So yesterday I asked just in general what would happen if Mozilla would start using Yahoo! as its default search engine. I also alluded to the fact that Google gives a lot of donations to Firefox/Mozilla and perhaps Yahoo! should step up there donations to gain marketshare.
Asa Dotzler from Mozilla responded in the comments:
Donations or other financial contributions and arrangements have nothing to do with why Google is the default search service in Firefox. Google is the default service (and was long before there was any money associated with it) in Firefox because our users tell us it’s the service they want.
Or to put it another way, Yahoo couldn’t buy the default slot in Firefox. No one could. Not even Google.
What Yahoo could do, something Google does, is to distribute a version of Firefox with Yahoo defaults. Mozilla has a broad partners program that allows for this and Yahoo could help Firefox and at the same time help themselves by participating.
- A
Thanks Asa for your response!
P.S. Asa has a great blog here with a lot of info if your a FireFox Fan.
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Jeremy Schoemaker – who has written 2415 posts on ShoeMoney.com.
Hi I am Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com is my blog. 99% of the post here are done by me but you will see others occasionally make guest posts. This blog is fun to write but for my day job I run several online companies.
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So I guess that brings us back to the original question – should Yahoo distribute a version with their search built in, and if they did, would it make much of a difference to their share?
Very professional response – I’d say he has the real goods..
Regardless of Donations etc, Mozilla still has to be a ‘non profit’
Sure the organization does but not the employees!
They could make a lot of money, if they would go for it.
Makes sense to me. Google is what people want so that is what is there.
Sidenote: How did you drop 300 rss subs overnight? Is that an error or do you really have fluctuations like that?
cool that you got a response from them. If Y was smart they would take MZ up on it!
Makes sense. Nice response.
Interesting. But I am sure Google is paying the Mozilla Foundation. Probably they get a share of the ad revenue of searches through the search box. I don´t think that the Mozilla Foundation has no financial interest in prefering Google over Yahoo.
Yes, Google does pay Mozilla: $72M in 2005, and an estimated $100M+ in 2006.
I dont think it was that high, they only cleared a profit of $50 Million Last year. Not bad for a not for profit organisation.
He probably does have fluctuations like that, and I don’t think that little thing’s reports are all that accurate anyway. Mine’s fluctuates like that too at times. I don’t sweat it though.
Now if it were say, 5000 subscribers that dropped, then you may have a real problem that needs to be investigated.
I think it was because he didn’t update, but seriously when you have more rss subscribers than weblogtoolscollection and so many other big sites who cares. I envy the shoe!
For some reason though when I dont update my blog for a day or two my rss subscribers actually goes up?!?!? Whats up with that?
What makes you think the numbers are wrong? If they profited $50M, then the rest was operating expenses. Where are you getting your intel from?
Sorry, it was 52.9 million for the year 2005, 2006 figures have not been disclosed by the foundation yet.
Source: http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/mitchell/archives/2007/01/the_mozilla_foundation_achievi.html
Yahoo are never going to be the no.1 search engine ever again. Google is too big now people aren’t gna switch to Yahoo for no reason, they need to think of something Google hasn’t got. But then again I think Google is still too big to even be beaten by improvement.
It’s just like… I don’t think Firefox will ever be more popular than IE. No matter what they do.
Is there a firefox with yahoo as default browser?
Also I think news that hit Digg lure a lot of spiders and people who load the feed once.
Clever marketing by Mozilla… Distribute our software for use and you can control the default settings.
Ha, If you could pay to get listed, you would’ve seen MSN Live on there by now.
“our users tell us it’s the service they want.”
Can someone link me to the poll or whatever where this was done? I don’t believe it.
I just noticed jeremyschoemaker got hacked.
I mean jeremyschoemaker.com got hacked
And sorry for the duplicate comment, please delete the other.
Very good answer for a guy who never says much
What you talkin’ bout willis?
Hey Jeremy, what’s up with your directory listing being displayed. Did you really get hacked?
not that I have seen
I see shoemoney has dipped below 10000 again. What’s up? Is it b/c of the 13 year olds post?
Controversy is good for blogs! Almost any press is good press. But like him or hate him, you can’t deny that the lil dude will do better than 75% of the people who read this site. I can almost guarantee that!
I think that the general population that gets apps like Firefox/Mozilla usually just want to get searching after the download so in the long run it is a factor in some way that is positive for Google. Whatever it takes to make deals like that and getting on people’s computer screens really is profitable for a large search engine like Google. What all big companies online really needs is to be seen and known and the other things at are great about the company just shine through like they are made and distributed to do.
Well that number is calculated by the number of people who load the feed that day. So some days people may not read their feeds and they wouldn’t be counted in your subscriber number. The number on the chiclet is always of the day before and it is the number of people who accessed the feed that particular day, so it just depends on how many people accessed it.
Very professional repsonse and makes a lot of sense.
Very nice response
Don’t see any hacking
Doesn’t FF use its default homepage to make money through Google?
somebody is saying IE executes extensions 10x faster than IE7….
a dubious claim, no doubt.
and why are you here and even saying this, if you’re not interested?
FF is heavy if you install a bazillion extensions only. on a vanilla FF install, its quick
Not sure what your point is… Just because it “makes money” doesn’t mean it actually turns a profit — they have a lot of expenses, as well.
which browser u use shoe?
That looks like a response from an executive type. Everyone has a price. I do see Firefox as an “ethical” browser, if a browser can be rated on ethics. Firefox has a good future, and I’m interested in seeing Firefox play out over the next few years.
I happens. Every day there are fluctuations, for better or worse.
Asa just gained another reader in me =)
I’ll bet they’re secretly writing Mozilla as we type our comments here :p
Non-profit or not you’d be surprised. A lot of non-profit organizations are among the richest in the world because of donations, sponsorships, etc.
Actually it reminded me of a DOS attack – shoe’s site was loading slower than (insert funny here) but still managed to show the favicon/headers most of the time!!
Glad to know that Mozilla responds to what the customer wants vs. what the sponsor wants.
Whatever runs fastest on his imac no doubt?!
The numbers are always shown 24 hours later so sunday/monday are usually -1000
When people buy new systems, if Firefox could somehow be the default browser, then it could beat IE. But as long as Microsoft has the dominant OS, they will be #1 by default.
When we fixed the blog a few weeks ago (dave totally rebuilt the database) I forgot to re implement a lot of the object caching and it was chugging the other day when we hit the front page of digg
Nice to see that you got a response to this query. That answers that question!
hah. I guess it does make sense about how google is the preferred engine on mozilla.
I think firefox could use the zoom feature like in IE and Safari, and I dont like there updating personally on startup.
I believe its the search not the homepage that makes them money. Also non-profits are allowed to make a “profit” just as long as its put back into furthering the purpose of the non-profit.
They already did go for it 2 years ago with the mozilla corporation.
Nathan, Firefox 3 (in alpha now) has a full zoom feature. I’m using it right now
- A
I know Asa has said Google doesn’t ‘buy’ the slot (and I personally believe him) but I wonder what sort of return on investment Google received for their donation.
Wouldn’t Google’s market share answer this question though?
Google dudes are smart thats what all i can say.
man if I was yahoo, I would take that as a direct invite and be all over that. Heck, what do they have to lose:).
I Googled about Yahoo & Opera and found out that yahoo is already done partnership with opera for being the default slot in opera mini .
i will ask question about one thing why i can coment and i dont need login or what? on sites like this is so much spam…
hmm i dont get this page motivation..
Yup… agreed!