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Firefox New York Times Ad Hits the Presses
Dave writes "The long awaited New York Times ad for Firefox has finally hit the presses. Because of the vast number of donations the ad covered two pages of the newspaper. It's being timed to coincide with 11 million downloads."
Does anyone have a higher resolution image so I can actually read the names.
-- john
It'll be interesting to see exactly how much this (wonderfully designed) ad will affect the number of downloads over the next few days. Here's to hoping this makes a difference with all the Joe User's out there.
...we could start a fund raising project to run a full-page ad for Lynx?
This way to the egress...
One has to wonder, will 'Monkey' Ballmer and his gang of miscreants reply to this? Will we see a big 'IE. Get with the program.' on the next days? They cannot let this stand...
j.
I looked at the PNG linked to in the posting, and i have to say, I wasn't very impressed. It sounds like something written by a bunch of open source programmers.
They refer to the people who've downloaded it as "users". While, yes, they are users, I think the majority of the web browsing population doesn't use the term "user" when referring to themselves. Something like "... 10 million people from around the world..." would've sounded less geek-like.
Heck, a lot of people don't even separate the "web browser" as something that is distinct. They think of the web as the Internet, their monitor as their computer, their case as their hard drive, etc.
The ad did focus on the spyware, crashes, etc. which is good -- but, IMHO, they just didn't do it in the "average computer users" tongue.
I love the ad! I especially like the hidden image on the first page (stare at the page long enough with uncrossed eyes and "IE Sucks" will appear in 3D). Was this a clever easter egg or just an attempt at semi-subtle subliminal advertising?
Here is a link to the folks behind the ad. Including a PDF version, a poster you can buy...and a place to put in the correction if they mis-typed your name.
It's my understanding a free copy of this ad is being included with every copy of the New York Times.
High-res, too. One day offer only, though.
Most of the readers will be unaware that Firefox does not suffer from the security problems that IE does. They may simply answer the question: "Are you fed up with your web browser?" with: "Nope. works fine"
This should do wonders for the NYT. I know I'm going to go out and buy a copy.
Badass Resumes
They found out they could save a lot of money, by giving the paper permission to print during a range of days (space available basis). They paper would give them only a short notice (12 hrs?) that they placed it. /. effect.
Sorry for lack of details, I going from memory due to
Never trust a man wearing a coat and tie!
I disagree. It is true that there are a lot of web savvy users that read the NY Times, but, speaking from my experience of people I've migrated to Firefox, you'd be surprised about the number of them who had maybe *heard* of it, but hadn't given it enough thought to give it a try. Perhaps this will give them enough of a push in the right direction so that they will actually give it a try. It's hard to motivate someone to go out to a webpage and download a piece of software to replace an existing piece of software, especially when they still don't have a clear picture of how much better the replacement is. It's like convincing someone to change to a newer, better tasting cereal, when lots of them really are quite happy with the cereal they have... If only they'd try that new cereal, though, you know they'd be hooked.
"hey, could you pass me a paper towel? er.. I mean... DEPLOY ABSORBTION PANEL!"
While this ad is ok, I have ask what do the second, third and fourth advertisement look like? When will they run? How long will they run?
In order to market this product, perhaps a long term campaign that stresses all the ways Firefox will make interent browsing easier would be good.
One ad can simply state: "No pop up ads. EVER" with the firefox logo and link to download it. Another ad could highlight the best, most useful extensions. I think the weather update/forecast extension would be perfect for this.
Also: Are there ANY ads appearing on the NYT website, or any other high traffice website? This would make it easy to download the program.
Actually, a lot of the security in Firefox was patched on after the fact.
For example, older releases of FF/Mozilla had a ActiveX-type system that could popup an "Install Me" box when you visited a web page. When spyware makers started to abuse this, Mozilla simply changed the policy so it was impossible.
But, the only reason they could get away with this is that the feature had so few legitimate users outside of 1 or 2 known websites. If Microsoft did something similar, they would break thousands of legitimate applicaitons (this is where the popularity/installedbase argument comes into play).
Don't get me wrong -- FF did the right thing reacting quickly to Spyware installers, but it was still an after-the-fact reaction to a poorly designed feature.
The old argument about Mozilla was not that it was "Secure by Design", but that it was "A Great Developer Platform". Developer Platform means extendibility means opportunity for hacks/spyware. There's always going to be interesting new applications of the extentions/XUL stuff that Mozilla will have to keep an eye on.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
This strikes me as more of a vanity move than a real marketing move.
I paid for my name to be put in the ad. I admit it was purely for personal business reasons. I support and install Firefox all the time for me clients that are constantly bogged down in spyware. Having an NYT ad that will be framed on my wall with my name on it gives this unheard of browser more credibility in the minds of my clients. Gives me some free press as well even if I have to point it out to people.
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
There's a certain irony in checking out the Firefox ad from a CVS...
It's "no one," not "noone." Who the hell is noone anyway?
I paid for my name to be put in the ad. ... Gives me some free press as well even if I have to point it out to people.
:)
Don't you mean, gives you some free press, but all you had to do was pay for it?
- Font: Univers Bold Condensed
- Size/Line-height: 4.5pt/4.6
- Tracking: -23
This is slightly bigger than when the c|net article came out and MUCH bigger than when it was only one page!! In all my test prints, the names were fairly legible, and from what I hear, they look pretty good in the paper.A geek's true Christmas wish come true:
First name on the ad!
Why not create a webpage with black and white ads for firefox in various sizes in PDF format. Then start a grassroots campaign where people inclined to donate could use those PDF files to take out small ads in local newspapers across the country. Prices of course vary but small black and white ads can be quite affordable for small newspapers which reach only a few thousand readers. I think such a campaign could dramatically increase exposure. ...just an idea.