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."

What are the chances...

[YodaToo]

...we could start a fund raising project to run a full-page ad for Lynx [browser.org]?

PHEW!

[the_unknown_soldier]

Here i was thinking the new york times would go out of print before they got this thing through!
Perfect, this will come just in time for the pre christmas, holiday rush where nobody reads newspapers.

That's me!

[Prince Vegeta SSJ4]

12th line down 182 name over, seee see see, I made the paper! Not.

In other news...

[k4_pacific]

Spinning newspaper injures reporter.

hmm

[ronsta]

the coolest thing about firefox is getting it past your company firewall and system administrator. i wish i could do that with counter-strike...but i would settle for a stripper. people at work come up behind me and they're like "whoa..are you running microsoft plus? your IE icons look sooOooO cool." that's SO Netscape 4.2, though...come on.

Re:What are the chances...

[RAMMS+EIN]

I'd say about 100% that you could start it. ;-)

Heck, I'll even donate. If that could make web programmers and companies aware that there are other browsers out there.

Made me think of this...

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's All About The Pentiums"
'Weird Al' Yankovic

It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby), yeah, now, what y'all wanna do?
Wanna be hackers? Code crackers? Slackers
Wastin' time with all the chatroom yakkers?
9 to 5, chillin' at Hewlett Packard?
Workin' at a desk with a dumb little placard?
Yeah, payin' the bills with my mad programming skills
Defraggin' my hard drive for thrills
I got me a hundred gigabytes of RAM
I never feed trolls and I don't read spam
Installed a T1 line in my house
Always at my PC, double-clickin' on my mizouse
Upgrade my system at least twice a day
I'm strictly plug-and-play, I ain't afraid of Y2K
I'm down with Bill Gates, I call him "Money" for short
I phone him up at home and I make him do my tech support
It's all about the Pentiums, what?
You've gotta be the dumbest newbie I've ever seen
You've got white-out all over your screen
You think your Commodore 64 is really neato
What kinda chip you got in there, a Dorito?
You're usin' a 286? Don't make me laugh
Your Windows boots up in what, a day and a half?
You could back up your whole hard drive on a floppy diskette
You're the biggest joke on the Internet
Your database is a disaster
You're waxin' your modem, tryin' to make it go faster
Hey fella, I bet you're still livin' in your parents' cellar
Downloadin' pictures of Sarah Michelle Gellar
And postin' "Me too!" like some brain-dead AOL-er
I should do the world a favor and cap you like Old Yeller
You're just about as useless as jpegs to Hellen Keller
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
Now, what y'all wanna do?
Wanna be hackers? Code crackers? Slackers
Wastin' time with all the chatroom yakkers?
9 to 5, chillin' at Hewlett Packard?
Uh, uh, loggin' in now
Wanna run wit my crew, hah?
Rule cyberspace and crunch numbers like I do?
They call me the king of the spreadsheets
Got 'em printed out on my bedsheets
My new computer's got the clocks, it rocks
But it was obsolete before I opened the box
You say you've had your desktop for over a week?
Throw that junk away, man, it's an antique
Your laptop is a month old? Well that's great
If you could use a nice, heavy paperweight
My digital media is write-protected
Every file inspected, no viruses detected
I beta tested every operation system
Gave props to some, and others? I dissed 'em
While your computer's crashin', mine's multitaskin'
It does all my work without me even askin'
Got a flat-screen monitor forty inches wide wide
I believe that your says "Etch-A-Sketch" on the side
In a 32-bit world, you're a 2-bit user
You've got your own newsgroup, "alt.total-loser"
Your motherboard melts when you try to send a fax
Where'd you get your CPU, in a box of Cracker Jacks?
Play me online? Well, you know that I'll beat you
If I ever meet you I'll control-alt-delete you
What? What? What? What? What?
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
Now, what y'all wanna do?
Wanna be hackers? Code crackers? Slackers
Wastin' time with all the chatroom yakkers?
9 to 5, chillin' at Hewlett Packard?
What??

I. P....

[Anonymous Coward]

anyone see I.P. Freely?

