Webware

The de facto registrar of superlative achievements has credited Mozilla for officially setting a record for downloads in a 24-hour period: 8,002,530 copies of Firefox.

Mozilla's Download Day on June 17, whose server-crippling success delayed its official start, sought to popularize the open-source Web browser. Mozilla, which oversees the Firefox project, projected at the time that it cleared 8 million, but the number is now official.

"As the arbiter and recorder of the world's amazing facts, Guinness World Records is pleased to add Mozilla's achievement to our archives," Gareth Deaves, Guinness' records manager, said in a statement.

Though Download Day was a big publicity stunt, it's hard to sniff with too much disdain at the total. To me at least it indicates that people see more in this particular browser than just a bundle of bits to surf the Web; they like its technology, its open-source nature or other attributes, and downloading and using it is an event somewhat akin to suffering in line for hours for rock show tickets or to buy an iPhone.

I'm skeptical that Download Day in and of itself will appreciably shift Firefox's market share results in the short term. But it did probably coax people toward a more modern browser, which Web site operators probably are happy to see, and I wouldn't be surprised if Mozilla managed to sign up more Firefox fanboys through its promotional devices.

Also for the record, Net Applications gave Firefox 3 2.31 percent market share for the entire month of June, compared with 4.28 percent for Safari 3.1, 16.13 percent for Firefox 2, 26.38 percent for Internet Explorer 6, and 46.45 percent for No. 1 IE 7. The statistics are based on actual usage at various major search engines. Because Firefox 3 was released midway through June, the statistics likely will show significantly greater share for it in July.

Mozilla hopes to set a world record for the most downloads within a 24-hour period on the day Firefox 3 is released (currently expected to be in June).

The online edition of Guinness Book of World Records does not list a current record for most downloads within 24 hours.

The final release candidates for Firefox 3 are showing a number of improvements, including greater rendering speed, the use of fewer resources, and more baked-in security features than other browsers.

To help Mozilla set a world record, the foundation recommends the following:

• Sign up to get the final copy of Firefox 3 on Download Day.
• Host a Download Day Fest on Firefox 3 launch day at your school, office, or anywhere with an Internet connection.
• Become a Firefox campus representative and collect pledges from fellow students.
• Add Mozilla buttons and banners to your site, blog, or profile.

To get people excited, Mozilla has provided a map showing pledges to date along with more details.

U2

(Credit: U2.com)

Looks like it's U2's turn to take a pounding from the bloggerati.

A speech on Monday by Paul McGuinness, manager of the band U2, was a call to arms against piracy. He wants to fight file sharing by forcing Internet service providers to ban people who pirate music. He suggested that Apple and other makers of digital music players were wrongly profiting from their "burglary kits."

McGuinness told a gathering of music insiders at the Midem music conference in Cannes, France, that music is making lots of people lots of money. Unfortunately, that money isn't finding its way to artists. He placed much of the blame on tech companies, but also pointed a finger at record labels that "through lack of foresight and planning allowed a range of industries to arise that let people steal music."

Not surprisingly, U2, one of the world's most beloved bands for more than two decades, is under attack in the blogosphere.

"U2's manager tells us why we are bad," "U2's crazy manager wants to go after tech firms," and "U2 McGu's ISP rant" are just a few of the headlines coming from outraged bloggers.

The band has not commented one way or the other on McGuinness' speech, but one would have to think they were apprised before he said it. A copy of the speech is posted on U2's Web site. Either way, like Prince, Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor and (the granddaddy of all musicians who spoke out against file sharing) Metallica's Lars Ulrich before them, Bono & Co. are getting worked over.

Here's some of the wittier and more brutal comments...

"McGuiness is whining about this at the same time that U2 is pulling in incredible profits, making $355 million on its last tour," wrote Mike Masnick at the blog Techdirt.

Wired.com's Ryan Singel offered this: "Threat Level agrees that ISPs shouldn't get away consequence-free for transporting evil bits. But we counter-propose that ISPs use any nascent filtering technology they have developed to blackhole U2 and its frontman who goes by the ludicrous moniker Bono."

Privacy advocate Lauren Weinstein takes the manager to task for his comment about the tech sector's "hippy values."

"Paul has homed in on well-known hippie freaks like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates," Weinstein quipped. "You do remember when Steve and Bill used to hang out with Timothy Leary, right? No? You don't recall Switch On, Log In, and Buzz?"

The struggle for economic control of music is looking more and more like war between corporations and consumers. On one side, the record industry has an army of lawyers ready to sue. On the other, consumers have an army of bloggers ready to ridicule.

Choose the wrong side, and prepare to take a public whipping. At this point, no musician who takes up the pro-copyright banner should be shocked when he or she is branded a traitor and longtime fans swear they'll never buy their music again.

But if file-sharing really is hitting these musicians in their wallets, maybe they don't care.

Calling all people who really, really, really want to go down in the history books, but don't have the advantage of being Sir Richard Branson: Guinness World Records has added a social network to its site, so that you can share all your wackiest exploits.

I thought we had something like that already. It's called YouTube.

Members of the Guinness World Records community, which was created using technology from the New York-based KickApps, can share audio, video, photos, and other dubious evidence of their strange talents. Right now, some of the most-viewed videos include "continuous reading marathons," the world's largest homemade bacon cheeseburger, and some kind of "elastic guy" who can do weird things with his limbs.

Biggest problem with the site? No Digg buttons. Think about it.

I'm skeptical as to just how successful an online community for avowed record breakers could be, especially given the inevitable concerns that it'll become a hotbed for Jackass-style competition. (Somebody might get hurt!) Not to mention the fact that social-networking fatigue has certainly set in for many, and signing up for yet another account just might not appeal to those outside the alpha-geek crowd who will join any cool new service. But the London-based Guinness World Records has said that the company will actually be trawling the social network for evidence of new records, so that could provide some incentive among that sector of the population that's actually willing to spend time on continuous reading marathons.

By the way, I really dug the bacon cheeseburger video--which is, of course, not available on Icanhascheezburger.com. Here it is: