Firefox 3 - Good PR, Poor Execution

Today's official release of Firefox 3 was widely anticipated. The Mozilla folks spent considerable time promoting "Download Day" - we covered it, as well as a host of other outlets up to and including Time magazine. Unfortunately, someone apparently didn't do enough load planning: as of right now, around an hour after the software was released, all of the official download sites seem to be down from sheer overload.

Depending on how quickly this clears up, you can expect to see a lot of complaints, as well as Monday-morning quarterbacking. Was it really necessary to try to set a meaningless record, instead of letting the release spread on a more natural schedule? Do the Mozilla folks need to plan for BitTorrent distribution, or perhaps even spend some of their money on a real Content Delivery Network like Akamai or Limelight?

Meanwhile, if you want your own copy of Firefox 3, you'll just have to be patient for a little longer.