New Contest Will Seek the Best "I'm Linux" Video 460
LinuxScribe writes "From Apple's ubiquitous 'I'm a Mac,' to Jerry Seinfeld, to Microsoft's 'I'm a PC' retort, operating system commercials have been flooding the airways. Except that Linux is the one OS that has been notably absent. Now the Linux Foundation is launching a video contest on their new video site to fill this void. The winner gets a trip to Tokyo next year to participate in the Linux Foundation Japan Linux Symposium, and some serious geek cred."
The contest doesn't officially open until late January; the blog post has an email address to contact if you want to get a head start.
The contest is over. (Score:5, Informative)
IBM Won. [youtube.com]
Re:The contest is over. (Score:1, Informative)
Novell [youtube.com] came along...
Don't advertise "Linux", advertise a BRAND (Score:5, Informative)
"Linux" per se is not an OS, it is a set of common libraries and standards that is shared by many OSs. Heck, binaries compiled for one Linux distro won't even work on half the others (reason I mentioned this is because binary incompatibility is a good way to distinguish between customizations of a single OS, as opposed to different OSs, which, while belonging to the same family, are just that - DIFFERENT OSs.
Advertising Linux is like advertising x86 architecture or the Unix Standard. It may be useful for engineers, programmers, or adiministrators, but not to end users. The fact that all Linux distros share the same kernel is about as useful to end users as telling them that their particular Chevy model uses the same engine block as a dozen other cars from GM. The service technician will need to know this, not the end user. The end users need to know WHAT a distro does, not HOW it does it. And every distro does things differently, and for a good reason - it is optimized for a particular audience and a particular way of doing things. By definition, that means that a single distro can't please eveyone - and shouldn't try to.
Advertise Ubuntu. Advertise Red Hat. Advertise Gentoo. Pick a market and promote the Linux brand that suits that market best. And if someone else isn't happy about your choice, they can go and advertise their own distro to their own target audience.
Linux distros need to start adopting a good old capitalist trick known as USING A BRAND.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Stupid idea (Score:3, Informative)
Agreed ! What percentage of the world's servers run Linux - ~90%? - without the public even being aware of it? Ad = public attention, but the geeks running things are quite aware of Linux already.
I also don't see the point in making an "I'm linux" ad when linux already has the 'market majority' - the 'irony' quotes are there because Linux doesn't 'sell' anything. Yet another reason why no ad is needed.
Re:Wish someone would do this (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Script (Score:3, Informative)
No real customer service?
This is the biggest myth against linux out there...
With linux, customer service is optional, you can buy it if you want, while many people on slashdot are competent enough to get by without it and would benefit from saving the cost... What level of support do you get when you buy commercial software? it's usually pretty lousy or nonexistent, and decent support costs more.
Re:Script (Score:3, Informative)
Internet slower? Linux downloads things much faster than xp did, not least of all because tcp window scaling is turned on by default (vista has it on by default too)... Also i believe consumer versions of windows have artificially low limits on the number of usable sockets, which has a negative impact on things like bittorrent, especially on fast connections...
If you want to change these things on windows, you have to hack around with the registry, which is hardly "easy"... you don't even get any inline comments and you have to use special registry editing tools, you can't just open up your preferred text editor and edit a file that has nice comments explaining what things do.
Re:Don't advertise "Linux", advertise a BRAND (Score:3, Informative)
Technically, Linux is a brand [linuxmark.org].
Also technically, the "operating system" is the program which interfaces with the hardware and runs all the other programs. Which means that the Linux kernel is the only part of a given distribution that can claim to be the operating system.
But the ad campaign isn't really interested in the technical side of things. Linux is a common shorthand for all the various distributions, window managers, and open source applications that are commonly included in distros. Yes, once you've decided to "try Linux," you still have choices to make, and they're more complex than choosing between Vista Home and Vista Ultimate, or deciding whether to upgrade from Jaguar to Leopard. But "Linux is a free, highly customizable operating system that will run on your current computer" is good enough for 90% of the population.
As far as branding goes, the "Linux brand" is far more valuable than whatever flavor-of-the-year is currently best for new users. If by this time next year, somebody trots out "ClickAndDrool Linux" that manages to be absolutely perfect for everybody, or if it is revealed that Ubuntu is actually Windows Vista with a few custom themes [xkcd.com], the marketing pitch can stay the same.
Re:Novell already did this (Score:1, Informative)
Funny, I had almost the same image in my head as I was walking to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee. Mine's a little different but pretty much the same theme:
Fifty hipster clones in a Starbucks: We're Macs.
Fifty PHBs in an depressing office lobby: We're PCs.
Alpha geek in a server room wearing a penguin pocket protector: I'm Linux.
College aged alterna-girl on a park bench with her laptop: I'm Linux.
Mother and two children in the living room: We're Linux.
(Montage speeds up, you get the idea, super-fast clips in the same vein speeding up and speeding up and speeding up, later in the scene people start reaching out and pulling in the Mac/PC clone-guys, they get in on the act, fast and faster until...)
Enormous mob of people (in Times Square or something): I AM LINUX.
Young hip kid (not the Mac) walks out of the crowd to the camera: You can be too.