[Sugar-devel] Sugar tryout (was Re: sugarlabs.org redesign)

[David Farning]

An observation, from the outside, about marketing discussions.

Several times over the last couple of days a number of marketing
related posts have started, "I think we should...." Another, possibly
more productive approach, might be to engage Sean, the marketing
expert, in a discussion about why he thinks the way he does:)

The premise is to build on each other's strengths which minimize the
effects of individuals weakness.

On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 4:20 PM, Sean DALY <sdaly.be at gmail.com> wrote:
> Daniel - you mean the main download page [1], right? Not the VirtualBox page
> [2]?
>
> These and other wiki pages are indeed long and complex. We could break those
> out into a dozen subpages to keep each one manageable. This problem was
> meant to be solved by the new website template designed to replace the
> static main site.
>
> I believe Bernie has a stat tool for pages including the static main site, i
> remember seeing a report where traffic was like a thousand times more than
> usual after one of our press releases in the past.
>
> Conversion rate will both improve and remain very marginal as we streamline
> the existing structure since we haven't had press coverage for some time.
> I'm all for measuring, the number can only go up. However, without even
> measuring anything, there can be no doubt that every extra click will cost
> us downloads when we get press coverage rolling again.
>
> The best way to do it is to propose a default pair of pancake buttons
> (SoaS/VM) based on the visitor's OS and language, and hide the complex lists
> under an "other systems and languages" link. Adobe (Flash, Reader) and OOo
> do it like this.
>
> VirtualBox: I believe the installer autoconfigures itself for language
> (around 20 langs) after first screen in English, but we need to know if our
> VMs could autoconfigure for lang/keyb and if so, how much work that is, I
> imagine the alternative being a matrix of prebuilt machines by language (for
> sure that will be work). The learning curve and resources required is why I
> want to reach out to Oracle.
>
> For SoaS, I believe it has always been default US-en lang/keyb, we'd have to
> ask Peter if a reasonably simple solution for multiple languages is
> available - ideally, a language setup screen when first run.
>
> Sean
>
> 1. http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/DocumentationTeam/Try_Sugar
> 2. http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/VirtualBox
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 8:11 PM, Daniel Narvaez <dwnarvaez at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Of course I agree with you that less barriers the better but I think we
>> need to pick our battles. With current state of the downloads page I'd
>> expect the conversion rate to near the 0%. It takes a *lot* of extra clicks
>> to achieve the same.
>>
>> I propose that we
>>
>> * Rewrite the downloads page offering *simple* instruction only for Soas
>> and Virtualbox.
>> * Keep the current page somewhere on the wiki, prominently linked, it's
>> fine for techies.
>> * Start measuring conversion rate. I suspect we don't have a way to count
>> the number of users that managed to reach the Sugar home. But measuring
>> completed downloads would be a start.
>> * Gradually get rid of as many barriers as possible and see how the rate
>> is affected.
>>
>>
>> On Friday, 8 November 2013, Sean DALY wrote:
>>>
>>> Of course it doesn't stop us from marketing, but it adds two extra
>>> hurdles for teachers to deal with (the GPL VirtualBox installer + the PUEL
>>> extension pack necessary for passthrough USB support). So techies won't
>>> care, but I guarantee a percentage of teachers will. It's a well-documented
>>> axiom of internet marketing that you lose up to 50% of prospects with every
>>> additional click - this is precisely why Amazon deployed 1-click purchases.
>>> With three clicks instead of one, I hope we don't lose 20%, 30%, 50% of
>>> interested teachers. After all, there's already a barrier: the huge size of
>>> the downloads.
>>>
>>> It's obvious given our limited resources we need to evaluate our most
>>> resource-effective ways of publishing prepared VMs. This is what I had in
>>> mind about approaching Oracle. But we need to try to maximize our potential
>>> conversion rate without additional hoops. I'd be happy with anything over
>>> 10% (software/SaaS average rate is roughly 7% [1]), and we won't even be
>>> gating the download in a contact form.
>>>
>>> My proposal two years ago to make VMs the preferred method for teachers
>>> to try Sugar met with opposition from Peter and others who preferred SoaS.
>>>
>>> Sean
>>>
>>> [1]
>>> http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/chart/average-website-conversion-rates-industry#
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 5:49 PM, Daniel Narvaez <dwnarvaez at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Do we really need a single installer? I mean I see it would be ideal but
>>>> it feels like it might be tricky licensing, implementation and maintenance
>>>> wise.
>>>>
>>>> From what I understand from Thomas, after installing VirtualBox, it's
>>>> just downloading and clicking on an icon (I should really try it but I'm on
>>>> a bad connection these days). It might not be perfect but it doesn't really
>>>> sound bad, what is stopping us marketing Sugar this way really?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Friday, 8 November 2013, Sean DALY wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Not only doable, has been done for some time now [1,2] and is
>>>>> multi-platform (& what I use to demo Sugar on a Mac)
>>>>>
>>>>> The Oracle PUEL license [3] very interestingly permits free
>>>>> redistribution for educational purposes, opening the possibility of a single
>>>>> installer, ideal for our needs.
>>>>>
>>>>> In the past I have suggested approaching Oracle for a marketing
>>>>> partnership under a CSR (corporate social responsibility) banner.
>>>>>
>>>>> Sean
>>>>>
>>>>> 1. http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/VirtualBox
>>>>> 2. https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Creation_Kit/VirtualBox
>>>>> 2. https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/VirtualBox_PUEL
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 1:25 PM, Gonzalo Odiard <gonzalo at laptop.org>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> At least the virtualbox looks doable and a good way to show Sugar.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Gonzalo
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 9:44 PM, Daniel Narvaez <dwnarvaez at gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Thursday, 7 November 2013, Sean DALY wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> The larger problem is the absence of a marketing strategy, we need
>>>>>>>> to know where we are going to communicate effectively. In particular, we
>>>>>>>> need to choose and implement how to offer Sugar tryout to teachers and
>>>>>>>> journalists.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I can think of a couple of approaches
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> * Get Sugar running well on the CuBox-i. Find budget to buy a few of
>>>>>>> those to distribute to chosen journalist and teachers. Try to partner with
>>>>>>> SolidRun to offer Sugar as an out-of-the-box installation option.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> * Make it easy to run Sugar inside VirtualBox on Windows and OS X.
>>>>>>> Without having investigated too deeply it seems that a two step process
>>>>>>> would be both realistically implementable and easy enough for the user
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 1 Install virtualbox
>>>>>>> 2 Install a Sugar application (which would take care of setting up
>>>>>>> the appliance).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thoughts? Other ideas? If we can agree on one or two concrete,
>>>>>>> realistic approaches, I think we can at least attempt to get them done for
>>>>>>> 3.102.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>> Daniel Narvaez
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> Marketing mailing list
>>>>>>> Marketing at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>>>>>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/marketing
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Daniel Narvaez
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Daniel Narvaez
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Sugar-devel mailing list
> Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>



-- 
David Farning
Activity Central: http://www.activitycentral.com