Hello,
Alison Wheeler a écrit :
On Wed, May 9, 2007 11:07, Sebastian Moleski wrote:
Short quiz for all the Americans on this list: what do Bounty, Dawn, Pringles, Duracell and Lacoste have in common? If you think those are all strong brand names, then you're right. But how many would know that they all belong to the same company (Procter & Gamble)? I would venture a guess that not too many do. Or at least, to most people, it really doesn't matter. They don't buy the products because P&G makes them. <snip>
But I believe that is the problem we currently have! That list of brands don't market to the same target audiences, and they demonstrate few synergies between them so thay have no need to target similar markets directly, however eachof our 'products' *do* target the same people, and that means (imho) that we do need a much clearer "umbrella" to be visible 'out there'.
What make you think that "each of our 'products' target the same people"? I think that we are going the wrong way here. And this proposal confuses a search for readers with a search for contributors.
Each of our 'products' has a specific audience, and people looking for textbooks or pictures do not necessarly look for encyclopedia content, and vice versa. People willing to share their pictures or to publish existing texts do not have the same objective as those willing to write an encyclopedia. I think we need to do the exact opposite: differentiate more each of our projects, so that each gets its specific audience.
Beside, we should not think in terms of commercial products for our projects. We have no deadline, no profits to make, no balance to adjust. Why do people come to our projects? Not because we have a big brand, not because they see an ad. They come because our content is free as a beer and free as a speech. Rather than a brand, that the message we need to spread out: Wikimedia is the greatest (and biggest) free project on the planet.
Regards,
Yann
A further example; Answers.com runs "WikiAnswers". If we stick ad absurdam with our "Wiki...." convention then how many people will think that "WikiAnswers" is one of ours, when it isn't. David Gerard pointed out that
"People call it "wiki" in English as well. (A conversation yesterday with a TV person who kept talking about "wikis", and it took me a few minutes to realise he was talking about "articles in English Wikipedia". And that's someone in an organisation I *know* has *lots* of internal wikis ...)".
We've lost the battle to call everything "Wiki...." and for the general internet population to realise which is 'ours' and which isn't. It will be a shame to lose some of the name recognition that the non-WP projects have gained - though it is clearly minimal so far - but I think there is merit in realising that we need to change our POV and ensure that non-editors realise that we have more than the one (WP) project.
Alison Wheeler