The current situation

[overgauss]

i have proposed similar stuff in the german board a few days ago. starting topic was the bad ct review. i was plssed but tried to braintsorm a bit as well.


my conclusion was: bad marketing and lack in proper communication, for the bad sales and for the bad review. bad communicating with the tester of the magazine, with the presentation and explanation of the pandora towards him (it seems to me it was presented to him as a linux geek device and it was judged like that) - but also towards the community and the lack of proper marketing in generall.


i also gave the (non active german) community (in germany) a big part of the fault - i know, you will burn me for that.. they could have been, and still be, far more pro-activ. i also see a big lack in guiding the community to productive help, like asking if someone professional could take care of the image and the marketing, building up a focused marketing strategy and accesible information for interested people. or like you say, who helps with the emails, or makes the sd cards (premade sd cards seem to be an older idea on the german board. i may see the problem in producing them, but still, if others could handle it, als manually, one by one, still a good idea - together with the proper marketing, as you here dont need it).


i proposed to lay by sd-cards with software and games from the repo, so the pandora is ready to go. idealy to add also emulators where possible, like quemu with some demo-versions of games, or scumm with some free adventure llike beneath a steel sky.


for the image/identity, imagine a colorful picture full of retro games, from the c64 to the psx till modern homebrew, maybe an art-collage (it is just an example), where the pandora is shown for the big variety of gaming choices, with the message: play the games of your childhood, play the best games ever which you have missed - setting a strong focus on nostalgy. (and the highly optimized emulators, the neon chip, no soundlag compared to android systems (as far as i understand it), ...)


on the other side of this picture, lets say the picture fades, it goes over to the "ultra-mini pc" with linux dektop, showing it as a multimedia machine, as an organizer, as a device to screw around and as a prof. it tool (remote administration, some users in the german forum say they work with it at their workplace).


on the website there could be two pages, one showing the game nostalgia, the other showing the ultra mini pc.


also that the device is unique can be put more to focus as well as the long batterie life, and that you can easily switch it. 24 hours power on the go.


put away all the technical comparisions on the website, users can use tabs to compare, and give more explaining infos, awake wishes. use nice pictures everywhere which show applications, the organizer, the webbrowser, waching a movie laying on the couch, and so on. use them a lot. dont use too much videos, the trailer is good enough, pull that out from the place below the technical comparions and put it somewhere more on the top. this is a good video and shows all very nicely.


instead of letting people mail the ct write a counterstatment yourself (or someone from the community) explaining the little flaws as well as the strongs (good preparation work for the new info-pages for the site ; ) : P )


just my two cents, as you would say.


ah, and for your ideas in recovering the sales of the pandora and the debts with the sd-card thing, im afraid to say i think you are dreaming with that as well. people wont buy them like you think, they will feel more like to be mucked for paying for free stuff. and then lets be realistic, most stuff on the repo does no qualify for the special topics someone of you suggested. i think it would be already difficult to fill one 4gb sd card with usefull programms, and not just overload it with crap. beware of the sales, before you say "your" numbers would work. you also cant take money for the freeware itself, just for the work of making a compelition, a tokken so to say. if you want to ask more because there is (free) software on it, you need to get it gifted for the cause, legaly spoken, so far as i know.. but all in all, the sales will not be there, ask the 3-4k pandora owners if they would buy a sd card full of freeware for 3x the normal price, that could be done. but beware what impression this makes to potential new customers, im not sure if good (kinda like supporting software development) or bad (to much to pay on every end). btw. i suggested to promote the pandora as well as the console with no further costs, that would speak a bit against it, also if just for the first impression.


best regards,


vic20

Thanks for the input. I imagine that the people that would feel mucked are those that already know their way around the device and could load this stuff themselves. This is why an incentive to donate needs to be created. A super tight image that would be hard to create for the non-power user would be an excellent start. Many people don't want to take the time tweaking their units to acheive high effeciency. For instance I have the skill to do it but would much rather not have to. A donation that provides ease of use, top apps and newer apps compiled to work out of the box for the unit, the fact that my donation makes a Pandora 2 more likely and helps give the due respect due to the founding investors, the fact my name could somehow be forever associated with and credited on the platform itself, new custom cards that I would likely collect with signatures of the OP team, the convenience of swapping out cards to add new functionality, the pride felt from being a part of a community effort and more are compelling reasons for why I like the idea.


Selling freeware isn't the goal. The goal is to offer SD cards that are useful in their own right that have a certain prestige to them due to reasons, some of what listed above that is not found in a regular SD card. Further compiling, sorting, testing, gathering, downloading etc is a time intensive task that i expect people will donate for these cards and other incentives because they won't have to do it themselves. The argument seems to be that people would much rather purchase an SD card, search for stuff, make sure the card is formatted and partitioned properly and correct buggy software on their own. I claim that removing such hassles is a great incentive to want a card that's set up and ready to rock and roll. We're not selling freeware. We're asking for donations that cover the cost of the card and acknowledge the time and effort organizing such cards in the first place. The remaining money is a direct donation to OPT and the community.


Your point remains valid however and is why I requested that we make a slick graphical presentation and ask current owners their interest in the idea and if they would donate for one or not. Before diving in with a slick presentation we could poll the community and ask for input. Further our skillsets, knowledge and interests don't reflect the normal users that we want to attract. By removing barriers to entry that doesn't need to exist we increase our potential customer base to others not quite as geeky or savy as we are. It can be argued that linux is by far the best pc operating system. Yet traditionally the adoption rate has been very slow.


Then came ubuntu, damn small linux and the like. Ubuntu directly addressed the user skill problem by making it extremely easy to use and get around. Now more people than ever use linux thanks primarily to linux forks like ubuntu. Now linux is free yet people are willing to pay for ubuntu! Why would anyone pay for something that they can get for free in, many different varieties no less? Your position seems to imply that ubuntu should not have been succesful whereas I maintain that what they did to acheive sucess is the reason why people with very poor computer knowledge adopted in droves in the first place. Ease of use, sufficient and varied pre installed apps that handle web browsing, office applications, social and email, music and mobile, photos and videos. We have the opportunity to do the same or similar.


Ask for disc space there are over 100k(?) free books on Project Gutenberg. 27 thousand of those books fit on a 9 gig dvd if I recall corectly. Wikipedia with all of the images is probably another 8 gigs. I'd love to have all of wikipedia on my device without having to use wifi or tethered cellular internet. If filling up the space of the card is an issue there is a whole lot of free stuff and media we could put on it. As long as we aren't selling the data on the card, we've broke no rules. We cover our behinds by having additional incentives beyond merely the data on the card (which we aren't selling). These are gifts given in appreciation of the donation.


I'm glad you brought this up. Please feel free to add your critique as it helps us describe what the goal is and what we're actually talking about.

Just dropping in to say that I donated 30 Euros to the OpenPandora team. We can do this. Trouble is our oxygen.


Never gonna give you up,


never gonna let you down.

Awesome! Thanks for helping us out like that. In my opinion you'd receive a free card. To me it's a perfect example. Well excluding the fact that you donated without expecting anything in return.

 

[Mr_Loon]

The SD card idea is an interesting one, I don't see how it could hurt to make a multiboot SD card for Pandora packed with the the latest & greatest software sold at a good price + a 10€ premium for the custom sticker & general hassle + an option to donate to the project.


The contents of the card could be updated on a quarterly basis.


In an ideal world an image of the card would be freely available to download as well. This would be to encourage positive reviews & additional sales, the idea of being able to download such an image would be attractive to many and would certainly help users to get the most out of their Pandoras.

 

[vic20]

...


In an ideal world an image of the card would be freely available to download as well. This would be to encourage positive reviews & additional sales, the idea of being able to download such an image would be attractive to many and would certainly help users to get the most out of their Pandoras.

it`s not an ideal world, the different human wishes and needs produce chaos, some say evil. but off course it could be offered as image to dl, if you think it is a positive thing (who knows for sure, in a commercial world - here maybe it is, maybe also not even here - keep it special for the buyers).


a far better identity and proper marketing is the most important thing to do here. the community should look if there is some media-designer, grafic-designer, someone firm in marketing, and so on, and put something together. quickly.


i would lay by a 4gb sd card with the most important software on it with each sold pandora for free, so the pandora is really ready to go. like ubuntu, to take on your example @overgauss. apart from that a community sd card can be sold + for donations asked, but that is more a community game. i cant say much about that. maybe it makes sense, maybe it is just a lot of hazzle.


if you recover from this situation, and i wish you the best, especially craig and ed, they dont have it easy.., put together some marketing task force, a smaller circle, not a community swarm intelligence, but something a bit more productive and responsive, and rework the presentations, explanations, communication. and someone must take the lead of that all. but.. im not sure if a community is up to that, as the rules here are different. i for myself can not work on community projects, it goes on my nervs. i dont want to discuss everything with everyone ; ) as a (small) producer i am the one who needs to look that the work goes through (to survive), and i do not play nice with "artists" and the `clap on the shoulder` mentality *gg* ; ) i could offer myself to be a beta-tester or constructive critic of the developed identity and marketing, if requested.


save path,


vic20

 

[vic20]

btw. the first time i mentioned stuff like that the community told me they have a good wiki, thats more then people could ask, so to say. that is just the wrong attitude. not that the wiki is a wrong thing, but i do aim on something different, more comune so to say. but you "linux people" dont seem to understand that. maybe also my marketing-thinking is wrong, who knows.


another comune missunderstanding is that the linux people itself are afraid normal user could not handle linux. but as with the ubuntu example, as long as they just need to open a media player or a browser linux is the same as windows to them. thats not the real problem when approaching them. thats more like fascinating, as you well know.


what i dont like as well are the different types of pandoras, and the price differences in between them. it confuses, makes unsure, and shows a ridiculous gasp between (more) perfomance and price. it is not mentioned that the 1ghz edition is a special edition nor that you sponsor a normal pandora, or an old preorder, with it - or such. the two devices, 600mhz and 1ghz, dont stand well together as these comparison puts the focus on mhz instead of the device as such. i guess not much that can be done there. but maybe the 1 ghz device can be presented a bit moire like a special founder edition, or so - and remove the old cc one totally, i would suggest.


and i dont like that android is mentioned directly, this is a linux pc, thats the gag. it only confuses again. that can be mentioned a bit deeper in, like arch linuy as well and similar stuff. should be enough to say in the technical overview that other arm os can be installed, which, as said before, should be put a bit deeper in as well. first show, then explain, then give raw data. you sell upon emotions, or better said, decisions are made upon emotions, not rationally, like with a technical chart.


puh, i have written a lot while i should rest my hand.. tomorrow i will regrett it.. ouch..

 

[overgauss]

...


In an ideal world an image of the card would be freely available to download as well. This would be to encourage positive reviews & additional sales, the idea of being able to download such an image would be attractive to many and would certainly help users to get the most out of their Pandoras.

it`s not an ideal world, the different human wishes and needs produce chaos, some say evil. but off course it could be offered as image to dl, if you think it is a positive thing (who knows for sure, in a commercial world - here maybe it is, maybe also not even here - keep it special for the buyers).


a far better identity and proper marketing is the most important thing to do here. the community should look if there is some media-designer, grafic-designer, someone firm in marketing, and so on, and put something together. quickly.


i would lay by a 4gb sd card with the most important software on it with each sold pandora for free, so the pandora is really ready to go. like ubuntu, to take on your example @overgauss. apart from that a community sd card can be sold + for donations asked, but that is more a community game. i cant say much about that. maybe it makes sense, maybe it is just a lot of hazzle.


if you recover from this situation, and i wish you the best, especially craig and ed, they dont have it easy.., put together some marketing task force, a smaller circle, not a community swarm intelligence, but something a bit more productive and responsive, and rework the presentations, explanations, communication. and someone must take the lead of that all. but.. im not sure if a community is up to that, as the rules here are different. i for myself can not work on community projects, it goes on my nervs. i dont want to discuss everything with everyone ; ) as a (small) producer i am the one who needs to look that the work goes through (to survive), and i do not play nice with "artists" and the `clap on the shoulder` mentality *gg* ; ) i could offer myself to be a beta-tester or constructive critic of the developed identity and marketing, if requested.


save path,


vic20

Great input! Would you mind fleshing out your argument a bit more. I'm having trouble following 2 of your points. For instance the fact that it's not an ideal world doesn't by itself mean that having images for download is a bad idea. it might be but not for the reasons currently listed. In fact I see a way to turn it into a plus (besides the obvious overall benefit to the community). What if access to these images were only given to those that either donated or purchased access outright. This means that those that donated and recieved an SD card could get "new" such cards with the ease of a download. You could even tier access based on purchase price or the amount donated. Granted this adds another complication involving records and such, but it's something to think about.

a far better identity and proper marketing is the most important thing to do here. the community should look if there is some media-designer, grafic-designer, someone firm in marketing, and so on, and put something together. quickly.

