Slashdot Mirror
How To Spread Word About My FOSS Project?
An anonymous reader writes "I'm in a bit of a bind with an open source web software project of mine. It's a very small project that I've been developing for over three years. By now it's got a promising feature set, but very few users and virtually no community around it. The problem is that people I have asked to try it refuse to do so because it doesn't have a thriving community. It's an infinite loop: without users, we won't have a community, and without a community, users aren't coming. So, Slashdot, my question is: how can I build a community and help get the word out about a project led by 2 people and with only 5-6 regulars on our forum and IRC?"
1. Developers are king. If you could attract one more developer, your project would stand a much higher chance of success.
2. Just because you open-sourced your project doesn't mean it's useful to anyone. No matter how much we geeks don't like marketing, you have to think hard about your users: where are they, what do they care about and what do they really need?
It's normal for all new projects to languish for a while. If you think twitter was an instant success, remember that it had 2 years of null traffic before taking off. Go out and ask users what they want. Think. Then implement. Your #1 potential mistake today: feature creep. Don't think that if only you added this one more feature, the crowds would come. If anything, try to simplify things :-) and start communicating (posting on slashdot is not ideal, you should post wherever your users are, not talk to developers).
Ignoring asking about it on the Ask Slashdot section (which you intelligently avoided);
Get friendlier with the people that are interested in the project. Not just answering their questions, but actually become a friend with them. Then ask them to do the same to other people. And get friendlier with many of them. It works in real life circles and it works in computer circles - some people are just going to lose interest no matter what you do, so you're better of getting to know as many people as you know (as you're better of getting to know as many girls as possible)
Spreading word about FOSS project is actually no different than what it is in the real world. Charisma, getting people to work with you and having a reason to do so. We would all like everything to be just on mere technical terms, but it really isn't so. Learning to interact with people the best way goes a long way - in business world, in FOSS world, with girls.
If there were any info. on what the project is and where to check it out. (I realize a lot of people would have made snarky comments if that info had been included too. A regular catch 22 -- but this is a great opportunity and you should post a description and link to the project in this thread.)
Without any specifics I would think most answers are going to be just as generic. Post about it in different message boards, post about it at aggregator type sites (reddit, digg) - use twitter, facebook or whatever else might help people find out about it.
Who are the intended users? Where would those people be that you might show up and promote your project? Are their user groups that might be a good place to frequent?
Would a publication/site that deals with FOSS or whatever problem your project solves be interested in doing a write-up? Will they accept one from someone on the project or one of the users?
If it runs on Linux is it available through the package management systems of the major distros?
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
And, oh, send notes to bloggers and twitters, too. But hey, if you get Slashdotted, you're in a good zone!
1) Post a message to slashdot
2) ????
3) Profit
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
some of us might be interested in it. You've just missed your best PR opportunity yet!
You'll have people lining up overnight regardless of substance.
Try posting to freshmeat?
http://freshmeat.net/about
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
You have a crew of nerds here who are all about open source and you refer to your project as "an open source web software project of mine" and are asking for more users?! You must be new here. It's kinda sad that you didn't put it in the summary, as others pointed out before me, you really did miss out. Good luck getting it in in the comments, everybody who skims the summaries won't even see it...
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
So basically.. this is a Slashvertisement without the name of the project? Brilliant.
Like some have already said, time is your only enemy. Websites that need numbers to thrive take time. It is like a snow-ball effect, at first you'll have only 4-5 people (probably your friends), but that friend will tell the next person, and you'll be up to 10 users, and so on and so forth. Eventually it'll grow on its own without any need for intervention from your side.
./ as a way to promote, it's obvious you are - so USE IT!
My bittorrent tracker took probably 6 months before it started taking off thanks to word of mouth. Now maxed out at 8,000 users and that's only because of server limitations. Perseverence and waiting is your only choice at this point.
And remember, your only chance of making it ahead of others is offering something that nobody does, so ask yourself what *new* are you bringing to the playing field? If the answer is "not much" then I'm afraid you'll have a tough time.
And like others said, you failed to list your website, which was a big mistake - don't worry about looking like you're trying to use
The magical number is: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
That's the best thing you can do. Make it ROCK.
post a link?
Not only would that immediately incite us to click to your site, but it's helpful to us if we know what we're looking at before providing marketing advice.
Submitting this to /. is like putting up a billboard that says only, "Please check out my product."
