Stefano Mazzocchi wrote:
On Thursday, Jul 24, 2003, at 15:02 Europe/Rome, Berin Loritsch wrote:
<snip>
I think that having a "Testimonials" section will also help. Real comments
from real users. How did it save time? How did it make things easier to
maintain? When did it pay off?
Yes, damn it. We need that.
I'll write a letter copying users@ for this.
I have a good start: Look at http://cocoon.apache.org/link/livesites.html. Warner Brothers Switzerland is using Cocoon. WB is huge! Having a testimonial from WB saying why they use Cocoon and why it's good enough for them would be an awesome bit of publicity.
Plus, there's enough people in the community here with small companies that use Cocoon (Outerthought, S&N, etc), that it would be trivial for Steven or Matthew or Carsten or anyone else with a company to write up why they're using Cocoon.
And not just, "We like it because XML rocks" ... perhaps something like, "Cocoon makes us more productive," or "Developing applications with Cocoon saved us X amount of money and time." or even "Cocoon is so flexible we don't have to worry about being left behind when new technologies come around." Hard facts and evidence why Cocoon is good is better than trying to explain the finer points of SoC or IoC, especially when you're trying to sell Cocoon to the pointy-haired boss.
Press Releases are contrived news (and usually fake sounding), but they help get the word out. Could you imagine the release of Cocoon 2.1 being posted on Slashdot! Think of all the attention (good and bad).
At that point, we would be *inside* and cocoon will do the marketing itself by perpetuating its viral memes to the technical guys who will get more and more used to it and will start using it for more and more stuff.
At that point, we won't even have to go around saying "we are better than struts"... we just say we are different. people will choose what they like the best and what fits their needs the most.
What do you think?
Isn't that what we are doing anyway?
yes, but officially we are still producing a publishing framework and then, hidden inside, there are other cool features.
We have to change course of promotion but still keep the humble attitude. This is my point.
I must say, I do enjoy the humble attitude of the community :) It's certainly a lot better than other projects who have a single person developing who has become such an "internet personality", the fame's gotten to their head and they're a complete jerk. But that's OT, so I'll drop it ;)
I'm more than willing to help out with marketing stuff, especialyl since I don't neccesarily have the time/resources to devote to bugs/actual coding =]
Tony
