October 22nd, 2009 by Justin Scott (fligtar)
Weeks before every Firefox release comes a huge effort from Mozilla encouraging add-on developers to make sure their extensions and themes are updated to work with the upcoming version. This often results in a last-minute rush of submissions right when the new version of Firefox and Thunderbird are released.
As an experiment in ways to get users and developers involved with this process sooner, we’ve created the Add-on Compatibility Reporter, an add-on for Firefox and Thunderbird that allows testers to report compatibility information to Mozilla.
After installing the add-on, users will be able to use any incompatible add-ons they have installed and report back to us on whether the add-ons still work like they did in previous versions or are having some issues.
Add-on developers can then browse the reports submitted for their add-ons, even if the add-on isn’t hosted on Mozilla Add-ons. We’ll also be monitoring the report submissions and emailing developers when we have information as to whether their add-on might be compatible or incompatible with an upcoming Firefox release.
So, if you’re an alpha or beta tester of Firefox or Thunderbird and want to help make sure your add-ons are compatible for the final release, grab the Add-on Compatibility Reporter now!
Tags: compatibility
Posted in compatibility, developers | 18 Comments »
October 21st, 2009 by Nick Nguyen
About a year ago, Mozilla Labs launched Personas, a way to easily create and install lightweight themes for Firefox and Thunderbird. Over 9 million downloads and 30,000 Personas later, we’ve included them on AMO as a new way to personalize your browser. Simply click the Personas category on the left side of AMO and you’ll be able to quickly browse and preview Personas.
If you’re running the nightly build of Firefox 3.6- you’re in luck! Personas support is baked in and will be a part of the final 3.6 release. Otherwise, for those of you on Firefox 3 and 3.5, all you’ll have to do is install the Personas extension. Once the extension is installed, you’ll be able to get live previews of personas and install them with a single click. To learn more about Personas, including how to create your own in a few minutes, visit getpersonas.com.
Posted in general | 1 Comment »
October 19th, 2009 by Justin Scott (fligtar)
We canceled last week’s Add-ons Meetup due to bad weather in the area, but have rescheduled it for next Tuesday, October 27. If you’ll be in the Mountain View area next Tuesday, please RSVP and stop by for free food and add-ons discussion!
For more information on the event, see our meetup page.
Tags: events
Posted in events | No Comments »
October 19th, 2009 by Nick Nguyen
Since the Contributions Pilot launched in July, we’ve been working hard to improve this feature and understand its impact on the community. Since we launched the Contributions Dashboards in early September, we’ve been able to look at the data and gather our findings.
One of the first questions that developers want to know is whether or not they’ve picked the right contribution for their add-ons. Let’s take a look at some charts:
In this chart, you can see a histogram of the total number of successful transactions for each amount paid. The top 6 amounts are all $5 or under, with the notable exception of the $10 category. Let’s take a look at the total revenue in each transaction bucket:
When we look at transactions and sort by total revenue per bucket, the story unfolds in an interesting way. In this chart, you can see that the $10 contribution generates a majority of revenue for the measured six week period, especially when combined with the $9.99 bucket. What this suggests is that the optimal price appears to be closer to $10 than $5, and that $10 isn’t a significant barrier for contributions.
It’s also great to know that out of 2,031 individual contributions, while 968 were for the requested amount, 742 contributions exceeded the requested amount, 159 went to add-ons with no requested amount, and only 162 were for less than the requested amount.
Of course, this isn’t a scientifically rigorous study, as the sample size is still too small for any strong conclusions, but it’s good to note that app store pricing doesn’t appear to apply to an ecosystem where all add-ons are free and paid contributions are strictly voluntary. If a developer creates a great add-on and asks for $10, that double digit price doesn’t appear to be a barrier to donating. In other words, add-ons users who enjoy using add-ons are also quite generous when they elect to donate contributions to those add-ons.
In future blog posts, we’ll explore the effect of employing the different mechanisms we have for letting users know about contributions.
