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."
Congrats Firefox (Score:5, Informative)
But the NYT site uses popups! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:But the NYT site uses popups! (Score:5, Funny)
(Why do I get the feeling we shouldn't be giving advertisers ideas like this?)
Re:Congrats Firefox (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Congrats Firefox (Score:5, Informative)
This doesn't use onmouseover; it still works with scripting turned off entirely
Re:There is no big deal (Score:2, Informative)
Actually, I'll expand on that...
Having the status-bar and the link-target disagree is a non-event (and has been ever since 99% of people enabled javascript in their browser.)
A major event would be where the address bar and dislayed-url differ. That is not the case here.
Re:Congrats Firefox (Score:3, Informative)
It works in Safari though (Score:2)
Re:It works in Safari though (Score:2)
I'm on OS X 10.3.5 and Safari 1.2.3
Re:Congrats Firefox (Score:2, Offtopic)
Doesn't work in my IE 6 under Windows XP SP2.
The address bar says "http://www.google.com/" just like Firefox.
Re:Congrats Firefox (Score:2)
Re:Congrats Firefox (Score:2)
So what is SP2 going to give me except likely headaches?
Re:Congrats Firefox (Score:2)
This bug only means you see http://www.microsoft.com/ in the status bar while hovering over that link, but as soon as you click it the address bar will show the real location you are visiting.
So it is useless for phishing. It is just a bug, not a security problem.
firefox has it's own url problems. (Score:2)
In one tab open a url, and wait for it to load.
Then open another URL that you know will take a while to load
Switch to the other tab and back again.
Firefox now displays the url of the old page in the address bar.
Way to go, maybe try mistyping the url in a blank tab, switch to another tab, switch back... wow it's blank, cheers for blanking out my typo firefox.
Re:Congrats Firefox (Score:2, Offtopic)
I can't find anyone mentioning it anywhere. What's the best procedure to report this?
This is fantastic news. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is fantastic news. (Score:5, Funny)
Julie Andrews uses Firefox?!?!
--
How do you solve a problem like Mozilla?
Do you live under a rock? (Score:3, Informative)
It's not just advertising in New York, Jeez!
Kids these days!
Re:Do you live under a rock? (Score:3, Insightful)
I've seen the International Herald Tribune and USA Today, as well as lots of British and European papers.
Re:Do you live under a rock? (Score:3, Insightful)
tongue planted firmly in cheek
Re:Do you live under a rock? (Score:5, Informative)
That includes beating "The Times Of India", with a potential readership of over one billion into fourth place.
The New York Times comes in 8th place, with a circulation of 1.11 million.
Re:Do you live under a rock? (Score:3, Informative)
If you look at that wikipedia page, you'll see that those top "newspapers" are actually tabloids. "The Times Of India" holds still the first place among the serious newspapers with the most readership. "The New York Times" hold place 5, whereas "The Daily Telegraph" (most read serious UK paper) holds only a distant 7...
Re:This is fantastic news. (Score:3, Informative)
The NY Times sees national distribution. It's one of the most read papers in the country. I know that someplace on spreadfirefox.com there is a faq that explains this and also mentions that they they may advertise in other areas (ie europe) in the future as well, and I'd love to link to it but it seems to have been hit by the slashdot effect already...
Re:This is fantastic news. (Score:2)
I think the point is that they aren't necessarily aiming only for NY.
They are doing this in a way that it might be picked up by other mainstream media as news about what is happening in New York.
Take this thread for instance. It is of course preaching to the choir, but the actual news article could have been carried by CNN.
Re:This is fantastic news. (Score:2)
--Dan
Other side of coin. (Score:5, Interesting)
Or just how badly we want to get rid of IE.
Re:Other side of coin. (Score:2)
Or just how badly we want to get rid of IE.
Or how much extra money that geeks in NYC have lying around.
Hehe (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with $250,000 is that the ad might be 99% names, and 1% content.
Oh, no problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hehe (Score:4, Informative)
How many names will fit in the ad?
