Helping Railo with marketing etc

[Sean Corfield]

We sometimes get feedback from users on things we can do better to
help market Railo. That feedback ranges from SEO suggestions for the
web sites to outreach to "CF" community experts, updating third party
sites with better information about Railo and so on. We always
appreciate the feedback of course and, clearly, changes to
getrailo.com / .org are our responsibility.

We wanted to let you know that we're currently preparing a complete
overhaul of the material on the getrailo sites and we're discussing
folding the two sites together so that there is one, central location
that will contain both the FOSS project information about Railo Server
and the commercial offerings of support and professional services.
We've long felt that following the JBoss model - with clearly
separated sites covering FOSS on one and commercial concerns on the
other - was the best way to make it clear that Railo Server is a
standalone LGPLv2.1 project and that the team around it, who fund the
core development work, are general CFML consultants, assisting with
whatever projects you need.

In the past, Railo Consulting has had a fair share of its revenue from
projects that used Adobe ColdFusion so that separation made sense.
Over the last year, we've seen a steady progression to projects based
solely on Railo Server and an increase in support contracts, to the
point that we are currently generating almost all our revenue from
business based on Railo Server. The separation of the sites has been a
source of confusion for many people in the past and with this shift in
our business, we think it's time to merge the two sites.

A lot of the feedback we get, however, goes beyond the getrailo sites
and covers things that you, the community, could do for Railo without
needing our "permission" or our resources. The second half of my
message therefore is to encourage you to take the initiative: if you
have feedback on the getrailo sites, let us know by all means, but if
your feedback is on areas outside our direct responsibility, please
feel empowered to act directly on your suggestions and report back to
the community what improvements you have made. Talk to others in the
community about why you use Railo Server or Railo Consulting, contact
sites that contain outdated information and offer to help them update
it (at least send them updated links if that's what the problem is),
update information about Railo Server wherever you have access to do
so (community wikis such as Wikipedia, for example).

If you can do outreach to other communities, that's even better! I
talk a lot about Railo Server in my dealings with various Java / JVM
language communities and I've encouraged quite a few people to
download and try Railo Server - people who would never have considered
CFML before! Some of them were sufficiently impressed that they're
actively using Railo Server for the front end of applications where
the back end is still their traditional JVM language of choice. It's
led to some interesting questions about how to do things like
integrate Spring Security into a CFML application :)
--
Sean A Corfield -- (904) 302-SEAN
An Architect's View -- http://corfield.org/
Railo Technologies, Inc. -- http://www.getrailo.com/

"Perfection is the enemy of the good."
-- Gustave Flaubert, French realist novelist (1821-1880)

[Jay]

hi Sean,

I personally think that separating getRailo.org from getRailo.com was an excellent idea from a marketing perspective, and combining the two sites might be counterproductive.

also, while discussing development ideas in an open forum can lead to great results, I'm not sure that discussing marketing strategies out in the open is a good idea.

just my 2 cents...

Jay

[Lyle Karstensen]

Sean,
I would also like to say on the same note of spreading the word sort of thing about Railo is to include a "Who's Using" section. I am not sure how many people would brag about Railo due to possible security risks (I guess) but I know that the Who's Using part of MongoDB caused me to take a closer look due to the known volume of the sites they are powering.

Lyle Karstensen Jr.
Chief Executive Officer  (CEO)

Phone: 702.940.4200
Fax: 702.940.4201
Direct: 702.932.8200
Cell: 702.683.3666
Email: ly...@realistiq.com
Website: http://www.realistiq.com

[Rob Langlands]

I've been a regular viewer of FLOSS Weekly on the Twit.tv network with Randal Schwartz. It'd be great to see Railo get reviewed on the show with Randal. I do know that he has Railo included in his list of potential Weekly Guests, but it's way down at the bottom. https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pYAJMbVobYCTro_z4LGo3ZQ

http://twit.tv/show/floss-weekly

Email Randal at mer...@stonehenge.com to request Railo be featured on FLOSS Weekly.

Thanks,
Rob L.

[Justin Edwards]

Sean,

One thing that I have noticed in other FOSS projects with commercial interests is that they make it hard to find the community sections or alternate community ran site sometimes.   I very much appreciate how open Railo has been.  If major changes are made, the only thing that would be disappointing to me would be if you made it difficult to find the community areas.   

