On Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 5:35 PM, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com wrote:
What does "productize" mean in the context of
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Growth_Quarterly_Review_(February_2014)... ?
Sorry for the jargon. We try to avoid tech industry terminology in public communication but sometimes when we publish an internal document it slips out.
Wiktionary defines productize as "make something a commericial product".[1] Productization is defined as "The act of modifying something, such as a concept or a tool internal to an organization, to make it suitable as a commercial product."[2]
Remove the commercial part of that, which implies selling, and it basically applies. In software development and in the Wikimedia context, it basically means to take something that is an experimental concept and make it a permanent part of the site for users -- whether that's readers, editors or donors depends on the software in question.
The word product is used not to strictly clarify that something is not a service. On the Web, the line between products and services is decidedly fuzzy, at least when you talk to people who work in the tech industry. In reality people when people say "a product" they really just mean "a thing people use or buy".
1. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/productize 2. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/productization