[Marketing] Re: Marketing Digest, Vol 25, Issue 4

Peter Batty peter at ebatty.com
Tue Oct 20 18:39:11 EDT 2009 

Hi Dave,
I agree with you that we do have to walk a fine line in some cases. And I am
certainly an advocate that we should be trying to get more commercial
companies engaged with OSGeo and open source solutions. As you know, my
background is that I've worked for a couple of the largest commercial (and
closed source) geospatial vendors.

So to take your latest example with Autodesk, I would agree that we
shouldn't have marketing material that suggests (explicitly or implicitly),
"don't buy MapGuide Enterprise, use the free MapGuide Open Source
instead!!". But at the same time, AutoDesk is not trying to hide the fact
that there is an open source version of MapGuide, so general marketing to
persuade the world that MapGuide in general is a good thing helps OSGeo and
helps Autodesk. Commercial companies like Autodesk will typically be looking
to make money in one of two ways - providing support or consulting services
around the free open source software, and / or selling additional closed
source products on top of the open source base. There are plenty of
customers out there who see value in paying for both of these things. And in
either case, convincing the world that the base open source product is a
good thing helps the commercial company make the case for their solution.

As we are exploring these sort of marketing ideas, it might be a good idea
to talk to Autodesk and other OSGeo sponsors and get their thoughts - we
certainly don't want to alienate them, and we may be able to help each
other.

Cheers,
    Peter.



On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 1:56 PM, Dave McIlhagga
<dmcilhagga at dmsolutions.ca>wrote:

