On 4 Jul 2011, at 23:57, Juergen Fenn <juergen.fenn(a)gmx.de> wrote:
Am 02.07.11 14:17 schrieb Alec Conroy:
if you
talk to the press, or to media experts, they all know
"Wikipedia" but not "Wikimedia". The most simple and reasonable way
is
to use the famous brand, not to invest in "Wikimedia".
There's an even bigger opportunity here--
Make a brand new brand name that captures the ideology better than
Wikipedia-Mediawiki-Wikimedia.
Wikipedia's an encyclopedia, Mediawiki's the software, Wikimedia's the
ISP-- and none of those names capture the "spirit of the movement".
Coming up with a good brand name and associating it with our movement
and our foundation-- whether the foundation ever changes its name
formally or not, there should be a brand name for "Wikimedia
projects, their users, and their allies". And unlike our other brand
names, this one should actually be inspiring to people who don't
already know what it means.
I beg your pardon, but Ziko and WereSpielChequers are absolutely right
here. You won't manage to introduce another brand name after ten years
of Wikipedia. Even if you tried, it would be to no avail. It was a huge
mistake to introduce the sister projects under a different brand and to
keep them apart from Wikipedia proper. After all, it did not foster
creativity and diversity, but it rather split the movement into parts
I disagree, speaking from a position of some experience.
Wikipedia was not marketed well, per se. It was an innovative ANC
exciting idea, launched at the right time to the right audience.
Even to this date; very little serious marketing had been done.
Now. With that said I agree - there is not a lot of point trying to
establish a new brand. But WikiMedia is worth pursuing as an umbrella.
This is a new decade, the internet has moved on (in a way it could be
said to have left us behind, and we survive by being well known) and
this is the perfect opportunity to work on the brand.
Im very hopeful the board has something to input here; this is
squarely in their ballpark and we need quick and pivotal action on it.
This is not at all a re-branding issue but one of brand-extension -
something any marketer would be on top of!
I do agree that more interaction should be fostered (although
independence is a good thing for projects with radically different
aims) and that smaller projects should be offered the opportunity to
hijack wikipedias brand to Market themselves.
But remember they are still a little behind WP in age, in a few years
they will hopefully pervade our consciousness in the same way.
Tom