Woah, this is weird. Twitter has apparently starting promoting Firefox 3.5, which was released last week, to some of its users. Judging by Twitter Search, the banner began popping up around eight hours ago, and given how few people have tweeted about them it seems like they’re not being very widely distributed.
The amusing thing about the banner is that Twitter’s site may not be properly detecting which browser their visitors are currently using — Chris Saad, who tipped us off to the annoucement, says he was using Firefox 3.5 already. That said, most of the other tweets about the banner do appear to be showing up to users who aren’t using the latest version of the browser.
At this point it isn’t clear if this is a sponsored ad or more of a public service announcement. Update: It isn’t an ad, see below. If it’s the former, it would be a significant departure from the more subtle advertising Twitter has been toying with over the last few months, which has primarily consisted of small text blurbs in the right sidebar of the site. Twitter only recently began charging for some of these ads (or at least presenting them as sponsored links), and most of them are still free promotions for apps and services in the Twitter ecosystem.
Even if this is a public service announcement, you can be sure that Twitter is closely monitoring the banner’s performance in anticipation of placing full fledged paid advertising there. They really wouldn’t be any more intrusive than the vast majority of banner ads on the web, but after years of going without any advertising at all, they’re going to take some getting used to.
Update: Twitter co-founder Biz Stone has gotten back to us with details on the company’s motivation for placing the banner:
This is not an advertisement and it’s not just for one browser—it’s customized based on which browser you’re currently using.
We’ve optimized Twitter.com for older browsers but we thought it would be worthwhile to let folks know that they could have a better Web experience on Twitter and in general if they upgrade to a newer version of whatever browser it is that they are using.
I thought this was an MG post at first.
So did I, what the hell?
Jason’s on your Twitter-turf. Time to get the cold-steel.
Chris Saad made me do it against my will.
Yes I twisted your arm
Ha Ha … me too
This post kinda critisises twitter, so it cant be from MG, no way.
twitter just found a new revenue model? ff wont spend a penny for promotion. i would like that strip on narrow right column though, yellow background being enough intrusive already!
At first I was like: it’s TC post
And then I was like: it’s TC post
the speed of ff 3.5 vs. 3.0 is night and day cause of the js engine switch. maybe that’s why… allows them to do more interesting javascript stuff?
too bad so many plugins are still not compatible (Gears, Compete, etc).
Yes I am missing Compete too! I Twittered asking when they will be releasing an update … no response
I don’t think this is weird at all. Perfect way of testing different forms of advertising without involving a real advertising client yet.
It’s also a good way to ease the twitter community into getting used to ads – FF is a open source project after all so it is considered a good thing to support
I think it’s just surprising. You go a few years without seeing any advertising, and you see a big ad pop up — it’s going to stick out like a sore thumb.
Jason,
do you want twitter NOT to make money?
if #twitterFails then Who will then write about it on TechCrunch?
if No articles about twitter on TechCrunch, I will stop visiting TechCrunch and will NOT click any of the ads here….
That means no money for Tech Crunch….
if #TechCrunchFails then who will pay you the ’salary’ ?
Do you still want twitter not to post ads? why should it be a surprise, instead of welcome thingy???
Oh, I have nothing against having ads on Twitter (at least, within reason). This is just a big change.
Yes change is the surprise…. and Now i know why you posted it as a surprise.
I agree that it is surprising from a user perspective re sore thumb but not from a business development perspective. My guess is that they ‘used’ FF because it’s sort of like a ‘good cause’ and doesn’t raise as many eyebrows as a CocaCola or Microsoft (imagine that) add.
wait, you mean there are people that don’t use FireFox?
Yes some of use a real browser, aka Chrome.
or Safari
ah yes, Google Chrome, which means you’re using Windows…. good for you Sean. Even though there’s dev version of Chrome for us Linux users, it’s still not viable because of the amount of Flash out there on the web. “real browser” ok… Google is still playing catch up at the moment.
Chrome? You mean the browser that can’t let its user control what shows up when he/she opens a new tab? The one that Google is obviously taking too long to improve?
If Chrome OS comes out before Chrome actually becomes a real browser, pirated Windows remains the way to go.
I hope this is aimed at IE users only.
I got this message myself and the weird thing was I was actually using Firefox at the time I got the message!
Quite stupid really.
I was using Firefox 2.0.0.7 when I got this message btw.
I don’t think Twitter is detecting what browser people are using if users are getting the notice when they’re using the latest browser.
It should be only aimed at non Firefox users.
Heck it shouldn’t even be there at all in my opinion. It’s a bit too invasive.
It’s telling you to upgrade your outdated Firefox. Please don’t make developers angry by intentionally using outdated browsers.
