Today, the Mozilla metrics team released the first ever State of the Internet report. With more than 350 million people around the world using the Firefox Web browser, we are careful to ensure the data we collect is fairly limited and feel compelled to share what we’re able to extract from that data.

Some interesting findings from this report:

• Looking across several sources of market share data, Firefox’s worldwide share appears close to 30%.
• Usage/Adoption of Firefox this quarter grew most dramatically in Russia.
• Where do people get the earliest start to their day?  Hawaii, Wyoming, and Maine.  And the latest start?  New York.
• People in South America and Antarctica are passionate about personalizing their browser.
• In one usage study, we found one person having more than 600 tabs open at one time.  (This last insight comes from Test Pilot, Mozilla Labs’ platform for opt-in participation in studies and experiments.)

See the full report from Ken Kovash on the Mozilla Metrics Blog.

Last week, the Mozilla Developer Network launched the second quarterly survey to obtain developer feedback. Also on hacks.mozilla.org are results from the first quarterly developer survey conducted in November. Thanks to the feedback from more than 5,000 developers last quarter, the Mozilla Developer Network was able to put in place a solid plan moving forward.

We would appreciate your feedback and help to get the word out about our new quarterly developer survey.

See Alix Franquet’s post on hacks.mozilla.org- results from last quarter’s survey as well as more details about Mozilla developer efforts.

Act now and enter the Mobile Add-ons Challenge for your chance to win Mozilla swag and a shiny new Nokia N900.

There are exactly two weeks left to submit your winning Firefox mobile add-on.  Developers are challenged to build an add-on that shows innovation, compatibility and that considers the mobile context (small screen size, touch screen, on-the-go, etc.)

At the end of the Challenge period (April 12), our panel of judges (consisting of members from the Mobile and Add-ons teams) will select ten (10) winners who will receive a new Nokia N900 in addition to other great mobile merchandise!

The last challenge resulted in many fantastic add-ons. Check out our previous winners’ award-winning add-ons that are being used by thousands and recognized by press around the globe. Despite these awesome innovations, there is much more room to help enhance the look, feel and functionality of Firefox on mobile devices. Here are some themes the Mozilla Mobile team finds especially interesting:

• Using device APIs: js-ctypes (Fennec 1.0) might be used to hook into the device (addressbook or camera) and add functionality to a Web app by making a pagemod (jetpack- or greasemonkey-like add-on). Check out these helpful resources around js-cytypes:ctypes on Mobile Developer Center and blog post using GStreamer js-ctypes
  
• Photo, media, social and sharing tools: Create a social aggregator for quickly viewing streams from Twitter, Facebook, etc; Create a tool for sharing images, links and text
• Saving files and Session Restore: Save as PDF, Save Image, Remember last open tabs, etc.

So what are you waiting for? Develop a Firefox mobile add-on for a chance to win a new phone, and most importantly, see your innovation used by people around the world on multiple platforms and devices!  See the complete contest details and rules here.

Today we’re excited to announce the launch of the Spread Firefox Education Toolkit.

With the new Firefox Education Toolkit anyone can go out and teach people about Mozilla and Firefox.  The toolkit contains everything you’ll need – including a set of print pieces, videos and presentations.  The print and presentation materials are currently localized in three languages; English, Spanish and Portuguese (Brasil). Information on how to localize these materials will be coming soon.

Are you a Mozilla Student Rep, contributor or a Firefox fan?  If you answered yes to any of these, use the kit to help spread Firefox.  Some ideas include conducting a Firefox presentation at a conference or school festival, hosting a booth at an event or posting the flyers in your local community.

So go check out the toolkit and happy Firefox-ing!

Editor’s note: On March 13, Mozilla Labs announced the Jetpack for Learning Design Challenge winners at the the Mozilla SXSW Happy Hour. For more details, check out Aza Raskin’s announcement on the Mozilla Labs blog, reposted below:

Three projects of the Jetpack for Learning Design Challenge were awarded special prizes at the Mozilla SXSW party today. Ten projects already selected as Design Challenge winners participated in a design camp in Austin, TX over the past three days. Today three of these projects were chosen for special awards: ClozeFox was selected as “best use case”; the project leader of Mupple received the prize for “sharing knowledge with others”; Expression Widgets was chosen as the “best web hack”. You can find more information about them and download all Jetpacks-based add-ons from the Design Challenge wiki.

The Jetpack for Learning Design Challenge supported projects that turn the open web into a rich social learning environment. Developed by Mozilla Labs, a design challenge is an innovative combination of online seminar series, programming competition and hands-on workshop. The Jetpack SDK enables anyone who knows the tools of the web—HTML, CSS, and JavaScript—to build powerful Firefox add-ons. Jetpack for Learning is a part of Mozilla’s new Drumbeat initiative and was supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning program.

Project teams from across the world started working on Jetpack-based prototypes in December 2009. After the first round of seminars, ten finalists were invited to attend Design Camp, a hands-on workshop for hacking Jetpack-based add-ons and the future of open education, which took place just before SXSW. The overall winners were selected by a panel of judges and the Design Challenge participants themselves.

The Design Challenge finalists showcase different ways of learning on the open web:

Clozefox – Clozefox turns any webpage into an interactive, educational and fun language learning resource, and share your progress on twitter.

