My 0.02$ on Opera Community development

You can see them all here.

Quote from original post:

Essential part.. In my humble opinion...
We can agree that "red" is Operas color.. however.. I do believe that people need to have a chance to select a banner that would look nice on their page even if they don't want it to be red... so.. as you were able to see I made couple colors of the same banner that would look nice...

[img]http://www.burek.co.yu/opera/opera1501.png [img]http://www.burek.co.yu/opera/opera1502.png [img]http://www.burek.co.yu/opera/opera1503.png [img]http://www.burek.co.yu/opera/opera1504.png [img]http://www.burek.co.yu/opera/opera1505.png [img]http://www.burek.co.yu/opera/opera1506.png [img]http://www.burek.co.yu/opera/opera1507.png [img]http://www.burek.co.yu/opera/opera1508.png [img]http://www.burek.co.yu/opera/opera1509.png

[img]http://www.burek.co.yu/opera/opera1510.png [img]http://www.burek.co.yu/opera/opera1511.png [img]http://www.burek.co.yu/opera/opera1512.png [img]http://www.burek.co.yu/opera/opera1513.png [img]http://www.burek.co.yu/opera/opera1514.png [img]http://www.burek.co.yu/opera/opera1515.png [img]http://www.burek.co.yu/opera/opera1516.png [img]http://www.burek.co.yu/opera/opera1517.png [img]http://www.burek.co.yu/opera/opera1518.png

Guerilla Marketing

Definition: Unconventional marketing intended to get maximum results from minimal resources.

Information: Coined by Jay Conrad Levinson, guerilla marketing is more about matching wits than matching budgets. Guerilla marketing can be as different from traditional marketing as guerilla warfare is from traditional warfare. Rather than marching their marketing dollars forth like infantry divisions, guerilla marketers snipe away with their marketing resources for maximum impact.

Bits and pieces about this post:

• Why "Part II"? Because I believe this is part one.
  
• Do I believe that this is the right way to spread the word, and if yes why? First, Yes I do. Why? Simply because of the fact that people like to se unconventional product fight unconventional way. Second, The impact of this kind of promotion is much stronger and wider than any usual method. And Third, because it is free except for bandwith cost that would anyway be same as with any banner promotion for example.

So? Whats the idea?

First, I would suggest you to read this, if you haven't done it already.
If no... Click Here
If yes... Proceed

Well the idea is expanding previous promotion material and adding an extra feature...

As most of you already know I own a forum, and when you have something like that you want as much your regular visitors to register, but also you don't want to be offensive with popups or similar stuff. So.. you need a simple (as possible), neat and nice way to suggest them to open an account.

The same idea could be used to promote Opera.
One of the interesting ways you can do this is making banners / buttons / slogans etc. about Opera visible only to users that do not use Opera as their current browser. It is a rather simple thing to make (and is afaik, already used in Opera Community).

So, among new ways to promote Opera I suggested in this post, there can be added another section, for example Encourage users to change to Opera (someone who is better with English will make this sentence much simpler) or simply Encourage users to try Opera

So.. now.. list of ways to promote opera should look like this:

• Official Opera buttons
  
• Regular ads - dimensions 88x31 - 120x60 - 120x120 - 234x60 etc
  
• Ads for blogs and signatures 80x15
  
• Alernate ads for your Adsense
  
• Encourage users to try Opera

Encourage users to try Opera

One of ideas i had was to use an Internet Explorer 6 SP2 like info bar at the top of users pages.
Make users possible to generate their own javascript code on My.Opera - Promote Opera page where they can use (one of) predefined texts, or show them randomly, or that they can enter their own text (for example in their native language).

As for the predefined texts... I believe that there should be both "serious" and "funny" slogans.

This is just an example, how I would do it:[img]http://img475.imageshack.us/img475/5126/jebada6ek.png
Script is easy to develop, and I believe it wouldn't use much server resources. And it can be also used for Opera users that use outdated Opera versions, for example 6 or 7
I will attach bellow some css / gifs that can be modified to suite your needs.
Usefull for developers.zip

That will be all for this post..

I have some more ideas about this topic (Encourage users to try Opera), so if you like this and want me to write more please comment, and as soon as I have more free time I will make something new

Again, sorry for my zulu-english (formerly known as: me-tarzan-you-jane-english)
I hope that someone would find this interesting and usefull
Ivan Minic

Intro: This post is part from private message I sent to Brian regarding my Opera banners and possible ideas about reorganizing community/promote/buttons/ section

---

Ideas about new-old banner section

Open: http://my.opera.com/community/promote/buttons/
I will try to be descriptive...

