Comments on Python Redesign

[Alex Martelli]

Dave Kuhlman wrote:
   ...
>> So, you're asserting that the target audience of the site IS and
>> SHOULD BE
>> "developers".  Surprise, surprise: this assertion IS "a marketing
>> issue". Marketing BEGINS with the identification of target
>> audiences and the products and services that will best meet the
>> target audiences' need.
> 
> We're not, I believe, arguing about the target audience for
> Python.  We're arguing about the target audience for
> http://www.python.org.

Yes, and?  A site has a target audience just as assuredly as any
other product or service has.  If you don't consciously identify
that audience, it just "happens", but such "deciding to not
decide" is "marketing by accident" -- ineffective but still there.

> Further more, saying that the choice of a target audience or that
> the choice of the service and product to be provided is a
> marketing issue begs the question.  It just assumes that marketing
> should take over decisions about the direction of a company or a
> site.

Of course not, because there are constraints that it's not marketing's
job to identify, e.g. finances and technical issues.  It's from a
hopefully synergical interaction of marketing and other functions
that the direction emerges.


>> Many techies think of "marketing" as a dirty word because it's so
>> often
>> misused as an inappropriate synonym for "selling".  Using words
>> properly, marketing is a perfectly legitimate and important
>> activity: identify who you're addressing, address their needs
>> through appropriate products and services, communicate to them
>> that your products and services do address their needs, listen to
>> their feedback and adjust your products and services to meet their
>> needs even better, look for other audiences that might get their
>> needs met by your products and services possibily with some
>> modifications.
> 
> These are all good suggestions for a Python promotion site or for a
> site for a company that sells Python services.

These are suggestions totally independent from Python or any
other specifics.  Any entity that aims to further the success
and spread of [e.g.] Python, as the Python Software Foundation's
charter says, _had better_ keep these functions in mind.


> I am on the side of those who say that the marketing and
> promotion should not be done at the Python home page,
> http://www.python.org.  It does not seem to be the main focus at

And I am on the side of those who say that "wasting" the
obvious recognition value of www.BASENAMEHERE.org -- the
site that will be automatically visited by semismart browsers
if the user just types BASENAMEHERE on the URL field then
Enter -- would be totally absurd.

Techies know enough to follow links presented from said
page.  Non-techies need to be more pampered.

> http://www.perl.org/ nor at http://java.sun.com/.  What promotion

Look at www.java.com, *NOT* at java.sun.com.  The former is what
"the suits" visit by default.


Alex