Re: promoting good gnome apps via news.gnome.org

[Claus Schwarm <clschwarm googlemail com>]

On Sun, 2009-06-14 at 08:02 -0700, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:


> So maybe a modification is to create our own product page for each
> promoted app with a link to the original page?  I still think the
> foundation of the ideas is sound which is to drive interest in
> products that compete with others on more popular systems.
>
> sri 

Yes, the basic idea is sound. That's why I suggested to have a better
apps directory back in February 2004. [1] Thus I also argued to have a
separate projects.gnome.org to manage project homepages more easily.[2]

Good apps drive adoption of the underlying platform.

If there's a decentralized "installer" for an app -- which could simply
be LSB-complient DEB that installs into /opt --, marketing is no
problem. Just put a large button "Download Now" on the homepage, improve
its content, and people would use it.

Whenever a new version is released, there's lots of media to spread the
word and drive traffic to the project homepage:

 * Twitter and other microblogging tools
 * Blogs and planets
 * Forums such linuxquestion.org, etc.
 * Linux sites such as LinuxToday, LWN, etc.
 * Download directories such as gnomefiles, etc.
 * Social sites such as Reddit, Digg, etc.

With a little bit of SEO, one could maybe even make it into the top ten
of search results for generic keywords such as "audio player". No need
to pay Adsense. But even Adsense would make sense.

Additionally, the new version could be distributed directly:

 * CoverCDs of Linux journals
 * Self-burned CD to be distributed on schoolyards, etc.

When Firefox 1.5 was released, two major German PC magazine had it on
their CoverCD. That meant 1 million people in Germany alone got it for
free, including an article describing how awesome it is. The Firefox
crew didn't really need to promote it back then, journalists did it for
them.

In other words: It's easy when there's an "installer".

Without an installer, however, most of the word-of-mouth advertising
fails. Most users will have to wait a few months for the new version,
anyway, before it's packaged and distributed by their distribution. 

Then, why waste time being informed today? Why talk about a new version
to your friend, if he or she is not able to download and install it? Why
read a blog about it? Or blog about it? Why visit gnomefiles each week?
Makes no sense. Because doing so is boring.

As a result, there's no hype when a new version is released. And good
applications are being ignored.

But I have no clue how to change the lack of "installers". It would be
the job of developers, wouldn't it?


Best regards,
Claus


[1]
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-web-list/2004-February/msg00025.html
[2]
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/marketing-list/2006-July/msg00169.html