NYT Firefox Campaign Raises $250,000 384
ScytheBlade1 writes "The Firefox full-page NYT ad campaign finished off today with an impressive $250,000 over 10 days. Impressive to say the least, and it goes to show just how much momentum Firefox has."
Other side of coin. (Score:5, Interesting)
Or just how badly we want to get rid of IE.
FeedTheLizard.com (Score:2, Interesting)
Seems a shame to waste it on a newspaper ad (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How about a campaign.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Firefox is gaining momentum allright (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm very happy to see this. I still like Opera better, but Firefox is a terrific browser. And the price is right.
Re:Seems a shame to waste it on a newspaper ad (Score:5, Interesting)
How about a campaign.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Is it just me that feels slightly uneasy? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Why NYT? (Score:3, Interesting)
Just got back (Score:1, Interesting)
No more racing to close 1,000 pop-ups every time the browser is opened or she goes to a website.
IE is rather like a virus, in a bad way, now let's make Firefox spread and spread through word of mouth like a virus.
IE, your time is up, just like the 90s, and now there's a new kid in town.
I think this is a step in the wrong direction (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, Microsoft is going to see this as a direct threat. They have far more access to media (MSNBC anyone?) than mozilla ever will. If they were to launch a counter-campaign, which is exactly what they're being baited into to doing, they could scare a lot of people away from firefox, and all open source projects.
The money should be given to the developers who go relativly un-rewarded, and to foster the development of mozilla.
Re:Why NYT? (Score:5, Interesting)
Because the NYT is the famous one. You (and most other people) seem to have missed half the point - they haven't even bought an ad yet and they're getting huge press coverage. The advert is going to generate 'x' new users. The press coverage about the advert being bought will generate 'y' new users. I suggest 'y > x'.
Is marketing really so hard for geeks to understand? The buying of the advert in the NYT is a story in its own right. The manner of the advert's funding and the advert being in the most highbrow and famous of news papers is what makes it worth talking about.
Re:How about a campaign.. (Score:5, Interesting)
W3 validator is 403'd [w3.org]
Actual results on the current front page not good [w3.org]
a million cd's (Score:2, Interesting)
You probably won't see one for IE (Score:3, Interesting)
However, that's not what I mean: what I'm saying is that Microsoft's users ("customers") and developers ("employees") don't love IE. They're not going to donate money to an advertising fund for IE simply because they think it's so good that everyone with a computer ought to at least consider it.
Now, you could say that Microsoft's customers are donating money, in part, to an advertising fund for MS and getting some "free gifts" in appreciation -- like spyware, viruses, Internet explorer
timothy
This is fine and dandy, but.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Firefox is gaining momentum allright (Score:3, Interesting)
The parent message is insightful! As this advertising campaign shows, the great success of Firefox has been its ability to reach out to people, to have a larger community. But a larger community means a different set of community dynamics. Its like the change from a frontier settlement to an established city. For the community dynamics to work well you need to put more institutional structure in place, like police, or maybe even the tax man. And in the process you lose some of the closeness of the community.
On the other hand, I think there are solutions. Mozillazine just needs to adapt to have better moderation, to get more useful comments and discussion to more prominent positions. Maybe even they should switch to something more like a wiki format for discussion less transient than the day-to-day babble.
But yes, it will be interesting to see how this develops. I really do expect to see free/open source software take over -- eventually -- for all of the mainstream uses. But it will be a long bumpy ride between here and there. This is just the beginning!
Re:Firefox is gaining momentum allright (Score:3, Interesting)
Gee, sounds a lot like Slashdot. See my three-digit uid? I've been here almost since Slashdot began. It was nice back then. Everyone was pretty nice. The occasional disagreement broke out, but all-in-all it was a pretty good discussion. Since then it's grown. The trolls have become downright professional. The flames are pretty vicious. Everyone's on a hair-trigger to jump out and defend any slight against their favourite OS, distribution, browser, MTA, MUA, or whatever. I don't know about everyone, but a lot of comments seem to be pretty self-concious about what they write, careful not to offend anyone or give the wrong impression. I know I usually am.
It's kinda sad in a way, but I guess it's what happens when any open-forum grows past a certain size.