If you'd said what it was you'd be half way there.
I like how when there is a slashvertisement, everyone bitches.
This guy sidesteps, and everyone is complaining because there isn't a slashvertisement. Oh the irony.
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
Have you tried plugging it in a Slashdot story?
Seriously, what is it?
find a similar piece of software and be helpful in their forums/IRC chanel.
When a user wants to do something that you feel your project can handle better or do easier, give yourself a free advertisement.
... when there is a slashvertisement, everyone bitches. ...
This guy sidesteps, and everyone is complaining
Also: There are people bitching about it being a slashvertisement ANYHOW. B-b
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Why would anybody want your project?
Without knowing what your project is, it's hard to say, but in the Open Source world there are probably hundreds of competitors. Make sure you stand out amongst the others in a positive way and make sure people can read about it on your project's website.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
When you get an opportunity to publicize it, try telling us what it does! Seems like that would be the best first step. FOSS is Darwin - you have to be confident that you are solving a problem, or at least solving it better than its been solved before. If you have, you'll be able tto defend against the inevitable cynicism.
http://incubator.apache.org/incubation/Incubation_Policy.html
http://incubator.apache.org/guides/proposal.html
-- The Hoss Man
Your project will have to stand on its own merits then and you will have to be focal about what those merits are. Hold talks at conferences, mention it to your friends, keep an updated blog, use FLOSS-distribution sites like freshmeat. If people are interested you will hear from them.
If that doesn't help and you are sure your project is worthwhile you should investigate in your competition, take a good unbiased look. If there are a couple of large projects with large communities that accomplish something similar make sure you differentiate yourself from them. What makes your project unique and better than the rest? Perhaps those projects have something your project doesn't. A large community may be a plus but it isn't the only reason why users pick a certain project.
If you can't make your project grow, relax and don't force the issue. If your project is truly worthwhile people will find it and the ones using your project will spread the word. If it doesn't gain popularity you can at least enjoy working on it and take pride in what you accomplish: the FLOSS community isn't a popularity-contest and there is no free car waiting for the one project that trumps the rest.
This sig is intentionally left blank
Shouldn't there be about 9 links in there to your project of shameless self promotion?
You are taking the jobs of commercial software developers.
Go and listen to the Official jQuery Podcast from 12/18/2009.
It features, Rey Bango, the Head jQuery Evangelist. He explains the how/why/what of evangelism for the jQuery project.
Excellent stuff.
http://blog.jquery.com/2009/11/13/announcing-the-official-jquery-podcast/
Hi there, I'm The Sharecash Professor. You probably know me from /b/, /k/, and /u/ on 4chan. I've recently entered into giving great advice on 4chan's most recent sections /adv/ and given excellent news on savings for participitating on /new/.
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If you want to by-pass the free questionaires because of your time or difficulty doesn't allow you to abandon the complexity and cares of your life to answer them, then just send $1 to a representive through PayPal and you'll get the content cheaper than an iTunes account.
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As everyone knows, Open Source software is the wave of the future. With the market share of GNU/Linux and *BSD increasing every day, interest in Open Source Software is at an all time high.
Developing software within the Open Source model benefits everyone. People can take your code, improve it and then release it back to the community. This cycle continues and leads to the creation of far more stable software than the 'Closed Source' shops can ever hope to create.
So you're itching to create that Doom 3 killer but don't know where to start? Read on!
The most important thing that any Open Source project needs is a Sourceforge page. There are tens of thousands of successful Open Source projects on Sourceforge.Net; the support you receive here will be invaluable.
OK, so you've registered your Sourceforge.Net project and set the status to '0: Pre-Thinking About It', what's next?
Now you need to set up your SourceForge.net homepage. Keep it plain and simple - don't use too many HTML tags, just knock something up in VI. Website editors like Expression Web and DreamWeaver just create bloated eye-candy - you need to get your message to the masses!
Since you probably can't program at all you'll need to try and find some people who think they can. If your project is a game you'll probably need an artist too. Ask for help on your new Sourceforge pages. Here is an example to get you started:
Thousands of talented programmers and artists hang out at Sourceforge.net ready to devote their time to projects so you should get a team together in no time!
So now you have your team together you are ready to change your projects status to '1: Pre-Bickering'. You will need to discuss your ideas with your team mates and see what value they can add to the project. You could use an Instant Messaging program like MSN for this, but since you run Linux you'll have to stick to e-mail.
