Giant Spatula > a Rolnitzky blog

We just ended the 24 hour period known as Download Day here at Mozilla HQ.  It’s been quite a 24 hour period, with just over 8.3 million people grabbing a shiny new Firefox.  That’s nearly 8,000 downloads every minute for the entire day!

Net Applications (an organization that reports on browser market share), has a live market share report that shows the real-time adoption of Firefox 3. You can see the chart below.  It’s almost mind-boggling to see the huge spike in market share: from 1% to over 4% in a single day!  In other words, at points during the 24-hour period, about 4% of the internet population was using Firefox 3 after only 24 hours of general availability.  Ken’s done a quick comparison on how this compares to the Firefox 2 launch, which took one month to get to the market share level that Firefox 3 has achieved in just 24 hours.  Simply incredible.

Secret footage just discovered in John Slater’s attic between his recent house moves.

A name is a big part of any organization’s overall brand.  And having a synchronized domain name is a key component of an organization’s presence online. Companies often spend a lot of time and resources to ensure that their address on the Web reinforces their company’s brand, product, or product attribute.

Traditionally at Mozilla, we’ve used “getfirefox.com” as the promotional url for Firefox through a variety of channels.  Everything from t-shirts to newspaper advertisements and everything in between.   For a long time, we also used “getfirefox.com” in our search advertising — specifically, the display url.

We recently completed a number of tests using search engine marketing to try and gauge the effectiveness of our url’s.  In other words, how does the way we display a Firefox related url affect a user’s likelihood to consider Firefox? How does that change if the user is actively searching out the product (e.g. through a search engine) or if they happen to notice the ad through contextual placement on a website (e.g. sponsored text ads next to website content)?

As Ken has pointed out in a recent post, one of the reasons that we engage in search advertising is to ensure that we have an excellent user experience. Many people believe that a user’s experience with a product begins with the product itself.  Ken and I would suggest that the Firefox user experience starts when someone first engages with a brand.  Through search advertising, one of these first engagement points is viewing a text ad.

We ran four tests, each with a slightly different flavor.  The descriptions are below and an upcoming chart will provide a visual explanation.

1. non-branded search advertising (e.g. “browser”, “download”, etc.)
2. branded keyword search advertising (e.g. “firefox”, “mozilla firefox”, etc.)
3. non-branded contextually relevant placement (words like “browser” and “download” that appear based on the content of a web page)
4. branded contextual placements (words like “firefox”, “mozilla firefox”, that appear based on the content of a web page)

The chart below illustrates the relative performance strength (in terms of click-thru) of each of the display url’s in each of the four tests, with each quadrant representing a different scenario.  In all but one case, “Mozilla/Firefox” outperformed both of the other url’s (”Firefox.com” and “GetFirefox.com”).  In fact, the order in which each url performed (”Mozilla.com/Firefox” outperformed “Firefox.com” which outperformed “GetFirefox.com”) was identical in every case except one.

What are some of the possible reasons behind these results and what are the implications for search?

Users with high awareness of Firefox (those that are either using branded keywords like “Firefox” in their searches or those that are visiting web pages that surface a Firefox text ad based on branded terms that appear somewhere in the text of the page) are giving much more credibility to a url with “Mozilla” in the name.  In addition, the use of a subdirectory, which indicates that Firefox is a product of Mozilla, likely lends credibility to the ad with the user thinking he/she is clicking through to an official Mozilla Firefox page.

Observation #1: Use “Mozilla.com/Firefox” when awareness of Mozilla and Firefox is high 

The results also showed that users who are browsing web pages where our ad was triggered on general key words like “web browser” are more likely to click on an ad with “Mozilla.com/Firefox” than either of the other url’s.  Like the above observation, the user may view the presence of a subdirectory in the ad in a more credible way.

The one exception in our experiment to “Mozilla.com/Firefox” (see the upper left quadrant of the chart) is when users are searching for a new browser solution, but have a low awareness of Mozilla and Firefox; in other words, they use general terms like “download browser”.  In that case, text ads should use “GetFirefox.com.”  “GetFirefox.com” has been used as the standard marketing url for many years — it’s possible that the familiarity of this url causes the performance improvement over the alternative url’s.  It’s also possible this particlular segment is more receptive to a “Get” call-to-action relative to the other three segments, given the interaction between their low awareness and higher propensity to download.

