You know tonight I was sitting here watching TV and I was wondering, why is it I never see any Ads on TV for Linux or any of the popular distributions? The only ad I ever remember seeing was an IBM ad, I think that had something to do with Linux, and that was selling IBM’s servers or something.

When I watch TV today I laugh when I see the MAC / PC commercials because it has to be good for Apple. I would think since Apple has been doing the MAC / PC ads their numbers of computers sold had to of went up. More importantly then that is the word of mouth that would create as well. The fact the MAC commercials are sometimes funny, really gives the MAC some momentum I would think in terms of winning over some viewers.

So this leads me to Linux why hasn’t anyone bothered to get some witty Linux commercials playing on TV in prime time on some of the major networks? This can’t be a money issues I would have to think Linux regardless of the distribution would have some fans that would gladly DONATE the money, equipment and time maybe even some actors to actually make the commercials.

In a landscape where people get together for software projects and donate lots of time, equipment and money I’m amazed you don’t see the same sort of effort to get Linux out into the main stream. There are lots of big companies using Linux daily and making millions off the free software, couldn’t some of these big companies donate some cash for a advertising campaign?

I just find it ironic that I listen to pod casts all the time and one of the main things I here is discussions on how to get Linux more widely adopted yet no one even mentions TV advertising. I think a couple of well done commercials over a period of time played in prime time would be a huge boost to Linux.

I think Linux has come a very long way just based on word of mouth but I only think thats going to get you so far. If you could get everyones attention with just word of mouth you wouldn’t be seeing big companies spend millions on advertising budgets.

I think in a sense Linux needs some sort of group/committee to get the word out on Linux and do some major advertising for it. I think this is the only way to reach a lot of people. I think a lot of people would try Linux, but first they have to know there is a Linux in the first place.

I would really like to see someone like Canonical/Ubuntu step up and start up a TV advertising campaign. Right now from what I can see they seem to be the distribution with the most amount of momentum behind it. If it was Canonical or some other company that lead this operation I think all the distributions would benefit greatly from it. The more users Linux has in general the more power you have. If you had loads of users using Linux regardless of the distribution manufactures would have to pay attention and maybe even have to start releasing more open source stuff instead of the proprietary stuff being released today.

I think if you could get some of the stuff I have seen on youtube with Beryl on to a prime time advertising spot on TV there would be a flood of users coming over just to see what it was about. A lot of the computer market is geared on pretty graphics hence why Microsoft put all the time and money into their new interface in Vista. Microsoft knows them flashy new graphics will suck people into buying Vista. I think Beryl is way more impressive then Vistas new UI and if a people could see that on TV the flood gates would open up.

As always if you feel like discussing this you can post a comment on my Linux forum.

WolfManz611..