Don't forget that YOU are in charge! If your team doesn't like the idea of giant robotic spiders just delete them from the project and move on. Someone else can fill their place and this is the beauty of Open Source development. The code might end up a bit messy and the graphics inconsistant - but it's still 'Free as in Speech'!
Now that you've found a team of right thinking people you're ready to start development. Be prepared for some delays though. Programming is a craft and can take years to learn. Your programmer may be a bit rusty but will probably be writing "hello world" programs after school in no time.
Closed Source games like Doom 3 use the graphics card to do all the hard stuff anyhow, so your programmer will just have to get the NVidia 'API' and it will be plain sailing! Giant robot spiders, here we come!
So it's been a few years, you still have no files released or in CVS. Your programmer can't get enough time on the PC because his mother won't let him use it after 8pm. Your artist has run off with a Thai She-Male. Your project is still at '1: Pre-Bickering'...
Congratulations! You now have a successful Open Source project on Sourceforge.net! Pat yourself on the back, think up another idea and do it all again! See how simple it is?
I've been involved with a project which fitted this description almost perfectly: FOSS webapp which was dependent on a community it never really had. I almost thought the question could be about it, until I visited its page to find that it's being closed down. It may sound obvious, but I think what really did for that project was that it didn't do anything people could already do. Specifically, a large part of its functionality was replicating things that Facebook did, and maybe 99% of its target users were on Facebook. Without a compelling reason to use it, it never really took off, and the developers weren't enthused enough to create the grand new features that had been planned.
Getting critical mass in the first place is hard. I wonder if there's any stories out there about how Facebook/Myspace/Twitter first got started. As others have said, you'll need to sell it to your friends first, then work at keeping them happy until they're happy to recommend it to their friends. Perhaps focus at first on the non-social aspects of the site, that don't depend on community, then be ready to shift to a more social model once you've got a couple of dozen users. An empty forum is just depressing, but some old-fashioned content is useful even for the very first visitor.
Oh, and since everyone's busy berating you for not giving the name: well done on not Slashvertising! Although I admit I'm also curious about it.
adding to the above good advices, include a link to your project's website in your forum signatures. wording and info about what it links to should ideally be as concise and short as possible.
You have to ask yourself honestly what you want to gain from starting a large community around a FOSS project. Even very small communities take a huge amount of time and effort to hold together, and it really is a lot of work. Rarely do people simply tell you what a great piece of work you've done; much more likely they will be finding fault and questioning your design decisions. If you are ready for that and genuinely see it as a way to build a better product, then great, go for it. But if your real (possibly subconscious) motivation is kudos and ego-massaging, forget it. If your project is useful to you and serves a need, that may well turn out to be good enough - if a few others also find it useful, that's a bonus. But beyond that, the overhead of support for a larger group will probably take up all your time. Is it worth it?
Are you sure a "promising feature set" translates to "solves a problem people actually have"? Or is your software a solution in search of a problem?
I would think that if you have a compelling solution to a real problem, you would be able to attract some new users and grow that community. If somebody else is already solving your problem successfully, think long and hard about whether or not your approach is different enough to warrant a new solution; if it is different enough, make your case to that software's community and see if any like-minded people are inclined to join your team. If it is not, then throw your weight behind the existing solution and help make that existing solution better.
Have good documentations, screenshots, maybe a video. A good website (cms + nice theme, maybe).
Then, wen you do big releases, poke the bloggers or news posters about it. People like to read news.
You can even poke the news-guys if you have something interesting, fun, amazing, to show.
And wen you give articles to news-guys, make these article very good. avoid spell errors, use your better english, etc.. your text must be perfect. This really help these people, and your opportunities, everyone.
-Woof woof woof!
Am I the only to think that if a project doesn't get a grip at all it's MAYBE because it is not that useful to people? In my experience, projects do benefit from a community boost, but 90% of the work is still having a useful application that people desire.
Add more chicks in bikini's
For every successful FOSS project there are
hundreds of wannabes. Most are ignored, and
rightfully so. Yours might be different... you
do have more than just yourself involved.
But so often one hears the whine, "won't someone
please join my little project" and there's just
nothing there worth looking at. Could this be you?
Hey you! Open source developer! This is your chance! Post the name of your project and pretend you posted the original question!
Actually, the real reason those people don't use your software is because it's shit. If it was worth anything, it'd be used.
