The Mozilla Blog

Wondering how you can get a head start on Mozilla Service Week (Sept. 7 - 21, 2009)? You can roll up your sleeves and help an organization in need of technology-related service now or help get the word out! This summer it will be critical to not only expose Mozilla Service Week to would-be volunteers worldwide, but help identify and approach non-profits or local organizations that can use our help.

That’s where you come in — the Mozilla community has always been adept at spreading the word! Help drive thousands of privileges to serve and hundreds of opportunities by taking a few moments to promote Mozilla Service Week. Here’s how:

• Download site badges, banners, and buttons to add to your blog, your social network profile, or your email signature.
• Download a Mozilla Service Week flyer. Print it out and hand it out at a local event or post at work, at school, or at your community center.
• Start planning your service activity and challenge your friends to join you using PledgeBank.
• Get the word out by posting news, video or pictures on your blog, twitter, or social network site. Tag your posts with “mozservice09″ so they’re easy to find.
• Share your story of what you’re planning to do for Mozilla Service Week here or on your favorite social networking site.
• Flaunt your support for Mozilla Service Week with a customized Persona, a skin for Firefox.

Everyone should have the opportunity to know how to use the Internet, have easy access to it, and have a good experience when they’re online. So if you have a talent for writing, designing, programming, developing, all-around technical know-how or a knack for spreading the word, join the Mozilla Service Week effort today.

Today Mozilla launches the very first Mozilla Service Week. During the week of September 14-21, 2009, we’re asking people to step up and make a difference by using the Web to better their community. Mozilla is a global community with a firm mission to make the Web better for everybody. When members of our community decide to take action, they have the power to make a serious difference.

We’re looking for people who want to share, give, engage, create, and collaborate by offering their time and talent to local public benefit organizations, non-profits and people who need their help. Our goal is to help empower people to:

• Teach senior citizens how to use the Web.
• Show a non-profit how to use social networking to grow its base of supporters.
• Install a wireless network at a school.
• Create Web how-to materials for a library’s computer cluster.
• Refurbish hardware for a local computer center.
• Help a non-profit update its website or database.

Everyone should have the opportunity to know how to use the Internet, have easy access to it, and have a good experience when they’re online. So if you have a talent for writing, designing, programming, developing, or all-around technical know-how, join Mozilla Service Week. In Mark Surman’s words (executive director of the Mozilla Foundation), “We’re inviting people to get involved with Mozilla in an active way, even if they can’t code, test or localize. It let’s anyone and everyone feel like they are contributing to the cause of building a better internet.” Together we can make the Web a better place for everyone!

Over the coming weeks you can look forward to Mozilla Service Week being available in many languages and with additional partners thanks to the Mozilla community’s help.

To learn more on how to make a difference by either volunteering or listing your organization’s needs, go to mozillaservice.org. Your Internet skills, no matter how novice or advanced, can change people’s lives and make the Web better for everyone.

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Tonight we unveiled a new design for Spread Firefox, Mozilla’s community marketing home. With the new layout and design, we’re striving to make the site more engaging and reflective of the great personalities behind Firefox grassroots marketing. The inspiration behind the design is a community bulletin board, appropriately! At the same time, we’re trying to make it more straightforward for users to figure out what to do and where to go next when they come to the site. Here’s a recap of the major improvements.

This was a massive group effort and a huge thanks is owed to:

• Alex Buchanan
• Jamey Boje
• Stephen Donner
• Krupa Raj
• Akash Desai
• Paul Booker
• Otto de Voogd
• Lucy Connor
• Alix Franquet
• Neil Lee
• Ken Saunders
• Paul Kim
• Jay Patel
• Aravind Gottipati
• Matthew Zeier
• Jeremy Orem
  
• The Royal Order (our designers!)

Do you want to help too? Here’s how:

• Join Spread Firefox or get your friends to
• Start or contribute to a project
• Become a Spread Firefox affiliate
• Join the Spread Firefox team list for updates and opportunities to help with the site

Enjoy and stay tuned for opportunities to participate in the Firefox 3.5 launch on Spread Firefox!

As part of Social Actions’ Change the Web Challenge, they’re hosting a “Change the Web Conversation Series,” open online chats to discuss how to use specific technology platforms for good.  This week’s will be “How Can Mozilla Empower Nonprofits and Movements?” and will feature Zak Greant and Suneel Gupta of Mozilla.  Details:

• Date: Tuesday, March 3rd
• Time: 11am PST - 12pm PST
• Meeting place:  Social Actions’ chat room
• RSVP

Join to discuss how Mozilla and Firefox can help empower movements, support nonprofits, and facilitate social change.

It’s an amazing thought that the hundreds of millions of users of Mozilla software have (in almost all cases) found out about it by word-of-mouth, through their friends and acquaintances. The Mozilla community doesn’t merely develop, test and localize software and documentation, but it also markets this software to the world.

But marketing is perhaps the most diffuse and decentralized activity we undertake. As the Mozilla collective continues to grow, more and more volunteers are stepping forward as marketing contributors. That’s why we pulled together a guide to the resources available, to make it easier for people to join in marketing activities, and to start their own. The guide will evolve over time -indeed, we will be adding to it constantly, and look forward to plenty of feedback.

