Hello everyone,

Let me expand on an idea I'm having:

The Idea
-----------------------------------
Create a monthly or bi-weekly newsletter with news related to
Firebird, this newsletter doesn't need to be huge, what could
fit on 2 A4s would be sufficient for a bi-weekly newsletter, I
think. Size would be dependent on the frequency, frequency
could increase over time.

This newsletter would be sent out to subscribers, people who
are interested in Firebird news but don't want to search different
websites for it.

You can subscribe to it via the Firebird main website, the
downloads page, the "after install"-page (on Windows) etc.
This should be prominently visible.


Content
-----------------------------------
The news itself would consist of Firebird development news,
links to interesting blog posts about Firebird, 3rd party product
news, pictures of conferences, succes stories etc... In short: an
aggregate of all sorts of news related to Firebird that would
fit in the newsletter.


Goal
-----------------------------------
Being able to reach a fairly large number of companies and
free-lance developers interested in Firebird and products,
events etc related to Firebird.

Additionally, the newsletter will be suited for constants
reminders of the necessity of donating to Firebird, it could
also be used for advertising third party services and
products (or promotions).


Required infrastructure
-----------------------------------
Not a lot, which is why this could be an idea that actually
could work :-)

A few people who collect the news and make up the newsletter,
I shall volunteer to be one of those people.

An e-mail server to send out e-mail (like the one I have here in
my office).

A way to subscribe to the newsletter, resulting in a database with
e-mail addresses, media-type for the e-mail (plain text, html e-mail
or pdf?), any additional info with regard to the subscriber.





Why is this different from current e-mail lists like firebird-general,
firebird-tools etc?
- no "discussions" or irrelevant e-mail
- editorial review
- rich-media format


And now for the important part of the discussion:

Is this going to solve the "money problems" Firebird is having?

Not directly (notice this particular word!), but there's currently
no way of reaching "the public" in a more push-type manner, so
how do we expect to get anything done from them at all? Such
a newsletter would offer the space to lure them in and explain
in small articles the need to get donations from them. It can
also open up a way of advertising for companies etc...


I hope this explains the idea and I welcome your comments.



With regards,

Martijn Tonies
Upscene Productions
http://www.upscene.com

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