[LAD] app of the week [was Re: Experience driven design and Linux Audio]

[Patrick Shirkey]

On Fri, October 3, 2014 7:51 am, Harry van Haaren wrote:
>
> Patrick Shirley wrote:
>> A way to enhance usability across the board might be to have an "app of
>> the week" where everyone in the Linux Audio community is encouraged to
>> run it and provide any feedback
> I think this is a brilliant idea, and should be done: @Patrick, if you
> wish to take the initiative to make this happen, I leave it to you. If
> you're not interested in doing it yourself, I would like to pick up
> such an incentive.
>
> I'd could only start in a few weeks, and would take a slightly more
> relaxed approach "app of the month" perhaps, and use the projects
> bug-tracker for feedback: sending lots of feedback-traffic trough LAU
> wouldn't seem appropriate to me.
>

It's probably better that someone other than me does the official
announcements.

A couple of observations though.  If it is monthly we will get through 12
apps a year. That is not going to make much of a dent.

Weekly gives people a hard/fast deadline to participate and provides some
urgency. Getting the details fed back to LAU provides exposure for the app
to a few thousand list members and ensures transparency. It also allows us
to monitor which apps are getting feedback. Collating the details at the
end of the week and submitting back to the developer is a minor task.

We could whip up an official website for storing the feedback once it is
collated to use it as SEO copy for guerrilla marketing purposes.

There are other options to draw in feedback like giving away prizes:

    - for the best feedback (as voted by the community)
    - for people who go out of their way to contribute
    - for useful patches
    - etc...

Where do we get the prizes? If we allow advertising we might get some
funding from companies that are interested in having more exposure. We can
also get some decent money from google ads if we can hit approx 10k page
view a month. Enough to actually buy a T-shirt, mug, microboard, etc...

Sponsorship from a larger company like intel/amd/etc... would also make
for some interesting prizes. The Linux Foundation is known to get involved
in these kinds of things.

The trick is generating real traffic and having the data to prove it.

To start with I can put in some funds to the kitty to provide prizes for
the first 6 months of operations (E600) and hosting of course on the
channellinux.com network. I am also able to commit some developer
resources but I think it would be better to have a team/community effort.

If other companies want to chip in the E25/week prize budget will be
expanded. Dealing with shipping costs is a big financial hit so maybe the
prizes shouldn't be physical items. Just giveaway money? We might get a
lot of interest from poorer regions of the world if we are giving away
E25/week. In some countries that is one weeks salary at minimum wage.



--
Patrick Shirkey
Boost Hardware Ltd