An LWN status update [LWN.net]

An LWN status update

Posted Sep 29, 2005 11:44 UTC (Thu) by leews (subscriber, #4690)
Parent article: An LWN status update

3100 subscribers?

Could you give some info on the demographics? Are we all single, 30something geeks or what?

What percentage of your subscriber base is international?

Methinks you need a small marketing campaign. What would it take to grow your subscriber base to 30,000 or even 300,000?

Thoughts:

There must be at least 750 User Groups worldwide?
http://lugww.counter.li.org/ lists about 680.

Give them 20 free subs each. There, your potential userbase is now 15,000. Let's say only 20% renew, you have now doubled your paid subscription level to 6000 in one year.

Encourage them to sign up others. Give a 20% discount when they do so.

Strike a deal, if all renew, give them another 20 free subs.
Voila. you are in the 30,000 ballpark.

Give them a stake: ask them to volunteer articles in lieu of fees. This decreases your costs and increases your subs.

This also increases LWN's international relevance.

Have fun!

to post comments

An LWN status update

Posted Sep 29, 2005 13:05 UTC (Thu) by smitty_one_each (subscriber, #28989) [Link]

I think the LUG approach has some merit.
I echo the willingness to pay more for the subscription.
Please do not 'tart up' the site, though, to gain subscriptions: the target audience is clearly in the starboard tail of the standard normal distribution. Nothing could be less pleasing than seeing it dragged to the mean, where one finds Slashdot. I like the no frills, works-in-lynx approach. ;)
Targeting Slashdot subscribers, as mentioned elsewhere, seems a good idea. I actually checked out the site and subscribed when Robert Love touted it in his latest Kernel tome. Maybe some geek sponsorship in Linux Journal (my favorite dead tree publication) would help. [Shot of Linus in front of a comically big, flat screen capture of LWN].
I also admit to reading OSNews frequently.
Finally, corporate yacht rentals are a surefire cash cow.
Thanks,
Chris