Quote:

Indeed... Less emphasis in everything!

Something like the full article "MorphOS - The lightning OS" is just too much read. Don't get me wrong, it's a fantastic job, and we existing users just love all that detail, but please have in mind that you are targeting, precisely, a completely new audience.
Making it look attractive is more important, then, than technical details. Heck, it's even more important than being accurate to reality! Have a look at how Apple (precisely) markets things: Always very abstract, just very simple concepts. I almost envision this starting with a simple array of screenshots, with some catchy phrases, you know what I mean? Hey, those are precisely the looks of the MorphOS Team web site (done by Andr? Siegel, I think). If you mimick that look, you are being both concise and consistent. Perhaps it could be something in between zero information, and the one given in the "intro" page. Make a teaser, and have it in "http://www.morphos-team.net/whatismorphos.html", or something like that. With iterations like "MorphOS is speed", "MorphOS is fun", "MorphOS is freedom" (well, that's actually completely false!)...
And please, video! The internet is flooded by gazillios of videos about completely stupid and irrelevant things, why is it so short of MorphOS materials? At least one well produced, elegant video, to show how MorphOS moves. Because that's our main strong point.

Quote:

I can't write articles (especially about computers, especially in english :) ), but I can translate it into russian.

Quote:

In case of non-english article, the www.morphos-team.net/#? should be translated before. So, it's a huge work, but it's possible.

@ amigadave

Great initiative!



[ Edited by takemehomegrandma on 2009/10/28 23:33 ]

@Senex
Quote:

I volunteer to help as much as I am able.

Nice ideas and feelings but if all this work trying to recruit users for another platforms fails... morphos fails? I hope not.

I cant imagine windows and osx users enought interested on a machine (obsolete for them) and a OS without all of this software of win or osx and sometimes free.

MorphOS is a OS for amiga people and some computer adventurers and this is another atractive.

@ Kickstart

Agree, MorphOS targets primarily ex-Amigans and ppl who actually care about an operating system in general. But most ppl don't care too much. See, the girls I confronted yesterday with MorphOS, they registered that this is not the normal windows (windows 7? some Linux?), they had no prob to use the applications they had to use and probably kind of liked it. But those who don't have a spare Mac mini or are interested in OSes in general will never jump on board - because for them the hurdle is/seems higher than the benefit.
But in general it can't hurt much to spread the word. MorphOS is now good enough to make a positive first *and* second impression.

@Senex:

Quote:

WTF?! Why?

Quote:

No, most Windows and Mac users will not be interested in MorphOS, but a few Mac users and perhaps many Linux users will take an interest, as they have already shown that they are not satisfied with the 99% Windows computers.

Just some more ideas after reading all this:

- wikipedia bombing: extending MOS entry and referrencing the wiki links in any other relevant entries
- preparing semi-official MOS review and sending it to all PRINTED (user-targetted, though, not like b2b, sales, telco etc) computer magazines in all countries
- as for the magazines, a demo unit would be fine, say five per Europe, that way
- someone said blogging... I say all possible references also like email signature facebook etc
- also a cool ad would be of MOS for devs: "create your critical system app, be first and be remembered"!
- but which is most important - WE NEED AN SCM SYSTEM for tracking and assigning such issues you all propose here - see e.g. a trac system

Also I wish to volunteer really but instead, I'll try to start writting a spreadsheet app ASAP (before eventual notebook release). So I think that's what I should do now (aside of posting here). But I think MorphOS Promotion Team (call it) should be SEPARATED from MOSTeam actually (dual roles may apply of course). My point is MOSTeam should focus on what they do best and it is US, Amiga fans that should organize together in that kind of effort. Just take a look at recent initiative of cluster_uk, the creator of iMica, dedicated AROS HW system. We need as much specialized efforts as possible, there are so few people involved in any sorts of actions...

I know that I will be stepping in an ultra hot field of burning coals right now by mentioning it, but proper promotion for a product starts with writing the product's name properly.

It's not "MOS", it is "MorphOS". "MOS" can be anything and nothing (do a quick Google research to find out).

Quote:
It is true Wikipedia's MorphOS page is really pathetic (even more for the french version).

The Amiga page itself is also weird, having (a lot) more about Unix than about MorphOS and AROS...

@DiskDoctor,

looking forward to reviewing your new spreadsheet program for MorphOS. Will it be Excel AND FinalCalc AND TurboCalc compatible?

@tokai

OK I'll start writting MorphOS name properly as soon as y'all stop writting about "Mac Minis" anymore, it's about Mac Mini PPC. Just write "MorphOS for Mac Mini available" few more times and you will see people coming here with WTF-like posts, proud owners of brand new Intel Minis...

:-)

I mean really, I can see a serious problem here. Only several dozen of ppl can imagine there's other processor's world than of Intel and AMD.

@Henes

Of course I meant local wikis as well, good point.

@amigadave

Thanks for a suggestion. My primary plan was to make MS Excel-compatible spreadsheet (before Office 2007 in first release) but now I realized, thank to yourself, that there have always been other Amiga spreadsheet apps. So I can guarantee that top 1-3 of such for MorphOS and 68ks as well will be initially supported (that of course, depends on the specs' availability).

