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Outside of hacker news, I haven't heard of Firefox OS even once. They had no marketing to speak of, and you have to complete HARD on marketing to get into that

by bpicolo 11y ago

Outside of hacker news, I haven't heard of Firefox OS even once. They had no marketing to speak of, and you have to complete HARD on marketing to get into that market. "If you build it they will come" isn't a valid benchmark when there's already two options with massive market share that consumers are more or less happy with. (Since it's talked about in some replies, I live in the US).

mootothemax 11y ago
Just as a counterpoint, I regularly saw Firefox os+phone ads on giant billboards in central Warsaw. If there was to be any market interest, I thought their targeting and marketing efforts like this were pretty spot-on.
- gedrap 11y ago
  Oh yeah, I've read about them targeting some specific countries (Spain, Brazil, Poland, etc). So it might be that the parent commentator lives elsewhere and didn't get targeted :)
  - mahouse 11y ago
    Telefónica, the major carrier in Spain, sold some Firefox OS phones years ago under the promise that there would be a version of WhatsApp for Firefox OS soon. That never happened. They eventually stopped selling them. (Not implying there is any correlation between those two last facts.)
    - niutech 11y ago
      There is Whatsapp client Loqui IM.
  - S4M 11y ago
    I live in Spain, but never saw someone using a Firefox OS phone there.
  - niutech 11y ago
    They were targeting developing countries like Central Eu, South Am, Asia, rather than North Am. The market there is huge. I live in Poland and I was lucky that I could easily find a cheap FxOS phone, which actually I am using now. This is the only truly private phone available here. It is a pity that Mozilla abandoned it. Bigger pity is that people do not give a sht about their privacy and open standards.
- spyder 11y ago
  Yep: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22firefox+os%22+billboard+ads&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=%22firefox+os%22+billboard+a...
gedrap 11y ago
The last time I checked (about a year ago), their web site said that the project is not ready for public. I bought a firefoxos device in October 2014 which came with FirefoxOS 1.3, and got to agree that it wasn't ready for public. So that explains the lack of marketing.
quanticle 11y ago
Not to mention that FirefoxOS wasn't even properly built. I have yet to see (and given today's news, probably will never see) a review of FirefoxOS where the reviewer doesn't mention the OS crashing multiple times.
- niutech 11y ago
  My Alcatel with FxOS 2 does not crash at all.
- mgbmtl 11y ago
  I used one as my primary device for 2 years. It worked fine. All I needed was voice, sms, a browser, mail reader and a modem (wifi tethering). I had bought a dev device for $75. Somewhere in the FF OS 2.x series, an upgrade seriously made the keyboard unusable, and I never knew where to turn for bug trackers / support. I had also tried to make IPv6 work, experimented a bit with the app system.. I'm an average programmer, but I participate in a few large projects.. Firefox has always been a mystery to me, with lots of code names and hard to use bug tracker. Huge fan of Mozilla otherwise, so hurts a bit to say this.. other than that, it was a functional phone for 2 years.
Raed667 11y ago
They have done a lot of marketing with their partner Orange in Africa. They promoted 40$ phones. It didn't get much traction because users in Africa already had good viable Android phones for that price tag.
on_and_off 11y ago
>"If you build it they will come" The feedback I received from the people that tested the platform development wise was that they had not built it yet.
petercooper 11y ago
They didn't seem to make any effort to get it into the hands of people who might actually talk about it either. I follow a ton of hardware reviewer types and never once saw Firefox OS phones come up. I know literally one person who bought one out of curiosity.
agumonkey 11y ago
Also, I wonder how the public would react by hearing "Firefox""OS". The browser running the computer, would the idea inspired or confused them ? ChromeOS is from Google, they're known to make smartphones and Android so it's less strange to jump the shark. But Mozilla ...

by bpicolo 11y ago

mootothemax 11y ago

Just as a counterpoint, I regularly saw Firefox os+phone ads on giant billboards in central Warsaw. If there was to be any market interest, I thought their targeting and marketing efforts like this were pretty spot-on.

gedrap 11y ago
Oh yeah, I've read about them targeting some specific countries (Spain, Brazil, Poland, etc). So it might be that the parent commentator lives elsewhere and didn't get targeted :)
- mahouse 11y ago
  Telefónica, the major carrier in Spain, sold some Firefox OS phones years ago under the promise that there would be a version of WhatsApp for Firefox OS soon. That never happened. They eventually stopped selling them. (Not implying there is any correlation between those two last facts.)
  - niutech 11y ago
    There is Whatsapp client Loqui IM.
- S4M 11y ago
  I live in Spain, but never saw someone using a Firefox OS phone there.
- niutech 11y ago
  They were targeting developing countries like Central Eu, South Am, Asia, rather than North Am. The market there is huge. I live in Poland and I was lucky that I could easily find a cheap FxOS phone, which actually I am using now. This is the only truly private phone available here. It is a pity that Mozilla abandoned it. Bigger pity is that people do not give a sht about their privacy and open standards.
spyder 11y ago
Yep: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22firefox+os%22+billboard+ads&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=%22firefox+os%22+billboard+a...

gedrap 11y ago

The last time I checked (about a year ago), their web site said that the project is not ready for public. I bought a firefoxos device in October 2014 which came with FirefoxOS 1.3, and got to agree that it wasn't ready for public. So that explains the lack of marketing.

quanticle 11y ago

Not to mention that FirefoxOS wasn't even properly built. I have yet to see (and given today's news, probably will never see) a review of FirefoxOS where the reviewer doesn't mention the OS crashing multiple times.

niutech 11y ago
My Alcatel with FxOS 2 does not crash at all.
mgbmtl 11y ago
I used one as my primary device for 2 years. It worked fine. All I needed was voice, sms, a browser, mail reader and a modem (wifi tethering). I had bought a dev device for $75. Somewhere in the FF OS 2.x series, an upgrade seriously made the keyboard unusable, and I never knew where to turn for bug trackers / support. I had also tried to make IPv6 work, experimented a bit with the app system.. I'm an average programmer, but I participate in a few large projects.. Firefox has always been a mystery to me, with lots of code names and hard to use bug tracker. Huge fan of Mozilla otherwise, so hurts a bit to say this.. other than that, it was a functional phone for 2 years.

Raed667 11y ago

They have done a lot of marketing with their partner Orange in Africa. They promoted 40$ phones. It didn't get much traction because users in Africa already had good viable Android phones for that price tag.

on_and_off 11y ago

>"If you build it they will come" The feedback I received from the people that tested the platform development wise was that they had not built it yet.

petercooper 11y ago

They didn't seem to make any effort to get it into the hands of people who might actually talk about it either. I follow a ton of hardware reviewer types and never once saw Firefox OS phones come up. I know literally one person who bought one out of curiosity.

agumonkey 11y ago

Also, I wonder how the public would react by hearing "Firefox""OS". The browser running the computer, would the idea inspired or confused them ? ChromeOS is from Google, they're known to make smartphones and Android so it's less strange to jump the shark. But Mozilla ...