increasing the reach of fedora-marketing
by Rik van Riel
Over the last few years, we have noticed a few interesting phenomena.
A lot of new technology was developed in the Fedora community and the
fedora-marketing community wrote great content about the software.
However, the main stream press often did not pick up on the fact and
sometimes ended up with the impression that the technology was invented
by the first distribution to be loud about it.
Worse yet, a while later Fedora (and Red Hat) get labelled "copiers".
Not only is this frustrating to the developers who implemented the
software, it is also bad for the image of Fedora and, by extension,
Red Hat.
It does not have to be this way. The fedora-marketing community has
great content; the Red Hat marketing department has great channels to
get content distributed and is willing to use those for Fedora.
I am talking about things like press releases, the press.redhat.com
blog, Red Hat Magazine (already used by Fedora?) and personal contact
with journalists.
In order for Fedora to be able to use those channels, we need to do
a few things:
- Figure out exactly what we want. What kind of press attention do
we need most and for what kind of content?
- For press releases, we need a Fedora tagline (goes at the beginning
of a press release) and boilerplate (goes at the end) to act as
descriptors for Fedora.
While we have Leigh's attention, maybe we can start with the excellent
interview of Dimitris Glezos on Transifex? It would be a good example
of great content which deserves to be promoted heavily.
I do not know much about marketing, so I will close with an observation
of the news: have you ever seen a "breaking news" article that did not
have either some cut'n'pasted text from a press release, or a lack of
details? Being first with some news on the internet means there is
little time for research. Afterwards, half the internet syndicates that
first article, while a few dedicated journalists go out of their way to
do lots of research. I believe that if we make it easier for the
cut'n'paste journalists to publish information on Fedora, we will
greatly increase the amount of publicity Fedora gets.
--
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan
16 years, 6 months
Fw: increasing the reach of fedora-marketing
by Rik van Riel
ditto
Begin forwarded message:
Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2007 20:30:35 -0400
From: Leigh Cantrell Day <lday(a)redhat.com>
To: Rik van Riel <riel(a)redhat.com>
Cc: For discussions about marketing and expanding the Fedora user base
<fedora-marketing-list(a)redhat.com>, sundaram(a)fedoraproject.org
Subject: Re: increasing the reach of fedora-marketing
Rik van Riel wrote:
> On Mon, 29 Oct 2007 05:24:01 +0530
> Rahul Sundaram <sundaram(a)fedoraproject.org> wrote:
>> Rik van Riel wrote:
>
>>> While we have Leigh's attention, maybe we can start with the
>>> excellent interview of Dimitris Glezos on Transifex? It would be a
>>> good example of great content which deserves to be promoted heavily.
>> Sure. We have a lot of content Red Hat Marketing can use to promote
>> the work being done here. The Fedora 8 series of interviews are a
>> good start.
>
> I suspect that simply pointing Red Hat's marketing people at
> a mountain of content and going "here, you write something
> cool" is going to work.
>
> If we want to improve Fedora's outreach, we first need to
> figure out what we want and how to do it.
>
>> We should have started earlier on this but better late than never.
>> One thing to note is that none of us here are experts in marketing.
>> What I would really want is folks from Red Hat Marketing to guide us
>> and participate in our efforts so that we have more professional
>> eyes looking into this.
>
> That I suspect could be a good use of time by people in
> Red Hat's marketing department: teach the fedora-marketing
> crowd "how to fish", so future collaboration goes smoother.
>
"how to fish" for PR/press blogs/industry analyst briefings is
communications(a)redhat.com. Just send us stuff that's coming up, news
to get out, perspectives, etc. & we'll make it happen on a global basis.
leigh
--
--
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan
16 years, 6 months
Fw: increasing the reach of fedora-marketing
by Rik van Riel
Oops, mailman eats messages from non-members, so you guys never
saw Leigh's emails. This one contains info you did not see in
my replies to her, so I'm forwarding this one through.
Begin forwarded message:
Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2007 19:50:45 -0400
From: Leigh Cantrell Day <lday(a)redhat.com>
To: Rik van Riel <riel(a)redhat.com>
Cc: fedora-marketing-list(a)redhat.com
Subject: Re: increasing the reach of fedora-marketing
Rik van Riel wrote:
> Over the last few years, we have noticed a few interesting phenomena.
> A lot of new technology was developed in the Fedora community and the
> fedora-marketing community wrote great content about the software.
>
> However, the main stream press often did not pick up on the fact and
> sometimes ended up with the impression that the technology was
> invented by the first distribution to be loud about it.
>
> Worse yet, a while later Fedora (and Red Hat) get labelled "copiers".
> Not only is this frustrating to the developers who implemented the
> software, it is also bad for the image of Fedora and, by extension,
> Red Hat.
>
> It does not have to be this way. The fedora-marketing community has
> great content; the Red Hat marketing department has great channels to
> get content distributed and is willing to use those for Fedora.