[Sean Corfield]

On Thu, Sep 1, 2011 at 12:53 PM, Jay <d...@21solutions.net> wrote:
> I personally think that separating getRailo.org from getRailo.com was an
> excellent idea from a marketing perspective, and combining the two sites
> might be counterproductive.

I think folks are going to be split on this decision - some people
already feel strongly it was a bad idea in the first place :)

> also, while discussing development ideas in an open forum can lead to great
> results, I'm not sure that discussing marketing strategies out in the open
> is a good idea.

Totally understand - and the management team are always happy to get
private emails with suggestions. The three regional CEOs are:
se...@getrailo.com (US), ma...@getrailo.com (UK), ge...@getrailo.com
(Europe / rest of world) - or folks can contact our business team via
the Contact Us form on the web site.

I just wanted to encourage everyone to feel empowered to act directly
on their ideas for improving how Railo Server is perceived out in the
big, wide world - since this is a community-driven open source project
and we want to see the community grow and get involved.

--
Sean A Corfield -- (904) 302-SEAN
An Architect's View -- http://corfield.org/

World Singles, LLC. -- http://worldsingles.com/

[Sean Corfield]

On Thu, Sep 1, 2011 at 1:42 PM, Lyle Karstensen <ly...@realistiq.com> wrote:
>        I would also like to say on the same note of spreading the word sort of thing about Railo is to include a "Who's Using" section. I am not sure how many people would brag about Railo due to possible security risks (I guess) but I know that the Who's Using part of MongoDB caused me to take a closer look due to the known volume of the sites they are powering.

We're always looking for more success stories from the community and
we're happy to feature anyone who's willing to stand up and tell their
story:

http://www.getrailo.org/index.cfm/community/case-studies/
http://www.getrailo.org/index.cfm/community/testimonials/

One of the downsides to a free open source product is that you often
have no idea who is using it unless they reach out to you! So, please,
if you have a success story you want to share, please contact us and
we'll add you to the testimonials page.

--
Sean A Corfield -- (904) 302-SEAN
An Architect's View -- http://corfield.org/

World Singles, LLC. -- http://worldsingles.com/

[Sean Corfield]

On Thu, Sep 1, 2011 at 2:57 PM, Justin Edwards <justinl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> One thing that I have noticed in other FOSS projects with commercial
> interests is that they make it hard to find the community sections or
> alternate community ran site sometimes.   I very much appreciate how open
> Railo has been.  If major changes are made, the only thing that would be
> disappointing to me would be if you made it difficult to find the community
> areas.

Thank you! We'll try to make sure we keep things "community first" and
we'll be relying on all of you to call us out if we do anything to
change that!

--
Sean A Corfield -- (904) 302-SEAN
An Architect's View -- http://corfield.org/

World Singles, LLC. -- http://worldsingles.com/

[Judith Barnett]

I am building my sites on the open source platform, but knowing the
commercial support will be there once they launch and start generating
revenue was a big factor in my decision. I think marketing both
jointly would be a powerful choice.

[Lyle Karstensen]

I would love to do a case study for you guys since my experience with switching to Railo has been far better than I could have ever expected.

Lyle Karstensen Jr.
Chief Executive Officer  (CEO)

Phone: 702.940.4200
Fax: 702.940.4201
Direct: 702.932.8200
Cell: 702.683.3666
Email: ly...@realistiq.com
Website: http://www.realistiq.com

-----Original Message-----
From: ra...@googlegroups.com [mailto:ra...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Sean Corfield

[Todd Rafferty]

There's a page of questions in that testimonial area. Just fill it out and send me the information and I'll work with you getting it up on the site.

--
~Todd Rafferty
Volunteer Community Manager
Railo Server - Open Source
----

Get Railo: http://getrailo.org/
Write Documentation: http://wiki.getrailo.org/

Report Bugs: https://issues.jboss.org/browse/RAILO
Request Features: https://railo.uservoice.com/

[Todd Rafferty]

Sorry, not testimonial, case studies area.

