After a discussion with just now, I have signed up to debian-publicity, and will continue these discussion there. My concern about that list is that it seems very low traffic, so I wanted to gather some opinions on my initial ideas here (I'll also post this there). This is fairly freeform thinking, but born out of a belief that Debian does not have the news profile it should.
a) Debian did have a press archive at http://www.debian.org/News/press/. This has not been updated since 2005. The problem with this is that the project does not have a central overview of how it is viewed in the media, and thus it is difficult to come up with a sane media strategy at first. A simple selection of major RSS feeds with the appropriate word filters will produce a rough list, and it can then be filtered down to a representative sample. I'm happy to handle this if people think this is useful. One thing to note is that this will also include negative press by default - normally I'd suggest a private summary (maybe through debian-publicity) that included these, and a public press showcase with only the positive pieces. Where do other people stand on this? b) The Debian website. At the moment, it seems somewhat developer focused. Most people who randomly come upon the site (tested on my non-technical partner, for example) will likely find this quite unwelcoming compared to many other consumer-aimed websites. Looking at mozilla.com, we can see that the front page is dominated by clipart, with gradients to soften the coloured elements and only a few links to choose from, with the download like heavily signposted with a green highlight to make my eye settle on it. When I go to debian.org, I count 108(!) links on the front page in a largely undifferentiated mass, meaning that my time to process what I need goes way up. In my opinion, the front page needs streamlining down to a few main choices. What does the user want to do when they come to debian.org? Well, the front page is almost always visited by the first time or casual website user, as regular users bookmark at the exact page they want, not the website root. From this, we can guess that the user wants: * To download Debian, probably by getting an ISO unless jigdo is made *really* simple for them. * To see about the features that Debian offers. * To look for sources of help from the Debian community. These things have to be immediately available to them. A case study of where I think the current website is perhaps more suitable for technical users is the Download section on the side at the moment. This currently has 5 links, with one to the main "Getting Debian" page, and 4 links to ways to do so (with no explanation as to what these are). This could all be reduced to one "Get Debian" link on the main page, perhaps with highlighting of some kind. There is also room to generally sugar it up for people - an RSS feed for debian-announce would be infinitely superior for people to sign up to compared with the three-step email list, and thus is likely to actually be used by journalists et al. I think the site would not be too difficult to make more attractive - look at what slashdot have done with only CSS. Is there a web design/branding team to discuss this with? (and if not, maybe there should be one). c) Debian Weekly News: In my opinion, Debian need to *generate* news for people to write about. It is fine to have announcements for major releases, but starting to have items that originate with the project gives journalists something to work from. I think that a few example conversions to Debian would be great to spark things off, and maybe an indepth look at how Extremadura (for those that don't know, they run a Debian derivative in schools there) or Bhutan (an interesting, newsworthy place, and one that media that does not normally do tech would be interested in - no tech allowed in the country to their own Debian-based distro...that's an interesting story just from the political angle) is working out. This can be combined with developer interviews, and maybe the now defunct Deb a Day could be reborn as Deb of the Week, complete with a snazzy screenshot. The key here is to look on DWN as something not only for the community, but something to communicate a message about that community to people currently outside of it such as journalists and the merely idly interested. Debian Weekly News should aim to excite people about Debian, and if we can make it something that is worthy of it, should have stories replace the purely announcement based news on the front page, I think. d) Another idea is getting people on to some media expert lists so they are called upon when talking heads are needed for software patents issues etc. This would support the freedom-related goals of Debian, and also provide exposure for it. e) Infastructure. A dedicated section of the wiki for marketing/branding ideas, and maybe a marketing team made up of both technical and non-technical guys to generate ideas. Opinions? I'd really welcome some feedback on this. -- James Duncan "To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right." -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
