(you can find this article here in PDF , ODT and HTML)
An idea to fund Linux Ubuntu:
Ubugle
From: Simone Brunozzi (simone.brunozzi@gmail.com), Assisi, ITALY (www.ubuntu.it)
To: Mark Richard Shuttleworth
updated 31st july 2006
Two minutes to read this
I'm a Linux Ubuntu user, and a community member. I have some things in mind that are (shuttle) worth sharing with you, but I'd like to focus only on this one, that I called Ubugle.
The idea is rather simple: funding Linux Ubuntu (or the Ubuntu Foundation) through a simple web site that uses Search Engine interfaces to bring results to the viewer, and to give small amounts of money to the web site owner (Ubuntu Foundation). Google, for example, offers this kind of service as part of its Adsense tools. Other search engines, like Yahoo, offer it as well.
The web site would merely be a search interface, much similar to Google's home page, in order to give no disadvantages to its users.
Furhtermore, we could add Ubugle search to the list of search engines on the top right corner of Firefox interface (the way some people prefer to search the web).
Let's see the potential of this idea, using a very conservative extimate.
Counting only the 140,000 members of Ubuntulinux.org forums (as of 30th july 2006), and supposing that 10% of them will “adopt” Ubugle web site as their main search site (or use Ubugle in Firefox) because they like to help Ubuntu in this way, and supposing that, on average, one user can “produce” 0.10 USD of daily revenues from his searches, in one year this idea will bring (0.10*14,000*365) = 511,000.00 USD.
Remember again that those are very conservative extimates.
The 0.10 USD is considered to include bandwidth and server costs for the web site (the gross revenue could be 0.13 USD for example; this is just my personal extimate).
We can stimulate Ubugle's adoption by community members in some ways: tracking the single user's revenues, and thus informing him of its help for Ubuntu (this stimulates its use); adding in Ubuntu Linux Desktop a simple way to start using Ubugle (simple like the icon to install Ubuntu from the live CD). We can also seal a special agreement with Google, or Yahoo, thus obtaining a better yield for the user activities.
If we could involve not only 14,000 members of the forums, but, let's say, 100,000 users worldwide, we could reach (0.10 * 100,000 * 365) 3,650,000 USD per year.
I'm sharing this idea with you hoping that it could benefit Ubuntu, and that I could be involved in order to put it into practice... How? I don't know yet.
If I have created enough interest in you, contact me.
Thanks!
Simone Brunozzi
This document is licensed under the following license: Creative Commons “Attribution-Share Alike 2.5”, see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento