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Re: [Esug-list] Smalltalk hosting ...

by Geert Claes

Ralph Johnson wrote: > >> >> When you say marketing what do you mean exactly because an application >> users want to use does its >> own marketing and than there is no need to do a hard sell :) > > Marketing is NOT "hard sell". Marketing is figuring out what customers > want and removing the things preventing them from getting it. it is > finding the people who ought to use a product and letting > them know about it. Marketing often means fixing the documentation, the > license, or something else non-technical. > > No product can succeed without marketing. None ever has. Sometimes the > marketing was not done by the inventor. Sometimes it is hard to tell who > is doing the marketing and just what they did. But marketing > is crucial. > Don't get me wrong Ralph, that's exactly what I meant when I said when you have "an application users want to use" ... because this IS your market. If you miss this ball on this one you can have all the documentation, exposure, advertising and whatever in the world, it still wont make people want your application. Ralph Johnson wrote: > > One of the problems with Smalltalk now is that the good marketeers have > left it. When I heard that Dave Thomas was retiring I stood up on the > bus, which was full of Smalltalkers, and said that this was the > passing of an era, and that someone else needed to step up or Smalltalk > would falter. More Smalltalkers need to read marketing books like "The > Tipping Point" and "Crossing the Chasm". > > This is a very important thread. Please don't say that marketing is > unimportant. Marketing is crucial, and a weakness in the Smalltalk > community. > I agree and this is where I am trying to help as well. It is extremely important but please beware that "marketing" is not something only "marketeers" do, everyone involved is participating in marketing, starting from application's requirements/features, look-and-feel, usability, quality, cost/license, documentation, support etc ... the whole shebang :) ps. I have actually read a couple of Malcolm's books ... Chris Anderson's Free is a good one too :) -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Smalltalk-hosting-tp3384077p3384270.html Sent from the ESUG mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

March 17, 2011

Re: [Esug-list] Smalltalk hosting ...

by Steve Edwards

Hi, I absolutely agree with Ralph, one of the main problems with Smalltalk over the last twenty years has been the lack of marketing of its strengths (the arrival of Java was another one!). Steve Edwards (Frustrated ex-Smalltalker, ex-The-Object-People, now doing Java and Ruby.) On 17 March 2011 11:16, Ralph Johnson <johnson(a)cs.uiuc.edu> wrote: > On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 6:02 AM, Geert Claes <geert.wl.claes(a)gmail.com> > wrote: > > > > laurent laffont wrote: > >> > >> ... > >> The big problem with Pier is the terrible lack of documentation, > recipes, > >> how-to's...... no marketing, no communication with user. > >> ... > >> > > > > When you say marketing what do you mean exactly because an application > users > > want to use does its own marketing and than there is no need to do a hard > > sell :) > > Marketing is NOT "hard sell". Marketing is figuring out what > customers want and removing the things preventing them from getting > it. it is finding the people who ought to use a product and letting > them know about it. Marketing often means fixing the documentation, > the license, or something else non-technical. > > No product can succeed without marketing. None ever has. Sometimes > the marketing was not done by the inventor. Sometimes it is hard to > tell who is doing the marketing and just what they did. But marketing > is crucial. > > One of the problems with Smalltalk now is that the good marketeers > have left it. When I heard that Dave Thomas was retiring I stood up > on the bus, which was full of Smalltalkers, and said that this was the > passing of an era, and that someone else needed to step up or > Smalltalk would falter. More Smalltalkers need to read marketing > books like "The Tipping Point" and "Crossing the Chasm". > > This is a very important thread. Please don't say that marketing is > unimportant. Marketing is crucial, and a weakness in the Smalltalk > community. > > -Ralph Johnson > > _______________________________________________ > Esug-list mailing list > Esug-list(a)lists.esug.org > http://lists.esug.org/mailman/listinfo/esug-list_lists.esug.org > -- Steve Edwards Escala Ltd. steve(a)escala.co.uk

March 17, 2011

Re: [Esug-list] Smalltalk hosting ...

