Fedora, Videos, and the Outside World

[Nicholas Ozorak]

Dear Fedora Users,

As some of you may have seen from my last email, I am an Allegheny
Student working with some of my peers on video sharing strategies.
These are some of our observations.

Before this project, none of us had heard of Fedora, and many of us
were new to the concept of open source.  It stands to reason, then,
that the general public may also be unaware of this type of software
development.

Some of the questions/issues that came up in our class were:
*What is open source?
*How do you explain the technology to those who do not understand tech-speak?
*What are the advantages of using open source software?
*What are the advantages of Fedora Project over other operating systems?
*Are other programs (MS Office, games, etc) compatible with Fedora?
*How does one acquire and install Fedora?
*How does one contribute to the Fedora Project?

Having videos that are easily accessible could help answer many of
these questions.  These could include:

*How-to videos and tutorials
*Interviews with people affiliated with Red Hat and Fedora users
*Videos promoting how awesome Fedora is

My peers and I agree that the best outlet for sharing videos with a
large audience is YouTube.  We are aware that some open source users
are not inclined to share their videos on YouTube, but here is one way
that Fedora Project could share both official and user-generated
content.

* Set up official Fedora Project accounts on websites like Internet
Archive and Dailymotion.

* Create videos on these accounts to establish them as being
officially part of the Fedora Project (welcome videos, tutorials,
features of Fedora, etc).

* Designate people to be official Fedora Project Video Account Managers.

* Allow other video creators and content developers to showcase their
Fedora-related work on the official channel(s) by sending their video
to the Account Master(s) for consideration.  If accepted, these videos
would be added to the official channel.

* Open a YouTube account, and ask people if they are comfortable with
having their work(s) displayed on YouTube and/or other Flash-based
websites.

Besides the one billion views that YouTube receives on a daily basis,
the videos on YouTube have the largest potential to go viral.  What
that means is that someone unfamiliar with Fedora who saw videos about
it on YouTube would be more inclined to share the video with others.
Additionally, videos that are related to Fedora Project (for example,
a random user's explanation of open source) may automatically link to
videos posted on the official Fedora Project YouTube channel.
Furthermore, if there were more videos pertaining to Fedora Project,
they would appear higher on a page rank of a Google search.

Ultimately, the videos that are released need to be easily accessible
and informational enough to educate the general public on what exactly
the Fedora Project is all about.

Regards,

Nick Ozorak, Kevin Thrope, Breanna Appleby, Eric Hansen, Hannah Matesic