There is no doubt that what you say here is important. With brief googling I'm confident we can find people that do info-graphics pretty cheaply. My hesitation surrounds the far better part of your sentence as it implies that the only thing that should be done is image saturation and marketing. However doing what you suggest doesn't prohibit other solutions or suggestions. We limit ourselves if we only go in one direction. In my opinion we should attack the problem from multiple directions! Say that aside from direct unit sales, these other methods of attack generate a small amount of income. That little bit might be enough to get the graphic designers etc to create the ads and marketing that is needed.


If we ran a contest on deviant art for example what would the prize amount need to be to get submissions for the contest? Let's go with a 600mhz pandora. That's about $440 USD. Can you hire someone out right cheaper than that? Possibly. But you lose the free hype generated by the contest itself. You also limit yourself to the design sensibilities of a single artist. Whereas a contest might discover some unheard amatuer that really came up with some awesome shit. Maybe as a condition of entering 3 different submissions designed to address 3 different needs for our purposes would have to be submitted. The winner being chosen by being tops in all three categories. Maybe one or two submissions could be lower tier and the artist still wins. Now as a condition of winning OPT and its community gets free reign to use them! So for $440 you've got three pieces of artwork that could be used for ads, banners t-shirts etc!


Frankly I don't think $440 is enough to draw the talent and the hype we need for the contest. There needs to be a big ass box of shit that they can win. What needs to be put in the box is the problem because we still have cost to consider. What can you possibly do to fill this box with awesome? The signatures of Craigx and Ed are a given, but what else? Should we consider second and third place prizes as well?


Since I'm dreaming let me continue to do so. Is there an entity that it would be mutually benificial to co-sponsor or cross promote with? Let's see, GOG has been mentioned. What about Kongregate games. It uses flash would it run on a Pandora? There's also an android ap for it. Could this be ported to it? Marvel has a Marvel digital comic app for ios and android, could we make use of it? Say with an Iron man themed Pandora with glowing led ring? Imagine how cool it would be to win that. Especially if it's preloaded with comics! DC comics has one too. How about a Batman themed Pandora?


What about anime studios? You could load the device with a few movies and the studio could throw in a dvd set or so. Now with the right pitch and if we throw our net wide enough we are bound to find someone that wants in on the deal. They are after all getting advertisement as well. We don't even have to think (dream) big. There are smaller businesses that might take interest. Consider your local video game store that has a tonne of old retro games laying around. Or even a comic book store. Just because someting seems impossible doesn't mean it isn't worth a try. It's the very reason why we frequent these boards!


It's rare to only invest in a single stock and be sucessful. We need to diversify our portfolio.

puh, i have written a lot while i should rest my hand.. tomorrow i will regrett it.. ouch..

Keep writing imo. After giving your hand a rest of course.


Edit: Please ignore the various muck ups in my posts lately. Today for instance I've been operating on 2 hrs of sleep.

 

[sswam]

Spend 10 hours writing about sad loss of $300. Hmmm...

 

[ekianjo]

There's some 3-4 thousand Pandora owners. Send them an email with a slick graphic and presentation and ask how many of them would be interested. Offer SD bundles for new purchases. I'd rather buy a psp bundle that came with a game instead of one that came without one. Cool! I just got this awesome gift from xmas now all I have to do is figure out what, how, where to install stuff to make it to my likeing. Would you buy a psp if it didn't come with any games, and the only way to get them was to turn yourself into a hacker and you had to compile your own shit just to make sure it runs? That's what the pandora is to some people. It's like hacking or your grandma complaining about getting on the google.

The current owners have all the software they need. They do not need to buy new cards or shit like that. And there are NOT 3000-4000 users out there. The actual amount of people using their Pandora every day is much lower than that - maybe in the ballpark of 1000-2000 - there are lots of people who bought it and who end up not using it. Don't count them as active owners.


And back to my points, even if selling 20 cards would make it for 1 Ghz unit, it would take months to sell 20 units anyway. Look at the rate in ED's shop, again. It does not go fast at all. Bumpers, stickers, these are some low money making ideas that are not worth pursuiing, it will not be enough money.