Posted in general | 6 Comments »
October 13th, 2009 by Nick Nguyen
Come join us at the new Mozilla HQ in Mountain View for some BBQ and a schedule that’s light on presentation and heavy on interaction. Sign up here.
Festivities start at 7 and end at 9, hope to see you there!
Edit: due to the biggest storm since 1962, we’ve postponed the event. Stay tuned for updates regarding the new time. Thanks.
Posted in general | No Comments »
October 9th, 2009 by rbango
With the Extend Firefox contest over, I wanted to see where entries were coming from so I created some quick charts that show which countries were represented via the various submissions:
These charts show me we need stronger developer outreach outside of North America & Europe. South America, for example, is a hot bed of developer talent (Brazil & Chile come to mind) and helping those developers understand the viability & power of the Mozilla platform is extremely important.
Thankfully, we’ve recently brought on Jorge Villalobos as our Developer Relations Lead. Being based in Central America (Costa Rica to be exact) will definitely allow him to increase the awareness of our tools in the surrounding countries.
A surprise from the stats was India which was 6th on the list of contributed add-ons. This is a geo we need to look at closer to see how we can build stronger developer ties there.
It was really cool to see a nice sampling on countries participating. Great motivation to keep spreading the word worldwide.
Posted in general | 8 Comments »
October 9th, 2009 by Nick Nguyen
There’s been interest lately around the SkipScreen add-on and we’re happy to report that we will continue to list this add-on on our site. We continue to support add-on developers like SkipScreen and work hard to provide the best selection of browser add-ons on the Web.
Posted in general | 17 Comments »
October 9th, 2009 by rbango
Now that the Extend Firefox 3.5 Contest is officially over, the hard part of judging the add-ons comes into play. We had 64 add-ons submitted with 40 of those being brand-new new add-ons and 24 being upgrades.
We have a great set of judges which will help to put these great entries through their paces and whittle the list down to the eventual winners. The winners will be announced on or about November 9th, 2009.
Thanks to all that submitted an add-on and good luck!
Posted in events | 1 Comment »
October 8th, 2009 by Jorge
I’ve just returned from Santiago Chile, where MozCamp Chile and JRSL Chile were held. It is the first Mozilla event I’ve attended, so it was a great learning experience. I specially enjoyed the fact that it was a Hispanic event so I got to meet many members of the hispanic Mozilla communities. The participant list should be enough proof that the participation was numerous and diverse. Kudos to the event organizers and all the communities, you did a fantastic job in bringing all of this together.
I made a presentation titled AMO, Add-on Developers and Editors (PDF version). It’s a very brief overview on who I am, what’s going on with AMO in terms of helping developers, and the editor community, with a call to action to anyone interested in joining the group. I was happy to realize that there were many developers in the audience, and some showed interest in becoming editors. For all of those interested, I’d look into the Add-on Policies docs and the Editors wiki page. There was also interest in localizing the Developer Hub content, which I think is an awesome idea. Having good documentation in our language is an important step we need to take if we want to increase developer adoption in our countries (I live in Costa Rica).
There was a lot of excitement around the idea of holding events that are more development-centric, like the Mozilla Add-on Workshops. There are already plans to hold one in Perú this year, and another one some time early next year. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on those.
Thanks again to all of you who made MozCamp Chile possible!
Tags: #mozchile09, add-ons, chile, editors, maow, mozcamp, presentations
Posted in developers, events | 1 Comment »
October 5th, 2009 by rbango
Due to a timezone issue, the contest submission form closed an hour earlier than it should have. In order to ensure that everyone has a fair chance to join in on the contest, we’ve re-enabled the submission form to allow those affected by the early closing to submit your entries. You can submit your add-on here:
http://labs.mozilla.com/contests/extendfirefox3.5/enter.php
The contest will end tomorrow, Tuesday October 6th, 2009 at 11:59pm Pacific Time (GMT -7).
We’re sorry for the inconvenience.
Posted in events | 5 Comments »
