A point of view about Ubuntu marketing

[Raval]

Ubuntu’s goal is to be the most popular desktop OS for humans. But new versions of Ubuntu, like most Linux distros, are still marketed towards Linux geeks. They’re concerned with technology, trumpeting version numbers and drowning out the actual things you can do with their software. We’re picking on Ubuntu specifically because it has higher goals than most distros - it’s Linux for human beings, not Linux for hackers. Unfortunately, the release announcements have forgotten what humans care primarily about: themselves.
Let’s fix that, by looking at how the 7.10 announcement could be improved.


http://blog.gobanquet.com/index.php/why-ubuntu-804-needs-better-marketing/

[hhhhhx]

i see you point, but i like it the way it is. ubuntu gives me what i want. i don't want it to turn into a windows, or a mac. I like that i can destroy my system with one command :lolflag:

[tgalati4]

Or that there are at least 7 ways to destroy your system (or your Dad's) with one command.

For those who used Red Hat back in the day, Ubuntu has come a long way to making Linux easy to use.

Perhaps you are thinking of a new distro: Chibuntu: Linux for Chimps!

[madjr]

Ubuntu’s goal is to be the most popular desktop OS for humans. But new versions of Ubuntu, like most Linux distros, are still marketed towards Linux geeks. They’re concerned with technology, trumpeting version numbers and drowning out the actual things you can do with their software. We’re picking on Ubuntu specifically because it has higher goals than most distros - it’s Linux for human beings, not Linux for hackers. Unfortunately, the release announcements have forgotten what humans care primarily about: themselves.
Let’s fix that, by looking at how the 7.10 announcement could be improved.


http://blog.gobanquet.com/index.php/why-ubuntu-804-needs-better-marketing/


Ubuntu should still be marketed to at least the tech savvy.

migrating fully to Linux is still hard, specially with the internal hardware and peripheral. Many Geeks have problems, imagine chimp people..

Ubuntu may not work out of the box for you like a mac does.

macOS can be marketed to non-geeks simply because it comes pre-installed in 100% compatible hardware.

while Ubuntu 8.04 will come with wubi and make installation for windows users even easier, many will still face hardware incompatibility. oh and don't forget how buggy Ubuntu can be, but hopefully for hardy there might be less bugs (i hope)....

right now is impossible to market the "live-Cd" to non-tech savvy people...

As of now the ony way to market ubuntu to non geeks is marketing the Full systems (Dell Ubuntu laptops, system76, zareason, etc )

But even pre-installed you would still have tons of problems, migration is a hard deal and can take months for a new user to fully migrate, tech oriented people will take the challenge but others would just stick or go back with what they have now.

thats why i posted this, so at least people can find and purchase the peripherals that will work for them (probably the 1 of the 3 worst problems people deal with). http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=718573

[Sef]

migrating fully to Linux is still hard, specially with the internal hardware and peripheral.

Not all hardware works with Mac or Windows, and the same situation exists for GNU/Linux.


Ubuntu doesn't work out of the box like a mac.

Pre-installed vs. install yourself is a red herring. You are comparing apples and oranges.

[Vadi]

Ubuntu cannot afford full-out marketing.

That's why we need to market it ourselves. Word of mouth, even in the internet, is the cheapest and best marketing ever. If you wanna help, start getting userbars, sigs, & just mentioning ubuntu in random places.

That said, I loved reading that blog post. Excellently written.

[zmjjmz]

Anyone who has a Facebook or Myspace account should spread some Compiz-Fusion videos...
Cheap marketing.
(Get them interested, then explain it... Don't just show them the video and link them to the website, most people can't figure it out on their own)

[MadsRH]

I'm working on a cover for Hardy Heron. I wanted to create a non-geek version and this is what I got so far:

http://anotherubuntu.blogspot.com/2008/03/hardy-heron-cover.html

Please post feedback to the text!

MadsRH

[sicofante]

Nice covers. Nice vision of the OP too.

My two cents: use either names or version numbers but not both at the same time or in the same place. It's confusing. If I had to choose, I'd use version numbers. People already understand what "version 1.0" means. It's a geeky idiom that has crossed the line and now the general public understands it (it's even used in mainstream advertising for some non-computer products). Codenames, while cute, are geeky.

EDIT: I'm sorry, but if Canonical wants to get along without marketing, it can't expect a great success. Exactly the same as everyone else trying to sell anything to anyone. Please remember Canonical is a company and it's selling services. If Ubuntu is not widely adopted, they simply won't succeed. (I'm asking myself in other post who are they really targeting, BTW.)

[Sef]

I'm sorry, but if Canonical wants to get along without marketing, it can't expect a great success.

