Firefox Seeks Full Page Ad in New York Times 753
blakeross writes "Join us over at Spread Firefox as we raise funds for the most ambitious launch campaign in open source history. A portion of each donation will go towards taking out a full-page ad in the New York Times celebrating the release. All donors will be listed in the ad, the signatories of a declaration of independence from a monopolized and stagnant web."
Re:Public needs to change to make the change... (Score:5, Informative)
Portion of the donations (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Ummmm.... (Score:5, Informative)
http://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/marketing-public
Re:Public needs to change to make the change... (Score:5, Informative)
I can browse slashdot, do my banking, pay my bills, hit a few of the forums sites I frequent, use several different webmail programs, order flowers for my wife, buy plane tickets, book a rental car, etc. etc. all through Firefox. The odd site that breaks when I browser to it, gets ignored, and I move to the next google result.
Slashdotted (Score:4, Informative)
NY Times Ad CampaignLet's mark the launch of Firefox 1.0 with a community marketing campaign that will take the buzz around Firefox to the next level: the first-ever, full-page advertisement in a major daily newspaper created and paid for by the open source community.
Here is how it works:
* The full-page ad will include the names of everyone who supports the campaign along with a message about the benefits/features of Firefox.
* The campaign will act as a fundraiser to support all Firefox 1.0 launch activities, not just the ad itself.
* An individual contribution of $30 will get your name included in the ad ($10 student rate).
* Special recognition -- Community Champion -- will be given to people who enlist 10 of their friends in this campaign. (These folks have a shot at having their name in the lower half of the ad.)
* There are also two packages available for businesses to participate.
* If you have a Spread Firefox account, you will receive 100 sfx points per name slot that you purchase or refer.
* The goal: sign up 2500 names!
* More questions? Check the FAQ.
* Ready? Click the newspaper on the upper right to join in!
We (sfx members and Firefox users) will only ever have one Firefox 1.0 launch -- this is it! Let's take the world by storm.
PS: The buzz about this campaign is already starting. Check out the story on eWeek!
PS2: Thanks to everyone who's uploaded images showing how you're spreading the fire. Keep those images coming!
Re:Public needs to change to make the change... (Score:5, Informative)
Every single person I've converted to Firefox from IE has been more than pleased. All the techies I know have already converted, and the newbies appreciate Firefox's clean-cut, easy-to-use interface just as much if not more than IE's. It's also been shown by numerous studies across the web that Firefox/Mozilla has sizable market share now, making it force to drive the web. For example, w3Schools reports 17% for October of this year.
In other words, I already see the public making the change you think isn't happening. I also believe that it's only going to get better from here.
Re:Why? (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/donate.html [mozilla.org]
Re:Public needs to change to make the change... (Score:5, Informative)
I login to citibank.com at least once a month. I click the "Sign on to"->credit cards button.
I login, pay my bill surf, and leave.
I login to usbank constantly, as well as my local credit union. None bicker about the browser.
Re:What is the cost? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Public needs to change to make the change... (Score:3, Informative)
This simply is not true. There are certainly sites out there that have problems on Firefox, but to say that they are few and far between is an overstatement to me. I almost never find one. And when I do, that is why there is the ieview extension.
Almost all page designs that are coming onto the web now are heavily CSS based, so "the latest and greatest" often works just find on firefox. Also, most page developers never really stopped designing for netscape as well, which saves firefox a great deal of the time.
The one or two times that I have run into a page that does not work on firefox does not even measure next to how much better the browser is for surfing the net.
False. (Score:3, Informative)
From http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/:
The Foundation has been incorporated as a California not-for-profit corporation to ensure that the Mozilla project continues to exist beyond the participation of individual volunteers, to enable contributions of intellectual property and funds and to provide a vehicle for limiting legal exposure while participating in open-source software projects.
[...]
The Mozilla Foundation is a California non-profit corporation exempt from federal income taxation under IRC 501(c)3. Donations are tax deductible.
Re:Wow nice incenvitve. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Slashdotted !!!! (Score:2, Informative)
Mods: DO NOT mod me up! Providing a link to a cache is not insightful or informative, it is merely helpful.
Re:OT: About your sig (Score:3, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Episode_V:
Days later, while training, Luke discovers his X-wing fighter about to sink into the lake, then breaks concentration. Luke declares he will never be able to get the ship out, seeing that it is too big for him to extract from the water. Yoda says it is "no different, only different in your mind". Luke decides to "try" to lift the ship, but Yoda says "do or do not, there is no try". Luke tries to use the Force, but to no avail. Yoda reminds him that "size matters not" and gives him wisdom about the Force. Luke denies all of this, then Yoda decides to use the Force to lift the ship out himself. Luke is dumbfounded and non-believable. Yoda senses the youngster's failures within his mind.
