Add-ons Promotion Contest
Add-ons (extensions and themes) are one of the big advantages of Firefox over the competition. There are litterally thousands of add-ons and everyone will have some that they like or find useful. So let's make an effort to promote the use of specific add-ons. People who already have Firefox may find features that will help keep them as users and others may download Firefox just to use the add-ons.
Therefore we are launching a contest to promote add-ons. The goal is to write reviews about specific add-ons on your own blog or website. Show off the cool and useful features and add a link to the add-on and another to download Firefox. We encourage you to write about your own favorite add-on or add-ons, and to post about it on your own blog or website (not here on SFx, since there's no need to convince SFx users again). When you have finished, reply to this post and add a link to your add-on review/promotion page. You can also submit it directly to the list of reviews (need to create an account). [Edit: moved here]
A few of us already got together and wrote several reviews:
- Add Block Plus
- Greasemonkey
- IE Tab
- FEBE Firefox Extension Backup Extension
- Foxmarks
- HiVisGnome Big Theme
- MR Tech Local Install
- Nuke Anything
- Tabbrowser Preferences
- Stumble Upon
Feel free to write about any add-ons, these can be extensions whether simple or complicated, a group of related extensions or themes, whatever it is that you like and think others should know about. You can write about the add-ons that we or others already wrote about, it doesn't matter, the more reviews the better. Just get this message out there: "Here's a great add-on that I like, and here is why!"
The contest will last for 2 months, after which the jury, which consists of, Ken Saunders (Ken Saunders), Jackie Liu (edjackiel), Marco Casteleijn (Up North) and Otto de Voogd (ottodv), will pick the winners. Not only may the nomination make you famous (we can always hope), but the winner or winners will get a prize. You can attempt to influence the jury by voting for the best review. [Edit: moved here]
Rules:
- The jury will choose among new reviews only (published after February 1st 2007).
- Multiple entries per person are allowed. Maximum 1 prize per person.
- Jury members (that's us) are excluded.
- The authors of add-ons are excluded as far as their own add-on is concerned, they should be promoting their own add-ons anyway. However they can promote someone else's add-on for this contest.
Prizes (winner gets first choice, etc...):
- A Firefox T-shirt. Offered by Ken.
- 24 USD of music downloads from magnatune.com. Offered by Otto.
- A 1-year registration of a .info domain name. Offered by Jackie.
If you do not have and do not want to create a website or blog to host your review, Ken and Marco are happy to host it on their sites.
Submissions of new reviews are now closed. However voting is still possible for a little while longer.
We have given ourselves 1 week to review all the entries and select the winners. Expect to see the winners announced on the 16th or 17th.
In the meantime you can still vote for your favorite reviews.
Otto, sfx is undergoing changes in the near future. Could you keep this list of reviews alive? We could really show here a projects as example for other (finite)projects:
idea --> [scrutiny] --> project --> [actions] --> results + report --> feed-back [scrutiny]
For me it would be nice if we can keep the results and report on how it was all done in 1 page so our sfx-ers can give feed-back. It can then also be shown as another result of a (small) project to future sfx users (and current ;o) what a project can be like.
In the end I think it would be good to have a case-file of sfx projects (successful, not successful) to look at.
The reason I post it here and not as email is to get feed-back from others as well.
Good job Otto, loved working on this project. My personal results: started a Firefox/add-on related blog with almost 600 hits in 2 months, and mainly via searches for specific add-on reviews. SO the need is out there...
Marco
For an unofficial effort it has been a great success, with 168 entries. I noticed like you, how many people search for information about specific add-ons and I agree there's clearly a need for more info about them. So people should continue to write reviews about add-ons (I am planning a few more myself).
I will keep all the information regarding this contest live, the list of reviews and all the info on how it went. (It's a little bit distributed over several sites now, so I may put it all together in one place).
Also we have learnt a lot from running this contest, which could be useful for future SFx projects.
Just one day left to get your entries in!
Tomorrow April 9th at 23:59 GMT is the last possible time to submit... voting will stay open a little longer.
Thought I'd just get involved to help Firefox and its add-ons. It can be found at: http://www.thebitmasterpage.com/ie_tab_review.html
While I'm not eligible to win, I've created one more review for the contest.
I mostly made it because it's one of the best extensions/services that I've come across in a long time.
The extension is for www.StartAid.com.
StartAid is an interactive social bookmarking service that is the best that I've used so far.
You get a thumbnail view and mini control panel for each one of your bookmarks, and the extension lets you view thumbnails of your bookmarks from a dropdown list right from within Firefox, it's very cool.
And so many in Spanish, time to brush it up ;o)
I just wanted to say thank to all of those who entered. There is still time to enter yours!