And in business news today...

[Ingolfke]

Microsoft has purchased the New York Times Company (NYT) and as a celebration of their new found synergies has decided to cancel today's printing. Bill Gates, reached via telephone, remarked "Oh, did we buy them... I didn't notice. I hope Steve [Balmer] remembered to use by Diner's Club Card for that acquisition."

Hidden Image or Subliminal Ad?

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:What are the chances...

[955301]

Sounds like an upcoming April Fools joke to me.

Re:Not very good

[CMRichar]

... they just didn't do it in the "average computer users" tongue.

No, no they didnt. but using two pages just to print "IE is teh ghey" or "Firefox is doubleplus good" somehow lacks style...and style counts for something nowadays...

Wow!!

[Jakhel]

What do you guys think they used as the font/size for all those names? That's like EULA sized print!

Re:Higher resolution image?

[TheGrim]

"No occurences of:

Bill Gates

Found in this document."


Must have ran out of ink.

Tomorrow's News...

[un1xl0ser]

Mozilla.org has been New-York-Times-dotted today, when hundreds of thousands of readers tried to download the open source browser Firefox...

Re:I Too, would like a higher res version

[Xzzy]

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.

Re:Just how exactly are they paying for this?

[GoofyBoy]

> so just how exact are they funding their project (and advertisement)

Never under estimate the power of a thousand dirty hippies. :)

Re:Hidden Image or Subliminal Ad?

[hrieke]

Mods fail to see the humor again.

Surprised

[flynt]

I was honestly surprised to see 'nothing to lose' instead of the more likely 'nothing to loose' in the ad.

Slashdotting an Ad in the NYT...

[Reverend528]

This should do wonders for the NYT. I know I'm going to go out and buy a copy.

Re:I wonder if M$ will reply...

[BorgDrone]

No. We'll see IE, the leading web browser in the world with 80+ percent of the market.
Funny, how that used to be 90+ percent of the market.

In a few months you'll be repeating the same joke with "70+ percent"

I couldn't find my name on there

[The-Perl-CD-Bookshel]

Regis Tration-Required

Re:Higher resolution image?

[bunratty]

Here's the alphabet for reference:
ABCDEFGHIUJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
You might want to learn it. It makes using phone books and stuff easier.

Re:Hidden Image or Subliminal Ad?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the ad does indeed contain subliminal messages... after looking at it for a couple of minutes, I now have a strange urge to set foxes on fire.

Re:Higher resolution image?

[indigeek]

A nice representation of all sections of people. Russian,Chinese and Indian names are common. Too bad too few women in it (maybe 1:50). Maybe Firefox is not a chick magnet after all...

Re:Higher resolution image?

[Ingolfke]

Does anyone have a scan of the actual ad, but with coffee stains, donut crumbs, and a few cigarette ashes on the page? I want to make it feel New York authentic.

Re:Higher resolution image?

[bunratty]

Don't mind the extra U. It's there to break up the fight between the I and J.

Re:Higher resolution image?

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't know there was an extra U in the alphabet. Must be silent because I can't find it on the keyboard either.

Re:What are the chances...

[Anonymous Coward]

I could run a full-page slashdot comment, just paypal the funds to me.

Look for the NYT companion piece

[revision1_1]

"Browser War Continues: Women, Minorities Hardest Hit."

Re:Hidden Image or Subliminal Ad?

[Kiaser Zohsay]

I thought it was Natalie Portman!

Celebrity endorsement

[artemis67]

"Hi, I'm Al Gore, inventor of the internet. When I'm surfing the web, I like to use a little program I invented called Mozilla Firefox. It's got moxie!"

Re:Higher resolution image?

[WoodenRobot]

It's a secret message. Those are the ones that will be hunted down and exterminated first.

*dons tin-foil hat*

Re:Hidden Image or Subliminal Ad?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am interested in what you say and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Re:Every one in NY, DC, Miami, Orlando, Austin...

[vida]

it's where aaallll the cool kids go for coffee

what the heck are *you* doing there, then?

Re:Every one in NY, DC, Miami, Orlando, Austin...

