Marketing TXP

els · 2008-06-25 21:39:07

hcgtv wrote:

So you’re saying that when Ruud and Robert become past alumni, then we should start to worry.

Got it…

Well, not really, but I guess you got that too. If you want to see the fact that people tend to move on from time to time as unfavourable, go ahead. I don’t.
What I meant is more like what maverick said:

As Wet and Ruud are the developers, project direction, scope, and vision are their call. We can chose to buy in, or not, as desired

thebombsite · 2008-06-25 22:57:17

Whenever I post in this kind of discussion I seem to get ignored. Maybe it’s because I say things that people don’t like so pin back your lugholes and get ready for some abuse!

We are now getting on for some 150 posts in this thread and this is the third relating to textpattern.com design and content. What has been done so far? Sod all. Just a lot of hot air. I should mention here that I am no advertising guru but I have run a company or two in the real world where the object is to make money and survive in a pool full of sharks so when it comes to getting things done I know that talking in circles gets you nowhere and that is exactly what is happening here.

Here are some thoughts for you. Call them professional thoughts if you will.

Ruud and Robert are software developers. That is what they are good at and they should stick to it. They should not be involved in the design or content of the textpattern.com site other than to contribute articles as they already do to the weblog relating to new or modified facilities in the latest TXP release.

A new team needs to be set up to take control of the site and should include a site designer to control the look and feel of the site, someone with professional marketing experience to give pointers to the direction of the content and come up with some snappy slogans and someone who is good at writing articles (because good marketeers are not necessarily good writers). That’s 3 people then. We don’t need 10 or 20 people, just 3. The more people that are involved the less will get done. Too much chat chat. So we need 3 people to step up to the plate.

The first thing that needs to be done is to get a design sorted because without it you have nowhere to put the content. So let’s get on with that and let’s do it now because it really wants to be ready before the megatastic 4.0.7 hits the streets. For my own part I feel that the design should remain simple and that a skeleton of the design should become a part of the page and form templates and CSS that come with the download. This connects the software to the site. Good marketing. We should get away from this 3 column layout because it reminds me of sites I used to see 5 years ago. It’s old-hat. That’s not to say it can’t be 3 column just not the way it is now. Also the TXP site should rely entirely on native TXP code. If you can’t do it in the download you shouldn’t be doing it on the live site. The live site should be a demonstration of what can be achieved with the download if you put your mind to it. If at all possible it should not use public-side plug-ins apart from maybe zem_contact_reborn which I always think of as an automatic addition.

Once we know what the design is to look like then the marketing guru needs to get his/her brain working over-time for ideas. By all means look through some of the things that have been said here. Once the ideas start flowing the writer should get on with the actual content. Also, once the design is sorted, Ruud and Robert need to get the page and form templates and CSS transferred into the software. I should also say that they both deserve a big vote of thanks for what they have done with 4.0.6 and what they have so far done with the megatastic 4.0.7. And let us not forget Mary and the others who have contributed loads of time and effort to this project. We now need to make that effort worthwhile by getting Textpattern NOTICED!

As for consolidating the main TXP sites into one – forget it. Bad idea. It will only result in a confusingly large monolithic site that will be difficult to navigate and require so many plug-ins that it will bear no relationship to the download at all. “Can’t see the wood for the trees” comes to mind. Maybe once the main site design is complete we could look at consolidating the “look” of all the sites but that is as far as I would go with that.

With regard to the “TXP Network links” at the top of this forum The first 4 links should be to Textpattern.com, Textbook, Textpattern Resources and Textgarden. As far as I am aware those are the only “official” sites. There should be no need for things like “Home, Download, FAQ, Weblog, E-Mailing Lists”. The download should be easily visible on the home page anyway and the rest should be easily located through the site’s navigation. I’m not even sure why we have e-mailing lists. Maybe it’s just “fashionable”. Maybe someone could enlighten me on that one. The other sites could remain under the “Elsewhere” title. (I just know I’m going to get an argument about that one.)

And all this needs to be done ready for 4.0.7 so can we please just get on with it because all these threads are beginning to remind me of why I don’t like football.

I shall now crawl back into my shell and concentrate on pushing TXP to it’s limits and maybe getting the odd little thing added to the core.

Last edited by thebombsite (2008-06-25 23:22:23)

maverick · 2008-06-25 23:47:58

I hear some overlap between zero and Stuart.

What has to happen to set up an official marketing team? Do Ruud & Robert have to give their blessing (sign off on) to the “professional marketer”, so s/he can set up the team of three?