> Hi Peter,
> You're right - it is a tricky line. I suppose a better example would be
> MapGuide Enterprise which is a proprietary product, but developed with
> significant support from Autodesk. Is running an OSGeo adword targeting
> searches of AutoCAD Map or MapGuide Enterprise and promoting QGIS and
> MapServer (or even MapGuide Open Source) appropriate?
>
> All I'm saying is that it is a very fine line -- especially if you *do*
> want to attract corporate sponsors of the foundation who may have
> proprietary geospatial products built with open source components. ESRI,
> Google, Intergraph and Safe Software are all proprietary software providers
> who have open source components within their offerings. If we're truly open
> -- we should be striving to find better ways to work with these
> organizations just as we do with everyone else.
>
> Dave
>
>
>
>
> On 2009-10-20, at 2:24 PM, Peter Batty wrote:
>
> Dave,
> The mission of OSGeo is "To support the development of open source
> geospatial software, and promote its widespread use" (
> http://www.osgeo.org/content/foundation/about.html). By definition if
> someone is using an OSGeo product for something, that is a lost opportunity
> for a closed source software company to make some money.
>
> While ESRI and other closed source vendors may make use of some open source
> code within their offerings, and as part of this they may contribute, that
> is a very lightweight "partnership". ESRI is not a sponsor of OSGeo. I have
> never heard of a situation where ESRI has suggested the use of MapServer
> instead of ArcGIS Server (for instance), nor would I expect them to ever do
> that. It is in that context that I refer to ESRI as a "competitor" of OSGeo
> (they and others may be both competitors and contributors depending on the
> context).
>
> Nowhere did I suggest that you should only use open source geospatial
> software (I happen to not believe that), and my suggested wording was
> "reasons why you should consider an open source web mapping platform", which
> is all pretty low key and reasonable I thought.
>
> In short, if we can't say to someone who is interested in finding out more
> about ESRI, "here's an open source alternative you might want to consider",
> I'm not really sure how we can can carry out OSGeo's mission to promote
> widespread use of open source, or why we have this mailing list?
>
> Cheers,
>     Peter.
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 10:55 AM, Dave McIlhagga <
> dmcilhagga at dmsolutions.ca> wrote:
>
>> The only issue with competing for Google search terms that include
>> commercial product brands is that many of these companies are active
>> adopters and contributors to OSGeo projects. Note that ESRI is among this
>> group. Competing with your partners for eyeballs is a line you need to walk
>> carefully.
>> Also - I'm not sure that promoting the "us vs. them" of "open vs.
>> proprietary" is a very healthy approach for the organization.
>>
>> Dave
>>
>>
>>  Dave McIlhagga
>> www.mapsherpa.com
>> www.dmsolutions.ca
>>
>> On 2009-10-20, at 11:41 AM, Peter Batty wrote:
>>
>> A couple of thoughts ... I think that if people are specifically looking
>> for open source geospatial solutions, conference, etc they probably find
>> OSGeo and FOSS4G pretty readily (and if not a bit of simple SEO tweaking
>> should do the trick).
>> For example, if you google for Open Source Geospatial then osgeo.org is
>> the top hit. If you google for Open Source GIS then we move down to fifth,
>> but still on the front page (we might want to mention the phrase open source
>> GIS more or add it to the keywords in the page metadata if it's not there,
>> if we think that's a phrase we want to be top for).
>>
>> If we are going to pay for adwords then I would vote they should be
>> something that would not otherwise show up OSGeo sites - for example generic
>> terms like "web mapping" or "spatial database", or names of commercial
>> competitors like "ESRI".
>>
>> If I had a small budget to experiment with this, I would probably add a
>> page to the OSGeo site focused on users of existing closed source GIS (or
>> possibly ESRI specifically) - something pretty concise and punchy, like "top
>> 5 reasons why you should consider an open source web mapping platform" (and
>> perhaps "in conjunction with your existing GIS"?), and then pay to have the
>> keyword ESRI return that page in the list. And we need to make sure we have
>> the appropriate stats tracking to see how well it's working. Google
>> Analytics integrates with their advertising stuff so that is probably the
>> obvious choice.
>>
>> I'd be happy to volunteer a bit of time to help with this.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>     Peter.
>>
>> On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 12:51 AM, daniele.ocu ocu <daniele.ocu at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> I worked with Google Adwords for a couple of years a while back, a lot
>>> has changed since then.
>>>
>>> A nice tool for getting new Keywords (apart from of corse Googles own
>>> tool) is:
>>>