[nadadogg]

Being a poser, duh. The hipster scene is up-and-coming down south, and I'm trying to get in on the ground floor. It's like the dot-com bubble all over again, but you get girls instead of investors.

Re:Who are Marc and Samantha Wandschneider?

[Deekin_Scalesinger]

Welp, googling for them brought me to http://travel.lanfear.com/ rather quickly.

Marc and Samantha Wandschneider, you suburban looking, plain Jane looking couple, prepare for the slashdotting of your life! Muahahahahaha

Re:Higher resolution image?

[ninewands]

"No occurences of 'Gates' were found in the document."

I guess Melinda doesn't like Firefox either.

Re:Location?

[jskiff]

There's a certain irony in checking out the Firefox ad from a CVS...

Re:A vanity move? Or power to the local guy.

[zCyl]

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? :)

When are they busting out the Infomercials?

[tjstork]

Throw away that tired old web browser! With Firefox you get SECURITY, STANDARDS Compliance, all in one easy payment of not $100, not $50, not $25, but, FREE. Yes it's free!

Error

[lordmoose]

I only counted 9,998 names...

Re:Higher resolution image?

[samhalliday]

and they randomly appeared in alphabetical order! what were the chances? ;-)

Re:Not to sound grim..

[boinger]

You really couldn't extrapolate that he was comparing Apache to IIS?

Wow.

[Oliver Aaltonen]

A geek's true Christmas wish come true:

First name on the ad!

Re:Hidden Image or Subliminal Ad?

[bmalia]

Hmm.. My paper didn't work. Maybe mine is broke. I'll go get another.

Re:Higher resolution image?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's to save space. For the first U, hit shift-"U". To access the second U, press caps-lock, then "U".

The explanation for this involves me talking about Unicode, so I trust that you, as a developer, will completely ignore it.

Re:Higher resolution image?

[jbridge21]

according to my calculations, roughly 1 in
1995063116880758384883742162683585083823496831 8861 924548520089498529
438830221946631919961684036194 59789933112942320912 427155649134941378
111759378593209632395785573004 67937945267652465512 660598955205500869
181933115425086084606181046855 09074866089624888090 489894838009253941
633257850621568309473902556912 38806522509664387444 104675987162698545
322286853816169431577562964076 28368807607322285350 916414761839563814
589694638994108409605362678210 64621427333394036525 565649530603142680
234969400335934316651459297773 27966577560617258203 140799419817960737
824568376228003730288548725190 08344645814546505579 296014148339216157
345881392570953797691192778008 26957735674444123062 018757836325502728
323789270710373802866393031428 13324140162419567169 057406141965434232
463880124885614730520743199225 96117962501309928602 417083408076059323
201612684922884962558413128440 61536738951487114256 315111089745514203
313820202931640957596464756010 40584584156607204496 286701651506192063
100418642227590867090057460641 78569519114560550682 512504060075198422
618980592371180544447880729063 95242548339221982707 404473162376760846
613033778706039803413197133493 65462270056316993745 550824178097281098
329131440357187752476850985727 69379264332215993998 768866608083688378
380276432827751722736575727447 84112294389733810861 607423253291974813
120197604178281965697475898164 53125843413595986278 413012818540628347
664908869052104758088261582396 19857701224070443305 830758690393196046
034049731565832086721059133009 03752823415539745394 397715257455290510
212310947321610753474825740775 27398634829849834075 693795564663862187
456949927901657210370136443313 58172143117913982229 838458473344402709
641828510050729277483645505786 34501100852987812389 473928699540834346
158807043959118985815145779177 14361969872813145948 378320208147498217
185801138907122825090582681743 62205774759214176537 156877256149045829
049924610286300815355833081301 01987675856234343538 955409175623400844
887526162643568648833519463720 37729324009445624692 325435040067802727
383775537640672689863624103749 14109667185570507590 981002467898801782
719259533812824219540283027594 08448955014676668389 697996886241636313
376393903373455801407636741877 71105538422573949911 018646821969658165
148513049422236994771476306915 54682176828762003627 772577237813653316
111968112807926694818872012986 43660768551639860534 602297871557517947
385246369446923087894265948217 00805112032236549628 816903573912136833
839359175641873385051097027161 39154395909915981546 544173363116569360
311222499379699992267817323580 23111862644575299135 758175008199839236
284615249881088960232244362173 77161808635701546848 405862232979285387
562348655644053696262201896357 10288123615675125433 383032700290976686
505685571575055167275188991941 29711337690149916181 315171544007728650
573189557450920330185304847113 81831540732405331903 846208403642176370
391155063978900074285367219628 09034779745333204683 687958685802379522
186291200807428195513179481576 24448298518461509704 888027274721574688
131594750409732115080498190455 80341682694978714131 606321068639151168
1774304792596709376

