Ubuntu Auctions: get cool Ubuntu items and help charity (need a designer)

[Julian Fernandes]

Hello guys,

I was talking with Mika Meskanen, leader of the user experience designers at Canonical, and a nice idea came to my mind. He offered me a rare "Ubuntu – The Human Touch" black t-shirt, from CES, and said I could keep it for me or auction it for charity.

The idea then came to my mind: why auction only this item, if I have some more Ubuntu items taking up space at my house? When I give speeches at events, I usually go home with a bunch of items that I use only to decorate my office. They are material items that I don’t mind getting rid of, for a good cause.

So I decided the create an website called Ubuntu Auctions, where I will auction those items. The idea is to auction three items every three weeks, and all the money raised will go to charity. This is still an early idea, and not even the domain is bought yet, but I’m already working on it.

In the next couple weeks I will be sending e-mails and getting the interest of more people, so we can launch it as soon as possible.

What do I need right now

I have the server ready and will buy the domain as soon as possible, but I’m not a programmer or a designer, and without those two I can’t do much. Right now I need a designer to work with me on the website’s mockups and a WordPress expert to code the whole design and implement the auction system (we could probably use an auction plugin).

If anyone wants to help with this project, or wants more information, please PM me for my e-mail address. I should also make it clear that I can’t pay for this work. It’s a voluntary work, just like what some of us do with Ubuntu.

What do you guys think about the idea? Any feedback is appreciated :)

[sanderj]

Any feedback is appreciated? Then I would say: ebay.com

The Raspberry Pi Foundation also sold its first 10 Raspi's on ebay.com ... for good money.

And it will save you the hunt for a designer, a programmer, a hoster, etc.

HTH

[sanderj]

Any feedback is appreciated? Then I would say: Use ebay.com

The Raspberry Pi Foundation also sold its first 10 Raspi's on ebay.com ... for good money.

And it will save you the hunt for a designer, a programmer, a hoster, etc.

HTH

[Julian Fernandes]

Any feedback is appreciated? Then I would say: Use ebay.com

The Raspberry Pi Foundation also sold its first 10 Raspi's on ebay.com ... for good money.

And it will save you the hunt for a designer, a programmer, a hoster, etc.

HTH

The idea is to build a website for it, so we can go viral. It will be a lot easier to go viral with an website, since we could get the link shared on Ubuntu's social networks profiles and websites like OMG! Ubuntu! and WebUpd8. That way we can raise a lot more money from the items, because there will be a lot more people seeing it

[sanderj]

OMG!Ubuntu can't link to an ebay.com item page?

IMHO going viral does not have to do with building or not building your own website.

[Julian Fernandes]

OMG!Ubuntu can't link to an ebay.com item page?

IMHO going viral does not have to do with building or not building your own website.

I just find it easier to make it viral and work the campaign with control of everything. Not to mention we will have newsletter in there, so people know when new auctions come and stuffs like that. I think it would be easier to get companies to support the website if it was actually and website, and not just an eBay page

But your eBay idea did gave me another idea. We could create the landing page for the campaign, but make the auctions on eBay. That would work too, I guess, and would save us the look for a programmer.

[sanderj]

OK. Next tip: register a domain via google.com. EDIT: See http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/domain.html

It's only 10 USD per year, and you get the hosting (and mail domain and HTML tools) for free.

That way, you should get it started in an hour or so.

[Julian Fernandes]

OK. Next tip: register a domain via google.com. It's only 10 USD per year, and you get the hosting (and mail domain and HTML tools) for free.

That way, you should get it started in an hour or so.

I already have the server ready, with Nginx (and fast_cgi), PHP-FPM, APC, Ubuntu Server and CloudFlare Pro