It is important. I just started a little blog to help this competition out, and I am close to 500 readers up till now (2 months, best day 80). 30% via sfx, 30% via 7is7.com and 30 via google searches (mainly Foxmarks review). And I only wrote 3 reviews up till now (just published my fourth today).
So people out there are looking for (good) reviews. SO help them out and review your favorite add-on.
BTW after this contest you can do it also on AMO it self!
Keep up the good work...
Marco
I thought I'd add my contribution(s) to the contest.
I've been reviewing Firefox extensions for almost a year now in a column I created called Fireday in which I review Firefox extensions every Friday. I just posted the latest reviews today.
WebCards and StatusBars
http://www.dcs-media.com/technology/Detail.aspx?ArticleId=678
Tune in next week and I will definitely have more. ;-)
Jonathan Danylko
http://www.dcs-media.com/
I was in a good mood today so already added your entry to the list. But next time please submit it directly through the form at the bottom of this page:
Sorry about that...duly noted. :-)
Oh, and I just tried to enter another entry. It said I already used that URL. The only difference was the Article ID passed in.
Should I use a "tinyurl" to redirect it to my site?
Jonathan Danylko
http://www.dcs-media.com/
Thank you very much. I appreciate it. :-)
Jonathan Danylko
http://www dcs-media.com/
Check out the new reviews that have been coming in these past few days and vote for the ones that you like.
Although the voting is fun and a nice way to share your opinion the prizes will we given by a jury. Read the criteria.
Adblock Plus Add-on Review can be found here. It is already listed on the competition page.
Colrozilla Add-on review for Firefox can be found here.
Vikas.
While I'm not able to officially enter the contest,
I wanted to share an awesome extension that I
know that everyone can appreciate and enjoy.
It displays all of the images on Web page in a
slideshow format.
You also have the ability to save all of the images.
Read more about Auto Slideshow
I can't win a prize either but still wrote a review about Flashblock.
You can see what we think on EdgarGonzalez.com here:
http://www.edgargonzalez.com/2007/02/24/aquellos-maravillosos-plugins/
I hope you enjoy it and, if we don´t win, at least you will discover fantastic new plugins and also a fantastic blog!!
Good luck!
You can now add your own reviews directly to the list (pending approval) without any need for a user account. Also voting is now enabled for everyone.
Add your review and vote for reviews here.
This list is now imported into the Squidoo page.
Also note that we are no longer adding reviews manually, you need to add them yourself and we will approve them.
Is it proper to add a link to an extension review to easily submit a vote for that specific review?
Something like: Vote for this review
I can't see any problem with that, so go ahead.
Do remember that the popular vote, will not determine the prize winners, there is a 4 person jury who will choose the winners, though winning the popular vote will be quite an achievement too... and get you lots of visitors.
Thanks for submitting your latest entries, I have just approved them.
The list should be up to date now with the latest entries.
Download Statusbar >> http://ffextensionguru.wordpress.com/2007/02/20/review-download-statusbar/
Foxy Tunes >> http://ffextensionguru.wordpress.com/2007/02/20/review-foxy-tunes/
Firefox Extension Guru's Blog
Somo useful tips with firefox extensions, here it's my review:
http://www.logadmin.net/2007/02/firefox-extensions-are-responses-to.html
Thanks!.
Can you please list the specific extension reviews that you want to enter the competition with. Remember that they must be newly written reviews.
The post is a mini-howto with firefox extensions as response to fast questions.
The specific extensions are:
-DownThemAll
-LiveHttpHeaders
-ForeCastFox
-AboutThisSite
-PageAddict
-TemporaryInbox
-FoxyProxy
-PrefBar
-NagiosChecker
-Linkification
-AutoCopy
-DownLoad StatusBar
Regards.
Firefox Extensions as responses to fast questions review
-DownThemAll
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/201/
-LiveHttpHeaders
http://livehttpheaders.mozdev.org/
-ForeCastFox
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/398/
-AboutThisSite
http://lifehacker.com/software/firefox/lifehacker-code--about-this-site-addon-firefox-232375.php
-PageAddict
http://www.pageaddict.com/questions.html
-TemporaryInbox
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2650/
-FoxyProxy
http://foxyproxy.mozdev.org/downloads.html
-PrefBar
http://prefbar.mozdev.org/
-NagiosChecker
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/3607/
-Linkification
http://yellow5.us/firefox/linkification/
-AutoCopy
http://autocopy.mozdev.org/
-DownLoad StatusBar
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/26/
Thanks.
Ken, are You going to add my previous review to the contest?
I can't see it on the squidoo list.
Thanks again.
