Eric, I largely agree with you, yet when communicating with others in business I do get strange looks, perhaps that I may be a little crazy. This is a real issue, even my closest friends and families wonder if I am obsessing over the three year olds game. But I believe we need to keep what we have and pivot to a second professional presentation of TiddlyWikis capabilities.
As a result I already say the "tiddlywiki platform" and this seems good enough for me. Interestingly whilst I am happy to be forthright with people it as a open source solution, unless I am talking to another IT professional, I may just call it an "open source, rapid software development platform", the business users usually don't give a dam and will not even google/DuckDuckGo it. They just need a summary from me as to what I can deliver and when. Perhaps if we had a professional "front end" or website out there that had a professional domain name which when someone arrives they see how impressive it is and a sophisticated explanation of tiddlywiki its possibilities etc... which would otherwise just confuse end users arriving at Tiddlyiki.com looking for a *"non-linear personal web notebook, website, server and smart document in one"* Thus developers, hackers, IT literate people will get the serious introduction and others the tiddlywiki world view. There is a risk that only learning about a "non-linear personal web notebook" may not be enough to catch the possibilities. We could say there are two distinct funnels into tiddlywiki designers and users. TiddlyWiki empowers users to be designers but they do not know that at first. I agree tiddlywiki fairs well as you pointed out - when exploring for wiki solutions. - If someone only partially remembers the name, but recall it is a wiki they will find tiddlywiki. but is its participation in the world of Wikis enough? Except for hyperlinking I don't really think of it as a wiki (anymore) If we adopted a "professional name" for using it as a platform and build a technical platform focused website I think we could open up the audience without loosing and search history Credits. We could promote it to a broader audience, because we can load it with technical possibilities inappropriate to tiddlywiki.com And as has being said before the existence of different editions that meet different needs will attract users to tiddlywiki in its different forms. One final point I believe, access to software such as tiddlywiki is empowering and in some ways is "democratising computers and software" giving access to non-programers. This is an approach we could do well to promote. Breaking down the barriers to making use of software for personal needs, for everyone. Regards Tony On Sunday, March 8, 2020 at 3:11:51 PM UTC+11, Eric Shulman wrote: > > On Saturday, March 7, 2020 at 5:05:36 PM UTC-8, Mark S. wrote: >> >> I think if we had stats, you'd find that basically there's about 350 >> million people >> > > If we had stats... then we would have a number... but without stats, > saying "350 million" is just an imagined number. This reminds of an old > saying: "86.3% of all statistics are made up on the spot" :) > > >> who will automatically discount a product that has a childish, >> non-serious, and embarrassing name like "Tiddly--anything". >> > > I think you are vastly overstating the "embarrassing" aspect. I suspect > that is more of a personal response on your part, rather than some general > truth. As I wrote previously: > > *REAL adults... evaluate the cost/benefit relationship to their > objectives, and adopt whatever tech makes sense to meet their goals.* > > Yes, there are PROMOTED products with childish names (e.g. Duck Duck Go, >> which has a TINY sliver of the search market) >> > > Compared to Google, *ALL* other search sites have "a tiny sliver of the > search market". As I previously noted, > https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/top-100-websites-ranking.html > shows > that DuckDuckGo.com has had a 10-fold growth in the past 5 years, and gets > 30 MILLION HITS PER DAY. While this is clearly nowhere near Google's > traffic stats, it's also clearly NOT trivial. > > But TiddlyWiki has no promotion mechanism. It's that initial "bump" that >> is the problem. People are turning away from TW >> before they know anything more because in their language the name says >> "Just a toy -- ok to ignore". >> > > Again, I think that you are vastly overstating the impact that a product > *name* has on decision-making. Sure, some people will dismiss TiddlyWiki > "before they know anything more", but I believe that most people are not > quite that shallow, especially when they are looking for potential > solutions to their needs. > > >> Yes, if there's an evangelizer in the room, they can get past that. >> > > This suggests that TiddlyWiki simply needs some more persuasive > "evangelizing"... and that doesn't necessarily mean someone "in the room". > > Consider a likely scenario: > > Someone