I'm rather on the same page as you regarding the importance of awareness. That will drive sales. But ED is too busy to work on that and Craig is focusing all his life on the ICP2. So who will do it ?

 

[ekianjo]

Edit: Please ignore the various muck ups in my posts lately. Today for instance I've been operating on 2 hrs of sleep.

Mmm, go ahead and try what you say you want to do. But first, you are not the owner of the Pandora brand so all of what you do regarding co-sponsoring and so on has to be aligned with ED and Craig, and then I doubt any of the companies you mentioned will be interested to work with a no-name company like Pandora. Come on.


You are a bit naive that to think that you will garner interest so easily, and you will hit a few walls as you try and do stuff. Good luck.

 

[_wb_]

ekianjo: are you saying the Pandora T-shirt was also a bad idea?


This kind of merchandise stuff is not there to make a huge profit which will solve all OPT debts, but there are Pandora enthusiasts out there who want that stuff and it's free advertising, which is not a bad idea imo - it could certainly attract new sales.


Preparing a nice SD card image is really not that much effort (if left to the community), but there is a potential public for this (cf. the eBay SD card seller), and it would also make a nice "support the OPT" item even if you're a power user. Even if this generates only enough money to fund one fifth of a preorder, it's still better than nothing.

 

[ekianjo]

ekianjo: are you saying the Pandora T-shirt was also a bad idea?


This kind of merchandise stuff is not there to make a huge profit which will solve all OPT debts, but there are Pandora enthusiasts out there who want that stuff and it's free advertising, which is not a bad idea imo - it could certainly attract new sales.


Preparing a nice SD card image is really not that much effort (if left to the community), but there is a potential public for this (cf. the eBay SD card seller), and it would also make a nice "support the OPT" item even if you're a power user. Even if this generates only enough money to fund one fifth of a preorder, it's still better than nothing.

I am not saying these are bad ideas, I am saying that this community needs BIG ideas if you want to solve the financial hole problem. Selling t-shirts and SD cards is just like pouring 5 cents in a enveloppe towards buying a new car : it takes forever and is not an effective way of doing it.


We all know what makes the most profit : selling Pandoras.


If you really want to make a difference, it's by advertising about the Pandora everywhere possible. Blog about it. Make a facebook community about it (a new one). Go to small shops you know, demo it and ask them to sell them if they are interested in its potential. Ask Linux magazines to talk about it. Ask Linux websites to talk about it again and again. Talk to the Open Source associations about it.


It's much more work but it is likely to be more rewarding than chipping 10 euros on top of a normal SD card price or a t-shirt. And don't tell me it has been done before. I can count on the fingers of a one-arm man the number of GOOD and comprehensive articles written about the Pandora. There's a LOT to be done.


You guys will be wasting your time if you keep focusing on activities that make close to no money and bringing close to no-value. That's a "poor-people's habit": they fail to see how to drastically improve their situation and focus on saving on small things because they do not see anything else. (I am not saying your guys are poor, just a comparison).


But since this is a free community, please go ahead and try your ideas. For me it's simply obvious you will be wasting your time, get discouraged in the process while you could have had more impact if you were organized and working together on Bigger ideas.

 

[overgauss]

There's some 3-4 thousand Pandora owners. Send them an email with a slick graphic and presentation and ask how many of them would be interested. Offer SD bundles for new purchases. I'd rather buy a psp bundle that came with a game instead of one that came without one. Cool! I just got this awesome gift from xmas now all I have to do is figure out what, how, where to install stuff to make it to my likeing. Would you buy a psp if it didn't come with any games, and the only way to get them was to turn yourself into a hacker and you had to compile your own shit just to make sure it runs? That's what the pandora is to some people. It's like hacking or your grandma complaining about getting on the google.

The current owners have all the software they need. They do not need to buy new cards or shit like that. And there are NOT 3000-4000 users out there. The actual amount of people using their Pandora every day is much lower than that - maybe in the ballpark of 1000-2000 - there are lots of people who bought it and who end up not using it. Don't count them as active owners.


And back to my points, even if selling 20 cards would make it for 1 Ghz unit, it would take months to sell 20 units anyway. Look at the rate in ED's shop, again. It does not go fast at all. Bumpers, stickers, these are some low money making ideas that are not worth pursuiing, it will not be enough money.


