Date: Sat, 4 Jul 1998 18:55:06 +0000 From: "Frank Pawlak" <fpawlak@execpc.com> To: Nicole Harrington <freelist@webweaver.net>, "Jan B. Koum" <jkb@best.com> Cc: advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG, Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com>, Josef Grosch <jgrosch@superior.mooseriver.com>, "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com> Subject: Re: Advocates, speak up! Any place you can! Message-ID: <980704185507.ZM2699@darkstar.connect.com> In-Reply-To: Nicole Harrington <freelist@webweaver.net> "Re: Advocates, speak up! Any place you can!" (Jul 4, 9:55am) References: <XFMail.980704095502.freelist@webweaver.net>
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On Jul 4, 9:55am, Nicole Harrington wrote: > Subject: Re: Advocates, speak up! Any place you can! > > On 04-Jul-98 Jan B. Koum wisely wrote: > <SNIP> > > > > I think my point got lost along the way here. We are making a case > > to business people. People who wear suites. People who don't know what boot > > sector is. They dont' know and dont' care what freebsd.org is or cdrom.com > > is. They want examples where people made a lot of money using FreeBSD. I > > think everything I list would qualify. Out of what you listed I think only > > mediacity and moviedatabase qualify. Thanks. But do remember, we need > > examples of people making BIG money with FreeBSD. Not simply running BIG > > servers. We are not making our case to techies - we are making our case to > > suit wearing public. > > > > -- Yan > > > > The reason FreeBSD is not so well known is because it is believed, somewhat > rightly so, as not having a cool well known name. It is believed to appeal only > to techies. > > If my company put out a Press Release stating that we where using FreeBSD, > what percentage of the population would understand it? Most people also don't > really know what Linux or Sun is, but they have heard the name, and that is > often enough for them. They may then resort to dissecting the name and saying, " > they are using a Free Operating thingy, must be a cash starved or a cheap > company. On a side note, the coolest name I have ever heard for an OS/Kernel is > the Mach4 Kernel, people don't have to understand it, it just sounds cool. > > Hell lets face it, right now I would bet more people have heard of Linux than > BSDI and Free/Net/OpenBSD. We don't have the PR engine that they do. They have > thousands of members of the Linux Sheehad who's duty it is to share the word > about Linux. Not to mention the companies selling the stuff, like Caldera, who > need to advertise. Then of course the PR engines of the $$ Os's. > > I believe collecting a list of Names is "A Good Thing"(tm) however it is what > we do with them that is important! We need to get companies to work with us on > this. > > A few suggestions: > > 1) Offering a adversing co-op deal. Every time they advertise using the FreeBSD > name they get some money. also the big deal these days seems to be to "partner" > with someone. How could they and what would they get for "Partnering" with > FreeBSD? (think like a suit now..) > > 2) Advertising in well known Mags. Many of us are irritated at > performance computing magazine for going so NT. But imagine an ad in it to the > tone of, what ever it can do, we can do it better! > > 3) Overall, do more Guerilla advertising. Which means taking advantage of every > Free advertising venue possible. BSDI advertises and is still largely unknown > becouse they Only seem to target Techie Venues. While this is a good core start. > You need to put the name under the noses of the comman people to > reach the suits. > > 4) Just as we have the core development team, we need a core marketing team. These are all great ideas and deserve serious consideration. As to your #4, a few months ago, sometime in march if memory serves, I gave that a shot. In general it died a sudden death for all kinds of reasons. In fairness some projects spun off of the idea and were followed to conclusion. The main problem I had was getting volunteers for coordinators and do-bees to get some things done. Had a few private messages backing the idea, but it still didn't get off the ground. Regards, Frank > > > Just my .02 > > Nicole > > > > nicole@webweaver.net - http://www.webweaver.net/ > webmistress@dangermouse.org - http://www.dangermouse.org/ > ------------------------------------------------- > > -- Powered by Coka Cola and FreeBSD -- > - Stong enough for a man - But made for a Woman -- > > -- Microsoft: What bug would you like today? -- > - I tried an internal modem once, but it hurt when I walked -- > > --------------------------------------------------- > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message >-- End of excerpt from Nicole Harrington To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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