The Power of Browser Customization

Leveraging Browser Add-ons to Retain and Grow Your Users

Gen Kanai

http://blog.mozilla.com/gen/

Mozilla’s mission is to promote choice, innovation and opportunity on the Internet.http://www.mozilla.org/about/mission.html

browser customizations“Add-ons”

published in 1997

Key Bene!ts

• Extends functionality of a web service or website to the browser

• Can provide continuous ‘real estate’ in the browser even when the user is not on the site in question

• Costs only the time & effort to develop & distribute the addon

Which are customizable?

• Internet Explorer (only starting with IE 7)

• Firefox (since the Netscape era)

• Safari (no, unless you count hacks)

• Chrome (via Chrome Extensions)

• Opera (via Widgets)

Development difficulty

• Internet Explorer: C++

• Firefox: HTML, JavaScript, CSS, XUL

• Safari...

• Chrome: HTML, JavaScript, CSS

• Opera: HTML, JavaScript, CSS

Firefox add-ons!

some numbers

Over 10,000 add-ons

~2 Billion downloads

~170 Mil. active users

22 new add-ons created each day

35,000 Personas600 new Personas/day

used worldwide

1,957,682,872 add-ons downloaded134,379,037 add-ons in use

https://addons.mozilla.org

how do Addons help?

• can help users use your service more often

• can help surface additional functionality of your site or service

• if designed properly, can help ‘retention’ by making it easier for the user to use your site

examples include...

delicious

• social bookmarking web service

• founded by Joshua Schachter in 2003

• acquired by Yahoo! in 2005

• 5.5 Mil. downloads

toolbar & sidebar

Stumble Upon

• website ranking & recommendation engine

• founded in 2001

• acquired by eBay in 2007

• founders purchased company back in 2009

• 14 Mil. downloads from Addons.mozilla.org

Examples from Asia?

NTT Goo (jp)(unrelated to the company in Mountain View)

Midori no Goo(a.k.a. ‘Goo Green Label’)

Goo Green Label

• 9.45 Mil. yen donated to 11 non-pro!ts in 2009

Pencil Project (vi)

Pencil Project

• sketching & prototyping application built as an Addon to Firefox

• Exports to HTML, PNG, OpenOffice.org

• One of the most sophisticated Add-ons ever developed for Firefox

• Shows the extent of what is possible with Add-ons on Firefox wrt user interfaces and functionality

Key points

• Browser addons can: (if designed well)

• Raise usage of your web site/service

• Browser Addons cannot:

• (by de!nition) bring new users to your site

Also markets matter...

Game: guess the Internet market (country)

from browser market share

You win: Firefox t-shirt

This Asian market of 40 Mil. Internet users is

98% Internet Explorer...

This S.E. Asian market of ~25 Mil. Internet Users is 50% Firefox

This S. E. Asian market of 30+ Mil. Internet Users is

~70% Firefox

Key points

• browser share matters

• know your market

• focus resources on your key segments

So how do I start?

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/developers

Coming later this year...Add-ons Marketplace

What is coming in Firefox 4 for Add-ons?

make the add-ons manager better

clear a path to Jetpack

• New platform for Addons in Firefox 4

• Existing Addons platform to continue

• Goal: No restart required

• Goal: greater security & reliability

• HTML, CSS, JS only

• SDK provided

take mobile to the max

Nokia N900 & Add-ons

Is that it? What else?

https://services.mozilla.com

Firefox for Android

• Available later in 2010!

• Supports addons!

• Nightly builds (for testing) available now

Firefox Home for iPhone(data from Firefox Sync Add-on)

http://fffff.at/shaved-bieber/

thank you

gen@mozilla.com

Mozilla AMO Team: Nick, Justin, Julie, Jorge & the Mozilla community worldwide