[Typo3] Some feedback to TYPO3 marketeers

[Sander Vogels]

Hi all,

Darn, it seems lately that I cannot start a thread somewhere or it winds 
up into a flamewar as soon as I turn my back! Here's some short response;

1. TYPO3 is doing very well in Europe and gaining momentum in Asia, the 
US and South America. Among clients are Gov institutions, Universities 
and large companies. What also helps is the big US corporations starting 
to use TYPO3 in the EU (like General Electric) and bring this culture to 
the US. Open-Source as a whole seems to break thru in the US in 2005 and 
that's why we are thriving a bigger marketing efford there at the moment.
2. It's imho of no use comparing a mid-end CMS TYPO3 with low-end cmses 
like Mambo (Joombla!). It's just not the same thing and not for the same 
purpose. You don't take your Ferrari to a drag race and stay away from 
Formula One circuits with your Suziki Alto.
3. If you find some issues hindering the spreading of TYPO3, please give 
your input to developers or the marketing team in a possitive way. Think 
the US needs a forum? Go email Michelle Heizer as volunteer and offer 
you want to set-up and moderate a forum.
Might you just don't like TYPO3 go use something else and don't waste 
your energy on it.
4. The whole religion thing is taken much to far out of context here 
imho. Can we just stop this? If you take the faire-use policy or rules 
of usage of ANY hosting company there are lots of things stated that you 
cannot do with your hosting space. Kasper is only modesty asking 
something which you are free to ignore or respect. Big deal...

Anyhow thanks to you all for again a vivid marketing discussion!

Regards,

Sander Vogels
TYPO3 Marketing Team

Alex Heizer wrote:
> JoH wrote:
> 
>>> Likewise, there is probably a reason most "ordinary" users prefer
>>> forums. ;) Forums also allow you to put threads into categories. As it
>>> is now, to add a category to a mailing list you need to add  a new
>>> list.
>>>   
>>
>>
>> There's a very simple reason why you should not use a forum even though
>> "ordinary" people might prefer it:
>> It's the "ordinary user" who asks the questions, but in most cases it 
>> will
>> be the "professional" who is expected to answer.
>> I don't expect many of the TYPO3 professionals to ever visit such a 
>> forum,
>> no to mention they would ever answer a post there.
>>  
>>
> Then I can say I see a reason why the TYPO3 community is mostly filled 
> with developers instead of customers, at least those coming from the US. 
> If it's going to gain acceptance by the US consumers, it's going to need 
> to meet them on their playing field, playing their game with their 
> rules. For the US, that means a forum, despite how we may each 
> personally feel about it.
> 
> Besides, I have seen more than once when someone has posted for the 
> first time to the T3 mailing lists that are in existence, only to be 
> responded to by a "professional", and the answer is, essentially, "rtfm".
> 
>> Just to speak for myself: I would never answer any forum thread just 
>> because
>> I don't have the time to
>> 1. go to the website
>> 2. login with my username
>> 3. look in the different categories if there is something worth to answer
>> 4. write the answer or just kepp it in mind to come back later and repeat
>> the whole story
>>
>> With the NG it's just one click away from the mails I check every 30 min.
>> After that it takes just some seconds to browse the threads for something
>> interesting and usually I will give an answer within just a few hours, 
>> when
>> I find the time to do so.
>> I guess most of the TYPO3 pros here do it exactly the same way.
>>
>> So if you want high quality answers, stay away from forums and stick 
>> to the
>> newsgroups.
>>
>> Joey
>>
> Okay, so you're saying we don't need to sell T3 to you, that you're 
> already part of the community. Good. Now what about the millions of 
> potential T3 customers in the US who have never even heard of a 
> newsgroup? I've made websites for people who barely know how to surf the 
> Web, let alone set up their own email account. Setting up a newsgroup is 
> more difficult to set up than an email account, so how are these people 
> going to be able to do that? They need help, too, and for the vast 
> amount of users, compared to the relatively small amount of 
> "professionals" or "developers", they choose forums. They are already 
> surfing, it's easier for them to surf to an existing site and do a search.
> 
> My question is: shouldn't we give them what they want? Or should we just 
> complain that we don't have the market share that we want because our 
> potential customers are lazy and don't want to do things our way? People 
> learn differently, if we're going to help T3 gain broader acceptance, 
> we're going to need to give them a choice of how they can get support 
> and become members of the community.
> 
> Alex