I'm rather on the same page as you regarding the importance of awareness. That will drive sales. But ED is too busy to work on that and Craig is focusing all his life on the ICP2. So who will do it ?

It's debateable that the current users have all the software they need. Not too long ago someone mentioned xfse

And this awesome person/team should customize the shit out of XFCE to get it to a n00b-friendly level. I want eyecandy. I want Web 2.0

Others have chimed in as well in support of the idea as well, which pretty much destroys your argument. Also my numbers may be off but i was talking about OWNERS not users. if there are 3-4k owners and only 1-2k users actually using the device, shouldn't that indicate that something is wrong? Why aren't more people using the device that they already own. Why is it not still relevant? Only if we ask only the the 1-2k people actually USING the device that would still be valuable data. Accepting donations to only 1-2k is still a decent piece of change. Maybe if we poll all 3-4k users on the idea our data would be even more valuable and potential income larger. Ignoring current users MAYBE NEW USERS WOULD APPRECIATE THE NEWFOUND EASE OF USING THE DEVICE ENOUGH TO GENERATE MORE SALES AND DONATIONS OVERALL.

And back to my points, even if selling 20 cards would make it for 1 Ghz unit, it would take months to sell 20 units anyway. Look at the rate in ED's shop, again. It does not go fast at all. Bumpers, stickers, these are some low money making ideas that are not worth pursuiing, it will not be enough money.

How would you know how long it would take to accept donations or sell units of SD cards if you can't be bothered to to take a poll to evaluate others interest in the idea? You have no metric to base this conclusion on especially when you base it on sales of SD cards from Ed's shop! They are two different things entirely. One is a blank and presumably plain SD card of high capacity that might be able to be purchased cheaper elsewhere. WHO WOULD BUY A BLANK 64 GB CARD WITH NOTHING ON IT FOR 70 POUNDS WHEN THEY COULD BY A 16./32 GB CARD FAR CHEAPER?!

If one could get a 32 gb hassle free card preloaded for 20 fucking pounds cheaper don't you think people would think it was a better deal? Also although I've said it time and time again the reason for this and other actions like bumper stickers is because it generates talk and has the affect of a fucking ad. How do you sell shit without creating hype and generating ads? Why you do what we've always done that at this stage amounts to fucking nothing. HOW DID THAT WORK OUT FOR YOU.

Mmm, go ahead and try what you say you want to do. But first, you are not the owner of the Pandora brand so all of what you do regarding co-sponsoring and so on has to be aligned with ED and Craig, and then I doubt any of the companies you mentioned will be interested to work with a no-name company like Pandora. Come on.

Really? ...Really? You are such a genious that the best understanding you have is that somehow I have the belief that I'm the owner and that I get to decide what happens without Ed and Craigs involvment? Really? I mean for realls this is what you actually think? Doubt it all you want but I've pulled similar hat tricks before. The possibility of such things occuring are maximized when you don't act like a pessimistic dick who's butthurt because his arguments have been destroyed because the length, breadth, and span of your knowledge as well as the understanding of the topic under discussion is so minimal that you don't understand that every point that you brought up was already quantified, allowed for and explained before you responded. It's like the act and type of your arguments were destroyed previously and you can't even understand that. The past whipped your ass today!


Personally I have already done the impossible and have gotten unlikely sponsors several times over in my college carear. Just because you can't do it doesn't mean that the OPT can't do it. Also it really doesn't take much time, money and effort to ask in a way that maximizes success. All you've got to do is fucking ask and if they say no move on to the next company on the list!

You are a bit naive that to think that you will garner interest so easily, and you will hit a few walls as you try and do stuff. Good luck.

Who said anything about easy? Would the walls we hit be any worse than the walls we've already hit and the obsession with doing absolutely fucking nothing to better or own positions? Why don't you come on and try to offer solutions yourself? You might hit a few walls though with that limited and self defeatist view that you have however.

Spend 10 hours writing about sad loss of $300. Hmmm...

Are you talking about what I'm talking about? Because I'M talking about how to adress this.

This was actually working really well, we managed to clear some debts and ship about 100 units quickly, but then we had some large preorders cancelled unexpectedly. The people who cancelled these were not being nasty or awkward, they just needed the money back and I can understand this in the current climate. It amounted to ~100 units.

