Monthly updates as advertising

[Edward K. Ream]

One reason Leo isn't more widely known is that it isn't widely advertised.  Especially now that official versions appear only every 6 to 12 months.

The easiest advertising, and perhaps the most effective, are release announcements.  If I released a new version of Leo every month that would substantially increase Leo's online presence.

Your comments, please.

Edward

[Jacob Peck]

Worked wonders for Firefox and Chrome, but both of those already had a significant userbase.  On the other hand, the approach they take obsoletes minor versions -- nearly every release is a new major version, often without any super-important or super-visible new features.  It feels like inflating the numbers simply for the purpose of saying "look, our software is on version 45, we're super good at coding and stuff, use our product!", which, honestly, doesn't say *anything* about the product to a seasoned computer user.

I guess what I'm saying is that there are tradeoffs -- if you obsolete the minor numbers, then suddenly your major version number becomes inflated and neigh useless.  If you stick to the common versioning scheme, then users have more of an idea of the state of the program... but you don't have the shiny big numbers that non-power-users would see and draw them in.

I think at least a minor version pushed out every couple of months could do *something*, but I'm not sure it would generate much if any attention at all, to be honest.  We're in a 'hub' situation at the moment -- we have a core group of heavy users, many of whom evangelize the product.  The problem isn't outreach in my opinion, it's bridging the gap between power-users and casual-users.  A piece of software has to appeal to the masses if it wants mass adoption.  Leo offers something for everyone, in my opinion, the difficult bit is *showing* that to the world.  The website does as admirable a job as it can of this, because Leo does *so much*, it's impossible to point out all it can do... it's a Turing complete editor!  But saying that isn't going to convince anyone to use it either.

Personally, I came to Leo through wikipedia, while I was looking for a way to organize disparate data in a way that made sense to how my brain worked.  Mindmaps (freemind, etc) didn't quite work for what I wanted.  And to be honest, Leo's website didn't really sell me on the fact that it could meet my needs either.  I'm a tinkerer, though, so I gave it a shot, and found it a perfect fit.  It's a many-sized glove for many-sized hands, but I really can't think of a way to make that known.

...I guess I rambled a bit, but I guess what I'm saying is I don't know if more frequent releases would equal the kind of bump you want... but I also don't know what else would.  :/

-->Jake

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[Marcel Franke]

Edward K. Ream wrote:

 

The easiest advertising, and perhaps the most effective, are release announcements. 

The most efficient is people talking about something. Release announcements only fetch attention,
but they don't discussions. Also, where would you put those announcements to? Here? On the Leo-Website?

Unless you found some forum you could spam with them, it wouldn't bring much attention.
reddit.com/r/python and Python-Mailinglist might be a good candidate, but I think you should be careful with
the frequency and deliver a changelog which is worth the effort. Otherwise people adapt, and start to ignore them.

If you want advertising, start discussing in other groups. Spread some knowledge, tips, etc. But you should be careful
not to make it obvious advertising. For example, you could write some general articles about python, outlining, organizing stuff
and post them to suitable reddit-groups. Don't focus on Leo, just use it prominently with a solution which is interessting for other people.
And from time to time you can add some leo-specific content to shift the focus on leo.

But should be also be aware that you might very fast get feedback which will explain what's wrong with leo, which might be frustrating.

If I released a new version of Leo every month that would substantially increase Leo's online presence.

Has Leo even enough manpower to deliver something worth in a month? Because nobody will be impressed
from a list of 3 bugfixes and a new search-option.

[Edward K. Ream]

On Thu, Oct 15, 2015 at 2:51 AM, Marcel Franke <kugelfis...@googlemail.com> wrote:

But should be also be aware that you might very fast get feedback which will explain what's wrong with leo, which might be frustrating.

​That would be cool.  I've only ever gotten bug reports or totally clueless comments :-)​

 

If I released a new version of Leo every month that would substantially increase Leo's online presence.

Has Leo even enough manpower to deliver something worth in a month? Because nobody will be impressed
from a list of 3 bugfixes and a new search-option.

​Yeah, they're not too impressed with 25 years of work either.

Edward

[Marcel Franke]

Edward K. Ream wrote:

 

If I released a new version of Leo every month that would substantially increase Leo's online presence.

Has Leo even enough manpower to deliver something worth in a month? Because nobody will be impressed
from a list of 3 bugfixes and a new search-option.

​Yeah, they're not too impressed with 25 years of work either.

 

Well, Leo is a tool, neither a pet nor a game. Without solid results,

it's just a waste of the users time. Flattering is for the regulars' table or the church.

[Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas]

Well I'm impressed. Leo  and its community has been a source of inspiration, food for thought  and good talk. Because I'm making my own ouliner (kind of a mix of Leo and IPython but in Smalltalk) I'm using leo mostly as and outliner, but not for heavy documentation, but that doesn't diminish in any way its merits. I think that addressing problems like outlining for document writing or easier one step installation are in the correct path to make its ideas more widely known.

Cheers,

Offray