At the moment it has details of how people can get involved by:

• Organizing and Attending Events
• Public Speaking
• Blogging, Tagging and Social Networking
• Advertising Mozilla
• Making T-Shirts and Other Items
• Guerrilla Marketing Activities
• Collecting Testimonials
• Distributing Software
• Understanding Our Users
• Promoting the Mozilla Mission
• Collecting Press Clippings
• Speaking to the Press
• Requesting Sponsorship for a Project
• Reporting Disreputable Behavior

The guide is located on Mozilla’s community portal.

Our friends at Social Actions are kicking off a unique contest today: Change the Web Challenge. They’re calling for new Web apps that can help people make a difference while browsing the Web - allowing them to find and share actions on websites, blogs and social networks. Participants not only have a shot at glory, but $10,000 in prizes.

To give you a better sense, here are some Web apps that Social Actions already powers:

• ‘Related Ways to Take Action’ WordPress Plugin: A plugin you can add to any WordPress.org blog that identifies the keywords of each blog posts and then displays related ways to take action.
• Twitter Action Pack: A directory of 30+ Twitter accounts that automatically post actions on the issues you care about.
• Firefox Ubiquity Command: A Firefox mashup that lets you highlight any phrase as your browse the web and find related ways to take action.

Pique your interest? Social Actions has pulled together some great resources to help with submitting and creating add-ons and Web apps for the contest:

• Change the Web Challenge Slideshow
• Social Actions’ Developers Google Group
• Developer Resources page
• An idea hub
• Joe Solomon’s presentation on Firefox Extensions for Social Change
• An online chat: How Can Mozilla Empower Movements and Nonprofits with Zak Greant and Suneel Gupta

Submissions are due April 3, 2009 and winners will be announced at NTEN’s Nonprofit Technology Conference on April 28th!  We’re looking forward to seeing what comes in!

Arun Ranganathan and Seth Bindernagel are just arriving in India to meet with our community and attend several events.  As you may or may not know - Arun is part of our Evangelism team and focuses on standards and open Web tools, while Seth focuses on localization.  Both have a ton of knowledge about the Mozilla project.  It’s going to be a  great visit thanks to our passionate and active community in India!

Where in India will Seth & Arun be you ask?

• Feb. 10th, New Delhi:  Seth and Arun will be joining MozCampDelhi organized by Mohak Prince, one of our great campus reps. There will also be a Mozilla Labs session on the news Concept Series.
• Feb. 12th - 13th, Kanpur:  The duo will be participating in the inaugural FOSSKriti at Techkriti.  Arun will be leading a workshop on Web development & Open Source technologies on the night of the 12th and then a HTML5 talk on Feb. 13th.
• Feb. 14th - 15th, Pune:  Arun and Seth find themselves at GNUnify where they will be leading a mini Mozilla Camp covering localization, Web tools and more.  On Sunday morning from 10 a.m. - 1 p.m. they will be joining PuneTech.com for an open meet up.

We’ll post more details as they continue to evolve.  Hope you can make it out to meet them — we’re always looking for new campus reps and India-based members of our community marketing team!

Mozilla Messaging today announced the beta launch of SpreadThunderbird.com.  Spread Thunderbird is the volunteer-run Mozilla Thunderbird advocacy site where community marketing activities are organized to raise awareness and to promote the adoption of Thunderbird.  The Spread Thunderbird site is powered by the open source Drupal web site software.

Community members may submit ideas and join in the effort by visiting today!

Join us at the Green Festival in San Francisco this coming weekend, Nov. 14-16!  Green Festival is the largest green conference in the U.S. and looks at clean technology, green building, socially responsible investing, eco-fashion, renewable energy, and more.  So why Mozilla?    We’re a global community of thousands working to make the Web better for all — that’s why!  The Web is a critical platform for bringing people together and enabling them to organize and communicate to make change.
We have a host of activities lined up:

• We’re participating in the Green Web Pavilion with the ACCRC (Alameda County Computer Resource Center).  The ACCRC saves computers from landfills, refurbishes them and gets them into local Bay Area schools.
• Asa Dotzler, our favorite storyteller, will be covering the history of the Mozilla project, and how a small community of activists is building an inclusive Internet on Sunday at 12:00 p.m. PST.
• Paul Kim will be taking part in a Green Web Pavilion panel on Saturday at 3:00 p.m. PST.
• Clint Talbert will be demo’ing Firefox in the Green Web Pavilion on Saturday at 5:00 p.m. PST.
• Mozilla community members and employees are hosting a booth to educate people about Mozilla and Firefox.

Please drop by and see us or better yet - come participate!

Foxkeh, the Firefox mascot developed in Japan, celebrates its 2nd birthday this week.  What better way to celebrate than unveil a new theme for Firefox 3?!  When a page is loading, Foxkeh runs in the upper right-hand corner of Firefox.  Adorable!  Get the new theme here.