A single full-length column of a newspaper has a few thousand words. Rest assured, we've done our homework. We will be able to accommodate several thousand names in a readable font size and still provide a very attractive and compelling advertisement. We have already mocked up some designs, and we will solicit input from the community about them in the coming weeks.
Another related article (Score:5, Informative)
FeedTheLizard.com (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Firefox is the new Mozilla Browser (Score:2, Funny)
Re:FeedTheLizard.com (Score:5, Insightful)
I realize they are building (or re-building) the calendar and e-mail clients seperately, but they have a completely production-worthy product right now that they don't seem to care much for.
I just don't get it.
-m
Re:FeedTheLizard.com (Score:3, Informative)
The original plan was for Phoenix (at the time) to be an internal/testing name, with the gold product being called Mozilla 2. Firefox has good press now, so they're sticking with the name.
Re:FeedTheLizard.com (Score:5, Insightful)
I've heard lots of non-techy people say that they have heard of this thing called Firefox. Some of them have even tried it, and are pretty impressed with what they saw.
Mention Mozilla to these same people, and they won't know what you are talking about.
There may even be a case for putting Thunderbird, Sunbird and Nvu under the Firefox brand.
Re:FeedTheLizard.com (Score:4, Insightful)
Now from what I understand, the Mozilla suite won't be entirely phased out. if you look at the roadmap [mozilla.org] it states they will continue to update and support the Mozilla browser suite (codenamed Seamonkey). They understand they still have Mozilla customers, and they're not going to leave them out in the cold.
But in terms of attracting and maintaining a new mainstream userbase, they know Firefox is a better solution in the long run.
Seems a shame to waste it on a newspaper ad (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Seems a shame to waste it on a newspaper ad (Score:5, Funny)
You're a developper, admit it.
Re:Seems a shame to waste it on a newspaper ad (Score:2)
Re:Seems a shame to waste it on a newspaper ad (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Seems a shame to waste it on a newspaper ad (Score:2)
Mouth-to-mouth propaganda is the best ad.
Re:Seems a shame to waste it on a newspaper ad (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Seems a shame to waste it on a newspaper ad (Score:2)
Re:Seems a shame to waste it on a newspaper ad (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Seems a shame to waste it on a newspaper ad (Score:5, Informative)
They will, according to the interview with Rob Davis at redherring.com [redherring.com]:
To date, close to 10,000 people have funneled almost $250,000 through Mr. Davis' campaign into the Mozilla Foundation, the Mountain View, California, non-profit organization that is developing Firefox.
The ad will cost just under $50,000, and the left-over cash will be plowed back into the Mozilla Foundation.
Re:Seems a shame to waste it on a newspaper ad (Score:2)
Maybe Spreadfirefox will notice that there are also other countries in the world. Will the left $200k spend there?
IMO when Mozilla.org has the money, it should be spend in development to make the Mozilla apps better products.
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
"We completely went over our bandwidth for this month, and I was just served with a bill over $250'000 for this month's bandwidth usage!!"
How about a campaign.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How about a campaign.. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:How about a campaign.. (Score:3, Interesting)
How about a campaign.. (Score:5, Interesting)
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]
Re:How about a campaign.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How about a campaign.. (Score:3, Informative)
A key part of the struggle (Score:5, Insightful)
The key point then Is to educate the user that the browser is not the internet, but just software that accesses the web. And that Firefox is better at doing that and protecting them from intrusion.
Re:A key part of the struggle (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A key part of the struggle (Score:3, Funny)
I was surfing around my interweb the other day and it was like beep boop beep BEEP! Then it went all blank, and I was like 'dude, I just deleted the interweb!" and then I was like expecting the CIA to come get me or something, but it was in my recycle bin, so I saved it... Phew... that was a close one.
