)

That would be the "mainstream" trade press. ;)

Re:Sign of a true fanatic!

[freeweed]

That, and "the Spoke".

Re:Is an explanation in the summary too much to as

[bairy]

I sense you've missed the point.

The names are people who have paid to have their name on a full page New York Times ad for Firefox.

Re:What about my Mozilla FireBush?

[Anonymous Coward]

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!!!

They mentioned red cunt hair in the bible? I don't think so.

Request!

[Turn-X Alphonse]

Could someone who has donated change their name to Bill Gates please? Thanks!

Re:Firefox Hurting Linux

[linguae]

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.

Re:I'd like my money back.

[dhakbar]

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.

Re:Local Web Site Ads

[krgallagher]

"New York Times article idea may not be the most effective because many of the New York Times readers are still reading newspapers because they haven't figured out the Internet yet."

It depends who the target is. If you are targetting Corporate "Suits," then the newspaper add makes sense. You would be surprised how many IT decisions are made by non-technical people in big corporations. If they see it in "the legitimate press" then it adds credibility.

Re:Is an explanation in the summary too much to as

[Dogtanian]

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).

Press Resolution

[ToKsUri]

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.

Re:Press Resolution

[Anonymous Coward]

They will be outputting to offset printing plates using a digital direct-to-plate process. Resolution will probably be 2400 dpi or slightly higher.

Of course other things affect legibility ... paper quality, the fact that it's cold-set printing, which means the web ink soaks into the paper so it "expands" on the page ever so slightly -- put droplets of water on a bone-dry sponge and you'll see. This is called "dot gain" in the printing world.

I would think that something in the neighborhood of 3 point type would still be legible ... add leading and multiply that times the area of a broadsheet page. 3-pt with 1-pt leading would fit 18 lines of type per inch.

Re:Press Resolution

[ikea5]

The 10000 names will apper as optical blanding by useing super small fonts distrubited evenly throught out the page.

In other words, a grey backgroud.

Re:Press Resolution

[mrchaotica]

Oh, good -- that's what I hoped they were doing.

Although, what would be really cool is if they varied the intensity to get a grayscale Firefox logo in the background.

Re:Firefox Hurting Linux

[16K Ram Pack]

Actually, you're very wrong about this.

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.

Re:My guess is you need to reduce the count by a b

[TClevenger]

True. I've installed Firefox a couple dozen times from a USB key I keep on me.

Re:'Rendering' time is such a lame excuse

[bill_mcgonigle]

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. ... And yes, I am a professionally-employed graphic artist so I know what I'm talking about.

But you don't even know what rendering means? Hint, "3D Rendering" is specific to 3D.

Re:Firefox Hurting Linux

[steveyT]

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.

Norway

[Earlybird]

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.

Re:Norway

[Omestes]

seeing a little-known niche thing becoming mainstream
I never really saw it that way, wow. Now I actually feel kinda sad, like my child is leaving the nest. I've been sticking with FF since it was Phoenix, participating (via bugzilla, and such, and trolling /.), and then once it got to .7 trying to get everyone and their dog to switch. And now it's like our big communal geek baby is ready for the world...
It kind of a unique feeling, since most of us are responsible for this, each of us reporting bugs, getting people to switch is culminating into this... Not this as in the ad, but this as in FF becoming mainstream. A bunch of lazy geeks, who are getting paid nothing, are creating a cultural artifact almost accidentally, and with no organization, just communal good sense. Hmmm...

Re:Norway

[Earlybird]

• A poster found in an obscure place in a tiny European country does not "mainstream" make...

Nice. Oslo is the capital of Norway. We are not some backwater nation; our population is arguably more tech-savvy than the US, especially with regard to Internet and cell phone usage (and to cite another interesting example, PayPal is essentially useless within this country, because everyone can send money to each others' accounts, online and elsewhere, and have been doing this since before the 'net).

Regardless of our technology, statistically Norway is as good a pulse to check as any European country, a microcosmos mirroring the world at large. The fact that Firefox is becoming mainstream in Norway is a sign that it's becoming mainstream everywhere. Regardless, the fact it's becoming mainstream here is interesting enough in itself.

A way around that.

[nadadogg]

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.

Re:A way around that.

[joper90]

get an s2000 instead :)

One ad is useless

[DogDude]

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.

Re:One ad is useless

[kaiser423]

Have you ever thought that it was an advertising salesman telling you to buy more ads? Not exactly unbiased.

I'm still of the belief that one good ad with good impact is better than many little ones. I notice that clever ad I may have only seen once or twice, but I couldn't tell you anything about the latest swiffer sweeper product or whatever else they advertise.

Re:One ad is useless

[geekoid]

"... latest swiffer sweeper product ..."
apparently those ads do work.

"improvements" are ofter created to get you familiar with the product name, not the latest inprovements.
If you can watch an ad, and later name the improvments, thats bonus.

Re:One ad is useless

[geekoid]

you know, I have car salesman tell me that just one car isn't enough to get around in these days, I should get one for every day of the week.

wait.. NYT?

[chocolatetrumpet]

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.

Re:wait.. NYT?

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

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.

They want EYE BALLS, there for the NYT fits the bill. I mean really, who would you suggest? USA Today?

No, i am looking forward to see the

[Bender Unit 22]

fine names of Iwanna Tingle, Hugh Jass and Pat McGroin in print.

Re:Firefox Hurting Linux

[Tyrdium]

*looks at site*

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!

Re:Instead of names

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Why now?

[snuf23]

Sssssssssssh! I'm giving everyone I know FireFox for Christmas! Don't let them know it's free! They'll all think I'm a cheap ass!

