I now have six months of data, and I’ve run some statistical analysis on it in order to share some interesting stats with you. (If I were more creative, I would make an infographic out of this information.) Note that this data does not include bookmarked links or links that users click on in websites. It is strictly domains that have been typed directly into the address bar.

At last year’s Add-on Con, some of the major discussions centered around add-on marketplaces and non-free browser extensions. Most parties agreed that the current system of asking for donations is not a viable revenue stream for an independent developer and that add-on developers should have a marketplace to sell their software, if they choose to do so.

Freemium

Since participating in those discussions, I had been quietly considering developing a freemium add-on: an upgraded version of one of my free add-ons that comes with extra features for those willing to pay a few bucks. I was planning on waiting until a proper add-on marketplace materialized (Mozilla is working on one, as are some independent third-parties), but a few weeks ago, I decided to take the plunge on my own. (Worst case, I’d have a premium add-on ready and waiting as soon as a marketplace opened for business.) I eventually settled on freemium-izing URL Fixer.

URL Fixer is an add-on that helps you avoid typos when typing URLs in the browser’s address bar. According to the statistics gathered by Mozilla, it has been downloaded 960,000 times, and is actively used by 70,000 people. I wrote the first version in June of 2006, and it has gotten generally positive reviews, but the one request that has been consistently raised is for the capacity to add custom corrections — URL Fixer will automatically convert “google.con” to “google.com” (because google.con is most definitely an invalid URL), but it won’t fix “gogle.com” to “google.com” (because “gogle.com” might be a legitimate website).

I’ve always resisted adding any sort of correction mechanism that won’t work 100% of the time for 100% of the users (what if someone really wanted to visit gogle.com?), but I could justify this kind of feature in a non-free add-on, as the users who want the feature will pay for the add-on, and the users that don’t want it can continue using the free version.

Preparation

To confirm my assumptions that people would pay for the ability to add their own corrections, I put a poll on the page that is shown after a user installs URL Fixer. (This page contains basic instructions on how the add-on works in order to cut down on confusion for new users.) This poll asked, “Would you pay $1.99 for a premium version of URL Fixer that allows you to add custom corrections?”

Out of the several thousand people that saw this page, 78 participated in the poll. Out of those 78, 29 said they’d pay for a premium version of URL Fixer. That’s 37%! You can imagine the numbers that started going through my head at this point – 37% of 70,000 current users is 26,000 users; multiply that by $1.99, and that’s a quick $50,000. (Never mind the 1.5% poll participation rate.)

Execution

I spent a few days writing the new features, making sure that the premium version (“URL Fixer Plus“) was able to coexist with the free version if both were installed, and writing a barebones add-on marketplace. Last Friday night, I published URL Fixer Plus and the marketplace, linking them from the firstrun page of URL Fixer. I then went to sleep and waited for the money to roll in.

Results

So how did things turn out? Of the 15,121 people that have upgraded or installed URL Fixer since I released URL Fixer Plus, 342 of them have clicked on the “Try URL Fixer Plus” link. Out of those 342, only 8 decided to actually pay the $1.99. For those of you not keeping track at home, that’s a conversion rate of 0.05%, a far cry from the ~37% that I expected. So, what could have gone wrong? Take your pick from these possibilities:

• People don’t read firstun pages.
• Anyone who didn’t participate in the poll was effectively voting “no,” putting the result much more in line with expectations.
• Even people who did participate in the poll and said yes changed their mind when it came time to actually pay.
• $1.99 is too much.
• People want to buy the add-on, but they don’t want to use PayPal.
• People don’t trust me enough to buy something from me.
• People don’t expect to pay for add-ons at all.
• All of the above.
• None of the above.

Even though I’d consider this project a failure thus far, I’ll certainly participate in any legitimate add-on marketplaces that crop up. Several of the possible causes of URL Fixer Plus’s failure could be fixed by having a trusted, discoverable marketplace, and that’s something I can’t build on my own. In the meantime, I’ll continue to offer URL Fixer Plus as an upgrade to URL Fixer. The marginal cost of selling any more copies is essentially zero, so I have nothing to lose.

Questions

What are your thoughts? Why did I get such a low conversion rate? What could I have done better?

Fennec is the codename for Mozilla’s work-in-progress mobile browser for phones and smaller computing devices, and since it supports extensions just like Firefox, I’ve started adding Fennec compatibility to the extensions I’ve written (when it makes sense).

URL Fixer version 1.5 is fully Fennec-compatible. I think it’s even more useful in Fennec than in Firefox, given the ease with which one can fat-finger a touch-screen or mini-qwerty keyboard versus on a full-size computer keyboard.

(The screenshot above is from Fennec running on Mac OSX, so your visual results may vary depending on your device.)

First place was taken by Minimap Sidebar Extension by Tony Farndon, which intends to make map/traffic management in the browser less painful; I have to admit, it looks very cool. I’ll be installing it as soon as it supports the latest Firefox beta.

As extensions are uploaded, they are relegated to the “Sandbox.” This means that while they won’t appear in search results or under their respective categories, the author can still take advantage of Mozilla’s free add-on hosting by pointing users directly to their add-on’s download page. Sandboxed addons can be nominated for general availability by requesting an editor review, but according to Mozilla, this should be reserved for addons that are of use to the general population and enhance the Web browsing experience, and I fully agree. We don’t need the site cluttered with hundreds of “gam3rHax.com Forum Toolbar” extensions that are only used by their author.

As far as my extensions go, ScribeFire and URL Fixer have been deemed public-worthy, and I’ve nominated OPML Support. I’ll probably leave the others (Slashdotter, GoogleTabs) in the sandbox, as they’re not really what I consider “general use.”

Update: It looks like the site has been rolled back to its previous state; I can’t determine why, but the Mozilla Webdev blog will probably post an update. You can still check out Remora at the Mozilla Addons Preview site.

You can install or upgrade URL Fixer from its homepage.

“Netscape 9 will be the first major browser to automatically correct common typos entered in the location bar. The browser will watch for nearly 30 different types of common mistakes and correct them for you (asking you to confirm, if you choose to enable confirmation), hopefully saving you some time and frustration in the process.”

Additional forum for discussion at Netscape.com.