Word of mouth is the best marketing.

[Barrucadu]

Word of mouth is very good, and this comic is very appropriate:

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/marketing_interview.png

[Vadi]

"office functions"? Sure, it does do those... but an "office suite ... out of the box" is way better, don't you think?

"restart" meep, bad, people on windows are used to "reboot", not restart. Same for the 2nd restart used.

As for the rest - poke the guy that wrote that ubuntu 8.04 needs better marketing, see what he says :)

[sicofante]

Word of mouth is the best marketing.
Really?

You mean companies spending millions in marketing and advertising (and making millions in return) are wrong?

Linux is 16 years old -read again: 16 years old-. Version 0.01 doesn't count? OK. Let's put it 14 years old. That's an eon in computing history, and where are we? Word of mouth has been working at least since the early days of the internet, let's say, more than 10 years ago, and where are we? Since when "this year is the year of the Linux desktop"? Ages. Is this -2008- the year of the Linux desktop? I don't think so.

Numbers stick to less than 1% of the market share. The ceiling is probably the number of geeks (us). More of the same won't break the barrier and bring us anywhere farther.

Naiveness is one of the cutest things about Linux, but it does not help mass adoption.

[madjr]

Really?

You mean companies spending millions in marketing and advertising (and making millions in return) are wrong?

Linux is 16 years old -read again: 16 years old-. Version 0.01 doesn't count? OK. Let's put it 14 years old. That's an eon in computing history, and where are we? Word of mouth has been working at least since the early days of the internet, let's say, more than 10 years ago, and where are we? Since when "this year is the year of the Linux desktop"? Ages. Is this -2008- the year of the Linux desktop? I don't think so.

Numbers stick to less than 1% of the market share. The ceiling is probably the number of geeks (us). More of the same won't break the barrier and bring us anywhere farther.

Naiveness is one of the cutest things about Linux, but it does not help mass adoption.

oh am quoting that last part

mind if i do? :guitar:

[aysiu]

Paid-for marketing serves many purposes, but it is not as effective in terms of adoption as word of mouth.

Paid-for marketing in the form of television, radio, print, billboard, and other commercial advertisements brings about product recognition. It gets people thinking about the product and recognizing it exists. Ask people what an iPod is, and they can tell you. Ask people what a Cowon player is, and they have no idea what you're talking about. In this particular example, iPod has both things working for it--paid-for advertising and word of mouth recommendation (relatively very few people have experience with Cowon so cannot recommend it by word of mouth).

Ubuntu, without much advertising, has become the desktop Linux distro to contend with. Almost every Digg Linux story has to do with Ubuntu. Almost every news story recommending a Linux distro recommends Ubuntu. For a while, it was the top-clicked link at DistroWatch, and Ubuntu has worked out preinstalled deals with Dell for various countries around the world, all without paid-for advertising.

And Linux is making serious inroads into home use through the Eee PC, which has also not used a lot of paid-for advertising. It's Asus's top-selling product.

As for the age of Linux, keep in mind that Linux, for most of its life was not intended to be the basis for a mass-market-oriented home desktop operating system. Most of the development in that 14 years of its life has been dedicated toward making it an amazingly secure and stable server platform, which is why Google uses it for its servers.

Right now, even Mark Shuttleworth does not feel Ubuntu is ready for home users, so what would be the point of having paid-for advertisements for Ubuntu? And there's no point in advertising an operating system, anyway, since most people do not install operating systems themselves. Microsoft had to advertise Vista, because people were afraid of it and wanted to stick with XP, but the computer advertisements that influence consumers are Apple advertising the Macbook Air (not Mac OS X Leopard) or Dell advertising the Dell Latitude XFR (not Windows Vista). The OS is an afterthought. People are buying computers, not operating systems.

[sicofante]

oh am quoting that last part

mind if i do? :guitar:
Please. :lolflag:

[sicofante]

Paid-for marketing serves many purposes, but it is not as effective in terms of adoption as word of mouth.
I disagree, but we seem to have no data to support our respective positions.


Paid-for marketing in the form of television, radio, print, billboard, and other commercial advertisements brings about product recognition. It gets people thinking about the product and recognizing it exists.Quite right. Don't you think Ubuntu needs exactly that?


Ask people what an iPod is, and they can tell you. Ask people what a Cowon player is, and they have no idea what you're talking about. In this particular example, iPod has both things working for it--paid-for advertising and word of mouth recommendation (relatively very few people have experience with Cowon so cannot recommend it by word of mouth).Right. Ubuntu should be to Linux what the iPod is to the MP3 players. That won't happen OUTSIDE the geeks world without proper marketing.