Ad already ran in Germany

[Nice2Cats]

The U.S. firefoxers are badly lagging behind here: The German local group "Firefox kommt!" had their ad with about 2,400 signatures in Germany's premier economics paper "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" (FAZ) on the 2nd of December 2004. You can see the ad here (includes various mirrors). The response in the German press was fantastic.

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.

Re:Ad already ran in Germany

[Sweetshark]

The U.S. firefoxers are badly lagging behind here: The German local group "Firefox kommt!" had their ad with about 2,400 signatures in Germany's premier economics paper "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" (FAZ) on the 2nd of December 2004. You can see the ad here (includes various mirrors). The response in the German press was fantastic.
... and firefox-kommt was started after the US campaign. And I really liked the ad ...
Firefox Declares War in Germany
Firefox ad published in Europe
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.
So true.

Re:Ad already ran in Germany

[mrchaotica]

FYI, phones don't have a "10" button. ; )

Re:I'd like my money back.

[bairy]

Lemme ask you something, if you saw 10,000 names on a bit of paper, would you read them all?
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.

Re:'Rendering' time is such a lame excuse

[pipingguy]

If it's a full page colour ad at 300 lpi (or dpi, I forget the correct term for printing) it could be a *huge* file. But as a subsequent poster says, surely there's someone in the community that could provide the horsepower required.

Re:Which package should I use?

[tepples]

You can't link to something that doesn't exist yet.

Surely the artifact doesn't exist yet, but what about the roadmap?

Re:Firefox Hurting Linux

[pipingguy]

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

Re:Why now?

[NotoriousQ]

You could by them a boxed set.

15 minutes to render is bad

[KilBee]

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.

Re:15 minutes to render is bad

[factoryjoe]

Well, the problem was that I wasn't aware of a hidden feature in Illustrator CS called "Make Opacity Mask". Now that I found that, I'm humming right along. We're nearly go--just waiting on legal and NYT review.

How about OOo?

[zoloto]

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.

PNG support.

[mesmartyoudumb]

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.

Re:Local Web Site Ads

[mrchaotica]

On the other hand, if they were targeting Corporate "Suits" they should have run the ad in the Wall Street Journal.

Re:Local Web Site Ads

[Feneric]

Assuming that the suits know enough to begin with to even have a clue of what Firefox is (or there's enough in the ad to tell them, and I don't think there is if they're clueless).

The New York Times still wouldn't be my first choice for going after the suits. I think I'd go for the Economist or Wall Street Journal first...

Re:This is news?

[mrchaotica]

Hey, I wanted to hear about it, you insensitive clod!

Besides, I'm sure that a big chunk of those 10,000 names belong to people who read Slashdot...

Re:Which package should I use?

[Snover]

Well, the aviary branch for Firefox just landed on trunk, which means that the features introduced in Firefox will be available in the Suite as soon as regressions are sorted out.

Re:'Rendering' time is such a lame excuse

[bob beta]

Rendering is what is done to process dead animals which are not suitable for food.

render \"ren-der\ vb 1 : to extract (as lard) by heating

Often soap is made from rendered animals.

parent is not a troll

[808140]

TSIA

FFDeploy

[sremick]

In addition to the MSI mentioned, there's also this:

http://firefox.dbltree.com/

subtract a few

[XO]

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.

Re:Firefox Hurting Linux

[Omniscientist]

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.

Re:'Rendering' time is such a lame excuse

[sweede]

300 lines per inch would be a very dark image. its probably a normal 300dpi image, but if they're putting it on newsprint stock, even 100dpi is to much for the stock.

Re:'Rendering' time is such a lame excuse

[sweede]

I wonder the same thing, why it takes 15 minutes to render (i would imagine its a 10.75x15" ad). The only thing i can think of is that they are using DSC2 files instead of postscript or pure PDF.

At work on our Prinergy servers (quad xeon 1.4ghz with 8gig-o-ram), a 8x10.5 DSC2 page takes a good 10 minutes to render. PDF's render in a few seconds

Put it in EUROS or GOLD

[cheekyboy]

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.

Re:Put it in EUROS or GOLD

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

I think where the "moo-lah" is going is for wickedly quick game boxes - er, I mean workstations for rendering print ads...

Re:Put it in EUROS or GOLD

[SgtChaireBourne]

Euros, definitely. Though I notice that the site being plugged focuses on precious metals.

I was under the impression that not only are most nations already off of the gold reserve, but have been quietly off loading what they do have before it drops to a value more appropriate for its industrial qualities.

As far as currencies go, unless the electoral college rises to the occasion and takes the voter suppression, election fraud and questions about the reliability of the current voting system into account, I can't see any way to avoid the dollar from tanking completely. So it would be unwise to keep all of it in US dollars.

Whatever. The Mozilla foundation does have to do something wise with that money, regardless.

I'm really surprised...

[phaln]

I didn't see Maya Butthertz in there. Or Mrs. Butterworth, for that matter.

I knew I should have got in while I had time! /sarcasm added through interpretive dance

Edit searches in Opera.

[hkmwbz]

OpSed

Re:Which package should I use?

[bairy]

You have my apologies for being a dick. As you posted as AC and had "plz" in it, I assumed you were one of those that reads an faq then asks a question out of it.

Re:Firefox Hurting Linux

[ratamacue]

the only thing stopping me from moving to Linux is gaming

Why not go with a dual-boot system, so you can have the best of both worlds?

NASDAQ

[Zemplar]

(unfortunately)

Re:For all of you righties out there...

[chawly]

Try to stay up-to-date. Nazi-monthly has been a daily for more than 40 years

Re:Can't see the ad

[theendlessnow]

Sheesh the pro Microsoft moderators are out in full force lately!