My Thoughts in General I just got back from South Africa and visited the Western Cape. I was pleased to see all the Internet cafes there are using Openoffice and Open Source products when ever possible. One Internet cafe owner expressed that the major problem is that kids come in asking for MS Office mainly because that is the program they are being taught in the schools. She told me that MS implements programs in schools and educates teachers on how to teach MS Office to Kids.
Here are many other types for pre-press printing applications used as "Word Templates": http://www.avery.com/us/Main?action=software.BlankTPLHierarchy&catalogcode=WEB01&node=0 and there are all types of other custom made Word templates used for printing. I think we should think of these templates in the grand scheme of things not just "label templates" I say this because label templates has gotten all the attention lately. I think the general battle (concept) of converting folks from MS to OO is good, but I think the real battle is between Word and Writer. I mention this because there are 3 major fronts to attack MS and I think the Word front is ignored a little too much in general and might be more important for converting folks to OO. The third front is "templates" Searched in Yahoo in January (Google you can triple these numbers) 155160 for "Microsoft office" 8000 for "MS office" 7700 for "office Template" and then a whole lot of combinations of words 146000 for "Microsoft Word" 7200 for "Word Template" 6000 for MS word and then a whole lot of combinations of words The above numbers are sqwed a lot for MS Office as I would bet the majority of searching for Microsoft Office are in fact folks looking for info on Word. LABEL TEMPLATES ON THE AGENDA We put up a4 sizes for Europe and Asia. http://www.worldlabel.com/Pages/openoffice-a4.htm We want all Openoffice.org users to have the benefit of quick access to label templates. We are adding an additional 40 a4 sizes to this list. The complete collection of templates can be downloaded here including European/Asian a4 sizes: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ooolabels/ We also put up templates for Draw: http://www.worldlabel.com/Pages/openoffice-templates.htm Template in terms of usage numbers: The most used label software program by far worldwide is Word® label templates generally available from Avery.com blank template gallery. The number of searches for terms with and related to "label templates" out number terms for "label software" 5 to 1 in the Search Engines. For your info during month Jan, approx 200000 searches for terms with and related to label templates in USA and Canada on Yahoo and Google network. Worldlabel.com comes up no 1 or 2 for all terms related to label template searches in all the SE. In 2005 the main label template page on Worldlabel had approx 1,019,000 unique visitors enter, busier than my homepage. I am working on getting the OO label template page to come up No 1 across the board as I think it can help with movement to OO. Regarding the Label Wizard in Openoffice.org: The big problem with it and Word has the same problem is most folks do not have a product number and almost all ways look for labels by size or types first. So in almost every case the wizard is hopeless. Another thing is for some reason a lot of folks don't know the label wizard exists, hence all the search engine activity looking for templates. Folks who work in offices and print labels often tend to understand the wizard better. To create your own template in the wizard is a nightmare for the average user and sometimes even for experienced users it can take forever. This is the area I would like to discuss regarding Worldlabel.com sizes being listed in next version. Having the templates in the wizard open up by searching for label size would really make it user friendly. >From a political standpoint as far as Worldlabel.com is concerned, the wizard >is basically Avery Dennison Corp with all their products and affiliates >products listed helping them remain a monopoly. Avery's Fasson division is the largest raw label stock manufacturer in the World and supplies the materials to all the other Manufacturers listed in the Wizard for converting into finished products. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION I think Openoffice.org can improve its positioning in the search engines, especially in Google for very important Keywords. Right now if one searches for Word Processor - plural and single, Text Editors, Word, Microsoft Word and several other keywords, Openoffice does not show up in top 10 or not at all. Some of the pages on Openoffice can be optimized for these words or new pages created which would be dedicated to those words. The increase in traffic will be enormous if OO takes this SEO into consideration. Just wanted to share this all with you Regards Russell