Ubuntu, without much advertising, has become the desktop Linux distro to contend with. Almost every Digg Linux story has to do with Ubuntu. Almost every news story recommending a Linux distro recommends Ubuntu. For a while, it was the top-clicked link at DistroWatch, and Ubuntu has worked out preinstalled deals with Dell for various countries around the world, all without paid-for advertising.
Right again, but internet buzz doesn't seem to translate well to installations. This gap must be filled and I believe paid-for marketing is the right tool.


And Linux is making serious inroads into home use through the Eee PC, which has also not used a lot of paid-for advertising. It's Asus's top-selling product.
Too early to say. Many report the Linux installation in the Asus EeePC is frequently removed and XP installed instead.


As for the age of Linux, keep in mind that Linux, for most of its life was not intended to be the basis for a mass-market-oriented home desktop operating system. Most of the development in that 14 years of its life has been dedicated toward making it an amazingly secure and stable server platform, which is why Google uses it for its servers.
OK. Let's forget about the kernel, since it's not user oriented. Gnome is 12 years old. Let's say 10 years since it's been somewhat mature. That's still too much.



Right now, even Mark Shuttleworth does not feel Ubuntu is ready for home users,Oh, I don't agree with him then. We all have family examples of the contrary. Sure we are the geeks installing and configuring the software for them, but isn't the same story with Windows? (At least for me, I've been very busy with MS products for the last 10 years...)


so what would be the point of having paid-for advertisements for Ubuntu? And there's no point in advertising an operating system, anyway, since most people do not install operating systems themselves. Microsoft had to advertise Vista, because people were afraid of it and wanted to stick with XP, but the computer advertisements that influence consumers are Apple advertising the Macbook Air (not Mac OS X Leopard) or Dell advertising the Dell Latitude XFR (not Windows Vista). The OS is an afterthought. People are buying computers, not operating systems.I do not agree. I mean, I do partially (people do know what Windows is and they usually ask me about my computers including it), but if that's so Ubuntu hasn't got a chance. People's perception of the OS's role can be changed and that's exactly what Ubuntu should do. It's OK that Dell and others install Ubuntu in their systems, but that will take just too long (have you seen any marketing from Dell's side?). If Ubuntu was properly advertised and people demanded it, you would see much more Ubuntu Dells. In other words, it's Ubuntu's responsibility to create demand for those computers, not Dell's (since they're doing quite well with their Windows "division"). I don't think there's the same opportunity now that MS had back when they made the magic deal with IBM. It won't be a top to bottom business again. Beating MS (well, beating Apple in first place) WILL take advertising, brand recognition and people's demand.

Of course word of mouth is necessary. I'm just saying it's by no means enough and it won't change the landscape for the coming years.

[Raven_Oscar]

I do not agree with topic starter at least at several points. First of all looking at current (7.10) ubuntu way of working I can't recommend it to unskilled users for SOHO market. It is just not ready to completely satisfy all user needs without reading manuals and HOWTOs for many cases. Of course end user oriented release details should exist and be easy to find but this sort of data is not major one at the moment.
As for enterprise segment of the market they need detailed release data. Probably exactly like we have now.

[Vadi]

Really?

You mean companies spending millions in marketing and advertising (and making millions in return) are wrong?

Yes, and no.

[Barrucadu]

Look at it this way.

You saw an advert on TV saying something was good but nobody you know has ever tried it. (Scenario A)
You don't see an advert in anything, but people you know say it is really good. (Scenario B)

Which scenario is more likely to get you to use said thing? B one for me, sure, I would investigate the thing if the A occured, but I am more likely to get something if I know someone who has also got one.

[sicofante]

I don't think we should try reinventing economy here. Marketing and advertising are two of the major driving forces of western economies for a reason, so I suggest we first admit the value of that and then consider if -like Aysiu suggested- it's the right time for Ubuntu or not. I think all evidences in the history of succesful products suggest proper marketing and advertising is simply unavoidable.

So the question is not "if" but "when".

[Vadi]

So the question is not "if" but "when".

Yep, and the time is definitely not yet now. (recovering is much worse than waiting. We aren't that pressed yet, and it's not like Vista is steaming ahead)

[sicofante]

Yep, and the time is definitely not yet now. (recovering is much worse than waiting. We aren't that pressed yet, and it's not like Vista is steaming ahead)
Couldn't disagree more.

First of all, Vista is of course steaming ahead when compared with anything else its age (Leopard or the latest Linux distros). I don't know what should be we recovering from in case "we" start a marketing campaign (it's Canonical who has to do that) and the pressure is exactly as much as we want.