Re:A key part of the struggle (Score:2)
10 days, 10,000 names, $250,000 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:10 days, 10,000 names, $250,000 (Score:2)
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:Firefox is gaining momentum allright (Score:4, Insightful)
It's really become quite awful. Everybody was generally friendly and collegial there a while back, because it was the early adopter crowd. Now all these people, who are either the most nasty trolls I've ever seen, or just the most obnoxious human beings imaginable have ruined it. And as a result, when somebody says something like "I don't like this part of Firefox" they are likely to start a flamewar. I am saddened by this. I'm sure there's still useful discussion elsewhere, but I'm beginning to think having that "Firefox Support" link right in the toolbar is not such a great idea. I wouldn't want people to go to that forum and see the nastiness going on there and judge a fabulous browser and otherwise excellent community by it.
Dealing with TRUE mass market desktop applications is something the Open Source community is just now broaching. Several million installs of a piece of software that is probably the most commonly used thing on somebody's desktop - that's getting seriously mainstream. And mainstream means dealing with mainstream idiocy, infantile children, illiterate adults, and all the other annoying people in between. I'm not saying we shouldn't care about user friendliness, on the contrary, I'm saying that it's hard to maintain user friendliness supported by the community when the community stops being a bunch of tech-saavy hackers and starts being a bunch of idjits.
Re:Firefox is gaining momentum allright (Score:3, Interesting)
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 l
This Is Serious (Score:5, Insightful)
Next step: Hire Ellen Feiss for a TV ad (Score:5, Funny)
"I was surfing in the net. And then, like, bleep bleep bleep bleep bleep! And then, like, half of the web page was gone. And I was, like, Huh?"
Re:Next step: Hire Ellen Feiss for a TV ad (Score:3, Informative)
In related news, I think it would be worthwhile for Firefox to advertise in the Wall Street Journal or the Economist as well, just because those two publications are read by decision makers in companies. Unfortunately, TV ads will run quite a bit more, but why not a SuperBowl ad? It's not until February. My guess is that it's probably a waste of money. If I we
Why NYT? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why NYT? (Score:5, Insightful)
Said people have the "final word" on workplace policy or some such.
If enough of these corporate types know about Firefox, and it gets into their thick skulls [ for corporate executives are among the stupidest people, technology wise, that I know of ] that it's a Good Thing, then said executives may pass down an Order from On High relating to it.
Re:Why NYT? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
I havn't heard of this up until now... (Score:2)
Re:I havn't heard of this up until now... (Score:4, Funny)
Unintentional Insight from NYT (Score:2)
Sounds kinda like a certain political race taking place at this very moment.
Where did the internet go? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Where did the internet go? (Score:4, Insightful)
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:I think this is a step in the wrong direction (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I think this is a step in the wrong direction (Score:5, Insightful)
That improves the "compatibility" of Firefox without changing a line of code.
Re:I think this is a step in the wrong direction (Score:5, Insightful)
Your average user doesn't install Apache or IIS. Apache never had to break into the server market, it had a foothold at the start and grew rapidly as it matured at the same time as the market expanded. Even if someone created a new OS server it would be less of a hard sell as sys admins are a small select group who are paid to monitor these kind of developments.
If Microsoft see it as a threat... good. It may push them to fix their bloated and buggy browser. As for launching a counter-campaign against OS software... where have you been living the last couple of years? It's been in full swing for a while.
Much as a techie may want to pretend it doesn't exist, marketing is important for any product. So far it's been done by word of mouth. Raising its profile via the press, either by reviews or paid ads, it a good thing.
Finally, giving the money to the developers would be fraud. The donations were made specifically for the purpose of the ad. There is nothing to stop you doing your own fund-raising drive for the developers if you like.
Phillip.
Re:I think this is a step in the wrong direction (Score:4, Informative)
Marketing is important when your goal is to profit. In fact it's crucial. But the goal [mozilla.org] of the mozilla foundation is not to profit. That's best left to Netscape.
If your goal is to encourage people to use firefox, then microsoft fixing their browser is about the worst thing that can happen. It would encourage everyone you spent tens of thousands of dollars converting to firefox to switch back. Quickly you decend into a marketing battle, which mozilla simply does not had the funds to fight.