From the FAQ:
UTF-8: There and Back Again
I wanted to look at your project... /. journal
- no link in the post
- no link on your blog
- no link on your
so, step 1 would be to let people know what you're working on.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
It sells.
Since this was posted as anonymous, it seems to me like anyone could say that this referred to their project...
Make it as easy as possible for users to try your software.
Take the time to create and maintain packaging for major Linux and BSD distributions. Or at least make it as easy as possible for someone to maintain a distribution package of the current stable version.
Make it easy to migrate to, and if possible, back out of again, from the popular alternative(s). Such as Import / Export functionality from popular commercial software (if there is any). In other words, as easy as possible for people to try your software.
Improve documentation. Write basic tutorials for with specific instructions for more distributions. Ensure you have a good wiki / FAQ / knowledgebase dealing with installation and usage issues that have been already reported, and keep it up to date with new issues that arise in newer releases. I hate seeing a FAQ for project X that hasn't been updated since the original 0.9 release 3 years ago.
Of course it has to be useful. Preferably better than the other free (either gratis or open-source / libre) alternatives.
Does the usefulness of the web software itself increase with an increased userbase? Look at marketing that deals with the network effect. In general, look at IT marketing, consider what would work with your target userbase, and try to go with that. How much do you know about your userbase? Market research is vital, even on FLOSS projects.
So here's the thing: He didn't even say WHAT the app did, never mind a link to the project.
Had he at least done that, he would have either been told that's it's a great idea (or not) or been told that a similar project already exists and should probably be putting his energy toward the other, already established project.
My guess is he was afraid that there was already another similar project and didn't want to be compared to it - fairly or unfairly.
Sucks, but that's usually how things go.
Make sure you've covered all the conventional bases, keep them up to date while swapping in and our aspects of your presentation and presence watching to see if something shows some pop. If you're not big on or strong in variations on themes and like to stick with "just the facts, mam" then fine but keep the facts current and accessible. You've already started on the second tier which is to ask for help from people and forums generally, the more especially where people might be sympathetic and may even participate and spread the word. Take every good idea in this thread and try it out while trying while not being pointedly intrusive in only tangentially related venues. Lastly persevere and try always to capitalise on the convergence of any two or more means of growth and exposure that compliment, or, even conflict with one another because when you do so and make others aware of convergence or conflict you're being open and informative rather than simply self promoting. And if someone "big" and "important" expresses an interest indirectly in something your product can really deliver on don't be afraid to approach them directly and confidently, just don't intrude and start bull shitting. above works for about anything, well works for me anyway. goodluck and never underestimate good timing.
ideopath @ play
Your software is likely not terribly useful, difficult to set up, and/or not as useful as something which is easier to set up. It might also be ugly compared to the competition.
You might also have an unreasonable requirement; eg. Postgresql (not MySQL, etc.) for a backend database on, say, a note/reminder application. That's a bit of a headache to setup. Poor documentation? There ya go - most people aren't intimately familiar w/ every piece of software out there and wouldn't be able to follow the sparse breadcrumbs of documentation. (Just guessing here, I don't know your project.)
Let me take gxemul, an architecture emulator (ARM, MIPS, Motorola 88K, PowerPC, and SuperH). It's got very limited utility - IE, mainly for nostalgic users, hobbyists, or possibly as a way to make cross-compilation easier (by doing it 'native'). I've used it for the latter two purposes, and it does a good enough job that I got what I needed to get done (mostly).
As far as I know, it's got a single active developer. The IRC channel has under a dozen users, with maybe 2-3 active at a time max (last I checked). Yet, as a project, it seems to do pretty well.
Something you might try: packaging your project for a couple distributions and trying to get it added, with yourself as the package maintainer. I know that awesome (the window manager) is packaged in most distros at a reasonably current version, despite its fast paced development (it's under 2 years old, as a project). Having those packages available has certainly helped spread its adoption.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Using Sourceforge's terrible search engine, I tried my best to deduce the software package of our mysterious author.
Things we know:
two developers
small forum base
three+ years old
web based
open source
Things we can assume:
on Sourceforge
fewer than 50,000 downloads
is listed as Production/Stable or Mature
After a bit of playing, I got the list down to 35 hits. Five of which list two authors on the info page
Limbas - very dated forum usage
vbDrupal - very active forum
Gerenciador Clínico Odontológico Smile - Spanish means nothing to me
Jumper 2.0 - no easy to find forum (which means I could not find it) additionally, they sell support...why make a forum easy to find if you want people to buy support?
