[Foundation-l] advertising craigslist

[Mark Williamson]

It's certainly free publicity for Craigslist, one way or the other. Anybody
who does not know what Craigslist is now will see it every time they see the
banner, may google it or look it up on WP to find out what it is, and start
using it.

Any time we put the name of any kind of person or organization there, that
is free publicity so I think it is imperative that we think about what
effect that publicity will have in the end. If we put a quote from Nelson
Mandela there, for example, it isn't very likely that he will get any money
or website traffic or any quantifiable benefit from our banner. If we put an
impassioned plea from "The CEO of Webbooks.com", it is very possible that
will result in additional traffic and exposure for that website.

Although the banner is not intended as an ad, I must admit that when I saw
it I instantly disliked it. If it were up to me, it would not be there. I
can certainly understand the reasons for keeping it up and I also don't
think this is a terrible situation or anything so I won't argue about this
but I wanted to make it known that Geni isn't the only one of the opinion
that it's not a good thing.

Mark

skype: node.ue


On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 9:13 PM, Philippe Beaudette <
pbeaudette at wikimedia.org> wrote:

>
> On Dec 14, 2009, at 9:50 PM, geni wrote:
>
> > I see we have taken to advertising craigslist. Would anyone care to
> > explain why?
>
>
>
> I fail to understand how acknowledging the existence of a company
> founded by an advisory board member who kindly consents to begging for
> money on our behalf constitutes advertising for it?  Would the banner
> have been as effective if it had said "Craig asks you to support..."?
>
> Geez.
> ____________________
> Philippe Beaudette
> Facilitator, Strategy Project
> Wikimedia Foundation
>
> philippe at wikimedia.org
>
> mobile:         918 200-WIKI (9454)
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