[advocacy] Advocating Ogg Vorbis audio

[Karol Pietrzak]

On 3 Jul 2001, Erik Moeller wrote:

> as I was one of the folks suggesting the creation of an advocacy
> mailing list, I think it's time for me to speak up on what I
> think we non-developers can do to promote the use of Ogg Vorbis
> as an open audio standard. (I'm also interested in Xiph's other
> projects, but OV is my major interest right now.)

Mine as well.  I very much would like to "spread the word", so 
to speak.

> Most of us probably agree that Ogg Vorbis is superior to MP3 in
> many, if not all respects. I can see four reasons why people are
> not using OGG yet:
> 
>     - They don't know it
>     - Even if they know it, they don't now how to use it
>     - They have heard about it, but don't know what makes it
>     better
>       than MP3 (and may be unsure whether they should use it when
>       it's still in beta)
>     - The software they use doesn't support it
> 
> These are mainly marketing problems and not technical problems.
> But it's obvious that the good folks behind Ogg Vorbis don't have
> the marketing power of Microsoft or even Thompson/Fraunhofer. So
> they need our support. What exactly can we do?
> 
> Well, there's lots of stuff we can do actually, and in order for
> our activities to be successful, we need to coordinate and
> organize them. Here's what we should do:
> 
>     - spread the word about Ogg to our friends and family -- 
>       this is something that can obviously only be done on a very
>       individual level.
>     - spread OGG files! :-) How about copyright-free speeches and
>       other archive material?
>     - write tutorials and FAQs for newbies (check existing ones
>       first). 
>     - ask creators of cd burning software, cd-rippers, encoders
>     etc.
>       to support/include OGG
>     - ask creators of video codecs to include OGG for audio
>     encoding - ask creators of video games to use OGG for their
>     soundtracks - ask streaming media services to use OGG instead
>     of MP3 or other 
>       formats
>     - ask radio stations to release archival material in OGG -
>     ask the media to include OGG on CD-ROMs instead of MP3s -
>     encourage artists to spread their work in OGG / help them
>     spread
>       their work if they use OGG
>     - ask universities to release speeches and audiostreams in
>     OGG - etc. etc. etc.
> 
> How do we organize this work? That's the main problem, I think.
> We need to maintain documents of the companies, individuals etc.
> that we want to write to and that we have already written to.
> There are two convenient ways that I can think of right now how
> to manage these documents.
> 
>     - have a maintainer for each document who takes care of
>       implementing changes
>     - have a broad access policy to all documents
> 
> Now, I would definitely prefer the latter. A wiki (a set of
> webpages that can be edited by anyone) is to open for my taste,
> though. Can anyone think of something better? We might also just
> send the respective documents (e.g. "CD-Ripper List V1.3") to the
> mailing list, following an established standard. What do you
> think? Can you think of other tasks that need to be done that
> aren't listed above?

I think this is a very good idea.  This way, it will be a 
collaborative effort instead of just a collection of individual 
projects.  Also, this increases the productivity of such a 
community, as we can focus our effors on market sectors that 
need it most.

However, I personally think that most of the work of spreading 
Ogg will be done by itself, or more specifically, by word-of-
mouth and simple usage.  Once users see and actually use its 
exclusive features, they will continue to use it and spread it.

Also, I feel most casual users are waiting for a 1.0 (at least) 
release.  No one like the ICQ method of releasing software: 
eternally beta.  Having a 1.0 release shows users that this 
project is a constant work instead of just a one-time fad.

--
noodlez:   Karol Pietrzak
PGP KeyID: 0x3A1446A0

--- >8 ----
List archives:  http://www.xiph.org/archives/
To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'advocacy-request at xiph.org'
containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body.  No subject is needed.
Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered.