Mozilla presses forward with new revenue plan, debuts ads in Firefox preview

Mozilla has added small advertisements to the new tab page of Firefox's roughest-edged build, the channel

dubbed "Nightly" because it is updated each evening.

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The ads, which Mozilla's calls "sponsored tiles," were first discussed by Mozilla in February, but the initiative was criticized by Firefox users. The company, however, defended the in-browser ad project, saying it was important to find other revenue sources besides its long-standing deals with search providers like Google. In May, Mozilla reiterated support for the ads but also promised users that Firefox would not become "a mess of logos."

Mozilla has switched on the sponsored tiles in Firefox Nightly, which is analogous to a pre-alpha edition, and intended primarily for developers and code contributors. Mozilla maintains three more-stable build channels -- Aurora, essentially an alpha; Beta; and Release, which is the final production-quality version -- but Nightly is where it debuts changes and new features.

The Next Web reported on Firefox Nightly's new tab page advertisements on Thursday.

The concept is straight-forward: When new users start Firefox, they will see pre-populated tiles, some of them "sponsored" -- in effect advertisements -- on the new tab page. For long-time Firefox users, that page, which has room for nine thumbnails, shows the most-frequently-visited websites. Someone new to Firefox, of course, would see nothing. To jump-start the experience, Mozilla will fill the spots with a mix of sponsored and unsponsored tiles. The latter will lead to popular Internet destinations such as Facebook and YouTube.

Current users of Firefox Nightly, who have their tiles already filled with sites they often visit, can see the sponsored and unsponsored tiles by deleting the existing ones on their new tab page.

Computerworld, which used an updated copy of Firefox Nightly tied to an existing Firefox profile, did just that, and confirmed that the new tab page displayed sponsored tiles. Those tiles led to BBC.com, Booking.com and Wired.com. All three were marked as "SPONSORED" in a smaller font size below the tiles.

Non-sponsored tiles also appeared for Facebook; Webmaker.org, a Mozilla project to promote coding and creativity on the Web; Wikipedia; and YouTube.

Firefox Nightly is in version 34, which is slated to reach the Release channel on Nov. 25. However, Mozilla has not said when the ads will be inserted into the Aurora channel, and the sponsored tiles could appear in a final edition much later than Firefox 34, or never make it to Release.

In May, Jonathan Nightingale, vice president of Firefox, said that Mozilla would experiment with the ads, but did not name a timetable. "We'll talk about what we learn before anything ships to our release users," Nightingale promised.

Mozilla's stated purpose for dropping ads in the new tab page -- to diversify its sources of revenue -- makes sense: In 2012, the last year for which the organization has released financial figures, revenue from its contract with Google accounted for 88% of the Mozilla Foundation's $311 million income. Royalty payments from Mozilla's multiple search deals -- which makes various search engines the default in Firefox -- represented 98% of 2012's revenue.

The most lucrative of those deals, the one with Google, expires in November.

Firefox Nightly v. 34 for Windows, OS X and Linux can be downloaded from Mozilla's website.

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Mozilla expands advertising experiment to many more Firefox users

Mozilla is beginning a broader second phase of an experiment to show ads to Firefox users, a move

that ultimately could help reduce the organization's reliance on revenue from Google.

The first phase of its program, called directory tiles, gave Mozilla the option to show ads or promoted content in a grid of thumbnail images that appear when a user opens a new browser tab, but it's offered only to new Firefox users. Enhanced tiles, though, are for existing Firefox users. The new feature gives publishers an opportunity to replace a thumbnail users already would see with one that's potentially more engaging, said Darren Herman, Mozilla's vice president of content services.

The program could give Mozilla more breathing room. Its share of desktop browser usage is slipping, and its presence in mobile browsing is miniscule, so Mozilla needs new levers to push its agenda. The sponsored tiles could mean more money for Mozilla and a new way to influence how advertisers use the personal data of those who see and click on ads.

The directory tiles are links Mozilla picks on its own, but the enhanced tiles modify links that the user already would see. Instead of seeing an automatically generated thumbnail image that might represent the site poorly -- a login screen, for example -- an enhanced tile would show imagery that looks and works better.

"We're looking at logos, images, or anything related to that site," Herman said.

Showing ads and promoting sites is a significant departure for Mozilla. Today, the nonprofit organization gets the vast majority of its money from Google when Firefox users send the search engine traffic that results in revenue from search ads. The ads would mean a new, potentially much broader source of revenue, though.

Money for Mozilla

"We do see it as an opportunity for us to recognize the value we're bringing to all constituents in the market," Herman said -- in other words, to get paid for Firefox's influence over what people see. "Directory tiles and enhanced tiles are an opportunity to work with marketers and content owners to help them distribute their content."

More revenue doesn't hurt, but Mozilla has bigger ambitions: it hopes the tiles program will revive its influence in the advertising world. The company has had fraught relations with advertisers in the last two years due to its push for a Do Not Track standard that lets people inform Web publishers and advertisers when they don't want their online behavior tracked. Mozilla hopes its tiles program ultimately will "make the Internet healthier," Herman said.

"We're showing the world you can get into the advertising ecosystem, building trust, transparency, and user control into those experiences," he said. "Forty-three billion dollars are spent in online ads every year. The opportunity for us is to clean the Web up, to make it healthier...We have to participate. We can't just sit on the sidelines telling people what to do."

Enhanced tiles arriving soon

The new feature should arrive "in the next couple weeks" for users of Mozilla's pre-release beta and Aurora versions, said Johnath Nightingale, Mozilla's vice president of Firefox.

Enhanced tiles aren't a vehicle for publishers to place ads of their own, Herman added.

"We don't necessarily see the new-tab page as being a window shop. We see it as a content distribution platform...We're working through creative specs to say what publishers can and can't do."

To help steer things what it sees as the right direction, Mozilla will offer a discounted rate to those whose advertising agenda matches Mozilla's.

"Partners who are good actors -- respecting Do Not Track and other areas of the Web we believe fits our mission around innovation, opportunity, and trust -- will get a discount," Herman said. "Not only is this a media content opportunity, it's an opportunity for Mozilla to push our mission forward and reward our partners that are like-minded."

Early directory tiles results

The directory tiles experiment, which is now still limited to people using Mozilla's pre-release versions of Firefox, has shown promise in its early days, according to Nightingale. He said that users are clicking the tiles and sometimes pinning them so they remain a fixture in the browser interface.

Examples of what tiles Mozilla shows include mainstream consumer sites like Facebook and YouTube; non-profit organizations such as Wikipedia; and Mozilla's own sites like Webmaker.

"People are interacting with this much more than with blank white tiles. Some [tiles] have a 5- to 6-percent click-through rate," meaning that five or six out of every hundred users click the directory tiles, Nightingale said. But other sites are only a fraction of a percent, he said.

And Mozilla will keep measuring to make sure the program is a good idea for all Firefox users.

"We're going to do this or not [based on] whether it's valuable to users," Nightingale said.

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