Last edited by maverick (2008-06-26 01:28:37)

Mary · 2008-06-26 00:58:23

Just a fact-check interjection… :)

but facts are facts and txp is less popular and visible than it used to be.

Is that a fact? Has there ever been done proper research into this?

No. I’m judging from my perception of numbers using the forum.

We’ve had folks saying since 2005 that Textpattern isn’t as popular as it used to be, which is funny considering Textpattern, the forum, etc weren’t publicly available until early 2004 (there were perhaps a handful of people that used Textpattern before that).

Until a month ago, I knew the actual numbers. When I started admining the forum (which was long before I was a core dev), I cleaned the database of folks that had never posted and hadn’t come back in years, and I did that every once in a while, which drastically reduced the number of users. I also regularly deleted folks that never verified their accounts, but I don’t know off-hand if those get included in the forum counts.

Based solely upon forum numbers, and assuming nothing earth-shattering has taken place since I stepped down, it’s fair to say we’ve had a very slowly increasing number of actual users (as opposed to folks that were around for a short period of time and never returned).

Slinking away into the darkness now…

Destry · 2008-06-26 02:08:50

maverick wrote:

I hear some overlap between zero and Stuart.

I’m hearing different. Zero wants more domains up. Stuart doesn’t (sensibly). Zero would see the community step up to the grassroots challenge. Stuart is saying a lean team with clear duties. Zero is already putting target words on the table like “blog” and “cms.” Stuart is saying Step 1: mockups for a new .com site (and really, that’s the thing needed most here).

One thing zero and Stuart have in common though, compared to others here, is they feel something needs done, and that’s a lot in itself.

Stuart, I’m certainly hearing you loud and clear. You may recall in my entry post back on page 12(?) that I had written a “monstrous” piece about this…. well you covered most of the very same points I ended up not posting. Thank you.

Textpattern is great. No question. Txp developers are heros. No question. But the developers are not campaign people. They don’t have time for it even if they were. There should be no doubling up on wearing hats. They should give their blessing about who the image people are, yes, certainly, but they should step aside after that and let each group do their thing without challenges every step of the way. That’s how the “competitors” do it, it’s a model that works, why should Txp be different.

I think “marketing” is probably the wrong word in all this, and it should be pulled back from. It’s not really about that. Rather it’s about IMAGE. Nothing more, nothing less. Txp may be relevant (it is to me), but it doesn’t look relevant. I’m not talking about the interface, I’m talking about you, this place and the system as a whole. You bring someone to Txp’s site and to EE’s site…which one do you think they will investigate first? It’s a no-brainer.

So, for the sake of productivity and less speaking, there is wet’s wiki on the new site design. I guess this thread should be closed and those who give a shit should go over to the wiki and finalize the design guide so somebody can produce some first design drafts. Yeah?

maniqui · 2008-06-26 03:30:30

maverick has made a great post.

thebombsite wrote:

The first thing that needs to be done is to get a design sorted because without it you have nowhere to put the content.

Destry wrote:

Stuart is saying Step 1: mockups for a new .com site (and really, that’s the thing needed most here).

Step 0: create the content and organize it in sections. Creating some wireframes with real content could be a best approach before getting into designing mockups. Repeat the mantra: “content is the king, content makes the design and not the other way around”. Then, go to Step 1.

Destry wrote:

You bring someone to Txp’s site and to EE’s site…which one do you think they will investigate first? It’s a no-brainer.

Probably most but not everybody will go with EE. But Txp.com has that wabi-sabi (the beauty of the imperfection) style that is also appealing.
And…

Destry wrote:

So, for the sake of productivity and less speaking, there is wet’s wiki on the new site design

Agree. And please, let’s take the following into consideration: Txp.com has changed very little during its existence. It may be time to make more little changes a little faster.
In other words: everything is construction. The relaunch doesn’t need to be made when all the new site is complete, shining like the glow, with bells and whistles. Let’s get dirty in code, content, and design, trying and failing. A website is more a live thing than a static thing. Everything is construction. Hey, don’t fall asleep yet!.

This isn’t a business, we haven’t to keep anything secret at all. In fact, wet’s wiki and the previous 123write were open.
So, why not setup a subdomain on TXP.com where the relaunch development starts, in front of everyone’s eyes?

Or even better, if everything is construction, let’s destroy current site, burn it (most content on the front page is really outdated, in terms of “marketing”), and then, hopefully, we will find all of us doing something in concrete?
I may sound a bit extreme, but let’s face it: destroying current site (and, some one, some day, will have to do it) is, at least, doing something in our efforts for creating a new one.

Will TXP be “hurt” for not having a “complete” website (just one in construction) during two or three weeks?

Now that I’ve spoken, you may close this thread.