is searching for "wiki" software. They start by searching Google > for "wiki programs". Among the top search results are several "wiki review > sites". Being somewhat jaded by internet hype, they skip over the > "advertisement" links and the first few links, which appear to be minor > sites (www.clickonf5.org) or self-promoting (www.helpiewp.com, which > lists its own HelpieWiki first!). The next Google search result is > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wiki_software > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wiki_software#Personal_wiki_software>; > and Wikipedia is generally well-regarded as having reasonably objective and > useful information (except for certain controversial topics... of which > "wiki software" is NOT!) > > On that Wikipedia page, they find that TiddlyWiki is listed TWICE: > > First, under the "javascript-based" category, where it is described as > > *"...a HTML-JavaScript-based server-less wiki in which the entire >> site/wiki is contained in a single file"* > > > TiddlyWiki is also listed again, under the "personal wiki software" > category, where is it described as > > *"...a free, open-source personal use (single-machine) wiki based on >> HTML/JavaScript for any browser and OS. It supports customization and a >> wide range of addons."* > > > Thus, from this one lookup on Wikipedia, TiddlyWiki is already > "evangelized" as: > * server-less (ease of setup) > * single file (low resource demand) > * free/open source (no expense) > * any browser and OS (cross-platform flexibility) > * customizable/addons (adaptable to a variety of needs) > > and that is just from *two sentences* on one site. Continuing down the > Google search results, the next site that seems promising is > https://www.wikimatrix.org/ <https://www.wikimatrix.org/show/tiddlywiki> > which > declares: *WikiMatrix: Compare Them All,* where you can find this page: > > https://www.wikimatrix.org/show/tiddlywiki > > which give a terse, but reasonably thorough overview of TiddlyWiki's > features and capabilities. > > Then, after reading through those two sites, you might decide to do a > Google search for "TiddlyWiki" itself to see what other sites might mention > it. > > The result includes not only a direct links to tiddlywiki.com and > classic.tiddlywiki.com, but also links to Wikipedia ( > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TiddlyWiki), OpenSource.com ( > https://opensource.com/article/19/2/tiddlywiki), GitHub ( > https://github.com/Jermolene/TiddlyWiki5), Twitter ( > https://twitter.com/tiddlywiki), and numerous other sites that review > TiddlyWiki, and are almost universally positive (or at least neutral) in > their assessments. > > Thus, with just a little bit of basic searching, TiddlyWiki presents a > very positive and encouraging impression that rapidly overcomes any > knee-jerk reaction to what may initially seem to be a silly name. > > I would need a linguist to find correspondingly diminutive forms for every >> language and/or English dialect. I can only say, >> in many parts it is EMBARRASSING to explain to people that you are using >> a product called TiddlyWiki. >> > > Once again, this seems to be an over-generalization of your own personal > feelings of *embarrassment*, rather than a clear indication of a > wide-spread reaction to the name. The use of the phrase "in many parts", > sound much like the way the current US president says "many people are > saying" when, in fact, it is often just his opinion, without much basis in > *fact*. > > And I wish everyone would quit saying "We would have to change >> everything." or "we would lose our search results." >> You don't have to change everything. You can keep the tiddlywiki.com >> site, the forum, pretty much everything except >> the publicly exposed name of the product. >> > > There have already been several suggestions of this variety, where a > "publicly exposed name" might help target specific markets, but still > reference "powered by TiddlyWiki". > > Mark... I appreciate your concerns... but -- with the utmost respect -- I > think you've gotten into a "can't see the forest for the trees" mindset > about changing the name as a panacea for the real issues. > > My sense is that the real solution to TiddlyWiki gaining more traction in > the marketplace is about creating one or more compelling "killer apps" that > fill widely-perceived, but under-served demands for a particular set of > features rather than avoiding any general aversion to the underlying > TiddlyWiki name, and that changing the name will accomplish almost nothing > in this regard. > > So... rather than expending lots of effort to re-label something that WE > already know is good, let's focus on building and promoting those killer > apps that make the benefits of TiddlyWiki even more clear to others. > > enjoy, > -e > > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TiddlyWiki" group. 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