First thing I think that should be done is reorganising "Opera Affiliates" since I find it not quite nice to see that there is no banner on site that is linked there as top referer... That piece of code is commented... It is ok to give credit to people that in past have sent the most visits.. but.. call it hall of fame... since this looks a bit demoralizing to people who want to try promoting Opera and getting on pages as a good affil.. I would make it in 3 blocks, since there is more than enough free space..
- Last referers: Block with 5 names that were last to send visits to you.
- Best this week: Block with 5 names + View all
- Hall of fame referers: Block with 5 names + View all [same as "Opera Affiliates" is now]
+ A field for members that are involved in affil program - Seek4You, that will make each user possible to take a look on his possition on lists

Second , how would I organise "Official Opera buttons" part of that page...



First thing under:
Choose banner size and style:

Official Opera buttons
- Original banners used in Opera campaigns
Regular ads - dimensions: [More details later...]
- 88x31 - 120x60 - 120x120 - 234x60 etc [Submit]
Ads for blogs and signatures 80x15: [More details later...]
Chose style that will fit your blog
Alernate ads for your Adsense [More details later...]
- Spread Opera instead of Public service announcement!

+ make size rules.. like.. 88x31 no bigger than 5kb, 120x120 no bigger than 15kb, 468x60 best under 15kb and no bigget than 25kb, etc...

Below that write a nice Introduction with detailed info how users can help and where, and with links to all stuff related to that page, such as...
- Color your desktop - Check out Wallpapers...
- Wear opera - Check out Accessories Store...
- Make a statement - Create your Homepage... (Profile)
- Dear diary - Create your Blog...
- Family photos - Create your Photo album
etc

Below that add in Fast Facts style.. [More details later...]
- What Opera offers...
- What Users said about it...
- What Magazines said about it..
- Who are Opera's partners...

Now to go to the real stuff...
Regular ads - dimensions
- 88x31 - 120x60 - 120x120 - 234x60 etc [Submit]

When a user selects size, on page he will be redirected he will see:
- 5 most used banners from that size!
- 5 last approved banners

If he chooses to submit he will be taken to a form where he will be able to choose from standard dimensions and to fill in other data...

Ads for blogs and signatures 80x15:
Essential part.. In my humble opinion...
We can agree that "red" is Operas color.. however.. I do believe that people need to have a chance to select a banner that would look nice on their page even if they don't want it to be red... so.. as you were able to see I made couple colors of the same banner that would look nice...
This is example.. i just animated it..
[img]http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/1326/80x158vd.gif
Of course.. This animation is just to show the variety.. not to be used...

So, when users click this part, they would be shown few 80x15 designs but they will be able to choose from variety of colors.. and when they do.. to generate with 1 click not only HTML code, but also 2 versions of BB code, since for example phpBB and vBulletin use different kind.

This would be my list of color examples + of course White banner + Black text.
|||||||| Color code: #4D4D9B
|||||||| Color code: #D7006B
|||||||| Color code: #CE0000
|||||||| Color code: #9D0000
|||||||| Color code: #441593
|||||||| Color code: #004566
|||||||| Color code: #006393
|||||||| Color code: #0080C0
|||||||| Color code: #007777
|||||||| Color code: #006F00
|||||||| Color code: #00592D
|||||||| Color code: #797900
|||||||| Color code: #996633
|||||||| Color code: #9A4E4E

I can make "screenshot-look-example" how i think it should be done...

Alernate ads for your Adsense
This idea isn't originaly mine, but sure can be a good one!
How to expand it fully I think should be a matter of public discussion, but my oppinon would be to make very nice HTML pages for each adsense size with interesting content regarding both Opera Browser and Opera Community.

Fast facts...

For example.. I would put it like this...
This:



Pure heavy metal... Bomb...
If there are more stuff like this.. show it randomly on top...
Below that...

What Opera offers..

For me... The most important things about opera are:
+ The Best Looking and the most compact web produt there is!
+ The Fastest - The Most Secure - Highly customisable Tabbed Web Browser
+ Full RSS, ATOM, Mail, IRC, WAP, Popup block integration
+ Fenomenal community!

All other things are nice, but aren't too important... [for me]
But...
Opera breaks the limits, so i believe that below these you should add randomly selected revolutionary feature in smaller font with link to full features...
By revolutionary feature I mean :
Kiosk mode, User style sheets, Cookie control, Voice...

Anyway.. not more than 5-6 facts should be shown...
Show off! Everybody does it, and you have a product that deserves it!

What Users said about it...
Show real quote from real user, linking to his profile..
Make a selection from "Opera Fans" page, select like 200-300 best reasons why people use Opera and show it randomly...

Who are Opera's partners...
List them all.. adobe, google, nttdocomo, nokia, qualcomm, motorola..

Thats it for now...