The Vexi Platform - few regularish forum use
Given the limited info, I am concluding that the author is responsible for the creation of the Vexi Platform http://sourceforge.net/projects/vexi/
Find the people who are the target for your application and sell to them. Go to whatever blogs, forums, etc they hang out on and tell them about your application and be helpful. Like this guy says: become a part of the community, give a crap and build something worthwhile.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
Our open source project is a new an exciting social network, Pokebook.
You can check out our website at http://www.pokebook.co.uk/
You can clone our git repo from: git://libreapps.com/pokebook.git
Code Licence: MIT/X11
And here is our API documentation: http://paste.ubuntu.com/364225/
How should we improve and grow our project?
Love,
Tim xxx
Look, you aren't doing this for us, you're doing it for you. If you are doing a craftsmanlike job that's not a put down. Write software that pleases you. Make it available to others. If they could benefit from it and choose not to, that's not your problem.
"But it's all right now, I've learned my lesson well
You see, you can't please everyone, so you've got to please yourself"
Ricky Nelson, Garden Party 1972
That said, a brief statement of what the software does and a link to the project home page would not have been out of place.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Mod Parent UP!
If you spread word about your project the same way you ask the question, no wonder. You are giving no information at all. So your question turns out to be "I have a hobby, and I want other to share the same hobby". Boring. Be more specific or nobody will listen. Ever!
*US Only, Not valid in Nevada, Void where prohibited by law.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Just do like the jehova's vitness
just ask all the users you worked with during development to spread the news. What's that? You didn't actually work with your future customers while developing the software? And now you're surprised that total strangers you didn't value during development don't value your project now? Classic.
This actually happens with shareware all the time. People code up something that scratched their itch. Build a website. Find a credit card provider. Issue a press release. And then are disappointed when there are 0 sales after a month.
If you want to make software for you, go into a cave and do it, and be happy with what you get. If you want to write software for people, then you have to work with (surprise!) people. The payback is, the first day the software ships, you already know it's useful to others, you already have a user community, and they are already spreading the word for you. When people tell you they aren't interested in trying your software, they're telling you your software is not very useful. Either they are right, or you can't describe your software very well.
Surprised no one mentioned this:
Make sure your web site has a very good description of the application. If it does things similar to other apps, mention the apps, and the similarities and differences.
Then wait. Eventually, google will index your page, and you'll start showing up in search results. Eventually your page views and user base will increase.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
Or imprisoned for murdering your wife.
After all, she helped create the wonderful CDDL license for Sun Microsystems. Look what it has done for Sun!
The fact the product is Open Source or free will not get any thing out...
Lets figure out some things...
The 5C's
Customer or for your case you end users what is you app targeted for Corporate users or end users.
Company or your OSS group that has developed the software what are your values why do you want the product to grow what makes your group better then most
Context what itch are you trying to scratch. Does it solve a problem
Collaborators who do you need to work with to make your program run. Is it linux only or does it work on windows... Do you need 3rd party tools to run it. Do you have any people who are willing to push your product.
Competitors Sure you may have some cool new features but are they better then what the other Open Source tools have... Are there closed source application that do the same thing you do. If so how do you defend against any advantages.
Next is the STP
Segmentation What is the product the best fit for.
Targeting Really push to the people the product is the best fit for. If they prefer a closed source solution or a big name you will be wasting your time. However there are other people who want you app in the open source form.
Positioning make sure you make your product to really show off what it needs to do for your targeted group of people
The 4P
Product what is your product what does it do
Price Sure it is open source and it is free are you going to offer consulting or support services if so how much are you going to charge.
Place What will be your range you want the product to first go out
Promotions Well if you are going to do consulting for your product you might as well add some Linux support too.
These is Marketing 101 in a nutshell.
Basic marketing isn't trying to trick people into getting your product but finding where people would like your product.
Sure your product may not have a big following that is ok there are a lot of small software companies to make software to a lot of big players. I myself when I worked as a consultant myself made software for many large companies that was custom for them even if there was Open Source alternatives I created code and documentation for them so the code is theirs and with No strings attached.
For Open Source tools the trick is to make sure that you are willing to back it up and if fail it is possible for others to pick it up.
