A question for those running their own OSS projects

[Madison Kelly]

Colin Smillie wrote:
> On 10/2/05, *Madison Kelly* <linux-5ZoueyuiTZhBDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.org 
> <mailto:linux-5ZoueyuiTZhBDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.org>> wrote:
> 
>     Hi all,
> 
>        This is probably the proverbial "$64,000 question" but I guess it
>     doesn't hurt to ask anyway...
> 
>        "How do you promote a new OSS program?"
> 
> 
> I think Firefox probably has the best promotional model I've seen.  One 
> of its keys is that they promote to 2 different user markets, develoeers 
> and users.  Alot of OSS projects only focus on the developers. 
> 
> They've also done a great job of using buzz marketing techniques, tell a 
> friend, community forums, firefox shirts/stickers etc.., online 
> badges/buttons to promote FF on blogs/websites.  Depending on what your 
> product does I'd suggest you try all of these.  Let your community 
> promote your product.  Seth Godin has written alot of books on buzz 
> marketing techniques, his blog is available here:
> 
> http://sethgodin.typepad.com/
> 
> If you can give me more details on your project I can provide some more 
> specific approaches.
> 
> Good luck,
> 
> Colin

I should look into how much it would cost to print a dozen or two Tees 
for an upcoming TLUG meeting then? I could perhaps give them out with a 
CD of the program and a copy of the manual?

How would you guys feel about that? Would it be invasive to the meeting 
(given that it's not directly related to TLUG)? It might be moot if it's 
too expensive.

What ather items? Would you guys rather get Tees or perhaps mugs or 
something? Or do you guys think that is tacky and wouldn't help get the 
word out in any effective way anyway?

I read the Seth Godin blog, it seems really interesting. When I get home 
tonight I'll read into the archives. Do you know of any other 
"marketting gurus" that I should look at? I am always warry of 
"marketers" because of so many bad decisions that they seem to make 
(1,000,000,000bytes = Gigabyte?!?!) but I also figure there are some 
real gems like this Seth guys seems to be.

Thanks!

Madison
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