something is happening in Japan (with Firefox)

Back in May, Chris Messina, who used to volunteer with Mozilla, posted a video rant which got a lot of attention. # 3 on the list of constructive criticisms about Mozilla Chris discussed in the video was, “I know something is happening in Japan with Joi Ito… but that’s about all I know about.”

Well, Chris, what is happening in Japan is a vibrant community around Mozilla Japan and Firefox with over 165 attendees for this past Saturday’s Firefox Developers Conference Summer 2007. In fact, I think we can say that we broke a number of records:

• 29 presentations
• first-ever streaming video of an entire Mozilla event
• maybe the largest number of attendees (166) for a developer conference
• maybe the first time we’ve had a remote presentation (Basil Hashem on Mozilla Labs) at a Mozilla developer event.

We we honored to have presentations from Mark Finkle, Mike Shaver, Justin Scott, Dan Mills and Basil Hashem in addition to presentations from 25 other members of the Mozilla Japan community.

The Japanese press covered conference including the updates to Firefox 3 including Places and the potential for microformats.

• 米モジラ、Firefox次期版の新機能を一部公開 ブラウザーを通したマイクロフォーマットの活用事例も紹介
• 米モジラ、Firefox次期版の新機能を一部公開

There are a number of comments up already in English:

• Mark Finkle’s blog
• Fligtar and his photos
• Shaver’s photos of Tsukiji Fish Market and Shaver’s post on the event
• Mossop (who stayed up all night watching the webcast- thanks Dave!)

We also have a lot of comments about the event in Japanese including:

• Piro’s report
• Gomita’s presentation
• the popular えむもじら blog
• btm-san
• Ikeda-san
• ZIGOROu-san
• kozawa-san
• simonetta-san
• mukaken-san
• Cai-san
• ginga-san
• TakamiChie-san
• Premier-san & part 2
• gf-tlvkanri-san
• mukaken-san
• nanto_vi-san
• KOMOREBI-san
• YAMAGUCHI-san
• deegg-san

As for photos of the event, there is

• Lonely Bob’s photos
• Gen Kanai’s photos
• level’s photos.

A number of people have asked about the streaming video and whether it will be published. We’re evaluating this request based on the additional cost (copyrights) and will report back soon.

I’d like to thank everyone who made this event a success: the vibrant Mozilla Japan community who gathered 160+ strong for an all-day affair, the presenters who spent lots of time and energy preparing for their presentations, the conference staff who worked on the network and video capture and streaming, and finally my colleagues at Mozilla Japan who pulled together to produce a great event. Thank you everyone!