Open Source Projects do die sometimes so do closed source product. However there are people making closed source products and selling them. The fact that it is open source and has a small comunity isn't an excuse. You just need to market the product
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
1. Put it on Sourceforge
2. Give it a good intro description
3. Plenty of screen-shots
4. Good documentation
5. Plenty of examples, both very simple and semi-fancy
6. Make it easy to install
7. Make sure it doesn't suck
8. Read and respond to feedback
Table-ized A.I.
As an architect who frequently evaluates open source software libraries, I'm actually less interested in the size of the community than the activity level of the software baseline itself. If the CM repository is active and the library has enough documentation for me to figure out how to use it in an hour or two, I'll consider it for use.
Of course, a web application has slightly different considerations than a software library, but an active software baseline and sufficient documentation still go a long way...
That's what we learned when we asked a similar question with another FOSS project called KATO. Those who responded said that they couldn't figure out what KATO could do for them. You need to be very specific and concrete. Say it in five words or less and surface it very prominently.
Do what Alain does, spam weekly your site. How this is tolerated is beyond me though...
guys quite bitching about posting vs not posting the name and info about the product. None of that deals with what he is asking.
As for advice. You need to know who your target market is. Can you identify your user, who they are, where they are? Consider that step one. Try to find a few initial users that will benefit from your project. It comes back to defining your user though. If you can find them directly, contact them directly.
(After looking at Enano CMS.)
No one else mentioned this but for utility, as a user, I would also look for:
*Now* we know why no one's using your open source project -- because it's Yet Another CMS!
If you're trying to drive a new project in a space that already has a clear incumbent, you're in for a tough climb.
If you're trying to drive a new project in a space that already has several clear incumbents, you're in for a *really* tough climb.
If you're trying to drive a new project in a space that already has several clear incumbents and hundreds of failures, you're in for... ...well, you see where I'm going here.
I'm sure your CMS is different. It's sensitive and nurturing and really cares about me in a way that those other CMSes don't, and would never throw me out of the car for getting drunk at Andy's party that night. I get it. But when you're competing against the Star Quarterback of CMS projects, you *must* define what is unique about your project, and you must *market* that uniqueness. And you'd better be right, too -- because otherwise, you can forget about getting a date to the CMS prom.
... seriously, if it lacks users, it isn't good/useful enough. Deserved visibility is so much easier to get nowdays, but not every project is a winner. "without community, users aren't coming" isn't really true, unless perhaps it's some sort of infrastructure project like an online store or forums software where you can expect users to have lots of questions/feedback and no visible community will make them assume noone found it good enough to bother with asking questions. In that case it'd better be able to replace some established software and you could try getting someone with enough visibility to switch to your software.
But, there's no good alternative to sitting down and working on your project, don't wait for users/community/whatever if you think it's going to be a success.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
I've got $5 on that the project is http://www.web2py.com/.
Huh? [devShell.org]
He needs another Dev all right, they couldn't even keep the releases straight.
I installed 1.1.7 from sourceforge, and got:
Main Page
Thanks for helping to test Enano.
If you're reading this, you just installed the beta version of Enano 1.2.0, the next-generation release of Enano. Congratulations!
If you find any bugs, please report them on our issue tracker or in IRC. Enano's a big project, so tracking down bugs is hard and we need your help to do it.
Just tell us the name already!
Make a website that is clean and understandable.
If the project is mature then it should be usable in the real world. Get it used.
Make articles in newspapers. Get interview with client if they agree.
Put client names on homepage if they agree.
Contact blogs etc. about it and post it also on sites like freshmeat, etc.
Respond lightning fast to queries and monitor online media.
Write a column or blog describing what you do and new plugins etc. If it is useful people who already trust open source will try it.
If it is too complex a system maybe that is a problem too. Simple things that are easy to understand tend to get sold quickly.
Personally I'd be worried about trusting a system written by a tiny team with no real world clients, except as a hobby.
Maybe you want to tell Wikipedia to update their page to include you in a category list too.
Make sure all references link to your site. This will raise your google ranking.
Talk to schools or potential customers and actually install and support it. This is your living right?
Finally, tell us what the project is in the comments here. Yeesh!
I did not take a look at your app but IMO the 1st thing is having outstanding feature(s) that solve a concern encountered by people you know. Tell them you made an app that could interest them and then those ones will be able to give feedback. Listen carefully and try to attract them to your product... It may then be a snowball. Secondly, a website is a must have today. Show concisely your product, we must at first sight know what can offer your product. Make a beautiful website, an attractive one.
