Mozilla Foundation Logo

Mozcamp: aka NorthWestMozDev Meets again!

Yep it’s our 2nd meetup for our own North West Moz Dev Group.
We’ll be meeting up in Victoria this time, so it was my turn to arrange the location etc.

One thing really cool about this 2nd meeting, is that it’s going to be completely sponsored by the Mozilla Foundation!  (THANK YOU!)

We generally gather a bunch of different people involved in the Mozilla community in one way or another, and we break out in small scrums and discuss various topics related to Mozilla.  Most of the topics will be development related, but some will be more non-tech, and related to open source in general.  These sessions are geared towards the North West Mozilla community.

To learn more about this meeting, see:

http://groups.google.com/group/northwestmozdev/web/meeting-2008-11-29

Our attendees represent:

• Brand Thunder (well of course!)
• ActiveState
• Mozilla Foundation
• Mozilla Messaging
• Mozilla Corporation
• Flock
• Songbird
• Adevia Software
• Others (don’t have links to their companies)

I’ll be sure to bring the camera and snap some shots.  I’ll post to flickr.

Well, last week we hit our first real hiccup. In the midst of a bunch of great news, and a time when we hoped to be seeing a good influx of new traffic, our site went down. The impact potential isn’t just our site and company. Given that our product represents other brands – the problem could be more wide spread.

Our recent successes revealed a bug in the open-source code behind our site. An influx of traffic and events were triggering an infinite loop that ultimately led to server overload (hope that made sense). We diverted server resources to the more critical components of our company, and let our corporate website take the brunt of the downtime. Not necessarily the face you want to show interested prospects, but the right choice nonetheless.

We feel fortunate our server guy is a staunch believer in open-source code. While we run a lean organization, the ability to rely on the shared intelligence of the open-source community greatly expands his knowledge. In a way, it’s like a virtual team and that team offered the information he needed to resolve the issue. Naturally, we’ll share back as we continue to tweak and improve.

Now that we’re heading into a long weekend, we’ll be a little more attuned to the business than we otherwise might have been. And a stable server will certainly make us thankful.

Lessons Learned/Good Habits:
• Track your site status. We’re using Monit on the server and an external monitoring site to send alerts.
• Have a support escalation plan in place – who to call, where to reach them, both internal and external.
• Avoid a single point of failure – whether it’s the password to get support from your web host, or an on-call contractor to backfill key knowledge positions.

All around, this is an important event for our company and we’re honored.

It may look like a matter of a leader and followers – one team takes advantage of the latest new media application and then the others in the league get on board. We think it’s more than that.
Our product has strong appeal for brand managers. It’s persistent when the user is online keeping the brand and content in front of the consumer in a visually compelling way. Despite this value proposition, it still takes a considerable amount of selling. That’s because it has to be put in terms of “what’s in it for me?”

We all have limited resources, so given the abundance of opportunity (or at least abundance of work) what incremental opportunities do you pursue? Once we launch browser theme in a given industry, we have data on that industry. We can start to talk in specifics about what this means to our customer and their end user, and show why this is worth the investment of their time. Relating directly to the needs of our client is vital because comparing a similar industry is simply not as powerful as telling them about their industry.

Are you tracking the data you need to answer the question “what’s in it for me” (with “me” being your customer)? It’s proving valuable to us and you can see the results of that success by checking out the browser themes for these teams here: Blues, Blue Jackets, Canucks, Canadiens (our first bilingual browser!) and The Flames.

We usually reference how we build custom browser themes to allow brands to connect with their end users, but critical in this whole scenario is the desire of the consumer to personalize their lives. We all buy things that we enjoy and identify with and a lot of times it includes a brand. That can be in the form of the jersey I wear of my favorite team, the cartoon character in my AIM icon or the cause I support via the magnet on my car. It makes me feel good and it helps me connect with like-minded people.

Yes, as a company, we sell new media to brand marketers. What we deliver is a personalized experience on the Internet. That is the end result, and that is whom we are serving. Now, if we can make that end user feel special and connected, then we have done both the user and the brand a great service. I truly hope we don’t forget that.

COLUMBUS (October 27, 2008) — Brand Thunder LLC, the browser customization specialists, announced today its relationship with the Huffington Post to build a custom browser theme to allow users of the Huffington Post site to get breaking news delivered directly to their Internet browser.

The Huffington Post Browser also marks the first time Brand Thunder’s customizations will be available as both an enhancement to a browser or a single download of browser and customizations. The complete bundle distributes the Mozilla browser code, the same browser as Firefox, and adds branding, custom links and news feeds. Additionally, a one click uninstall will allow a user to simply remove all elements of the customizations. Earlier customizations required a user to navigate two locations within Firefox’s Add-ons menus for removal.

“We’re honored to be selected by the HuffPost to build their custom browser,” says founder Patrick Murphy. “And their demand for excellence helped us evolve the Brand Thunder product suite in a positive way for our end users. It’s the perfect execution of a powerful brand, an engaged community and a re-envisioned browser that better meets the needs of the avid Huffington Post participant.”

The custom browser theme can be downloaded at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/firefox.

About Brand Thunder

Formed in April, 2007, Brand Thunder creates a more persistent presence between corporate brands and their internet consumer through its browser customization which leads to increased web site visits and revenue. Through a software installation, end users change the look and feel of their internet browser into an immersive experience from their favorite sports team, entertainment franchise or internet site. The customized browsers feature official logos, colors, content and functionality, but can also extend capabilities including video, music players or other internet widgets. Current business partners and clients include the The Huffington Post, NCAA, NHL, Starpulse.com, Universal Music and Yahoo!. Samples found at http://brandthunder.com/gallery/.

Contact

Patrick Murphy, CEO
Brand Thunder, LLC
614-408-8202

###

The Huffington Post ranks as the most visited news blog. With the desire for breaking news running high and the powerful draw of the Huffington Post bloggers – this feels like a marketer’s dream of strong name recognition, a sense of urgency to “act now” and a legitimate need for the consumer.

While timing is good – it’s a single element in our effort for continuous improvement. And continuous improvement is likely the more important item for the startup. So, while this release provides good timing, it also provides a more streamlined user experience and a better awareness campaign.

• A streamlined user experience – by including a full browser bundle in addition to the custom theme for Firefox. Any user, whether Firefox or not, can get the custom Huffington Post experience with a simple, single download and installation.

• Better awareness campaign – by providing the Huffington Post with banner assets to promote the custom browser on their site (you’ll find a permanent banner ad for the custom browser theme on this page). We deal with our product every day, we know how to talk about it and we did that on behalf of our client.

Each improvement, from product to promotion, resulted from the review of past product launches where we listened to the wishes and desires of our partners, and assessed the difficulties of the end user. These little post-mortems don’t take long, but they occur with our team and our clients by simply asking “what could have been better?” And it’s always good timing to learn that.

To be included among some of the best large and small companies out there is an honor and a joy, and to us – we’ve already won. We strive to provide solid products and meaningful results with our custom browser themes, this helps to reaffirm those efforts. So, we’re heading to Cambridge, MA on November 14 to see how it turns out at the 3rd Annual Excellence in New Communications Awards.
Okay, we’ll stop gushing now. (Sally Field, we salute you!) Here are some of the details around the event hosted by the Society for New Communications Research.

The awards program honors the work of corporations, governmental and nonprofit organizations, educational institutions, media outlets and individuals who are innovating the use of social media, ICT, mobile media, online communities and virtual worlds and collaborative technologies in the areas of business, media, and professional communications, including advertising, marketing, public relations and corporate communications, as well as entertainment, education, politics, and social initiatives. Winning case studies are published on New Communications Review.