Firefox donations hit $250,000

The Mozilla Foundation announced on Saturday that it had raised $250,000 during the 10 days of its fundraising campaign, securing donations from 10,000 individuals. The money will be used to promote the final version of Firefox 1.0 after it is released on Nov. 9.

The campaign started two weeks ago with the goal of getting 2,500 people to donate $30 or more to the marketing fund within 10 days, with the aim of placing a full-page ad in The New York Times.

Within three days, it had raised $100,000--enough to pay for at least one ad--and the campaign has now closed with a quarter of a million dollars in the kitty. The additional money will be used for other launch-related expenses, including paying the Mozilla Foundation's public-relations company, according to the Spread Firefox Web site.

David Hallowell, a spokesman for Mozilla, said the campaign's achievement indicates an enthusiastic interest in Firefox.

"The success of the donation campaign shows the passion that's out there for Firefox," he said. "It's a product the open-source community can be truly proud of, and they're willing to dig deep in their pockets to spread the word."

Following the early success of Firefox, Mozilla has now raised the stakes on its next target. It initially aimed for 10 million downloads of Firefox 1.0 within 100 days but has now slashed the time to 10 days, according to Hallowell.

"The original target of 10 million downloads in 100 days is too easy, and I've got no doubt that we can surpass that," Hallowell said.

The preview release of Firefox has already attracted a lot of interest. It beat its initial goal of 1 million downloads within six days and passed the 5 million download mark two weeks ago. Since then, it has passed the 7 million download mark.

Ingrid Marson of ZDNet UK reported from London.

[Jonathan]

I wouldnt bet on it.

FireFox reached 1.0 Beta status - that is what caused the all the downloads. I think people are happy with the current version of FireFox. I don't think there are going to be nearly as many downloads when it reaches 1.0 Gold code status.

As for the money. Most excellent. Might I suggest a plan of action for the remaining money? Purchase as many of the plush stuffed FireFox toys as possible and cargo drop them over Redmond when FF 1.0 ships. FireFoxs litter then streets of Microsoft Campus. The looks from MS employees alone would be priceless. :-D

[kieranmullen]

Needs Product Bundling

They need to properly package this software with other open source and free software packages.

Such as GIMP.org for Graphics Editing
Openoffice.org For Office Suite

There is so much more to be done.

So much more CAN be done with bundling and teamwork.