Only U can prevent letter abuse.

[bebing]

sorry :(

Re:What is the surprise?

[ydrol]

They had said there would be a surprise in the ad. I don't see anything surprising. Am I missing it?

Surprised there is no surprise eh?

OOPS!

[jbridge21]

OOPS! I totally screwed that one up. It should be 1 in

284625968091705451890641321211986889014805140170 27 992307941799942744
113400037644437729907867577847 75815884062142317528 830042339940153518
739052421161382716174819824199 82759241828925978789 812425312059465996
259867065601615720360323979263 28736717055741975962 099479720346153698
119897092611277500484198845410 47554464244213657330 307670362882580354
896746111709736957860367019107 15127305872810411586 405612811653853259
684258259955846881464304255898 36649317059251717204 276597407446133400
054194052462303436869154059404 06622782824837151203 832217864462718382
292389963899282722187970245938 76938030946273322925 705554596900278752
822425443480211275590191694254 29028916907219097083 690539873747452483
372899521802363282741217040268 08676921045155584056 717255537201585213
282903427998981844931361064038 14893044996215999993 596708929801903369
984844046654192362584249471631 78961192041233108268 651071354516845540
936033009607210346944377982349 43078062606942230268 188522759205702923
084312618849760656074258627944 88271559568315334405 344254466484168945
804257094616736131876052349822 86326452921529423479 870603344290737158
688499178932580691483168854251 95600617237263632397 442078692464295601
230628872012265295296409150830 13366309827338063539 729015065818225742
954758943997651138655412081257 88683704239208764484 761569001264889271
590706306409661628038784044485 19164379080718611237 062213341541506599
184387596102392671327654698616 36577066264386380298 480519527695361952
592409309086144719073907685857 55934786981720734372 093104825475628567
777694081564074962275254993384 11280928963751699021 987049240561753178
634693979802461973707904186832 99310165541507423083 931768783669236948
490259996077296842939774275362 63119825416681531891 763234839190821000
147178932184227805135181734921 90114624687576983537 344145601312261522
139117875968836736408720793700 29920382791980387023 720780391403123689
976081528403060511167094847222 24870389199993442071 395836983063962232
079115624044250808919914319837 12044559834404755675 948921210149815245
454359428541439084356441998422 48554785321636240300 984428553318292531
542065512370797058163934602962 47697010388742206441 536626733715428700
789122749340684336442889847100 84064160009362393526 124803797529334392
876439831639031277645072247926 78517008266695983895 261507590073492151
975926591927088732025940663821 18801988854748266048 342256457705743973
122259700671936061763513579529 82179429079770532728 326750148802444352
868164502616566283754651900617 18734422604389192985 060715153900311066
847273601358167064378617567574 39184376479658136100 599638689552334648
781746143243573224864326798481 98145843270303589550 842053478849336458
248259203328808902578238823326 57702052489709370472 102142484133424652
682068067323142144838540741821 39621846870108359582 946965235632764870
475718351616879235068366271743 71191572336114307012 112076760869785155
972184648598591864364171685089 96255168209107935702 311185181747750108
046225855213147648974906607528 77082897667514951009 682329689732000622
392888056658036140311285465929 08407803397490066495 3205873

Re:Higher resolution image?

[Single GNU Theory]

It is perfectly natural to occasionally experience the need for a vowel movement.