>>> http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/
>>>
>>> Another great sour of information on PayPerClick advertising is the
>>> Marketing Experiments Website. Really interesting to have a look at the
>>> Webclinics
>>>
>>>
>>> http://www.marketingexperiments.com/index.php?searchword=adwords&option=search&x=0&y=0
>>>
>>> Daniele
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 1:00 AM, <marketing-request at lists.osgeo.org>wrote:
>>>
>>>> Send Marketing mailing list submissions to
>>>>        marketing at lists.osgeo.org
>>>>
>>>> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
>>>>        http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing
>>>> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
>>>>        marketing-request at lists.osgeo.org
>>>>
>>>> You can reach the person managing the list at
>>>>        marketing-owner at lists.osgeo.org
>>>>
>>>> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
>>>> than "Re: Contents of Marketing digest..."
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Today's Topics:
>>>>
>>>>   1. Re: AdWords? (Lorenzo Becchi)
>>>>   2. Re: AdWords? (Alex Mandel)
>>>>   3. Re: AdWords? (Tyler Mitchell)
>>>>   4. Re: AdWords? (Lorenzo Becchi)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>> Message: 1
>>>> Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:26:26 +1100
>>>> From: Lorenzo Becchi <lorenzo at ominiverdi.com>
>>>> Subject: Re: [Marketing] AdWords?
>>>> To: "Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo)" <tmitchell at osgeo.org>
>>>> Cc: marketing at lists.osgeo.org
>>>> Message-ID:
>>>>        <58c3b9530910182126k5fbbeba8idef550befe4027e0 at mail.gmail.com>
>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>>>>
>>>> I have an idea:
>>>> why not using it for FOSS4G 2010?
>>>> :)
>>>>
>>>> suggestions for the keywords?
>>>>
>>>> lorenzo
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 11:03 AM, Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo) <
>>>> tmitchell at osgeo.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> > Anyone familiar with using Google AdWords?  I've received a $100
>>>> voucher
>>>> > for testing it out and would be glad for some guidance on testing it
>>>> and
>>>> > tracking its usage.
>>>> >
>>>> > _______________________________________________
>>>> > Marketing mailing list
>>>> > Marketing at lists.osgeo.org
>>>> > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> -------------- next part --------------
>>>> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
>>>> URL:
>>>> http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/marketing/attachments/20091019/eaf8111a/attachment-0001.html
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------
>>>>
>>>> Message: 2
>>>> Date: Sun, 18 Oct 2009 21:43:51 -0700
>>>> From: Alex Mandel <tech_dev at wildintellect.com>
>>>> Subject: Re: [Marketing] AdWords?
>>>> To: marketing at lists.osgeo.org
>>>> Message-ID: <4ADBEE87.2090200 at wildintellect.com>
>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>>>>
>>>> Frank and someone else, can't remember right now also offered to donate
>>>> some adwords credits they had too. Should we do a donate your adwords
>>>> campaign to build up a budget?
>>>>
>>>> Alex
>>>>
>>>> Lorenzo Becchi wrote:
>>>> > I have an idea:
>>>> > why not using it for FOSS4G 2010?
>>>> > :)
>>>> >
>>>> > suggestions for the keywords?
>>>> >
>>>> > lorenzo
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> > On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 11:03 AM, Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo) <
>>>> > tmitchell at osgeo.org> wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> >> Anyone familiar with using Google AdWords?  I've received a $100
>>>> voucher
>>>> >> for testing it out and would be glad for some guidance on testing it
>>>> and
>>>> >> tracking its usage.
>>>> >>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------
>>>>
>>>> Message: 3
>>>> Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:52:22 +1100
>>>> From: Tyler Mitchell <tmitchell.osgeo at shaw.ca>
>>>> Subject: Re: [Marketing] AdWords?
>>>> To: tech at wildintellect.com
>>>> Cc: marketing at lists.osgeo.org
>>>> Message-ID: <cf8fe04f36e55.4adc8b36 at shaw.ca>
>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>>>>
>>>> Very nice ideas Alex and Lorenzo.  Let's brainstorm some terms too so
>>>> we're ready to use them :)  I'm not all that familiar with the methods of
>>>> using adwords well, but will help wherever I can.
>>>>
>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>> From: Alex Mandel <tech_dev at wildintellect.com>
>>>> Date: Monday, October 19, 2009 3:43 pm
>>>> Subject: Re: [Marketing] AdWords?
>>>> To: marketing at lists.osgeo.org
>>>>
>>>> > Frank and someone else, can't remember right now also offered to
>>>> > donatesome adwords credits they had too. Should we do a donate
>>>> > your adwords
>>>> > campaign to build up a budget?
>>>> >
>>>> > Alex
>>>> >
>>>> > Lorenzo Becchi wrote:
>>>> > > I have an idea:
>>>> > > why not using it for FOSS4G 2010?
>>>> > > :)
>>>> > >
>>>> > > suggestions for the keywords?