>
> I am talking about things like press releases, the press.redhat.com
> blog, Red Hat Magazine (already used by Fedora?) and personal contact
> with journalists.
>
> In order for Fedora to be able to use those channels, we need to do
> a few things:
> - Figure out exactly what we want. What kind of press attention do
> we need most and for what kind of content?
> - For press releases, we need a Fedora tagline (goes at the beginning
> of a press release) and boilerplate (goes at the end) to act as
> descriptors for Fedora.
>
> While we have Leigh's attention, maybe we can start with the excellent
> interview of Dimitris Glezos on Transifex? It would be a good example
> of great content which deserves to be promoted heavily.
>
> I do not know much about marketing, so I will close with an
> observation of the news: have you ever seen a "breaking news" article
> that did not have either some cut'n'pasted text from a press release,
> or a lack of details? Being first with some news on the internet
> means there is little time for research. Afterwards, half the
> internet syndicates that first article, while a few dedicated
> journalists go out of their way to do lots of research. I believe
> that if we make it easier for the cut'n'paste journalists to publish
> information on Fedora, we will greatly increase the amount of
> publicity Fedora gets.
>
What would help greatly would be globally planned launches. Often my
team learns of new drops too last minute to be able to develop a
large-scale launch that does not compete with other priorities on the
calendar. If we have plenty of advance notice, available spokesppl,
details, etc. then we could plan a *global* launch at release time
that includes the following elements:
o press release
o supporting press blogs (we have 200 press/analysts subscribed to our
press blog)
o industry analyst meetings done in advance of the annct
o global understanding and firm plans by the int'l PR team to act
simultaneously
o global availability of spokesppl at time annct goes out
o live webcast to discuss launch
For instance, have learned last week that F8 is coming 11/8. This is 1
day after a major infrastructure launch. we are basically competing
with our own news and press attn. I suggest we launch to the community
on 11/8 and do big press (all of the elements mentioned above) to get
serious exposure + accurate reporting. It's also Oracleworld
(11/11-11/15) and press are fiendish for news during this time.
Your thoughts, and support, are appreciated. Those of us dealing with
press/analysts also are feeling the void a few have indicated.
leigh
--
--
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan
16 years, 6 months
Vixta: Nice concept, incomplete execution
by Mike McGrath
"Vixta is a new Linux distribution, first released only last month,
based on the not-yet-released Fedora 8. Its main objective is to emulate
the visual aspects of Microsoft Vista."
http://www.linux.com/feature/120278
Couple of things:
"On the desktop is a Vixta installer, which is the Fedora live CD
installer with no customizations or changes. It walks the user through
configuration steps such as partitioning and setting up filesystems. It
installs a standard system -- no package selection is offered." Doesn't
sound very glowing, and is something we'll run into when F8 ships.
Also:
"No Vixta source code has been made available, but some on the forum
suggested that since the distribution is based on Fedora core, whose
source is readily available, it isn't necessary -- though this is not
true <http://www.linux.com/articles/55285>."
Do we have someone that looks into cases like that?
-Mike
16 years, 6 months
Re: increasing the reach of fedora-marketing
by Rik van Riel
On Sun, 28 Oct 2007 19:50:45 -0400
Leigh Cantrell Day <lday(a)redhat.com> wrote:
> What would help greatly would be globally planned launches.
> o press release
> o supporting press blogs (we have 200 press/analysts subscribed to
> our press blog)
> o industry analyst meetings done in advance of the annct
> o global understanding and firm plans by the int'l PR team to act
> simultaneously
> o global availability of spokesppl at time annct goes out
> o live webcast to discuss launch
>
> For instance, have learned last week that F8 is coming 11/8. This is
> 1 day after a major infrastructure launch. we are basically
> competing with our own news and press attn. I suggest we launch to
> the community on 11/8 and do big press on 8/12 (all of the elements
> mentioned above) to get serious exposure + accurate reporting. It's
> also Oracleworld (11/11-11/15) and press are fiendish for news during
> this time.
Your idea makes sense to me.
What do we need to do to make it happen?
--
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan
16 years, 6 months
Re: increasing the reach of fedora-marketing
by Rik van Riel
On Sun, 28 Oct 2007 20:30:35 -0400
Leigh Cantrell Day <lday(a)redhat.com> wrote:
> "how to fish" for PR/press blogs/industry analyst briefings is
> communications(a)redhat.com. Just send us stuff that's coming up, news
> to get out, perspectives, etc. & we'll make it happen on a global
> basis.
What kind of information do we need to send to communications@ in
order to get a story out?
For example, I believe that the following interview would be a
great story to get out:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Interviews/DimitrisGlezos
However, it is fairly long and I imagine that it may be useful
to have some cut'n'pasteable text for journalists to directly
put into articles, maybe a description of the technology or
something else?
How can we make the work of communications@ easier?
