PKB

This post is intended for reference for anyone interested in understanding how we conduct viral marketing at Mozilla.

We just rolled out the Firefox + Freerice.com marketing program in conjunction with the announcement of Firefox achieving 500 million downloads on Thursday, Feb. 21, 2008.

From the Mozilla Blog:

Firefox just reached 500,000,000 downloads. This is an absolutely phenomenal milestone for Firefox. It is sort of hard to imagine what that number means. For some perspective, that’s roughly the audience size of 10,000 Rome Colosseums combined. It would be the weight, in kilograms, of 8,500 Boeing 747 airplanes. In dollars, for $500 million you and 15 of your friends can fly to the International Space Station.

OR, you can affect change and invite 15 of your friends to play a game and feed 25,000 people. With your help we can break another milestone today with FreeRice.com - 500,000,000 grains of donated rice in one day. Imagine helping to feed the hungry while picking up some new vocabulary too!

We’ve tracked the spread of the idea here:

• Front page of Digg
• Front page of Techcrunch
• Ars Technica
• Mozilla Links
• FreeRice.com put up a note saying:
  

  “In honor of the 500 millionth download of its browser, Mozilla Firefox is encouraging people from around the world to donate 500 million grains of rice at FreeRice. Click here for details.”

My personal favorite reaction to our announcement is this video, not made by anyone at Mozilla, that uses remixed photos of past grassroots marketing our extended Mozilla community has participated in to let people know about the 500 million grains of rice program.

It’s amazing, awe-inspiring and humbling all at the same time to be a part of this worldwide community! Thanks everyone for rallying and making this happen in less than 5 days with zero dollars spent; and most importantly, for meaningfully helping others who need a hand.*

Here’s more about FreeRice.com:

*And thanks to Polvi for once again leading the charge.