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List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    Re: why is there so little KDE PR ?
From:       Scott Manson <Maniac () Alltel ! net>
Date:       2001-01-19 1:54:46
[Download RAW message or body]

On Thursday 18 January 2001 07:05 pm, Andreas Pour wrote:
> [ ... stuff about feel-good GNOME press omitted ... ]
>
> I hate to say it, but this attitude is the biggest hurdle for KDE being
> very successful.  If you do not understand marketing, then please just let
> others concentrate on it instead of reacting negatively.  If you do
> understand marketing, please explain, using marketing principles, why each
> of these news items is not good for GNOME.

So what you are saying is that the number of press releases is directly 
related to how the public perceives a product.  Ok then tell me how Firestone
feels about now?  I would venture 1 negative PR release will destroy any good 
will that the previous 10 positive PR released have built up.  I don't have 
any "scientific" evidence that this is true but how look at the way the media
(who are the masters of PR) treats "good/positive" news events.  The headlines
for the most part always read Plane Crash Kills 100  people ... you don't see 
headlines saying out of 1,000,000 people flying 999,900 arived at their 
destination safely.  

> Yes, technically none of the news items you lambast are good.  In fact, as
> you point out, in many cases it's bad news being trumpeted as good news. 
> But that's what marketing is -- hype, spin, promotion.  And in the end
> marketing is as, if not more, important than technical success in
> determining determines market success.
IHMO a product that's good will get their market success just because it's 
good or better than the alternative and WOM (Word of Mouth) advertising will 
get you a whole lot further than in your words -- hype,spin,promotion after 
all who do we trust more some suit saying use this or the neighbor down the 
street that says hey gotta try KDE I love it.

> OK, some of you will say you don't care about marketing success.  Fine, you
> don't have to.  But does that mean you have to oppose those that do care,
> does it?

< Some SNIPage>

> Human perception is more influenced by quantity than quality.  It is a fact
> of human social psychology that the more you hear of something, the more
> positive you evaluate it.  You can make one press release announcing 100
> really great features of KDE -- but nobody will read the 100 great
> features, and soon they will have forgotten about the press release.  But
> if you have 100 press releases and people hear a new one every-day, they
> start to think, Wow, this KDE stuff is really active and getting a lot of
> really cool stuff done.
And all it takes is 1 negative Press Report to make the average Joe forget 
about all the positives features you had built up.  Take a look at Windows,
Any user can tell you about the times it crashed and he/she lost 5 hours 
worth of work but can he/she tell me how many times it actually worked and 
he/she didn't lose any data, or how easy it was to get the job done? 

<More SNIPage>
> Andreas Pour

-- 
Maniac@alltel.net 40° 37' 9" N, 96° 57' 24" W  
A single tasking guy in multi tasking world

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