Last edited by maniqui (2008-06-26 03:33:42)

wet · 2008-06-26 05:09:21

Q & A:

From all those who expressed their concerns here about Txp getting too little PR hum: Who owns a media outlet, be it a blog or even a static geocities page? Now, how many publicly visible posts (forum posts don’t count) have you done since this discussion started to express your interest in Textpattern and its capabilities, or, dare I say, your benefits for a specific project you built? Textpattern has gotten bad press in the past which enjoyed quite a circulation. Where’s the good press (or whatever, any news is good news, as long as it links to textpattern.com like so: CMS)? Folks, publish! Make waves!
ad Textpattern.com redesign: Kevin Potts has offered to work on the wording and content structure, and is doing so at the moment. milkshake will provide wireframes, Matthew Smith will provide visual design, we even have a choice of HTML/CSS artists. That’s the current state. Things aren’t finished in a week’s time frame, but I will direct this project to an end.

Anecdotal evidence for item 1: Ralf Gralle, once renowned as the creator of a trackback hack for Txp, replied on twitter re tag parsing

Junge, TXP wird auch mit jedem Release unästhetischer http://tinyurl.com/643ggf Was für ein Gefrickel! (Boy, TXP is getting more unaesthetic with every release. What a fuss!)

He addressed 214 followers.

Last edited by wet (2008-06-26 05:10:32)

maniqui · 2008-06-26 06:39:30

Edit: Nothing to see here, go on, go on.

Last edited by maniqui (2008-06-26 15:28:02)

wet · 2008-06-26 07:03:06

I stand corrected: The members of the visual design team are: Matthew Smith, plus …, …

Jon Hicks unsurprisingly didn’t offer to contribute.

Last edited by wet (2008-06-26 07:05:23)

maniqui · 2008-06-26 07:43:54

Touchée!
I’m totally ashamed and already regretting the post.
I was about to send a PM to wet with the whole post before posting it here… but then, I felll like I needed some soap opera moments in my own life and come here and post that rant.
No more postings from me, at least, not at 4am when feeling like I’m holding a truth… in a soap opera.
Time to sleep.

Oh, I probably missed this announcement

I’m ashamed ad eternam: I’ve read the following post by wet the day he made it. Forgive me, wet.

wet wrote:

Those who have offered to contribute, so far:

Kevin Potts: marketing-compliant verbiage and world-domination strategy

Matthew Smith: a beautiful, compelling site design aka PSD mockups

milkshake: visitor funneling wireframes

maniqui: markup with a style

zero: everything else, plus taming the Googlebot

Destry · 2008-06-26 08:26:18

Bravo! Looking forward to it. :)

hakjoon · 2008-06-26 13:44:14

Julian, just to ease some of your fears Matthew is very good to work with. I talk with him often and his passion for TXP has not waned. He and Stuart are putting some good work with TXP out there. I know he’s also been communicating with Wet fairly regularly.

Unfortunately I think his workload has eaten away a lot of his forum time.

On wet’s comment about writing, I think this is a huge point. I was asking my designer co-workers why they chose WP since TXP is much more targeted to them. Their answer was activity around the project, so they knew they could find solutions to their problems.

This forum is very active but outside of here TXP tends to only get coverage when bad things are happening. We should really work on changing that if we can. More web activity around TXP means more exposure. I’m as guilty as anyone about this. Actually Peter is probably the only one that can’t accused of slacking on the writing.

All I know is that I have been using TXP in some form or another since before Gamma 1.19 and periodically I flirt with other tools but I always come back here, I don’t know why (I think it’s all that wasabi) but I love this community and I still love the tool, and all I can say is I’m pretty excited about all that is going on right now. This has been the most positive “fix something in TXP” thread yet.

(and yes I know Julian said wabi-sabi not wasabi)

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#145 2008-06-25 21:39:07

Re: Marketing TXP

#146 2008-06-25 22:57:17

Re: Marketing TXP

#147 2008-06-25 23:47:58

Re: Marketing TXP

#148 2008-06-26 00:58:23

Re: Marketing TXP

#149 2008-06-26 02:08:50

Re: Marketing TXP

#150 2008-06-26 03:30:30

Re: Marketing TXP

#151 2008-06-26 05:09:21

Re: Marketing TXP

#152 2008-06-26 06:39:30

Re: Marketing TXP

#153 2008-06-26 07:03:06

Re: Marketing TXP

#154 2008-06-26 07:43:54

Re: Marketing TXP

#155 2008-06-26 08:26:18

Re: Marketing TXP

#156 2008-06-26 13:44:14

Re: Marketing TXP

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