by laurent laffont

On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 12:16 PM, Ralph Johnson <johnson(a)cs.uiuc.edu> wrote: > On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 6:02 AM, Geert Claes <geert.wl.claes(a)gmail.com> > wrote: > > > > laurent laffont wrote: > >> > >> ... > >> The big problem with Pier is the terrible lack of documentation, > recipes, > >> how-to's...... no marketing, no communication with user. > >> ... > >> > > > > When you say marketing what do you mean exactly because an application > users > > want to use does its own marketing and than there is no need to do a hard > > sell :) > > Marketing is NOT "hard sell". Marketing is figuring out what > customers want and removing the things preventing them from getting > it. it is finding the people who ought to use a product and letting > them know about it. Marketing often means fixing the documentation, > the license, or something else non-technical. > > No product can succeed without marketing. None ever has. Sometimes > the marketing was not done by the inventor. Sometimes it is hard to > tell who is doing the marketing and just what they did. But marketing > is crucial. > > One of the problems with Smalltalk now is that the good marketeers > have left it. When I heard that Dave Thomas was retiring I stood up > on the bus, which was full of Smalltalkers, and said that this was the > passing of an era, and that someone else needed to step up or > Smalltalk would falter. More Smalltalkers need to read marketing > books like "The Tipping Point" and "Crossing the Chasm". > > This is a very important thread. Please don't say that marketing is > unimportant. Marketing is crucial, and a weakness in the Smalltalk > community. > + 10 Laurent. > > -Ralph Johnson > > _______________________________________________ > Esug-list mailing list > Esug-list(a)lists.esug.org > http://lists.esug.org/mailman/listinfo/esug-list_lists.esug.org >

March 17, 2011

Re: [Esug-list] Smalltalk hosting ...

by Ralph Johnson

On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 6:02 AM, Geert Claes <geert.wl.claes(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > laurent laffont wrote: >> >> ... >> The big problem with Pier is the terrible lack of documentation, recipes, >> how-to's...... no marketing, no communication with user. >> ... >> > > When you say marketing what do you mean exactly because an application users > want to use does its own marketing and than there is no need to do a hard > sell :) Marketing is NOT "hard sell". Marketing is figuring out what customers want and removing the things preventing them from getting it. it is finding the people who ought to use a product and letting them know about it. Marketing often means fixing the documentation, the license, or something else non-technical. No product can succeed without marketing. None ever has. Sometimes the marketing was not done by the inventor. Sometimes it is hard to tell who is doing the marketing and just what they did. But marketing is crucial. One of the problems with Smalltalk now is that the good marketeers have left it. When I heard that Dave Thomas was retiring I stood up on the bus, which was full of Smalltalkers, and said that this was the passing of an era, and that someone else needed to step up or Smalltalk would falter. More Smalltalkers need to read marketing books like "The Tipping Point" and "Crossing the Chasm". This is a very important thread. Please don't say that marketing is unimportant. Marketing is crucial, and a weakness in the Smalltalk community. -Ralph Johnson

March 17, 2011

Re: [Esug-list] Smalltalk hosting ...

by Geert Claes

Davorin Rusevljan wrote: > > Having preconfigured amazon ec2 AMI with Pier correctly configured as a > blog would not hurt. And by correctly I mean really ready to go with > persistence, backups, google analyitics. And few bullet proof > tutorials how to adjust look and feel, i.e. where to poke what, and that > it works even if one does not understand what he is doing much less can > read Smalltalk code. > I think people like to know how much it will cost them and I thought AWS is more a pay-as-you-use, in that case it would be nice to be able to give an idea how much it will cost per month. Being able to easily change the look-and-feel is certainly very important. Davorin Rusevljan wrote: > > Of course it would be also great to have clear documentation, which goes > beyond to say that everything is a structure. > How to use a web application - like a blog/cms - should be intuitive enough so no or minimum documentation is required (when tinckering with the internals this may be a different story) -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Smalltalk-hosting-tp3384077p3384204.html Sent from the ESUG mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

March 17, 2011

Re: [Esug-list] Smalltalk hosting ...

by Davorin Rusevljan

Having preconfigured amazon ec2 AMI with Pier correctly configured as a blog would not hurt. And by correctly I mean really ready to go with persistence, backups, google analyitics. And few bullet proof tutorials how to adjust look and feel, i.e. where to poke what, and that it works even if one does not understand what he is doing much less can read Smalltalk code. Of course it would be also great to have clear documentation, which goes beyond to say that everything is a structure. But I am afraid it is really a lot of work. Davorin Rusevljan http://www.cloud208.com/

March 17, 2011

Re: [Esug-list] Smalltalk hosting ...

by Geert Claes

laurent laffont wrote: > > ... > The big problem with Pier is the terrible lack of documentation, recipes, > how-to's...... no marketing, no communication with user. > ... > When you say marketing what do you mean exactly because an application users want to use does its own marketing and than there is no need to do a hard sell :) -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Smalltalk-hosting-tp3384077p3384183.html Sent from the ESUG mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

