Message-ID: <000e01be12cc$0dcfc0a0$e4f131ca@double>
From: "Chris Double" <chris@cnd.co.nz>
To: "Lojban List" <lojban@onelist.com>
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1998 21:18:29 +1300
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Subject: [lojban] Re: more on change in Lojban Central ISP
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From: "Chris Double" <chris@cnd.co.nz>

> I think there is one aspect that should be improved greately: advertising.
>That's the way people get in touch with the language for the first time. An
>effort should be made so as to have lojban in the first ranks among the
main
>search engines.

Good idea. I searched for 'constructed language' in yahoo and the lojban
home page was one of the top links there. No other lojban pages were listed
though. I'll have to try submitting mine and seeing what happens :-)

Using hotbot I had less luck. Neither 'constructed language' or 'artificial
language' gave lojban within the first 20 links at all. Searching for
'lojban' itself did give a few references though. I noticed that even
relatively new languages like 'ngl' appeared higher up the list in hotbot !
Maybe this is the popularity that goes with youth.

> If the problem when deciding between a bigger site or a smaller one is the
>money, I think that a good advertising policy would certainly improve the
>number of lojbanists, therefore rising the demand of books and allowing the
>lojban community the luxury of having the bigger site, with the
"lojban.org"
>name.

I like the idea of having a 'lojban.org' to go to. It's a lot easier when
explaining to people about lojban to say 'go to www.lojban.org'. It's easier
for them to remember too.

Buying a copy of the lojban book and donating it to your local library may
help as well - then you can tell friends and colleagues that they can read
all about it at the library. Somehow the impressive look of that book makes
the task of learning lojban look more 'real' to people than just learning
'some weird internet language'.

Learning to speak it is good advertising too. I'd  like to learn some good
lojban curses - then I can let loose with some arcane sounding utterance
when upset and the stunned onlookers will learn all about lojban when they
ask what the heck I said - just kidding ;-)

> I know several "URL submitters", which allow one to submit the site to
>different search engines at the same time, which would make the process
>easier. Also, the site should definitely have META TAGS (veijo's site does
>not have).

Good stuff. Would it help if we all submitted the URL's to the search
engines or is that a 'bad thing'.

> Another improvement that could be done is to put an online form to buy the
>book. That may seem trivial, but it is always good to facilitate things to
>the buyer. I don't honestly know if these are easy to install, though.

Easy to install but harder to administer I think. Although the process can
come free with some web sites I believe. How to arrange payment through
credit cards is probably the most difficult part. The easier it is for
someone to click a button to buy a book, the better. Just plugging a card
number in would be so much easier than having to snail mail a request. Does
the logical language group get much out of sales through Amazon? Is it worth
plugging the availability of the book through this avenue or do you make
very little money from it after Amazon get their cut and would prefer we get
'potential buyers' to email lojbab?


Chris.
--
http://www.cnd.co.nz/lojban


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