--
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan
16 years, 6 months
Res: Fedora Life Cycle
by Henrique de Castro
O ponto fundamental sobre a discussão a respeito do ciclo de vi
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The fundamental point about the discussion
which says on fedora´s life cycle isn´t just the fact
that Fedora has a short 6 month cycle and it´s just like
that as some of the present colleagues have clearly pointed. A lot
of people love Fedora and dedicate much of their time to make it
better and to spread it to increase its instalation basis (even here,
in Brazil´s remote caverns). To me and to much more people,
Fedora is not just a Linux distribution with which we work, it is a
personal thing and to be part of it´s expansion is a reason for
pride.
Obviously a Fedora´s fan wish to use it
for any day-to-day tasks: it is powerfull, stable, reliable and
solid, but when the subject is critic mission servers, the short
cycle ends on a harmfull point. On such cases, any upgrade is
considered high risk and I´m sure that you all agree with that..
To use CentOS or Red Hat is a good choice, but that´s not the
point; It isn´t the case to search alternatives, but to have
for work one of the best distributions on the world and have to,
unfortunately, give it up for great risk tasks where long cycles are
better fit.
Do not forget that the people who make the
Fedora team immense, frenetic and incomparably competent also has
people around the world, including Brazil´s cavern men, who
abdicate days off, nights and even college class time for love (as
well as everyone here) to Fedora.
Regards
Henrique "LonelySpooky" Junior
"The best diplomat that I know is a fully-loaded phaser bank."
Lt. Cdr. Montgomery Scott ("A Taste of Armageddon")
----- Mensagem original ----
De: Karsten Wade <kwade(a)redhat.com>
Para: fedora-marketing-list(a)redhat.com
Enviadas: Terça-feira, 23 de Outubro de 2007 17:29:28
Assunto: Re: Fedora Life Cycle
On Tue, 2007-10-23 at 10:10 -0200, Rodrigo Padula de Oliveira wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Hi all!!!
>
> The Brazilian Translation Project has -1 translator.
>
> What's the reason ?
>
> He say that: "Now i'm working and using CENTOS and Red hat"
This doesn't make sense. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is 100% translated
in
Fedora (upstream). How would a translator be able to work translating
just RHEL/CentOS?
> Why ??? THE FEDORA LIFE CYCLE!!!
>
> Why he is going ?? "I contribute with the project that i use!"
>
> So, if the users are using CENTOS, they will not contribute with the
> fedora project and it's a BIG sh......
>
> Eu sou um Fedora Usuário / Contribuinte e vou continua a ser!
> But it has no meaning, thinking with yours arguments!
> My goal is to make the Fedora BEST TO USE and not the CENTOS/Red Hat.
My
> goal is spread FEDORA and not CENTOS/Red Hat. My goal is see Fedora
in
> Servers, Desktops and not CENTOS/Red Hat.
Do you think that Fedora needs to work for every situation? Must it
fit
every need?
> For the red hat engeneers it's make sense, for me not! I don't
receive
> money to do my job and to spread Fedora around all Brazilian states!
It's not just Red Hat employees. There are many more non-Red Hat
employees in the Fedora Project. Many have the same challenge you do.
All of us benefit from the rapid release cycle.
> I only receive support from Max and Thomas to viability that and i do
> this in te best way possible!
>
> Only in 2007 I do 14 presentations of fedora and fedora project in
> events with 150/200 persons in each presentation. With my arguments
the
> Brazilian Project had created local users groups in many states and
> recruit many collaborators to translation, documentation, packing and
> marketing project.
>
> In Brazil we have a fedora web community with more than 8.000 persons
> using and testing fedora and I do this because I believe! I am here
with
> my very bad English to defend it!
Heh, not so bad. :)
I think Paul's suggestion is really the only answer:
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2007-October/msg0032...
Fedora the Linux distro has to choose what it is best at and not try to
be everything to everybody. But within the Fedora Project there is
room
to spin Fedora in different ways, to expand the support lifecycle, and
so forth.
Just because Fedora Legacy didn't work doesn't mean the idea is a bad
one. It just turned out that the people involved in it *then* found
CentOS to be a better solution for them. You are describing a
different
situation, many different people can make it happen.
With this new Fedora extended support idea, the team knows which
versions are going to get extended support (such as, every odd numbered
release.) Work on updating support docs, processes, tools, and putting
in special work can be done for that release in development.
Organizations that are planning to roll out this extended support
version should begin testing with the alpha or beta version. Then
their
unique problems are more likely to be addressed, and can be fixed by
the
very extended support engineers paid to do that work. Those
organizations gain a few months of planning so they can begin their
roll
out closer to the version release date.
It's a very good idea, just waiting for someone who needs it enough to
make it happen. :)
- Karsten
--
Karsten Wade, Developer Community Mgr.
Dev Fu : http://developer.redhatmagazine.com
Fedora : http://quaid.fedorapeople.org
gpg key : AD0E0C41
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16 years, 6 months