Ubuntu wants mass adoption (removing bug #1 means exactly that). It's been four years now and the absolute growth is infinitesimal...

[Vadi]

It's not steaming ahead.

It's being pressed ahead at full scream, but the public brakes are screeching. Four years, from scratch, is nothing, when you have players who have existed for decades in the market.

[23meg]

Gnome is 12 years old. Let's say 10 years since it's been somewhat mature. That's still too much.

GNOME is 10 years old and it's been about 4 years since it's somewhat settled down and matured. And the history of people seriously thinking about the GNU/Linux platform becoming pervasive on the desktop and investing on that prospect is only slightly longer than that.

[sicofante]

OK: four years (I think we could start a big argument about how many years open source desktops have been really trying to be an alternative, but let's leave it there). So four years is not enough to start marketing a product, right? In many industries that would mean failure. In the computing industry that's definitely bordering failure.

But -and this is a big "but"- we're talking about open source here, meaning projects are modestly funded (if they're funded at all). Also meaning some projects may survive ages with just a dozen users (their own developers would be enough some times).

All that is OK, but then someone comes along with full pockets and proclaims he's here to remove bug #1, referring to Microsoft Windows. And four years after this declaration of war he still has no product to market/advertise/push? What's the message?

On the other hand, as Aysiu pointed, Linux is becoming the OS of choice for the new low cost computers (for cost reasons, mainly). Microsoft has two choices here: leaving that as is and let the people believe Linux is not good for serious desktop computing, only low end products, or just give away some version of Windows to these PC manufacturers. Either will hurt Linux if Ubuntu doesn't step forward and does something.

I say Hardy's release is a very good time to start marketing Ubuntu seriously and professionally. Ubuntu should strive to put the brand in the new breed of CLUMPCs and marketing it as the right tool for their big brothers at the same time. This is a great opportunity that's about to be lost.

[Vadi]

Word of mouth is the best form of advertising. So start working on it, just like everybody else is already.

[sicofante]

Vadi, I have no reason to doubt you're an expert in marketing and advertising, but a few solid reasoned arguments won't hurt and will train your brain. Try it.

[Jeff Rage]

Ubuntu’s goal is to be the most popular desktop OS for humans.
Is this true?

[bigbrovar]

For me word of mouth is the best way to market ubuntu .. Ubuntu is about the community and sharing ..and commercial advertisment would put a dent to that philosophy.. it might be slow and take time .. but it would evetually get there .. Ubuntu's goal is to provide a service to humanity and that msg is better served by word of mouth ... look at google and mozila .. not one advert .. u just would remember when some one told u about google /firefox.. now both are gaint in their respective fields .. one day to Ubuntu would be a Gaint.. but it wont be through Commercial avertisment

[aysiu]

It also doesn't make sense to advertise an operating system, unless (like Vista) that operating system is getting worse press than its predecessor. For example, if everyone loved and used Ubuntu 6.06 but was skeptical of Ubuntu 8.04, then it would make sense to advertise Hardy Heron.

But if that's not the case, you can't advertise an operating system to the general public. What percentage of home users do you think will back up and defragment their Windows installations, go to a website, download an .ISO, figure out how to burn it as a disk image, do a checksum on the image to make sure it didn't corrupt during download, double-check that their BIOSes are set to boot from CD first, repartition their hard drives, and then install and troubleshoot hardware compatibility issues for an alien operating system? Seriously. Think about what you're advertising.

The only products right now that it would make sense to advertise in a commercial way are preinstalled Linux systems (Dell Ubuntu, Eee PC, Cloudbook), and all of those are a little rough around the edges.

[maybeway36]

http://www.pcbsd.org/content/view/12/26/
Now here's an example of good OS marketing.

[Vadi]

http://www.pcbsd.org/content/view/12/26/
Now here's an example of good OS marketing.

I fail to see good advertising in that. Why? The website isn't much worse than Ubuntu's, and I've never heard of it until you gave the link.

I already gave my reasons; read the posts if you want. Otherwise, none of us can accomplish here anything besides talking about ubuntu ourselves if we want to.

[Forrest Gumpp]

.... What percentage of home users do you think will back up and defragment their Windows installations, go to a website, download an .ISO, figure out how to burn it as a disk image, do a checksum on the image to make sure it didn't corrupt during download, double-check that their BIOSes are set to boot from CD first, repartition their hard drives, and then install and troubleshoot hardware compatibility issues for an alien operating system? Seriously. Think about what you're advertising.

The only products right now that it would make sense to advertise in a commercial way are preinstalled Linux systems (Dell Ubuntu, Eee PC, Cloudbook), and all of those are a little rough around the edges.

