On 10/25/07, alan c <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > What does it take to create a new user, and how long is that process?
Good question. Trying a new OS and new browser have different barriers. A browser can be downloaded and installed in a few minutes and requires no significant actions that a typical user has not already done before. Trying a new OS requires a multiple hour download (in my case it can take about a day to download an ISO image), followed by burning an ISO to cd or dvd. Then booting from that disk. Once you have the browser up things are largely the same and the navigation can be 'intuited'. Once you've booted Ubuntu there are likely to be some technical hurdles remaining - at least one of sound, video, or wireless settings are likely to have been detected incorrectly and or require additional setup work - tasks a technical user can accomplish eventually (albeit with some annoyance) but other users will have to forgo or get someone else to figure it out. For a web browser, the only technical barrier you will probably find that you need to install flash again, but there is an easy an obvious method to do so, same for other plugins. Trying the new browser can be done fairly easy and just by playing with it. It will also have some immediately obvious benefits (or did) - such as speed of browsing, and security. For Ubuntu - in the first hour of playing with it might discover that it comes with some free packages that their regular OS doesn't come with (although most applications asside from OO they are unlikely to know whether it will be of any use to them). It will also probably discover that you can't play mp3s and dvds (yes I realize the legal and technical issues, and that it can be rectified relatively easily with the right knowledge). Also since they are probably running it from a live CD, it will also be perceptively slower than their usual OS for most tasks. So the risk and value profiles are drastically different - a new OS has high time and technical risk; and no immediately obvious value and many immediately obvious detriments. >From a marketing perspective this is not easy to sell :) Depending on the market you wish to target there are some things that can greatly improve things - but I'll cover that in another email. LetterRip -- ubuntu-marketing mailing list [email protected] Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-marketing
