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HOWTO Go About Marketing to Developers?
byrnereese asks: "My company has finally realized that one of the keys to our success will be to create a strong developer program (IBM's Developer Works, and Palm's PalmSource come to mind as examples). It just so happens that I have been appointed to lead this program. Now I have a lot of my own ideas, but I wanted to ask a large developer community directly the one question I know I am going to have to articulate a coherent answer to at some point: 'What is the most effective way to market a toolset, or development platform, to a developer in order to encourage them to build products using your product, without turning them off at the same time?'"
post
wheeeee
piss
1. Advertise it on slashdot 2. Call the thing "IT" 3. Tell us NOTHING about "IT" 4. Plant the idea of "IT" in the media 5. Start widespread media speculation that "IT" is the answer to everything
Just prove to me that its better than rolling my own.
Presentation, presentation, presentation.
First off: getting on the front page of /. is a good start.
Second, though it may not be popular around here: don't release the toolkit under the GPL. I'm assuming you'll want corporate developers building add-on's and whatnot for you, and Corporate America is terrified of the GPL.
The BSD license takes out the scary bits, but probably isn't a good choice either: my strong suspicion is that most corporate legal departments aren't savvy enough to note the difference, and would likely recommend steering clear of any such 'viral license' (as defined by Microsoft FUD)
This is the tool I swear by, and would actually pay some money if required.
IBM released this 40 million dollar project for free, and I believe it got to market just by a word of mouth mostly, and being free. This IDE does the job right, now other Java IDE comes even close. It is fast, great interface, and people behind it really listened to all the IDE complaints and tried fixing most of them.
http://dtum.livejournal.com
Second would be producting a GPL'd version and retaining the copyrights so it can be reused in non-open-source sales. Also selling non-GPL'd source code could be a nice side line.
M0571y H@rml355.
yep!
and free donuts
At least they should give out yellow cheetos that get your fingers yellow.
WhatMeWorry!
Well, you know what I mean.
Tell them that it leverages something. Doesn't matter what. Just use the word "leverage" a lot. Tell them that it will leverage their big fat asses.
- You don't have the first clue about making money
- You're not very bright
- You read and enjoy slashdot
Fact: You suckBring beer
Invite girls
Take us to Harrington's
Earn our respect
Margaritas, martini's, and mohitos
You should buy lots of beer
So, where's the beer?
How about that beer?
I'm thirsty
Need that beer...
Yo, where's my beer?
More beer
Eatzarie trips
Time off from work
And free beer
Lots of free beer
And don't forget about the beer
Still waiting for a beer...
Send McDowall the bill!
Linux user don't want to pay for anything. You won't turn a buck. If you make people pay for support as some here have suggested that will likely fail too for a couple of reasons:
1. Linux users pride themselves in figuring it out themselves.
2. In order for them to want to pay for support, your product would have to be almost impossible to use.
3. If you do decide to go with the almost impossible to use model, consider a command line interface only, as this as proven hugely successful for unix and linux because the geeks take pride in knowing obscure shit that most people shy away from. Make it intuitive like "ed" for example.
troll ack