Does the loss of around 100 units, plust more recent cancellations posted in this very same thread appear to amount to $300. Maybe I'm in error but what the fuck are you talking about?

 

[ekianjo]

t-shirt -> it could certainly attract new sales.

Let me highly doubt that seeing a name you do not know about on a t-shirt will lead to new sales. T-shirts are great to level UP the awareness on existing brands, but if your brand is unknown people will just wonder what the hell it is and do not bother further. The attention span of most people is limited to a few seconds in front of new things, hoping new sales from t-shirts only is a little optimistic.


And it was working so well, there's no need to wait : you cna make your own Pandora t-shirt and wear it 365 days a year. Let's see how much of a difference it makes

 

[ekianjo]

Blah blah blah and insults

What a great addition to the community you are. Already 20 posts and you resort to insulting people like me who have been contributing software, time, and 1000 posts including a lot to help new users. You are pathethic, my friend. Do whatever you want, discussion is over and what you will do will fail anyway. And don't assume you know me, you know shit about who I am and what I am talking about.

 

[overgauss]

If you really want to make a difference, it's by advertising about the Pandora everywhere possible. Blog about it. Make a facebook community about it (a new one). Go to small shops you know, demo it and ask them to sell them if they are interested in its potential. Ask Linux magazines to talk about it. Ask Linux websites to talk about it again and again. Talk to the Open Source associations about it.
It's much more work but it is likely to be more rewarding than chipping 10 euros on top of a normal SD card price or a t-shirt.

Keep up this is in line what with we are already planning on doing and it does not exclude nor prohibit seeking advertisement through t-shirts and bumper stickers. Again try to keep it and consider it free advertising that pays for itself and generates a small profit and is a procedure that RUNS ITSELF ONCE SET UP.

You guys will be wasting your time if you keep focusing on activities that make close to no money and bringing close to no-value. That's a "poor-people's habit": they fail to see how to drastically improve their situation and focus on saving on small things because they do not see anything else. (I am not saying your guys are poor, just a comparison).

Dude making it easir to use the device retains customers and generates new ones. Getting free advertisment via t-shirts is not a useless endeavor. Let me guess. You love your Pandora so much that you are entirely uninterested and wearing a Pandora themed t-shirt-don't want one- wouldn't buy one- and those that think it could generate brand awareness, be generally cool to the fans etc are fucking idiots because our time is better spent ignoring free money and advertising. Why do you think companies hand out free t-shirts to people instead of making people pay for them? Because they generate living ads and create mind space! Is this literraly the first you have heard of such an idea so you are against it althought the cost to OPT would be zero and actually increase profit for each shirt sold and unit sales through increased product awareness via walking t-shirt ads?


So the team is broke and you're going to pull some huge wad of cash from your ass and provid them with ads and activities worthy of your attention. Failing that how exactly do you propose the performing the activites you deam best and better focus our attention so that we don't behave like the poor ignorant sobs that you think we are?

 

[_wb_]

Right now, whenever I pull out my Pandora, it tends to be a conversation starter (mostly among geeks / colleagues). I don't know if any of those lead to new Pandoras being sold, but it certainly is advertisement.


Similarly, a T-shirt, bumper sticker, etc. can also be conversation starters. It's only small "word of mouth" advertisement, but then again, I think that's not insignificant for a niche product like the Pandora.


But I agree, we could use more decent press and blog articles about the Pandora. Especially now a big one (c't) has screwed up bigtime.

 

[overgauss]

Blah blah blah and insults

What a great addition to the community you are. Already 20 posts and you resort to insulting people like me who have been contributing software, time, and 1000 posts including a lot to help new users. You are pathethic, my friend. Do whatever you want, discussion is over and what you will do will fail anyway. And don't assume you know me, you know shit about who I am and what I am talking about.

Haha. It was actually your behavior that prompted mine. So far you've pissed on every suggestion because you don't even fucking understand them and then when you get called on it declare oh my I have 1000 posts including a lot of help to new users. How about you fucking help now? Can you do that or do you need some extra star or post count status to help. Also it's not a case of what I'm doing that will fail what you are saying is that if the community tries these ideas THEY will fail. Hey man that's pretty fucking positive. I don't assume I know you I merely go by what you've said and your general pessimism. If you could provide a real argument we'd have no issue. instead you're shitting all over good ideas because you have no real business acumen. Your positions are based on what you feel in your guts instead of acknowledging we need to get more information about the CUSTOMERS NEEDS which is how a succesful business is run.


