In this issue…

The future of messaging
Mitchell Baker and David Ascher announced this week that Mozilla will be stepping up our focus on messaging. With this strengthened focus we’re going to be, “consolidating the teams working on messaging on the Web and related topics like identity and contacts, by integrating the Mozilla Messaging team with Mozilla Labs.” This collaboration isn’t new – Labs and Mozilla Messaging have worked together on the popular F1 add-on for Firefox, and the experimental Raindrop project. Nothing will change in the near term for Thunderbird users.

Getting more developers involved with Mozilla
There has been a hearty discussion on how we can make it easier for developers to contribute to Mozilla on the dev-planning list.  Paul Biggar has summed it up nicely if you’re not game to read the whole thread.  He summarizes the challenges, experiences, engagement efforts, tools and documentation.  We’ll be hosting a session this week at the Mozilla All Hands to discuss this further.  Please keep an eye on Paul’s blog and the dev-planning list for updates and to provide feedback.

What is Mozilla?
Brett Gaylor helps us answer that question for folks that are new to Mozilla. The video is now hosted on Mozilla’s refreshed Get Involved page – please share it. He also gives a shout out to Rainer Cvillink, Mozilla’s in-house video wizard, for all the great camera work, and to Jenn Strom for editing and motion graphics.

Taking our message to the streets
John Slater provides a great update on the our recent brand message work.  We’ve made it part of all our communications around the Firefox 4 launch (and beyond), but are going further to launch specific campaigns to help people understand who we are. The first initiative is a series of billboards that can be seen around the SF Bay Area and will run until the end of April.  If you’re in the area please check them out and be sure to take photos!

Progress on Do Not Track
Alex Fowler posted an update on the Do Not Track privacy feature in Firefox which provides users more control over online behavioral tracking. Two developments bring it closer to being respected by industry. According to Alex we’ve been working with leading companies and trade groups to implement DNT, as well as the W3C and IETF organizations to standardize the DNT header. Microsoft has since included the mechanism in Internet Explorer 9. Additionally, the AP News Registry service, run by the Associated Press, implemented the DNT header across 800 news sites servicing 175 million unique visitors each month, while the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) is initiating a process to explore incorporating the DNT header. The DAA represents more than 5,000 leading media and technology companies that span the entire marketing-media ecosystem. Read more.

Time to celebrate!
With two awesome launches down, it’s time to think about celebrating. Congrats to Mozillian KAMI for a great party in Budapest. If you’d like to host a party, please sign up here. Note we can’t guarantee the delivery of party packs next week.

Upcoming events

* April 9-10, Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria, Bulgaria Web Summit 2011
* April 15th and on, the world, Firefox Launch Parties
* May, Huajuapan de León, Mexico, Kids on Computers Summit

Community calendar

For an up-to-date list of the coming week’s Mozilla project meetings and events, please see the Mozilla Community Calendar wiki page. Notes from previous meetings are linked to through the Calendar as well.

About about:mozilla

about:mozilla is by, for and about the Mozilla community, focusing on major news items related to all aspects of the Mozilla Project. The newsletter is written by Mozilla’s contributor engagement team and will be published every Tuesday. This week’s issue is brought to you by Mary Colvig.

If you have any news, announcements, events, or software releases you would like to have included in our next issue, please send them to: about-mozilla[at]mozilla.com.

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