March 17, 2011

Re: [Esug-list] Smalltalk hosting ...

by laurent laffont

On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 10:59 AM, Geert Claes <geert.wl.claes(a)gmail.com>wrote: > Smalltalk does have open source blog and content management systems; e.g. > http://www.piercms.com Pier CMS and http://www.aidaweb.si/scribo.html > AIDAscribo ... but a lot can be improved to make them attractive > alternatives to the big http://www.drupal.org Drupal (PHP) and > http://www.joomla.org Joomla (PHP) or even smaller ones like > http://radiantcms.org Radiant CMS (Ruby) , http://www.refinerycms.com > Refinery CMS (Ruby) , http://www.django-cms.org Django CMS (Python) , etc > > Smalltalk will get more exposure if it were easier (and cheaper) for people > to host their own blog or website using a Smalltalk based Blog/CMS. > > Question is; what can be done to have more Smalltalkers use a Smalltalk > based blog system and attract non-Smalltalkers to try a Smalltalk CMS? > Thanks to the screencast made by Damien Cassou now I use Pier and it's quite fun and easy to manage for basic stuff. The big problem with Pier is the terrible lack of documentation, recipes, how-to's...... no marketing, no communication with user. The public of a product like Pier is not advanced Smalltalk developers. Drupal can be managed and deployed freely by non-technical people. That's a key of success. Laurent. > > -- > View this message in context: > http://forum.world.st/Smalltalk-hosting-tp3384077p3384077.html > Sent from the ESUG mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > > _______________________________________________ > Esug-list mailing list > Esug-list(a)lists.esug.org > http://lists.esug.org/mailman/listinfo/esug-list_lists.esug.org >

March 17, 2011

Re: [Esug-list] Smalltalk hosting ...

by Janko Mivšek

Hi Geert, On 17. 03. 2011 10:59, Geert Claes wrote: > Smalltalk does have open source blog and content management systems; e.g. > http://www.piercms.com Pier CMS and http://www.aidaweb.si/scribo.html > AIDAscribo ... but a lot can be improved to make them attractive > alternatives to the big http://www.drupal.org Drupal (PHP) and > http://www.joomla.org Joomla (PHP) or even smaller ones like > http://radiantcms.org Radiant CMS (Ruby) , http://www.refinerycms.com > Refinery CMS (Ruby) , http://www.django-cms.org Django CMS (Python) , etc > > Smalltalk will get more exposure if it were easier (and cheaper) for people > to host their own blog or website using a Smalltalk based Blog/CMS. > > Question is; what can be done to have more Smalltalkers use a Smalltalk > based blog system and attract non-Smalltalkers to try a Smalltalk CMS? Time! Preparing a CMS to the state of broad usefulness needs a lot of development effort and specially a lot of a feeling for end user needs. Both are strongly lacking in Smalltalk community IMHO. Maybe a subquestion, which audience to start with, with CMS end users, CMS developers, CMS something-in-between? To prepare something for "dummies" like WordPress is certainly a lot of work... Janko > > -- > View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Smalltalk-hosting-tp3384077p3384077.html > Sent from the ESUG mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > > _______________________________________________ > Esug-list mailing list > Esug-list(a)lists.esug.org > http://lists.esug.org/mailman/listinfo/esug-list_lists.esug.org > -- Janko Mivšek Aida/Web Smalltalk Web Application Server http://www.aidaweb.si

March 17, 2011

Re: [Esug-list] Smalltalk hosting ...

by AxiNat

Regarding hosting prices, there are really cheap VPS solutions available. I've been successfully deploying apps in a VPSLink Xen slice at a cost of around 80$ a year (one slice per app), which is not much more than what many web hosting companies will charge you. Something like that makes up for developing in a Smalltalk framework being expensive, and if the websites are simple enough, you can even run more than one in a single image. On the other hand, I still agree that a nice, free, end-user friendly CMS, as powerful and easy to use as Drupal would be great to have and would get lots of designers and web devs to use it over other more mainstream ones. Pier is very nice, but IMO no designer (or client) will like, for example, having to learn its markup language, they will ask you for an easy to use WYSIWYG editor, an easy to plug image gallery, forum, wiki, whatever. A designer can very easily learn how to install a Drupal/Joomla! extension, but we can't ask him to learn how to embed a Javascript rich-text editor into a Pier application... even most of us will run into several problems when trying to do that. I'm sure we mostly agree, but who does have the time to develop something as titanic as this? :( Bernat Romagosa.

March 17, 2011