Re:Is Firefox ready? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What is the cost? (Score:5, Informative)
There are further discounts when you are flexible on the date that the ad will run. This one will run within a 3 week window.
Re:#186 (Score:3, Informative)
# Can I put any text in the ad or just my name?
All submissions will be personally reviewed. The intent of the ad is to show the strong support Firefox has among the grassroots technology community, so we are only allowing the verifiable names of individuals in the ad. Individual, verifiable names only. Company names, URLs and false names will be removed.
Re:math... (Score:2, Informative)
Pick up a paper and have a look.
Re:What is the cost? (Score:5, Informative)
# How much does the ad cost?
As a non-profit organization, the Mozilla Foundation will receive a highly discounted rate. Being flexible with the placement of the ad and the date that it runs also lowers the cost.
The ad will not necessarily run on the day Firefox 1.0 comes out (November 9), because we get better pricing if we provide a (small) window of time rather than an exact date.
Re:How much? (Score:3, Informative)
It's the community marketing initiative.
Re:How much? (Score:5, Informative)
The campaign is a fundraiser for the launch of Firefox 1.0. Look.. for $30 you get your name in the New York Times -- the first ever full page ad for Firefox.
Re:Public needs to change to make the change... (Score:5, Informative)
To wich I say "WTF"? I can't see anything different re: the fonts.Can you? [uchile.cl]
Re:Tabbed browsing sucks. (Score:3, Informative)
There is [texturizer.net]. I'm not sure why you'd want to use it (I personally can't live without tabs, and even those who don't like them could just avoid opening any), but TabKiller is there for anyone who wants it.
Re:Public needs to change to make the change... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:WSJ would be better (Score:2, Informative)
Re:How much? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Am I missing something? (Score:5, Informative)
I had also thought that some might try to have URLs or "Lisa Simpson" or "Seymore Butz."
Re:Public needs to change to make the change... (Score:3, Informative)
What's more, a Firefox crash is a non-event, as the SessionSaver extension restores all my tabs on reload to the parts of the respective pages I was looking at.
Publicise the right things, and the switch is a no-brainer.
Re:Grassroots Marketing (Score:3, Informative)
But in general, if you were running a traditional advertising campaign, you DR metrics are a good list of points to keep in mind.
Re:Public needs to change to make the change... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Public needs to change to make the change... (Score:3, Informative)
File: index.html
Encoding: utf-8
Doctype: HTML 3.2
Errors: 106
No Character Encoding Found! Falling back to UTF-8
.
[snip]
.
This page is not Valid HTML 3.2!
Re:It has to be said, mod redundant if you want. (Score:4, Informative)
By which I mean someone outside of Slashdot, as they don't care enough to do it themselves.
I've heard of 2-3 different projects to turn it into CSS, and I know that Slashdot is "working with" one in particular. You should see some results soon, but remember:
Re:Public needs to change to make the change... (Score:3, Informative)
Short version: There is a bug (217527) in Firefox. There is a fix, but it exposes a worse bug (246382), so the fix won't be checked included in 1.0.
The upside is that setting Slashdot to light mode means I don't have to see the horrible new color schemes :-\
Re:Sheesh... (Score:3, Informative)
Somebody's done the work already (Score:3, Informative)
Changing every single page on the site to CSS takes a lot of work
Not true. If you check out Slashcode you will see that there aren't that many templates.
Re:Public needs to change to make the change... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Portion of the donations (Score:3, Informative)
Giving Money to the NY Times? (Score:0, Informative)
The editorial history of the Times is vile. In the early 20th century it promoted eugenics as a "wonderful" new science. In 1927, it was delighted by Buck v. Bell, the Supreme Court decision declaring forced sterilization constitutional. Just this year it refused to give back a Pulitizer won in the early 1930s for covering up Stalin's murder of millions of Ukranian farmers. It the late 1950s it helped put the worst dictator in the Western hemisphere in power (Castro).
In the 1960s, it helped to cloak the drive for abortion legalization (intended to reduce the birthrates of poor blacks, hispanics and whites) behind a hysteria about a "population explosion"--while the US birthrate plunged rather than soared. More recently, it has found little of interest in the 300,000 people buried in mass graves in Iraqi. Pointing to them would make the paper's own "Great Satan," President Bush, look like the decent man he is. You could go on and on. There's little that's really nasty and foul done that it hasn't championed.
