June 17th was the day Mozilla released it’s latest version of the Firefox browser, Firefox 3.0. This was not only Firefox 3 launch day though. With the release of Firefox 3 this also kicked into action Download Day. Download Day was a campaign Mozilla was pushing to set a new Guinness World Record for the most software downloads in a 24 hour period, coinciding with the launch of Firefox 3.

According to the Download Day headquarters, they got more than 8 million Firefox 3 downloads in 24 hours. That’s more Firefox downloads than they’ve ever had in a single day and it created a new Guinness World Record.

The Download Day microsite exists within Mozilla’s official community marketing site, Spread Firefox. At Download Day headquarters you were able to make a pledge that you were going to download Firefox 3 prior to launch day, with the pledge results being displayed via an interactive world map. This map was a good touch as not only could you see the total amount of pledges worldwide, but going off some of the comments in the various Mozilla groups and forums, it probably helped engage a bit of competitiveness between some countries, thus encouraging more pledges.

At headquarters you could also join the Firefox 3 World Record forum for more user generated ramblings or share about any other world record attempts you may have been involved in. Mozilla also wanted you to spread the word about Download Day. They wanted you to tell your mum, your neighbours, your colleagues – anyone and everyone! Their suggestions on how to do this was to:

• Plan an impromptu Download Fest at your school, office, or home. Or, attend a Firefox 3 party or gathering.
• Join one or more social networking groups and invite all your friends.
• Find a Firefox Campus Rep and see how you could help, or what festivities you could join in.
• Add Firefox affiliate buttons or banners to your site, blog, or profile.

Aside from the world record attempt, how well did things go for them prior to launch:

• Over 16,000 people joined the “Firefox World Record” Facebook group (after launch 50,818 members at time of writing this post)
• Over 700 community launch parties worldwide had been registered on mozillaparty.com
• On June 13th (4 days before launch) they exceeded 700,000 pledges to help set a Guinness World Record in less than a week.
• All in all, they had around 1.7 million pledges to download Firefox 3

And, how were Mozilla going to remind Firefox supporters that Download Day had arrived and it was time to download Firefox 3. Well, when people pledged to download Firefox 3 they had to provide their email address. For the people who were already familiar with the Mozilla community, they were also reminded via the various Mozilla News and Community sites, including blogs and group forums. Or you could follow “mozillafirefox” on Twitter for a status update on what was happening.

So, how successful was Download Day:

• They exceeded the first day download mark for Firefox 2 of 1.6 million after just five hours of availability for Firefox 3.
• Over 500 articles about the launch were linked to from Google News.
• The Firefox 3 launch made the front pages of BBC.co.uk, NYTimes.com, Liberation.fr, laRepubblica.it, Digg, Slashdot, Techcrunch, and Yahoo! News
• New community activity on SpreadFirefox.com skyrocketed with dozens of new groups and hundreds of new postings

Downloand day didn’t go off without a hitch though, because in the lead up to it all, Mozilla’s servers took a massive hit and were down just prior to the start of download day officially beginning. As they put it on The Mozilla blog they were ‘feeling the burn’. This was evident from the “mozillafirefox” updates on Twitter below:

• mozillafirefox less than one hour to go! check out some of the great news coverage in the meantime: http://www.0xdeadbeef.com/w… 09:22 AM June 17, 2008 from web
• mozillafirefox hey everyone: servers coming back up soon, please be patient. http://tinyurl.com/5le4n9 11:05 AM June 17, 2008 from web
• mozillafirefox We are up and running at http://www.mozilla.com – Download Day officially began at 11:16 a.m. PDT / 6:16 p.m. GMT 12:07 PM June 17, 2008 from web

Despite this setback, the campaign was a huge viral marketing success for Mozilla. Pushing for a Guinness World Record (albeit one that didn’t exist prior) was a great way to create a buzz for the release of Firefox 3 and a fantastic opportunity to drum up support from the existing Mozilla global community. With all the fanfare that was generated around Download Day and the Firefox 3 launch, they more than likely opened up their product to a potential new audience as well.