From cancrians@xxxxx.xxxx Tue Nov 17 18:00:54 1998
X-Digest-Num: 9
Message-ID: <44114.9.47.959273823@eGroups.com>
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1998 23:00:54 -0300
From: "Pablo Stafforini" <cancrians@xxxxx.xxxx
Subject: Re: more on change in Lojban Central ISP

coi

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.
Of course, one might think that if someone is interested in constructed
languages, he is going to find lojban, sooner or later. But I believe that a
lot of potential lojabnists stop digging before finding lojban. For
instance, I became acquainted with lojban by a link in "the human languages
page". If I hand't found lojban soon, maybe my interest in conlags would
have fade away, or maybe I would have chosen another conlag. to ui. mi pu
penmi la lojban toi
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 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).
If this is going to be done, I can help, since I have a site and I know how
this works relatively well.

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.

Finally, one or more lojanists could go to amazon.com and write a review of
the book. I've read some web statistics stating that books in amazon.com
which are reviewed are more frequently buyed than those that don't have
comments. I know there is a review by lojbab (or one of the responsibles of
"the logical language group"), but it would be also good to have the opinion
of the readers. And I know the opinions are going to be good, so it will
definitely encourage potential lojbanists.

I hope this is of help...

co'o mi'e pablov


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Logical Language Group [mailto:lojbab@access.digex.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 17, 1998 2:23 AM
> To: lojban@onelist.com
> Subject: [lojban] more on change in Lojban Central ISP
>
>
> From: Logical Language Group <lojbab@access.digex.net>
>
> OK. After having done some ISP shopping I have a better idea of the
> tradeoffs, and some of the things I was worried about are apparently not
> an issue. Thanks to those who have responded, in any event.
>
> The choices reduce to basically two. I can get an account similar to
> what I've had at Digex, which will run between $45-$50/mo including the
> Lojban master archive ftp/web site (there does not seem to be a premium
> on FTP as I had thought). Or I can get an LLG corporate account, which
> will allow us up to 50 Meg with no additional disk charges. This would
> run around $70/mo. The cheaper account would cost us around $70/mo also
> if we used 50 Meg of Web space, but would have much lower limits on
> usage of the Web site before triggering bandwidth charges, not that the
> Lojban site is being heavily accessed. Also, for the corporate account,
> they will waive the setup charges to get lojban.org, although we will
> need to pay the Internic charge of $35/year. It is not clear whether
> the "personal access account" would be able to use the org address, or
> whether there would be a setup charge if they could. I suspect that it
> would NOT be usable for "personal" Web space.
>
> The big question is whether we have enough additional stuff to justify
> using 50 Meg for our Web site, and whether making this stuff available
> for free is worth around $300/year. The secondary question is whether
> we need (as opposed to want) the lojban.org attached to the site
> (reserving it but not yet using it is also an option).
>
> We could also consider going the other direction. Let Veijo and other
> net sites currently mirroring our site maintain the complete Lojban List
> archive (the largest part of the disk space) while we maintain only a
> few recent months on the master site (though Cowan and I would retain
> our own copies of the archive off net so that they could be restored at
> some future time). This would reduce the Web space and save money, or
> allow us to add new material without paying more.
>
> Finally, we could reduce the need for a comprehensive Web site by
> cutting a CD-ROM with the contents of the Web archive and perhaps some
> other stuff. This would again allow us to reduce what is on line, and
> also maybe make some money so that we can publish another book sooner.
> We had planned to do this eventually, but figured it would be better to
> wait until books were done, so that more useful stuff could be included
> on the disk.
>
> I have no idea what would be an appropriate price for such a CDROM so
> I'll take suggestions from anyone favoring such an option as to what
> they would consider reasonable to pay for it.
>
> The bottom line is around $300-$400 per year in charges, which is
> another 10-15 books sold in order to cover our overhead each year before
> paying off printing costs.
>
>
> ----
> lojbab
> lojbab@access.digex.net
> Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
> 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA
> 703-385-0273
> Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: ftp.access.digex.net /pub/access/lojbab
> or see Lojban WWW Server: href="http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/"
> Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.
>
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