Yes it will be added, just that your entry doesn't fit the mold, so we need to think of a way to describe it. Plus at this time I am working on an improvement to the list, so that people can more easily add it themselves.
Hi. Great way to spread the word about one of Firefox's greatest strength.
Here are mozilla links' February reviews:
Browser Statistics: http://mozillalinks.org/wp/2007/02/stats-freaks-rejoice/
FoxFilter:
http://mozillalinks.org/wp/2007/02/an-approach-to-parental-control-for-firefox/
All-In-Search http://mozillalinks.org/wp/2007/02/search-the-current-page-from-the-toolbar/
Breadcrumbs:
http://mozillalinks.org/wp/2007/02/store-search-and-share-your-visited-web-pages/
ODF Reader: http://mozillalinks.org/wp/2007/02/view-open-document-text-files-with-firefox/
Percy
mozilla linksThere was a trailing blank in the original link for ODFReader, here is corrected:
http://mozillalinks.org/wp/2007/02/view-open-document-text-files-with-firefox/
Table Tools: http://mozillalinks.org/wp/2007/02/smart-web-tables/
Configuration Mania: http://mozillalinks.org/wp/2007/02/discover-and-tweak-more-firefox-preferences/
Percy
mozilla links
Thanks for entering, I have added your entries to our list. Interesting to see some reviews for extensions I hadn't heard about yet. The possibilities with Firefox just seem endless...
We write reviews on extensions all of the time, but these are the ones that we have done since February 1st:
http://tech.cybernetnews.com/2007/02/15/firefox-extension-watches-woot-for-you/
http://tech.cybernetnews.com/2007/02/08/space-saving-extension-for-firefox-bookmark-toolbar-users/
http://tech.cybernetnews.com/2007/02/07/googles-firefox-toolbar-3-out-of-beta/
Thanks! We try to review a few extensions each week but this competition made me realize that we've been slacking from that perspective. ;)
Well, I checked out all of your reviews
and you did a great job on them. You also have a cool website.
Firefox Games
I also done a review of Splash which includes a sample of the Splash screen I made for my Firefox.
http://www.ffextensiongurublog.info/2007/02/15/review-splash/
Firefox Extension Guru's Blog
http://ffextensionguru.wordpress.com/2007/02/15/review-splash/
Goes to the same post, but when I use the ffextensiongurublog.info domain, I can not track the entry on WordPress.
Firefox Extension Guru's Blog
I have just completed my review of the CoLT extension.
http://www.ffextensiongurublog.info/2007/02/14/review-colt/
Firefox Extension Guru's Blog
Hi Otto I copied now your list from your squidoo (syndicate it to my squidoo), so I will add the entries to there if they are not yet listed by the users or by you.
Then the list on your squidoo and mine is the same. It makes sense...
Marco
http://ffextensionguru.wordpress.com/2007/02/14/review-colt/
Goes to the same place but when using the ffextensiongurublog.info domain I am not able to track the entry on WordPress. Thanks.
Firefox Extension Guru's Blog
The only way I can change an URL in the list is by deleting it and entering a new one with the corrected URL (I know this is really bad). Unfortunately you'd loose the points you have.
If you still really want it changed, then of course I can do that. You may consider an alternative, if you can use a .htaccess file on the .info domain, you could have the page forwarded without loosing referrer information.
Looks like when I stopped masking the domain it is forwarding correctly as this blog entry is showing up on the stats page. So we can leave it alone. Thanks
Firefox Extension Guru's Blog
I was just checking my blog stats and noticed a huge spike. Thought WordPress was giving me weird information considering the "day" is not even half-way over yet. Then I looked at the details and saw the bulk of the traffic (400+) is coming from Squidoo for the Splash and CoLT reviews. So looks like everything is working okay now.
Firefox Extension Guru's Blog
- You create content for your own site,
- You get immediate links to your entries,
- You get more visitors to your site,
- You get more SFx points,
- You may even win a prize.
Whatever happens you can only win by participating in this contest!
...I'll just add it as a branch of my Top 20½ reasons to use Firefox page.
Visit my Top 20½ reasons to use Firefox page!
Be sure to check out my reviews.
They are simple examples of what you can do to create
your own add-ons review.
FEBE Firefox Extension Backup Extension
FEBE backs up all of your add-ons, your entire profile,
and you can easily restore them as well.
Definitely my favorite Firefox tool.
It’s great for power user and beginners.
It basically gives you control
of most of Firefox’s features.
Designed for people with low vision or those who like
big colorful buttons and icons.
Here is a link to my add-on review
Add to search bar
I tried to add to the squidoo site but I couldn't figure it out.
The winners have been announced.
Otto