Cohere – Collaboratively annotate the web with Cohere. Create semantic connections between annotations while discussing them with other users online.

ExpressionWidgets – Create, capture and share web content like text and images collaboratively with Expression Widgets.

HooverNotes – Annotate the web like a book with HooverNotes. Leave comments, highlight content and collect pieces of content from multiple sites or a single web page.

LangLadder – Learn a new language while doing your everyday internet activities. Langladder integrates language exercises into activities like email, social networking and blogs.

LineHive.com – Hyperlink storytelling. Create paths through the internet by grouping webpages and sites into a timeline you can share, tweet, or embed.

Mupple – Keep best practices and experiences with Mupple by recording your web activity and sharing them with others on the web.

Net Detective – Joe Denton is one of the best gumshoes on the force, but he can’t solve these cases without your Internet detective skills in this jetpack that turns Internet search skills into a game for kids.

Rubrick – Create, share and reuse teaching rubrics using Rubrick and allow both teachers and students to get on the same page.

Study Troll – Be sure you know your facts before the Study Troll comes and demands an answer in this add-on that turns any web session into an interactive flash card quiz.

Editor’s note: On Mar 11, Mozilla announced over 100,000,000 downloads of Firefox 3.6 to date. Firefox users on prior versions will be offered an upgrade to Firefox 3.6. For more details, check out Mike Beltzner’s Dev News announcement, reposted below.

We are excited to launch Rock Your Firefox today as a place where Firefox users can learn how to customize their Web experience and discover cool new add-ons.

The first add-on featured on Rock Your Firefox is Yoono, the most popular social networking add-on that nearly 4 million people use today. Yoono is a cool sidebar that integrates all of your social networks and displays them in one stream.  There are thousands of Firefox Add-ons to choose from and hundreds of millions of people worldwide have already downloaded nearly 2 billion add-ons.

Get ready to Rock Your Firefox every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to see what Firefox Add-on is featured next!

This past Saturday, February 27th at 3:34 AM Chilean local time there was an 8.8 magnitude earthquake that lasted for approximately three minutes causing a lot of destruction throughout Chile.

Mozilla has a strong volunteer community through both ChileMoz and Firefox Chile.  In October 2009 a number of Mozilla employees and community members spent a week in Santiago, Chile for the first Mozilla Hispano Camp and participation in Jornadas Regionales de Software Libre.   We are very fortunate to know that most of our community members are doing well and have survived the earthquake.

Below Rodrigo García Segovia of Firefox Chile (www.firefox.cl) talks about the recent earthquake and ways you can get involved:

Follow Updates from our community members
Follow updates from some of our community members through Twitter:

• Rodrigo García (rodchile)
• Francisco Collao Garate (pcollaog)
• Eduardo Escárez (eduardoe)

Text Your Support for Chile
Text a donation to Chile through one of several organizations via the Mobile Giving Foundation.

• Text CHILE to 90999 to donate $10 to the Red Cross
• Text CHILE to 23583 to donate $10 to Habitat for Humanity
• Text CHILE to 20222 to donate $10 to World Vision
• Text CHILE to 50555 to donate $10 to the Friends of World Food Program
• Text CHILE to 52000 to donate $10 to the Salvation Army
• Text REBUILD to 50555 to donate $10 to Operation USA
• Text 4CHILE to 50555 to donate $10 to Convoy of Hope
• Text CHILE to 864833 to give $10 to the United Way

Financial Support
The Huffington Post did a great write-up of different relief organizations.  Rodrigo García Segovia, one of our community members from Santiago, Chile would like to point out the two official recommendations that the Chilean government are endorsing:

• Caritas Chile
  Is the official organization of the Catholic Church in Chile to help people in emergency situations.  One of their biggest needs is financial support so they can purchase food and setup temporary homes.  To donate through this organization click here, select “Emergencies” and then select “Earthquake in Chile 2010″ from the drop-down menu.
• Cruza Roja (Red Cross)

Note: We still have not heard from Mozilla community member, Javier Martínez Ortiz.  If you have any information about his whereabouts please add details here.

3/3 Update: We finally reached Javier – both he and his family are fine.  A special thanks to the entire community who has been concerned with his safety.

I’m excited to announce the latest challenge from the Creative Collective: designing the Mozilla 2010 t-shirt! The goal is to create a cool design that captures the unique essence of Mozilla, which would then be printed as the official Mozilla 2010 t-shirt and distributed as an exclusive item to contributors.

Creating a design that represents the multi-faceted nature of Mozilla, its mission and its values is certainly no easy task, but we know that our amazing design community is up to the challenge. You might recall the last time that we gave our t-shirt design process an open-source flavor like this was with the Firefox 3 t-shirt contest, which resulted in thousands of submissions from around the world.  Now, for the first time, we’re channeling the talents of our design community towards Mozilla (vs. Firefox), which makes this challenge particularly interesting and even more exciting.

When designing, take inspiration from the broader themes that make Mozilla unique, such as: openness, community, and innovation.  You can retain the bold, constructivist graphic style of the original artwork, or take a completely different direction. The possibilities are practically endless and we encourage you to take a more abstract approach, but please keep the Dino logo intact as indicated by our Trademark Policy.  For additional details, considerations and requirements make sure to visit the design challenge page.

And, remember that the submission period ends on April 30th 2010. So, get those creative juices flowing and send us your best stuff!