Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Improving LibreOffice download numbers on download sites

On 05/25/2014 01:31 PM, Tom Davies wrote:
> Hi :)

Hi Tom,

> The specifically stated download sites do have a good reputation and
> there are many other good 3rd-party sites and other independent ways
> of getting LibreOffice too. 

Yes there are many good 3rd-party sites and we should use those sites to
our advantage to improve LibO's popularity to users of those sites. With
many users getting automatic updates through their package manager and
downloadable updates within LibO, LibO is missing out on one of the
opportunities to use upgrades as a means of promoting itself.

> However if stats are being skewed by some companies deliberately
> creating misinformation then i am not sure how far down that road we
> really want to go.  In some industries such activity might be viewed
> as fraud or as cheap huckster ploys.  On the other hand if everyone
> else is doing it then maybe we are fools to not be doing it too. 

Stats are not really skewed, as users are not being directed there who
dont already want to download the file, and instead of the downloads
stats being tracked at the software makers site, it is being tracked at
the software directory's site. This also has another benefit of reducing
the bandwidth load on the various mirrors. I personally dont find this
as fraud as its like promoting your website in google by SEO in order to
drive more traffic to your website. Or alternatively, if LibO had a
retail outlet on the street and one in a shopping mall and wanted people
in the mall to take notice of its outlet by driving more people to it,
maybe they would exclusively have a popular product in the mall retail
outlet. :)

> Any chance of directly contacting our marketing mailing list to
> suggest the idea to them?  It might be that you have other ideas they
> might find useful or things that you can get directly involved in, or
> they might even let you organise doing your idea. 

I didnt quite get what you meant as i'm discussing this issue with the
marketing mailing list as i'm on it. Well so far, my idea would be to
link the download button at <
http://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-fresh/?type=win-x86&version=4.2&lang=en-US
> to <
http://filehippo.com/download_libreoffice/download/500aad3c98cfb39924bfc5134c2138ae/
> for a random number of users each day, or having additional download
buttons for download.com and filehippo.com on the page, stating that it
can also be downloading from those sites.

> Kingsoft Office is a good option for many people when they first start
> trying to move away from MS Office.  It has the very similar
> ribbon-bar and so it's much easier for users of the newer versions of
> MS Office to adapt to.  It lowers-the-bar for people migrating away
> from MS Office.  Once people HAVE migrated away from MS Office they
> can see the many programs that DO "play well together" and make the
> extra step more easily. 

I do agree Kingsoft Office is a good options for many moving from MS
Office as its document compatibility is almost perfect in every file i
through at it. Yes there ribbon-UI will also be easy for users coming
from MS Office 2007+.

> Of course Kingsoft's policy of following along behind MS wrt it's
> formats and UI means that they will always be at least 1 or 2 steps
> behind and constantly trying to "play catch-up".  That means a lot of
> work in reverse-engineering the hidden changes in the formats and in
> the UI and then redeveloping their own way of handling it without
> being too close in case of copyright infringements.  All a LOT of work
> in order to ensure that they always lag behind MS!! 

I dont see as that much different then how LibO is playing catchup to
improve MS Office compatibility and features.

> Still, for people unable to make the full step away from proprietary
> license fees and issues of incompatibility with their own different
> versions of their own software then Kingsoft Office is a good
> stepping-stone.
> Regards from
> Tom :) 

Battling OpenOffice's popularity is an uphill battle as its has been
around for 10 years more than LibO and it was the free office suite we
were promoting ourselves not so long ago, which also can be seen by its
download numbers on the various software sites.

Regards,
Jay

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