I think we can accept that aysiu has described the business problem/opportunity of 'selling' Ubuntu as an operating system pretty well. So tell me what you see in this idea proposed some time ago by climatewarrior: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=4411521&postcount=15

I made a couple of posts myself trying to develop this idea here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=4419590&postcount=16 and here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=4441125&postcount=19

It strikes me as something that is potentially viable starting small, perhaps along the lines of a co-operative society under the aegis of Ubuntu. Ubuntu geek nurds helping grumpy, frustrated chimp people who have money and are very angry at MS, and making some money for free software development along the way. And in the process helping eliminate the legacy of 'prima nocta' and Ubuntu Bug #1.

There are plenty of people who can physically swap over a HDD, and/or set up HDD caddies or bays as dual boot systems who would never be so confident about performing and fine tuning an installation.

What do you think? Would it be workable?

[sicofante]

look at google and mozila .. not one advert
You're kidding, right? Google is all about advertising and they have done it extensively since its inception. Firefox put at least one full page add in an important newspaper and the banner to download it is everywhere.


It also doesn't make sense to advertise an operating system
It absolutely does. I explained this before, but I can explain it again. People DO ask for Windows when buying a computer (please remember I sell computers for a living). I could tell them to install Ubuntu instead (and believe me, I do), but they aren't aware about it and they are afraid I'm being a bit too enthusiastic. Public awareness won't appear magically and won't reach the general public via word of mouth among geeks. The computer industry is very aware about Linux and Ubuntu, but that doesn't reach the general public.

Part of the marketing campaign for an OS like Ubuntu is making people first understand that Windows or Mac OSX is not the computer itself, and that the same computer can do different things (or the same things in a better way) with a different OS. Anyone can understand that.

And no, it shouldn't be the goal of a good campaign to make people rush to download sites. Ordinary people do not install their own OS and many times they don't even install software. The campaign must provide awareness and make the general public ask for Ubuntu to their ordinary technology suppliers.

Justr for fun, and right out of my mind:

"Did you know your computer can be safer? Try Ubuntu. No viruses. It's free."

"A different operating system can make
your current Windows or Mac computer much better. Ask your provider and try Ubuntu. It's free."

"In less than 30 minutes, your computer will have everything you need for your everyday work, leisure and usual computing tasks. Try Ubuntu. It's free."

Put a grave voice over, use some nice graphics and animations, maybe the system itself in action (Compiz is cool for this) and spread it around the internet. Don't forget a bit of traditional media, of course, but you don't need too much of that (besides, it's very expensive).

You obviously should hire true professionals to do this. (I know. Before retiring to my little village to sell computers, I was in the advertising industry for a long time.)

[caravel]

But if that's not the case, you can't advertise an operating system to the general public. What percentage of home users do you think will back up and defragment their Windows installations, go to a website, download an .ISO, figure out how to burn it as a disk image, do a checksum on the image to make sure it didn't corrupt during download, double-check that their BIOSes are set to boot from CD first, repartition their hard drives, and then install and troubleshoot hardware compatibility issues for an alien operating system?
And then turn up here screaming about not being able to install MSN Messenger or not able to find the "Internet" (IE) on their desktop? And that is just the tip of the iceberg. Well said aysiu.

IMHO Ubuntu, or any desktop Linux distribution for that matter, is not ready to be marketed as a commercial OS in competition with Windows and Ubuntu is basically free to home users anyway, so excuse me if I'm missing the whole point, but the marketing outlay would effectively be money down the drain in the short term as there would be no return? Word of mouth is best for this type of software. The Google phenomenon spread across the world through word of mouth, that is clever marketing. These days people don't search the web, they "google" it.

The last thing Ubuntu needs is a horde of new users descending on the OS based on misleading advertising. It's all well and good posting screenshots or videos of compiz around and about, but is one bit of fancy desktop special effects going to be the only aspect of Ubuntu worth shouting about? That seems very superficial.

The beginners forum is always full of those trying to get compiz working so that they can have a look at the desktop cube, that they've seen elsewhere (word of mouth). They make a handful of posts and are never heard of again. From my perspective I found that the desktop cube amused me for all of 10 minutes before all of the desktop effects were disabled and never to be enabled again. To get to the stage of getting the cube running is often difficult especially if you can't get your ATI graphics card working in the first place or have never touched the command line before.

The one good side of it is that it does draw people in and a small percentage of those will see beyond compiz and realise that there is more to Linux than meets the eye. This is good, but it could also backfire badly in that Ubuntu may end up being seens as "the OS you need to get to run the desktop cube thingy".

Just my two pence worth.

[iSplicer]

Word of mouth is the best marketing.

+1