[Todd Rafferty]

This specifically:

http://www.getrailo.org/index.cfm/community/case-studies/case-study-questions/

[Lyle Karstensen]

Great. I will work on this ASAP. I think it is important the “Who’s Using” be focused on because it speaks volumes about the software. It does not “Have” to be a case study but a list of companies that are “Busy” or big sites would be very beneficial.

 

Lyle Karstensen Jr. Chief Executive Officer  (CEO)

[Peter Boughton]

Whilst the original separation made sense (especially in following the
JBoss model), I don't think there's any disadvantage to merging the
sites/domains - there can still be a distinct CFML consulting area,
and it probably is less confusing if there's just a single domain.

However, is it worth going for railo.com domain? It's listed as
available for sale, but by a domain squatter with ~30k other domains,
so I suspect it's already been tried and the price demanded was
unreasonably high. But, if it is possible to get for a fair amount,
it'd definitely be better.

Regarding the other stuff... I was actually looking at the Railo
Wikipedia page a few weeks back and thinking it really needed a
complete overhaul, but I had a bunch of other stuff going on and
wasn't quite sure where to start anyway so never got anything done.
I might go give it a stab over the next week or so, but if anyone else
was thinking about working on it and wants to collaborate / share the
work, that'd be cool. If so let me know (here/email/irc/g+/whatever).

I agree with what Rob's saying about going for a general web podcast
being a good idea, but - before doing that - there needs to obvious
and strong documentation for a non-CF new user. I haven't checked
what's there recently, but I think this is an area that could do with
improving?
(Similarly, since Wikipedia is 4th in a google search for "railo",
that page definitely needs sorting out before applying for something
that will drive lots of people to it.)

[Lyle Karstensen]

I think following the Mongo/Couchbase idea of only keeping the .org for info on downloading the code and the actual open source information. Everything else is on 1 site including the explanation of the software and services.

Lyle Karstensen Jr.
Chief Executive Officer  (CEO)

Phone: 702.940.4200
Fax: 702.940.4201
Direct: 702.932.8200
Cell: 702.683.3666
Email: ly...@realistiq.com
Website: http://www.realistiq.com




-----Original Message-----
From: ra...@googlegroups.com [mailto:ra...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Peter Boughton
Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2011 3:18 PM
To: ra...@googlegroups.com

[Sean Corfield]

On Thu, Sep 1, 2011 at 3:17 PM, Peter Boughton <boug...@gmail.com> wrote:
> However, is it worth going for railo.com domain? It's listed as
> available for sale, but by a domain squatter with ~30k other domains,
> so I suspect it's already been tried and the price demanded was
> unreasonably high.

You suspect correctly. We'll continue to keep an eye on the domain...

[wikipedia]

> I might go give it a stab over the next week or so, but if anyone else
> was thinking about working on it and wants to collaborate / share the
> work, that'd be cool. If so let me know (here/email/irc/g+/whatever).

Thank you!

--
Sean A Corfield -- (904) 302-SEAN
An Architect's View -- http://corfield.org/

World Singles, LLC. -- http://worldsingles.com/

[spills]

I liked the way MySQL was doing things before Oracle took over. I am not a big fan of how they moved everything around and imo it makes the community product seem more like a "toy" because it is not grouped with the "Enterprise" solution. I say simply have one site with two distinct products, a community and paid channel it doesn't make since to split docs, including news/blogs as that is an opportunity to "upsale" occasionally along with the valuable tips. It makes sense to me at least that you might have many companies testing the waters with the community edition and end up buying paid support.

Spills

[John C. Bland II]

I agree on the sites. I am lost between .org and .com all of the time [namely because the designs are the exact same; except for colors]. Having them on the same domain clearly separated in different sections would help tremendously.

I'll start doing my part to blog Railo a bit more and do some video tutorials.

---
John C. Bland II
Blog: http://www.johncblandii.com
Company: http://www.katapultmedia.com
Twitter: @johncblandii

[David McGuigan]

Totally in favor of merging the sites.

> Railo Technologies, Inc. --http://www.getrailo.com/

[Mark Drew]

That's good then... we are not totally lost in the land of coffee and donuts :)
Mark Drew
Railo Technologies, Ltd.
Professional Open Source
skype: mark_railo
ma...@getrailo.com
+44 7971 852296
www.getrailo.com