[ubuntu-marketing] FOSS Cell phones as marketing opportunity

[John Botscharow]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Wed, 11 Jun 2008 08:53:33 +0200
Tord Jansson <tord.jansson at gmail.com> wrote:

> My comments on John's suggestion:

And my comments to your comments follow your comments one at a time L0L
> 
> 1. I don't think users of a FOSS phone are more likely than anyone
> else to try out Ubuntu since a phone is a totally different device.
> Are Tivo owners more likely to try Ubuntu? I don't think so. Users of
> netbooks etc might be a more approachable market if their appliance
> has some overlap in the application space with normal Ubuntu so they
> are more alike.

First of all, what Apple already and Google soon are releasing is not a
phone, but a mobile internet device. Calling it a phone is like calling
a computer a word processor or a calculator. 

Second, let me use an analogy: you buy an mp3 player for your kid - or
for youself - and what do you need to keep the music on your mp3 player
current and suited to your own tastes? A computer. These new products
are like Internet mp3 players, and people will need computers, if they
don't already have one, to talk to their "mp3" players. Now go read
Ruben's post in this thread. He sees the same thing I see and has a
very neat explanation. No need for me to reinvent the wheel.
> 
> 2. Getting a list of the users sounds like shady practice and
> contacting them would probably be considered spamming. A better
> approach could be to contact producers or cell network operators and
> get them to contact their customers. They could send some offer with
> the bill or send an MMS for free to the device so it would be quick,
> cheap and easy for  them and the offer would come from a more trusted
> entity. In my experience they are often eager to give their customers
> perks of all kinds.

Read my earlier reply to Cory on this. That suggestion was a joke, but
as I said to him, if we REALLY wanted to, there are marketing trade
journals, published by VERY reputable organizations, that have ads for
all kinds of lists you can buy of contact information for all kinds of
consumer demographics. I am sure there are lots of lists that would
meet our needs for a project like this.
> 
> 3. Getting producers and operators to work with us would not be easy. 
> Big companies do business with big organizations, not a loose band of 
> volunteer marketers. They would have to be presented a win-win
> scenario of some sort and we would need to make damn sure that none
> of their customers get a bad experience (like accidentally wiping out
> their Windows partition), these companies are VERY afraid of badwill!
> They could possibly make a deal with Canonical, but not the marketing
> team itself. We could possibly draw up a strategy and make
> preparations and then suggest it to Canonical. Alternatively somebody
> with good connections could present a well thought out and packaged
> case to someone inside the company who wants to climb the corporate
> ladder by showing initiative.

NOTHING  is ever easy. Putting together the original version of Ubuntu
probably was a daunting task as well. But it got done, because people
decided to do it. 
> 
> 4. In order to even get anywhere with something like this we do need
> a track record. We need to get an organization formed, a website up
> and running and get a track record doing smaller things very
> successfully for at least 1-2 years. Let's start with easier things,
> not go for the biggest challenges right away.

We do this in small pieces like a puzzle. Marketing has to be
integrated, piece by piece. Any one marketing project has to be a part
of an integrated whole. By taking on a long-term project like this, it
gives us long-term direction, a purpose. 
> 
> So, in short I think this could be a viable approach a few years down 
> the road once we have established the Marketing Team as a serious
> player and hopefully have some more experience, organization and
> resources.

One of the greatest sins of failure is procrastination. A few years
from now will be too late. For a change, let's beat Microsoft to the
punch.
> 
> That being said I don't think it necessarily would be any bad idea to 
> approach FOSS product owners in a small grass root kind of way.
> 
That's what I had in mind. The team does the research, puts together
the marketing materials, lays out some marketing campaigns of varying
degrees of sophistication, and provides support of various kinds to any
LoCo that decides to do this.


- -- 
Peace!

John
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFIT7AmsTN+hz1Fu7URAk/FAJ9e6yTX0ak4ay6Nv15vW67c8l1YsACg+XN5
6xqSlcHrTi4/FNWcDUAIw+o=
=fWSq
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----