@DiskDoctor,

Have you already started work on your SpreadSheet program? I will volunteer to be a beta tester of it for you when it is ready for testing.

I will have to try to load FinalCalc on to my MOS2.4 G4 MacMini to see if it is compatible and how well it runs.

Has anyone else tried SoftWood's products on MorphOS? (Final Writer, Final Calc, & Final Data)

Back on topic: I have had a fever all day and have not taken any time to visit any other sites to promote MOS2.4 on the G4 MacMini, but the DiskDoctor makes a good point that any of us posting on Mac forums should think of, and that is the point of making sure we include G4 and/or PPC in front of the words MacMini when writing about MOS2.4 on those forums. An easy way to avoid confusion is to also include a link to the official MorphOS website page that describes the release of MOS2.4.

So, what have any of you done today to promote MorphOS, or otherwise help grow our tiny group of users? (I'm sick, what's your excuse?)

Edit: I am hoping to see some kind of response from the MOSTeam in this thread that would give us some kind of idea what they would like to see done in the way of promotion, or if they would just prefer the community to do nothing and leave all promotion of MorphOS up to them? I have not received any response from the two team members that I have tried to contact regarding this topic of public relations, but I am still hopeful that I will receive something that will give me better direction to follow.

[ Edited by amigadave on 2009/10/30 18:50 ]

See the link below for some good info directly from a MOSTeam member.

http://obligement.free.fr/articles_traduction/itwolsen_en.php

In that interview you will see that the MOSTeam member indicates that, at least in his opinion, the team relies on the users to promote MorphOS.

So folks, it appears that it is up to us to do what we can to market and promote MorphOS2.x to new users. The team is a loosely connected group of programmers that do not appear to have any plans for marketing or promoting themselves, other than the occasional announcements they post on their website, and the very rare interview, such as the one linked to above.

The one thing in the interview that was particularly dissappointing to me was the statement that SMP would likely never be supported in MorphOS future. I hope that changes with time, but it is clear that none of the team members is even thinking about it at this time. I might have to start watching what the AmigaOS4.x developers are doing and hinting at more closely now. (but I really dont want to go in that direction, as I believe that MOS2.x is a much better OS)

Quote:

At least Final Writer works fine.

Quote:

I think it should be "Mac mini G4"... that's how it's written on MorphOS website and other places.

Quote:

That works for me, but it sounds more correct in my country the other way around because we always put the adjectives ahead of the nouns in the English language in the USA (and UK too, AFAIK), so G4 MacMini, or PPC MacMini would be appropriate, or even G4 PPC MacMini.

I understand that most EU languages do the opposite, so MacMini G4 would probably sound or read better to people that have German, French, Italian, Polish, or Spanish as their native language.

@ amigadave

Quote:

Actually, G4 is not an adjective, but a noun. (An attributive noun, to be exact.)

Quote:

I have to disagree. Putting an attribute after a noun is not uncommon in the English language. (It is definitely not more common in German, which is not surprising because German and English are part of the same language family.)

Irregardless of this, considering that the US-based manufacturer of the Mac computers calls the G4-based version of the iMac "iMac G4", I think using the term "Mac mini G4" is appropiate.

Link: http://www.apple.com/support/imac/g4/

This is not important enough for me to go looking for examples, but the Apple page you referenced is using G4 as part of the iMac name, hence iMac G4 is one object. In my context, I am describing a part inside of the MacMini, such as "The Mac Mini that has a G4 CPU inside instead of an Intel CPU", so I put the attributive noun in front of the object it describes or is a part of, which is the same purpose as an adjective, more or less.

Even if my memory of English classes 30+ years ago is faulty, as I stated, in the USA, G4 MacMini sounds better than MacMini G4 IMHO (or not so humble opinion).

Either way, I don't care which way anyone uses, as the readers will get the point that they cannot use MorphOS2.4 on their Intel MacMini (or MacMini Intel).

I should have left German off of my list, as I know that it has a similar structure to English and that they are of the same family, just as Spanish and French are similar structure.

[ Edited by amigadave on 2009/10/31 5:11 ]

But consider the whole phrase:

"MorphOS 2.4 for MacMini G4" vs "MorphOS 2.4 for G4 MacMini"

The latter one seems more appropriate but first one sounds better

I think this question is not as much crucial, provided that the G4 or PPC entity appears eventually

And it's written "Mac mini" btw.

Quote:

Whatever.

Some direction from the MOSTeam on how they would like the members here and MOS users in general to proceed with promoting MorphOS would be greatly appreciated. I am frankly surprised that none of the MOSTeam members have posted anything in this thread.

Maybe they don't realize they're being addressed here?

As a start, please find below the work I've applied so far - it's mainly just a removal of stuff for now (unfortunately only the additions/changes are marked, since I realized too late that it would have been nice to also just mark the deletions) and by no means considered to be finished. It's just that I have to leave now and thus won't be able to work on it before next weekend.

MTLOS 2.4 beta

For any suggestions, corrections or contributions (texts, pictures...) I'd be very grateful.


@tokai

LOL - sorry, didn't intend to hurt his feelings. :-)