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'.
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