Re: [HACKERS] Toward A Positive Marketing Approach.

On Thu, May 18, 2006 at 01:32:51PM -0700, Michael Dean wrote:
> Greetings Guys
>
> As a newbie person moving away from my technical background to
> marketing, I think a refreshed course for pg is needed! So far I
> have read all 5000 or so of this month's emails and want to make a
> few remarks IMHO:

I'm removing -hackers and leaving in -advocacy, where this discussion
belongs.

> 1. We should treat all marketing efforts by hackers/programmers as
> social bugs. Get some marketing pros (debuggers) in on this, or the
> popularity of postgresql will continue to pale in the real world.

I disagree with the premise of this assertion. The popularity of
PostgreSQL, far from "paling," is increasing by leaps and bounds all
over the world. It's increasing faster than any other DBMS in quite a
few places.

> 2. Reward ISP's who newly support postgresql. Give them free links,

Partly done. As we find hosting providers who support PostgreSQL,
they go on the http://www.postgresql.org/support/professional_hosting
pages. Perhaps this should take a little less digging from the front
page than it currently does, as it is not totally obvious to the
end-user of the web site that they should follow the Support link to
find out about hosting.

> somehow give them free expertise, give them focused help so that
> offering postgresql to their customers will not end up in disaster
> as in the past.

I'll stack <irc://irc.freenode.net/postgresql> and the mailing lists
against any support system, free or otherwise.

> Less than 4% of ISP's worldwide support postgrsql. WHY?, if pg is
> SO GOOD, and SO MUCH BETTER???

It's perfectly explicable in terms of first-mover advantage and
marketing muscle. While the first-mover advantage can fade over time,
PostgreSQL is likely to dominate in marketing muscle any time soon.
There are other considerations, too. How many ISPs support Oracle or
DB2? That's the space we're in.

> 3. Reward existing FOSS projects that make sensible provision to
> accomodate postgresql in preference to other more "commercial" db's.
> Free links, mention in newsletter, listing on websites, whatever it
> takes to start pulling other open source communities behind postgresql.

We already do this!

> A good example is bitweaver.org, a great integration project, very
> professional, helpful to small businesses, but needs some promotional help.
>
> 4. Stop being too cheap. Money Talks!

What money?

> Offer to PAY premiums to major OSS aps who don't do pg, or don't do
> it well enough. Like Compierre, like Drupal. Ask me if i would
> contribute $1000 to pg.org if the money (guaranteed) went to get MY
> chosen favorite programs totally in postgresql, even if forks were
> necessary? How many others DON'T contribute because they fail to
> see a coherent, systematic program of promotion, just more of the
> same, free linuxworld booths and bof's year after year, no affinity
> to the commercial realities out there.

We've *just* gotten an organization together where people can
contribute money after years of effort forming a 501(c)3 came to
nothing. Please to have a little patience. Better still, join up.

> 5. Make it easy, NOT hard, to come to postgresql. Provide a
> decision-tree selection software for ALL databases which is vendor
> neutral.

Why hasn't Oracle provided such a thing? MySQL? I admire the
sentiment, but it seems unlikely to me that there is ever going to be
a "vendor neutral" decision tree because every vendor considers
different things "absolutely crucial, must play an early part in the
selection process."

> 6. Offer to assist nerwly popular university based applications
> around the world, such that they authomatically choose postgresql to
> base their software on. A good example, the educators who wrote
> LAMS, adopted a sensible database approach, but then went solely
> with mysql.

With what resources?

> 7. Provide marketing based brochure models licensed in the creative
> commons which is something more than a mere enumeration of pg
> features.

Already done. If you don't like the current ones, are you willing to
(commit resources to) edit the current ones and/or write new ones?

> 8. Stop mentioning mysql in every breath. It serves them, not pg.
> After all, mysql must be better, or why would these folks at pg be
> so specifically, vociferously and universally concerned! talk only
> about pg, make comparisons to the whole field of db's, don't single
> anyone out!

Great idea.

> I would be willing to bet that a bounty of just $50 would be enough
> to influence major and minor FOSS projects to give pg major support.

> Anyway, this is from the heart, I know many persons will be outraged
> at this upstart coming out and saying these things, but then again,
> I like to live dangerously and I am not required to attend Java100.

As every volunteer project does, we've got plenty of people who are
full of suggestions. If you're one of that rare few who is also
willing to roll up your sleeves and work, you're a welcome addition to
the community :)

Cheers,
D
--
David Fetter <david(at)fetter(dot)org> http://fetter.org/
phone: +1 415 235 3778 AIM: dfetter666
Skype: davidfetter

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