Firefox 3 and Download Day
Download Day was an attempt by Mozilla to the set the Guinness World Record for the highest number of software downloads in a day on the release day of Firefox 3. When Firefox 3 released the countdown began. Users of Firefox throughout the world were invited t take part in this unique event. The Download Day was a clever strategy by Mozilla to increase their market share. It is said that their market share rose to 18% because of this cunning move. More than 8 million downloads were made that day, thus enabling Mozilla to set the record. In comparison with Firefox 3, Firefox 2 downloads were only 1.6 million in number. Microsoft sent a cake congratulating the Mozilla team on releasing Firefox 3.
The users, who wanted to download the browser, could do so from the Download Day Headquarters itself. In return, they got a customized certificate from the Headquarters. This certificate could be obtained by just entering your name in the required field on the Download Day’s official site and printing it. Since the exact date of Firefox’s release was not known, the users received notification emails regarding the exact time and date of release.
Else, they could check for updates on Twitter, the social networking site. Mozilla encouraged their fans to spread the news of Firefox 3’s launch by word of mouth, emails, blogging etc. On the official Download Day site, they have also mentioned that people should plan a bash at their office, college, home etc. to celebrate this day. They also urged people to add Firefox’s banners, buttons, etc to their blogs, sites etc. This could be done by choosing the desired button depending upon its size and shape and then copying and pasting its code in the address bar.
Mozilla appealed people to download only one copy of Firefox per computer so that there would be no cheating and they could set the record fair and square. Even if people attempted to play foul, Mozilla would come to know of it through the cookie system. In addition, they did not count partial or complete updates, since updates did not qualify as downloads. Along with the Guinness Book of World Records, the judges for the Download Day were Corey Shields and Paul Vixie.
In order to prove to the judges and the Guinness Book of World Records, that a record was set, Mozilla had to provide a signed sheet depicting that they had followed the rules and the numbers were for real. Photographs and videos of members of the Firefox community celebrating the arrival of Firefox 3 were also to be shown as a proof. And last but not the least a sample list of download logs was to be given as a proof.
During this whole download process Mozilla would have had accumulated a large number of email addresses. Therefore, people were naturally concerned about what it planned to do with those. Therefore, Mozilla Firefox allayed people’s fears by stating that they would not share the information with anybody but only use it to register the downloader, send reminders, and notify the result of the record. Mozilla also encouraged people to send ideas regarding various ways to spread the news of Firefox 3’s release.
The exact number of downloads was a whopping 8,002,530.Those many people were able to enjoy a much smarter and safer web. Firefox 3 had improved on many features and had come up with many new ones too such as the Smart bar, anti phishing feature, malware protection, and site identification, advanced bookmarking, tagging, and over 5000 add-ons.
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