Observation #2: Use “GetFirefox.com” for search display url’s on non-branded terms (when awareness of Mozilla and Firefox is low)”

In a future post, I’ll review the results of the effect of using a prefix like “www” on a display url, and add some additional thoughts and recommendations for Mozilla’s approach to search engine copy and branding.

One of the most popular books among the neighborhood kids when I was growing up was the Guinness Book of World Records.  With each annual edition, you could thumb through the book and find everything from crazy super-sized food to human body extremes (I actually met the guy who at one time set the record for most hand-stand push-ups).

And very soon, I’ll actually have the opportunity to appear in the book that I loved browsing through as a kid — and so will you.  We just launched “Download Day” — a quest to set the Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in a 24 hour period.   The software at the center of the record is Mozilla Firefox 3 — the best Firefox (and Web browser) yet.

This is one of the first times that we’ve done a truly integrated, global campaign here at Mozilla.  With the help of community members and Mozilla employees from around the world, the campaign spans across a number of channels — everything from social networks, search engine marketing, PR, blog postings, affiliate programs, newsletters and email — and all in 10 different languages, something that reflects how global Mozilla and Firefox have become. The campaign really feels “Mozilla” to me, following in the footsteps of other grassroots programs like Firefox Flicks contest, the NY Times Ad, Operation Firefox, and the Crop Circle.

This is the type of comprehensive effort that is hard to dream up, but even harder to execute –  and Mary was a key ring-leader here, coordinating community members and Mozilla offices around the globe.

So if you’ve ever wanted to be a part of breaking a world record, head on over to Download Day central and find out how to get involved.  And maybe see your efforts in the next printed edition of the Guinness Book.

The Web Marketing Association recently gave out awards for their 2008 Interactive Advertising Competition — and some Mozilla/Firefox featured work took an award for best online ad.  The banner, which ran on a variety of tech and consumer websites, focused on Firefox security.  You can read the full background about the ad, it’s objective, and creative genesis here.  And, check out the animated banner in action!

Awesome collage created by my co-worker Tara, who ran the Firefox 3 t-shirt contest.  We received over 2,000 designs from Firefox fans that submitted artwork for the chance to have their design become the official Firefox 3 t-shirt.  The collage contains images from a selection of the designs.  The winning t-shirt, voted on by the community,  will be available for purchase in the Mozilla Store sometime in the next few weeks.  Make sure to accessorize the new shirt with the new version of Firefox.

Mozilla and eBay recently launched a new version of the Firefox Companion for eBay, which includes full support for the US.  You can stay connected to your eBay trading, watch items, receive alerts and search in real-time — all from the comfort and convenience of your Firefox browser, no matter what site you’re visiting.  In addition to US compatibility, the new features include drag and drop functionality and audio alerts.

Plus, you get all the goodness from the previous version:

• eBay sidebar for quick access to items you’ve bid on or are watching, updated in real-time
• Synchronization with “My eBay” information
• Status alerts about important trading events and your bid status, such as being outbid on an item or auction ending notification
• Integrated eBay auction search that makes finding, bidding, and selling easier
• And of course safer browsing, with Account Guard integration for eBay and PayPal sites and Firefox’s built-in anti-phishing protection
• Check out the full list of features here

So if you’re an eBay user, I highly recommend taking it for a test-drive.  I’ve found it quite handy.  Support for Firefox 3 is coming soon.

Today the Mozilla Firefox dashboard odometer for downloads finally ticked past the 500 million mark. This is a mind-boggling number for a product that didn’t exist just a few years ago.  When you use Firefox, you’re not only using a superior browser built by a passionate open-source community, but you’re also indirectly giving your thumbs-up to the larger Mozilla mission to preserve choice and innovation on the Internet.

In honor of the 500 million download mark, we’re encouraging folks to help raise 500 million grains of rice in one day to help feed the world’s hungry. Head on over to freerice.com, an innovative website that partners with the United Nations World Food Program to help directly feed 25,000 people for one day.  And help your vocabulary at the same time.

There have been a number of big round-number milestones set over the past few weeks, including 150 million active users of Firefox based on the calculations illustrated in this blog post, and 600 million add-on downloads. With Firefox 3 just around the corner, it’ll be great to see Firefox and Mozilla milestone usage numbers continue to pass thresholds with a lot of zeros attached.

Great post by Ken “Numerator” Kovash that summarizes another one of our search marketing experiments here at Mozilla.  It’s definitely worth a read.  See if you can pass the quiz question.