November, 2008

results — 8 Comments
21
Nov 08

Changing the Firefox Download Button

A couple months back we started a discussion around our plans for performing some multivariate optimization tests within the mozilla.com site.  We started with one simple A/B test on a single web page and we now have some findings to share.  At the Firefox customize page — www.mozilla.com/firefox/customize/ — we made a singular text change: the green download button could either include our default text “Download Now – Free” or our test text “Try Firefox 3″.

The results from the test are below.  Please keep in mind that the primary purpose of this initial test was to evaluate a possible long-term solution/tool for implementing much more robust tests in the future.  That said, our findings provide a small amount of insight.  During the course of two weeks, this page saw about 300K visitors and nearly 30K clicks to download Firefox.  The conversion rate for “Download Now – Free” was 10.07% versus 9.73% for “Try Firefox 3″, which translates to a 3.44% decrease in optimization when using “Try Firefox 3″, with 99.85% confidence in these results (confidence = likelihood that this version of the page performs significantly different than our default page).

If we’ve piqued your interest, please note that we’ll soon have some exciting findings related to a currently ongoing multivariate test at the main Firefox product page (www.mozilla.com/firefox).

plans / process — 2 Comments
20
Nov 08

We shipped funnelcake03

We recently reinitiated our Funnelcake experiment on November 18th from 00:00:00 – 23:59:59 PST.  As you may recall from last year’s effort, we:

Before we soon publish our latest findings, I want to take an opportunity to briefly articulate why Funnelcake is important within the Mozilla community.  Generally, we have just about zero visibility into the experience of new users of Firefox.  For example, did a new user enjoy a happy download and install process? did he/she continue to be satisfied a month later, six months later?

Funnelcake doesn’t specifically relate the attitudes of new Firefox users, but it does start to provide some structure around the answers to those questions.  Having some information around the potential pain points of new Firefox users, along with how such users behave (e.g., are they satisfied?) over a long period of time, is important knowledge not simply for marketers or statisticians, but for the general online population as a whole and for the Mozilla community in particular.

Uncategorized — 16 Comments
19
Nov 08

Using Firefox After Eating Turkey

We often like to think about macro level trends in internet behavior, e.g., declines in internet usage on global holidays or growth trends by region.  One such phenomenon we’ve noticed in recent years is Cyber Monday.  While we have no idea whether internet users actually shop more on the Monday after Thanksgiving, we have seen a surge in Firefox usage on that specific day.

So this year we’d like to put an interesting spin on Cyber Monday and see which reader of this blog can come up with the closest guess for what will be the actual number of active Firefox users on that day.  The person who leaves a comment below with the best guess will receive a free Firefox t-shirt.

Before you guess, here are some numbers to work with…

Looking at Firefox usage levels in the days leading up to the 2006 and 2007 Cyber Mondays (average of the following seven days: Monday-Thursday the week prior to Thanksgiving and Monday-Wednesday of Thanksgiving week) and comparing this number with the number of Firefox users on the Monday after Thanksgiving, we saw a 5.2% jump in 2006 and a 7.6% increase in 2007.

Fast forwarding to 2008, the average Firefox usage number we’ve seen in recent days (weekdays only) has been hovering around 72 million active users.

Good luck!

A few notes: (1) please submit your guess before November 30th, 2008, (2) for specific details on how Mozilla determines the number of “active daily users”, please refer here, and (3) void where prohibited by law.

process / Uncategorized — 5 Comments
6
Nov 08

Firefox Usage and Europe

It’s surprising how the simplest things can sometimes be the most revealing…

We’ve previously talked quite a bit about the international landscape that describes Firefox adoption and usage.  See here and here, along with this old post from Schrep.  Today, Jane asked me a relatively simple question related to Firefox usage in Europe.  Within a minute, I found the answer to her question creating the pie chart below.  In the past, I’ve generally focused on usage patterns by country, but I found this simple view of the data much more eye opening than previous analyses.

What is most surprising?

We previously highlighted the interactive Treemap below showcasing internet population and penetration by both region and country.  Asia appears to represent about 40% of the global internet population, but it isn’t as nearly well represented in the Firefox chart above (12%).  Clearly, there’s much more work for us to do here in the future (a good thing!).

Uncategorized — No Comments
4
Nov 08

Impact Mozilla – Finalists Announced

The ten finalists have been announced.  Voting for the ultimate winner is now just a month away.

results — 21 Comments
3
Nov 08

It’s Official – Firefox Surpasses 20% Worldwide Market Share

Congratulations to the Mozilla community for reaching this historic milestone!

For the first time in either a weekly or monthly period, Firefox surpassed 20% worldwide market share (according to Net Applications).  You can read the featured report here.