News.com is reporting on Flicks. They pulled a nice quote from me (from the press release) that I think really says a lot about how this effort is going. This is really fun!
“We’re very impressed with the videos that have been contributed so far,” Asa Dotzler, Mozilla community coordinator, said in a statement. “Our community is not only producing some great ads, they are also having a lot of fun.”
update: and now they’ve added the videos to the article. Nice of them to do that. Even nicer to see that our ads have a new sponsor ;-)
just wondering why do i have to download quicktime to see the videos.. i have used firefox for the longest time and i dont think the spirit of the mozilla community is to force the users into adopting one single option..
hope to see links for the videos in different formats beside quicktime
thanks!
regular-user, quicktime is the format we’re using for this effort.
- A
Apart from Flash, Quicktime is the only format that supports interaction such as links, so users can go straight to download Firefox after viewing. I think Revver (by whom the videos are hosted, not Mozilla) uses quicktime because it has gives great quality insuring the filmmakers hard work doesn’t go to waste, although video sites like Sharkle.com have achieved great flash quality. And many people don’t have FLV players to download and play the Flash format on their computers, but pretty much everyone has a quicktime compatible player.
But you don’t actually need quicktime itself. You can get quicktime alternative which allows you to play everything quicktime plays, but without the bloat. http://www.free-codecs.com/reviews/QuickTime_Alternative.htm
thanks!! for sharing possible alternatives and most importantly for listening.
Nice new sponsor!
sponsored by microsoft
the irony, the irony
Also a newsitem on the dutch website Tweakers.net: http://tweakers.net/nieuws/42032/Thuisgebrouwen-reclamefilmpjes-voor-Firefox-online.html
Good day.
As most internet users I happened to come across this topic and thought I would have a quick look.
Well, that didn’t work.
After clicking one of the movies I was prompted to download a Quicktime plugin.
I have always refused to do this, but since this is the Firefox site I decided to give it a try.
Bad move on my end.
Firefox refused to download the plugin and wanted me to manually search for it.
This strongly annoyed me.
Apart from the fact that you force me to use a filetype I hate, it simply doesn’t work easy enough.
I am now strongly considering to drop Firefox and search for an alternative.
Great campaign!
-Bushdoctor.
[...] [...]
Mr Bushdoctor, you could also have downloaded the file and played it in any compatible player. Dropping Firefox just because this project happens to use QuickTime is pretty harsh. You’re “strongly annoyed” by the fact you actually had to download the QuickTime installer from Apple’s site? Are you “strongly annoyed” whenever someone makes a Flash animation too?
I installed the QuickTime plugin before I even needed it for something, and I really can’t think of any reason why you would want to refuse to install it. The QuickTime plugin gives you full control over what compatible filetypes it should handle. Many sites use the QuickTime plugin for their embedded media, and it’s a pretty useful plugin to have.
Also: think of the TARGET AUDIENCE. You were already using Firefox, thus you were not part of the target audience for this campaign. The target audience is mostly IE users who use the web enough to be annoyed by things like malware. These people are likely to have had to install the QuickTime plugin at some point. Plus, the winning ad’s destination is television anyway.
What’s next? Will you be “strongly annoyed” that you have to take the time to open the envelopes when you read your mail, and decide to boycott the postal service? I think you may have a valid point that they could have provided another format for download. But damn, that’s no reason to quit using Firefox. That’s like uninstalling Windows because you don’t like Microsoft Office.
Quicktime is a annoying having to install it. But not installing it now to watch these video’s will only most likely delay that in due time you will need to install it anyway. Also Quicktime is easily configurable to not be intrusive. You can control file extensions. Remove the tray icon. All things that anyone with any computer ability should be able to do.