From owner-freebsd-advocacy Thu Mar 25 9:34:51 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from o-o.org (o-o.org [207.252.201.100]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 33F4A14BDB for ; Thu, 25 Mar 1999 09:34:41 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from licia@o-o.org) Received: from localhost (root@localhost) by o-o.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id LAA18653; Thu, 25 Mar 1999 11:34:05 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from licia@o-o.org) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1999 11:34:04 -0600 (CST) From: Licia To: Donald Wilde Cc: freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Is there a "how did you hear about us?" form on www.freebsd.org? In-Reply-To: <36FA6934.8F97D4A1@thuntek.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Thu, 25 Mar 1999, Donald Wilde wrote: > Licia wrote: > > > > Preparing my own little advocacy efforts again, I stopped to wonder, is > > there any section on the www.freebsd.org web site, install process, etc, etc > > that asks someone how they heard about FreeBSD? > > > There will definitely be such on the web site. I have a problem with the > install process registration as it stands (IMHO), because most of the > time I'm installing, the systems are not direct-wired to the net. > Perhaps we can improve that (and include your suggestion) to include a > little cron job that checks to see if we're online and then sends the > registration stats. That's better than a direct mailer, because we don't > want newbies getting nasty mesages for 5 days from sendmail. :-) > The install process registration has made me wonder too. Would it be possible perhaps to offer a "print this out and mail it in" registration for people without usable internet connections? I would also like to see options as far as people registering how many cpu's they have it installed on, what versions, etc... I don't think this code would be too hard to add if people were amenable. The hard part would be deciding what information to request :) > > I'd personally be interested to know how much effect things I do have. > > For example, I believe the pens and business cards to be effective, but once > > I distribute them I have no idea if people are following the urls to the web > > site. When I place the news paper ads, it would be nice if there were some > > way to track response from them if for no other reason, than to simply be able > > to figure out where my money is the most effective. (Should I buy more pens, > > or place more newspaper ads type decisions would be vastly helped.) > > > I want to put a pretty Webalyzer graphic page on the site, or something > similar. > > > If there aren't any sections but others are interested, I'm sure I can > > manage to write any needed CGI to handle the counting, if people don't mind > > CGI written in plain old C. :) > > > Offer accepted. My personal preference is C++, but the Powers That Be > have made a very sensible suggestion that most of our volunteers will > want to code in Perl, and it's obvious they are right by the increase in > support since I announced that fact. :-) I don't see the problem with a > mixture, especially for sub-projects that are distinct in themselves. > (chuckles) Well, I don't really care for perl or C++ personally, but I am fairly familiar with C, and more than happy to do what I can in that area, if there are specific tasks that need done :) > Since I just started last weekend, it will take a while to get a handle > on how to structure the website development effort. I'm pushing for a > separate ../advocacy machine, so we can work without stomping either > Christopher Mann's or Wolfram Schneider's toes. Your inputs are highly > valued, inasmuch as a) they're pertinent and sensible and b) you have a > history of following through. ;-D > I think a separate machine is a good idea, really although I would suggest working with them to keep all the sites as uniform and clean as possible. Just my own bizzare preferences I suppose, but I always think a uniform layout to a group of web sites seems more... professional... (chuckles) I know a lot of people who would argue with point A, and as for point B, well I can say without a doubt, it's just more -fun- to do something than to just talk about it :) > > Also I'm sorry if this question has been asked before, but are statistics > > available as to the traffic to www.freebsd.org? Is the traffic of a level > > Ask Wolfram Schneider, wm of FreeBSD.org. (wosch@freebsd.org) As I said > before, I'd like to see it visible and colorful. > (nods) good idea, he probably knows ;) I'd like to see it be used as a tool some how... if not in the form of small banners, then perhaps as a way of getting some firmer idea of actual 'active user' numbers? > > where it could be used to induce vendors to recognize FreeBSD? (i.e. 'label > > your product as FreeBSD Compatible/whatever and we can give you a small > > banner, for x number of views?' Please no flames, I know people hate banners, > > but I do think it's a significant enough source of influence, especially as > > targeted as it is, to be of use in promoting FreeBSD.) > > > We're going to do a LOT more on the branding issue, including more > visibility for our commercial supporters. We're not ashamed that FreeBSD > can be used to make money and we'll all benefit, although homepage > banners probably won't fly. More likely clickthrough logos on the > revamped gallery section. > The lameness of my graphical ideas aside, I do think this is a good idea. When I begin getting software released publically that's worth of it, I will make sure to brand the heck out of it. :) I think it's a GREAT thing that FreeBSD can be used to make money, to bring life to old equipment, to teach people skills that can get them good paying jobs... (getting ideas for a couple of articles) Any idea where to do research on third world countries? I'd love to investigate ways FreeBSD could use their older equipment to bring them a bit more into the online world and economy :) [ licia@o-o.org ] [ http://www.o-o.org/~licia/ ] [ Alias : Ladywolf] [ Telnet to o-o.org and log in as bbs ] [ ssh -l bbs -C o-o.org ] [ A happy user of FreeBSD : http://www.freebsd.org/ ] main(){int num[4]={1768122732,762265697,1919889007,103};printf("%s\n",num);} To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message