BTW the discussion was over a long time ago because you weren't actually a part of it. You didn't use hard numbers, real logic or understanding of what was being said before pissing in a bowl full of positivity and cheerios. You pissed in this bowl because your gut told you so and you didn't even bother to question your position when several people added their own positive input. I don't know you, I don't care to know you and if the best contribution you have is to continually piss in our cheerios I don't really give a fuck who you are.


People like you just wreck and ruin shit. Fuck it I'm done. If someone would be so kind as to point me where I need to go to cancel my two preorders, I'd be obliged.


Edit: Oh yeah they'll be coming from Craigix's shop. Thanks.

 

[ekianjo]

But I agree, we could use more decent press and blog articles about the Pandora. Especially now a big one (c't) has screwed up bigtime.

Yeah, screwed up because of lack of preparation, and so on. When you plan for such articles it's not just about sending the device, you need to engage them in a conversation, check what they think through the usage period and so on. I am not saying it's anyone's fault, but this is typical PR job. And PR needs LOTS of preparation to get to the desired outcome. Let this be a lesson for the next ones.


I am rather afraid that some individuals go out there thinking they represent the community and screw up the image of the Pandora with potential new users. It's always a risk that when you come out, you do more harm than good. That's why I recommend to be careful in any endeavor and to think well through each of them before launching crazy ideas around. That's what amateurs do, and see how many startups fail just because they have no idea what they are doing.

 

[NoeleyC]

I bought a Pandora t-shirt from Ed, was wearing it for the first time this week, and the only question I got asked was "is that a Pandora charm shirt?" (but I did try!!) :blink:

 

[Dionysus]

As ive said before I think retro design cases would be a good addition toi the pandora image. When I think back to the begining of nintendo's reversal of fortunes I remember those mushroom t-shirts everyone suddenly had. They positioned them selves as retro to those of us who grew up with the nes (those classically trained t-shirts with the nes pad) but were now grown up with a good deal of spending power. They changed their image from "for kids" to "for twenty somethings" without changing that they were also for kids. Pretty smart.


Bearing in mind the nature of the pandora and the retro gaming focus it has I think if you had some special edition spectrum cases.


http://www.hardwareh...er-spectrum.jpg


to send to reviewers you'd have twice the pull and also get a more enthusiastic review because if one turned up in an office the dude who used to sit typing code from cvg into his speccy would be the one to grab it. It wouldnt cost much to do and could only do good.

 

[Mr_Loon]

and i dont like that android is mentioned directly, this is a linux pc, thats the gag. it only confuses again. that can be mentioned a bit deeper in, like arch linuy as well and similar stuff. should be enough to say in the technical overview that other arm os can be installed, which, as said before, should be put a bit deeper in as well. first show, then explain, then give raw data. you sell upon emotions, or better said, decisions are made upon emotions, not rationally, like with a technical chart.

I agree with the vast majority of the stuff you have posted and respect your opinion on this but IMHO you are completely wrong with this issue. Think about the name of the device, Open Pandora, people are open to install whatever OS they like. I agree that the Pandora should not be sold as having anything more than a Beta version of Android at present but even in its Beta state Android on Pandora does bring a lot to the table. From a personal perspective if I had to choose one OS or the other for the Pandora it would be Linux every time, even if Android got to a fully working state. However the point is you don't have to choose, you can have both. I really appreciate what Notaz did with Android because it only added to the fun & functionality to be had with Pandora.

Edit: Please ignore the various muck ups in my posts lately. Today for instance I've been operating on 2 hrs of sleep.

Wondered where you found the time for all that writing

Yeah, screwed up because of lack of preparation, and so on. When you plan for such articles it's not just about sending the device, you need to engage them in a conversation, check what they think through the usage period and so on. I am not saying it's anyone's fault, but this is typical PR job. And PR needs LOTS of preparation to get to the desired outcome. Let this be a lesson for the next ones.

+1 for this, however as stated this sort of thing takes a lot of time & free time is one thing ED does not seem to have a lot of.