>>>> > >
>>>> > > lorenzo
>>>> > >
>>>> > >
>>>> > > On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 11:03 AM, Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo) <
>>>> > > tmitchell at osgeo.org> wrote:
>>>> > >
>>>> > >> Anyone familiar with using Google AdWords?  I've
>>>> > received a $100 voucher
>>>> > >> for testing it out and would be glad for some guidance on
>>>> > testing it and
>>>> > >> tracking its usage.
>>>> > >>
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> > _______________________________________________
>>>> > Marketing mailing list
>>>> > Marketing at lists.osgeo.org
>>>> > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing
>>>> >
>>>> -------------- next part --------------
>>>> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
>>>> URL:
>>>> http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/marketing/attachments/20091019/36527c50/attachment-0001.html
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------
>>>>
>>>> Message: 4
>>>> Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:17:59 +1100
>>>> From: Lorenzo Becchi <lorenzo at ominiverdi.com>
>>>> Subject: Re: [Marketing] AdWords?
>>>> To: tmitchell at osgeo.org
>>>> Cc: marketing at lists.osgeo.org, tech at wildintellect.com
>>>> Message-ID:
>>>>        <58c3b9530910182217m10866929i6672f2987a229513 at mail.gmail.com>
>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>>>>
>>>> I've been using it for a while, few year ago, while still a web
>>>> developer.
>>>> It was very easy at the time and I suppose it's easier now.
>>>> You create a project (don't know the exact term) and choose keywords for
>>>> it.
>>>> Then google specify the price per click for every keyword. You are able
>>>> to
>>>> decide which keyword activate and you always have the control over the
>>>> money
>>>> you've spent already and it's plenty of stats.
>>>>
>>>> lorenzo
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 3:52 PM, Tyler Mitchell <
>>>> tmitchell.osgeo at shaw.ca>wrote:
>>>>
>>>> > Very nice ideas Alex and Lorenzo.  Let's brainstorm some terms too so
>>>> we're
>>>> > ready to use them :)  I'm not all that familiar with the methods of
>>>> using
>>>> > adwords well, but will help wherever I can.
>>>> >
>>>> > ----- Original Message -----
>>>> > From: Alex Mandel <tech_dev at wildintellect.com>
>>>> > Date: Monday, October 19, 2009 3:43 pm
>>>> > Subject: Re: [Marketing] AdWords?
>>>> > To: marketing at lists.osgeo.org
>>>> >
>>>> > > Frank and someone else, can't remember right now also offered to
>>>> > > donatesome adwords credits they had too. Should we do a donate
>>>> > > your adwords
>>>> > > campaign to build up a budget?
>>>> > >
>>>> > > Alex
>>>> > >
>>>> > > Lorenzo Becchi wrote:
>>>> > > > I have an idea:
>>>> > > > why not using it for FOSS4G 2010?
>>>> > > > :)
>>>> > > >
>>>> > > > suggestions for the keywords?
>>>> > > >
>>>> > > > lorenzo
>>>> > > >
>>>> > > >
>>>> > > > On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 11:03 AM, Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo) <
>>>> > > > tmitchell at osgeo.org> wrote:
>>>> > > >
>>>> > > >> Anyone familiar with using Google AdWords?  I've
>>>> > > received a $100 voucher
>>>> > > >> for testing it out and would be glad for some guidance on
>>>> > > testing it and
>>>> > > >> tracking its usage.
>>>> > > >>
>>>> > >
>>>> > >
>>>> > > _______________________________________________
>>>> > > Marketing mailing list
>>>> > > Marketing at lists.osgeo.org
>>>> > > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing
>>>> > >
>>>> >
>>>> > _______________________________________________
>>>> > Marketing mailing list
>>>> > Marketing at lists.osgeo.org
>>>> > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> -------------- next part --------------
>>>> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
>>>> URL:
>>>> http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/marketing/attachments/20091019/2b34e8d2/attachment-0001.html
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Marketing mailing list
>>>> Marketing at lists.osgeo.org
>>>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> End of Marketing Digest, Vol 25, Issue 4
>>>> ****************************************
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Marketing mailing list
>>> Marketing at lists.osgeo.org
>>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Peter Batty - President, Spatial Networking
>> W: +1 303 339 0957  M: +1 720 346 3954
>> Blog: http://geothought.blogspot.com
>>  _______________________________________________
>> Marketing mailing list
>> Marketing at lists.osgeo.org
>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Peter Batty - President, Spatial Networking
> W: +1 303 339 0957  M: +1 720 346 3954
> Blog: http://geothought.blogspot.com
>
>
>


-- 
Peter Batty - President, Spatial Networking
W: +1 303 339 0957  M: +1 720 346 3954
Blog: http://geothought.blogspot.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/marketing/attachments/20091020/0d04a6b9/attachment-0001.html

More information about the Marketing mailing list