Re: DRAFT: v7.3 Release Announcement

On Sun, 2002-10-27 at 18:04, Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> On Sun, 27 Oct 2002, Josh Berkus wrote:
>
> > Marc,
> >
> > > IMHO, its the non-tech press that needs to be "informed/targetted"
> > > ... its
> > > alot easier on the techs if their CTO comes to them and mentioned
> > > 'this
> > > RDBMS PostgreSQL that they just read abou that we should
> > > investigate',
> > > then for the tech to convince the CTO ... eaiser to implement
> > > something
> > > when the higher-ups are pushing for it :)
> >
> > By "general tech press" I mean, for example, News.com and the
> > Washingtion Post Business/Tech page. As opposed to "open source
> > press", such as NewsForge and The Register, who would probably cover us
> > even if we just forwarded them a mailing list message.
> >
> > As nice as it might be to get ourselves on the front page of the WST,
> > it ain't gonna happen until we get a major world government to switch
> > their operations over to PostgreSQL. And maybe not even then, if
> > OpenOffice.org is anything to go by (Germany adopted OOo/StarOffice,
> > and we didn't even get a page 3 blurb in the WST. They are *not*
> > friendly to Open Source).
> >
> > My questions are:
> > 1) Who is this press release for?
> > a) The general tech press
> > b) the Open Source press
>
> IMHO, the above two ...
>

I agree with Mark on this one. I don't think we can expect to get on
the front page on many tech sites, but it should give us some exposure
in places we need to reach, and might help PostgreSQL make the next
"database shootout" article that gets published by those tech sites.

> > c) PostgreSQL users and customers
> > d) PostgreSQL Inc. customers
>
> the above two are "already informed" ...
>
> > 2) Do we want to prepare 2 or more press releases for different target
> > audiences?
>
> I don't believe so ... there should be "A Press Release" which is targeted
> to 1a/1b ... and a 'Release Announcements' which is target'd towards 1c ..
>
> > 3) Should the PostgreSQL.org press release overlap with PostgreSQL
> > Inc.'s press release? If so, how?
>
> Not sure why PostgresQL, Inc would do a seperate press release, we aren't
> releasing anything new ... all we should be targetting here is
> PostgreSQL.Org's v7.3 release ...

this is needed clarification, as Geoff said "this isn't .Inc's press
release which I interpreted as meaning that PostgreSQL Inc would also be
doing a press release. If not then that makes it less confusing for
those of us here.

>
> > 4) Will we provide advance copies of the press release to other
> > companies that support PostgreSQL development for them to release to
> > their customers?
>
> I don't believe so ... is there any reason why such companies aren't
> involved with this list in the first place?
>

Having no real affiliation with PostgreSQL Inc, I want to second Mark's
notion here.

> > 6) What should the balance of emphasis between new release features and
> > general PostgreSQL promotion be in the press release?
>
> We need to somehow emphasis that what "the rest" are touting as their new
> features are what we've always had, while promoting our new features ...
> which could be hard ... I'm tired of hearing about how great MySQL is
> because it has transactions now, while we've always had it ... we need to
> make ppl aware that we've always had those features and that they have
> been well tested over the past several years ...
>

I think we all get annoyed by that, but we have to be careful not to
dwell on it or it will seem like whining.

> > 7) How much testimonial material should be in this press release, and
> > how much on the Advocacy web page?
>
> I would think you'd want very little in the press release ...

Again I agree. I would rather have a blurb that says "postgresql has
been running the .info domain for over 1 year, and recently was chosen
over Oracle to run the .org domain as well" instead of the quote from
the ISOC. I just think it paints a much clearer picture.

>
> > 8) Should we include a technical rundown of the new features, or just a
> > general-audience one? (by my evaluation, Geoff's list falls in the 60%
> > technical, 40% general audience level)
>
> General audience one ...

If possible maybe some 1 liners explaining how a given feature helps the
potential end-user. Compare the SCHEMAS vs. Table Functions
explanations. Personally I think the table functions are going to be
much more important to me than schema support, but reading the release
it's easier to see why someone might want to use schemas than the table
functions.

>
> > 9) Can we get a programmer quote about the new release? Please?
>
> Tom, I think you are well overdue for being quoted, no? :)
>

Robert Treat