I meant that in reference to the original news post where Chris got the message when using 3.5, which is the latest version.
How can you upgrade when there is nothing to upgrade to (aside of course from nightlys)?
it does detect the browser version.
twitter has to target posting advertises based on users private data such as
1) User’s Geographic Location
2) User’s OS Version
3) User’s Browser Version
and most importantly
4) based on what user tweets about. (historical records etc)
This way twitter will be able to target perfectly on the twsers and ensure that they ‘click’ on the ads.
if twitter uses the above thingy…in 3 years time, twitter will surpass Google in revenue!… no kidding…
One of the Ad Scenarios
User from America…. IF Browser is IE and OS is Windows…. post ads about How Great Apple iPhone is, Switch to Apple(BMW) coz Toyota (windows) Sucks ha…
I do not know how people live without Adblock Plus. The web is such an uglier place without it.
I’m with you there… I even installed ABP on my Mom’s computer because she kept clicking on banners & getting viruses… had to wipe her hard drive 7 different times in less than a year *sigh* ABP & WOT are my BFF’s for my Mom & Aunt’s Computers!!! & they make mine prettier lol
Using Safari 4. Don’t see a note. Maybe they tightened up their browser detention code?
Maybe the twitter team are just trying to figure out the best way on how they can monetize their popularity and traffic. I think the firefox promotion is just a mere test drive. I just hope that they will not limit the monetization for them alone but rather extend it to their loyal users though twitad is already in contention.
I wonder how much they are charging for these kinds of adds.
Ashu,
the charges will be per tweet and per click.
if a person tweets per ad, there will be twice the gains.
Might be an example of what’s to come….Ads!
Just for the record, the Firefox upgrade notice is showing for Firefox2 users (not 3 or 3.5). And the Internet Explorer upgrade notice is showing for IE6 users (not IE7 or 8).
We are not showing any other upgrade notices for other browsers at this time.
Furthermore, these are not ads.
Thanks.
Thank you Twitter for this!
IE6 needs to be wiped off the Internet! Firefox 2.x, also!
Great job finding this one Jason. I had no idea they were doing that, and I’d love to see how the ad performed.
I am a big proponent of using the web interface for Twitter, but a lot of the data indicates people use third party clients after a few months with the service (or their mobile device), so I wonder how, if at all, Twitter would try to reach those users.
And yeah, isn’t this an MG post?
I thought it was until I saw the comment section.
Cool… Internet Explorer sucks!!! I was planning on doing the same thing on my website.
Might it be their new friend/follow interface uses the Mozilla imposed **break** in CSS standards with their custom -moz-border-radius property, and they want everyone to see their pretty new rounded boxes?
Geez.. browsers ignoring web standards to shortcut features that the standards bodies couldn’t get out in time, and the web properties that love them. Next on Jerry!
Twitter guys have to make some money right?
Actually, I find that Twitter has performance issues on FF 3.5. I sometimes notice a lag when I use the web to tweet. Twitter on Chrome works perfrectly.
Thank you Twitter for this!
IE6 needs to be wiped off the internet! Twitter rocks!
Jeez Chris-
Clear out those DM’s!
This is good, it’s mean that more people will use Firefox
If only this would help. At this point, a very large percentage of the IE 6 users are in the corporate land where they are not allowed to upgrade their machines without some mandate from god to the IT department.
Are they detecting the actual browser or just the browser engine?
That could explain why some people who are using Camino, Safari, and others get the message … because those browsers identify themselves as the Mozilla/Gecko engine unless they modified their settings.
I hope the browser optimizations will make the Twitter whale go away
They say patience is a virtue. Two add-ons I had were incompatible with FF 3.5. I have Firefox3.0.11, so version 3.5 sounds quite a leap – BUT have to wait until 3.5 is compatible with ‘Tab Mix Plus’ add-on (or vice-versa), which I like using. Seen other people go backwards, uninstalling FF 3.5 to preserve use of the same add-on, when they discovered incompatibility. Anyone know a dev. version of tabmix plus which works well with FF 3.5?
@Vin
You should absolutely try the “nightly tester tool” plugin which allow to use old plugin on new version.
Many thanks Lossy, will definitely try it out (FF version, nightly tester tools). I ignored it previously, but searched it out after your reply. As I’ve recently been annoying the heck out of FF 3.0.11 with too many toolbars/hungry web pages, I was a little reticent to override incompatibility before now. But maybe FF3.5 is more robustly built. Nightly tester tools does seem to do what it says on the tin. Have you had any issues from overriding? …e.g.: hangs, crashes etc.? I’ll take a chance anyhow.
I haven’t seen this…hmm…
I guess it’s better than it could be, it doesn’t really bother me much