And I am certainly aware of microsoft's campaigns against linux and apache. To my knowledge they have not targeted firefox or mozilla specifically. In my opinion, an ad campaign would make firefox a target.
bogie's quote seems to be speaking from the perspective of someone who's goal is to make money. Mozilla doesn't have any investors they need to answer to, they are next expected to turn a profit (in fact they are forbidden from turning a profit). If firefox has 10,000 users, or 10,000,000 users, mozilla is still a non-profit organization. Mozilla's mandate is not to take down microsoft, and I think that that mentality is actually counter productive to the cause. It's in the public's interest to have a diverse browser market. Competition does spawn innovation.
Don't expect microsoft to embrace competition anytime soon. Even though mozilla is not mandated to encourage competition, I would hope that they would respect that goal. A marketing campaign blasting their competitor is not in the public's interest, development and innovation is.
Re:I think this is a step in the wrong direction (Score:3, Insightful)
Well if it's your money, and you want it to go to developers, then you can give it to the mozilla donations page, rather than the spreadfirefox page.
But at least some small part of that $250K is my money. So you don't really get a say in how it's spent because I asked for it to be used in the newspaper advert
Personally, [less offtopic?] I find that computers without firefox on are more annoying to me
Setting a goal (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the kind of detail that makes the difference between "yeah, that's cool" and "I'll give some money NOW".
Open source needs more people like that. More ideas like that.
Good idea, but still the wrong message. (Score:5, Insightful)
A full page ad containing "Congrats on reaching version 1!" followed by a list of obscure names of geeks who donated will unfortunately have little or no impact with typical home users who are inexperienced or couldn't care less.
How many of these individuals can even tell you what version of the AOL InterWeb they are using now? Ask my mom which browser she uses and she'll say "MSN."
Personally, I'd rather see that money spent on an advertising campaign that communicates WHY people should use the browser in lieu of IE in very non-technical terms. Granted, 250g's won't get you much high-profile advertising, but it could still be used effectively.
Hopefully, this one ad isn't all the Spread Firefox group has planned.
What is the message? (Score:3, Insightful)
zeia award [zeia.net]
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:Whoah! (Score:5, Informative)
A full-page ad in the NYT costs between $75k and $120k, depending on the page, and when it will be shown. The Firefox team have not chosen a particular day for the ad, but rather a time-window of ~10 days in which it will be shown once. This is cheaper.
I don't know where the rest of the money will go now. There are tentative plans, however, to raise similar campains in other countries if the ad proves to be a success. Maybe some of the excess money can be used for that.
Re:Whoah! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Whoah! (Score:2)
It doesn't all go to the ad (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Whoah! (Score:2, Redundant)
See (Score:2, Informative)
How about double-page ad? (Score:2)
TV Ads?? (Score:2)
250K MIGHT buy you ONE 30 second spot in prime time!
You reach MANY more people with a newspaper.
They also have the time to read all the information that is presented rather than getting up to go to the bathroom or pushing the ">>" button on the Tivo.
And, yes, this is a fair price for the ad. It's just the laws of supply and demand.
Re:Is it just me that feels slightly uneasy? (Score:2)
Its worse than feeding a horde of starving kittens, its better than strangling a horde of kittens after starving them.
How about a less extreme comparison? One that fits the compared item better (as opposed to fitting nearly everything?).
Its better than funneling that money into Microsoft, its worse than funneling that money into, uhhh insert something other than housing orphans here.
Re:Is it just me that feels slightly uneasy? (Score:2)
I'm typing this post in Opera right now, BLOW ME!
I think this just shows that OSS zealots take their software a little bit too seriously. I mean $250 000 in 10 days?? The third largest political party in the US is having trouble getting a million bucks, currently it looks like only $58k was donated in
Re:Is it just me that feels slightly uneasy? (Score:2)
Re:Is it just me that feels slightly uneasy? (Score:3, Insightful)
The point is, you can reduce virtually any expenditure to "could be better spent saving lives in the third world". That d