Spread Firefox: Mozilla leverages passionate users to grow market share

aarongerdes@gmail.com (Aaron Gerdes) — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 23:05:00 -0700

This article in BusinessWeek reports on the spread of Firefox, a browser which has grabbed to 10% of the market from Internet Explorer in two years (I switched a while back from Safari).

Several colleagues have happily switched to Firefox from Internet Explorer at the behest of a tech-savvy friend, vendor, or relative. None have looked back.

Don’t miss the Firefox crop circle created on the OSU campus.

That’s a passionate group of users.

Manufactured buzz doesn't work

aarongerdes@gmail.com (Aaron Gerdes) — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 09:58:00 -0700

Steven Levitt (coauthor of Freakonomics) commented on faking user-generated content (which I discussed here). Found via Emergence Marketing:

One conclusion which Steven Levitt at Freakonomics comes to when answering the question “what does or does not make Internet buzz translate into commercial success” is “One reasonable answer to that question may be that when the buzz is faked/manufactured, commercial success will not follow.”

Whether intentional or not, “manufactured buzz,” along with other viral “gaming-the-system” marketing strategies are just another threat to the future credibility of word of mouth marketing – another one being the lack of disclosure policy which some companies refuse to endorse.

Aaron Gerdes: Tag wom

Spread Firefox: Mozilla leverages passionate users to grow market share

Manufactured buzz doesn't work