Those who want read how the liberal media in general promoted state-controlled breeding (eugenics and forced sterilization) can go to Eugenics and the News Media [inklingbooks.com] for more details.
Those who want to understand the 1960s drive for abortion legalization can read this PDF: Preface to The Pivot of Civilization [inklingbooks.com]. The entire book, a history of Planned Parenthood's roots, has been released under a Creative Commons license and will download from here: The Pivot of Civilization in Historical Perspective [boycottpla...nthood.org]. That's quite a deal. The hardback version of the book retails for $50. Feel free to pass copies on.
The good folk working with FireFox are making a serious ethical blunder. Compared to the New York Times, even Microsoft's evils are as nothing. Gates may be greedy and power hungry, but he's yet to become an open champion of scientific bigotry and forced sterilization. Nor has he helped to conceal mass murder or abortion as an elitist eugenic measure. For those, you must turn to the nation's "Bigots of Record"--the editors and reporters of the New York Times.
The idea of buying a full-page ad in the Times should be dumped. Something good like open source shouldn't be giving money to such a foul beast.
--Mike Perry, Inkling blog [inklingbooks.com], Seattle
Re:Public needs to change to make the change... (Score:5, Informative)
Oh no custom scrollbars! The world is ending!
Having to ditch extensions entirely everytime there's an upgrade
Not anymore. Having upgraded from 0.9.3 to 0.10, it automatically updated extensions. Some didn't have equivalents right away, but soon did later. This won't be a problem anymore, as they aren't going to change the architecture anytime soon.
Having to restart the browser everytime you install an extension
And IE is any different?
Adblock doesn't block ads nearly as well as IE with Admuncher installed (it even blocks text ads!)
Um. Troll alert. Admuncher is a system level ad filter. It is browser/program agnostic.
The TalkBack agent appears way too often for my tastes.
What are you really trying to say?
The only reason I switched in the first place was tabbed browsing.
I doubt it. You didn't switch to simply try it out, like 99.9% who use/used firefox?
But you can get SlimBrowser or Avant Browser now and they'll add tabbed functionality to IE.
And, as everyone conveniently forgets to mention about these IE knockoffs, they come with their own security vulnerabilities along with all of IE's.
And I'm sure IE7 will add tabs.
Three cheers for vaporware!
Re:Public needs to change to make the change... (Score:5, Informative)
Show me the part of the css/html spec that defines this. I can show you the part of the faq that says its downright WRONG to do it.
* Having to ditch extensions entirely everytime there's an upgrade
Didn't happen when I switched from 0.9 to 1.0PR.
* Having to restart the browser everytime you install an extension
Yeah. Sucks. Same as IE though. Atleast with extentions like sessionsaver, restarting doesn't make you lose anything.
* Adblock doesn't block ads nearly as well as IE with Admuncher installed (it even blocks text ads!)
Adblock blocks text ads just fine. Anything that has its own display element is blockable (And this includes PRE, P, SPAN, DIV, etc.)
* The TalkBack agent appears way too often for my taste
Download a build with it disabled? I only see it when my browser crashes, which is only due to bad Java causing bad memory leaks.
Re:Public needs to change to make the change... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Public needs to change to make the change... (Score:1, Informative)
Careful...don't get too full of yourselves (Score:5, Informative)
The primary benefits of Firefox are:
1. Security. You don't get spyware and such. You can also get the same result if you disable ActiveX controls and other features in IE, but most people don't do this. If Microsoft changed the defaults--which they won't because many sites depend on them--then IE would be on part with FF.
2. Tabbed browsing. This is a fairly small interface feature, though a very useful one. If Microsoft added it to IE--and they undoubtedly will, because it's easy to do--then there goes the biggest visible difference.
I realize that FF has other nice features (and I fully agree with people who cite them, because, again, I like and use FF), but those are the biggies. And the big negative feature is simply this: Sites that rely on ActiveX controls don't work under FF. Yes, I know, security, blah, blah, blah, but most people only see the "not working" part.
Re:Watch out! (Score:5, Informative)
Wasn't it the slightly uglier and funnier:
Re:Sheesh... (Score:5, Informative)
The flickering bug has been fixed (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Watch out! (Score:2, Informative)
A quick A9 gives me... (Score:5, Informative)
I prefer this one:
http://www.macmothership.com/gallery/newads5/Appl
or this one:
http://static.userland.com/manilasites/images/MMa
Re:Public needs to change to make the change... (Score:1, Informative)
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1674
but it has worked for years in IE.