I run a small project about the age of yours, and it has a user base of several thousand users. It started out as a Linux alternative to a piece of commercial software. I believe the following has contributed to its success:
...and so are complaints about the commercial software.
- I joined the existing community forums
- Made sure the software doesn't suck. I started by giving a few distinguishing features that the commercial software simply doesn't offer (data recovery, allowing the use of low cost hardware rather than $200 commercial hardware) giving it an edge over the commercial offering. Many of the distinguishing features were features *I* needed, so others likely did too.
- Made sure my project was cross-platform; although I started it as a Linux project, the majority of the user base are Windows and Mac users.
- I went on to make sure my software can do *everything* that the commercial software does.
- I did set up a website asking for feedback, feature suggestions etc. which is a great source of inspiration for new features.
-
- To be fair, the commercial software is no longer being developed (but it's still being sold!), which means by now Windows 7 users are starting to have trouble running it. But in any case, I'm not dealing with a moving target.
- I never worried about Google, but I did make sure to mention the link to the software on the forum if someone asked a question that the software resolved. Eventually, word of mouth got out and people outside the forum started posting the link as well.
So basically, rather than building up a new community from scratch, I built on top of an existing one. It's terribly hard to sell a fax machine if nobody else has one; but if there is a community of fax machine users out there, maybe you can build better fax machines than the company that created the market.
Finally, if nobody hears about your project, nobody will check it out. Why didn't you mention the name of your project or link to it?
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
Put the project up on sourceforge and post a link to it. What's the name again ?
you make it to Slashdot and don't include a f** -link- to your project? dude, to me, it's obvious why you haven't succeeded in building a community
... if you wouldn't spread the word at all!
There's simply too much open source out there that sucks big time. I don't expect your project to be any different. If it is, close the source and charge for it.
One of the best ways I have found to get the word out about a free piece of software is to write an article about it. For example, I released a tool called RPGUI in December and I just got done having the second article about it published in IBMSystemsMag.com. You can learn more about the project here: http://mowyourlawn.com/rpgui.html Another benefit to writing an article is that is causes you the software author to go through motions of what a typical user would be confronted with as far as implementing your software. This helps to work out a lot of kinks. HTH, aaronbartell.com
YACMS being pushed here is "different" in that it...
Writing a CMS in a web templating language like PHP is easy, writing something that stands out from the pack is not. The authors should refactor out those eval() calls too, if they're 100% positive they sanitized user input then they're simply being over-confident.
Seriously, just read The Art of Community by Jono Bacon and try your best.
Robin Smidsrod Certified Linux Administrator
From taking a 10-second look at the :
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However such a one-shot, 50,000 downloads shot, could be the break such a project needs. Though considering the current size mentioned unless he's hosting on sourceforge or so it may just as well break his server. If it's any good that is of course. It's enough to get a crowd big enough that word-of-mouth starts to spread, that it gets mentioned elsewhere on the Internet, etc. Too bad for the submitter that there is no link in TFS, not even a project name or so.
If it's a one-shot, you've got to think about when's the right time to use it. If you suddenly have another 50,000 people downloading your release, you don't want it to be a buggy release. You don't want it to be hosted on a site that can't handle the traffic... Basically, if you get one good shot at getting a bunch of people using your program, you want to try to make a good first impression with it... If someone reads the article and downloads the software, even if (or, perhaps, especially if) they don't go on using it, that first impression is going to stick with them. It will continue to color their perception of that program any time they consider using it again, and any time they discuss it with other people.
So I would definitely say the project should be in a very polished state before you subject it to exposure on Slashdot, if promoting adoption is your goal.
Bow-ties are cool.
Have good documentations
Even now, this sets you above the crowd in the OSS market. Too many programs, not enough instructions. This is one of the reasons most successful open-source software is a clone of a commercial product -- at least the user can use the training materials for the commercial product!
HAL.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Go on a banner advertising service such as 1800banners.com and buy/exchange some banner impressions or clicks (clicks means the banner will be shown until that number of people click on it). As this is for web technology, select one of the web categories for targeting the ad. Then see if your invitations attract some users, and some developers.
Check http://www.netmba.com/marketing/ if you're a newbie.
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
That's a good place to put it, lots of news places have a running list of project updates from freshmeat (like slashdot)