If you follow us on Twitter, you will have noticed an uptick in our activity there. (If you don’t follow us on Twitter, you should. @sourceforge)
Most of this activity comes directly from the projects that are hosted here.
So, this article is for two things. First, I want to tell you how to post a news item on your project. Then I want to give you a few pointers in writing a press release in this age of Twitter.
If your project is running on SourceForge Classic, items posted to the News page (Select News in the Develop menu, then click Submit) are aggregated in a place that I can get to them, and I then post as many of those to Twitter as seem to be release announcements, and that I have time for in a given day.
If your project is running the latest version of SourceForge (code-named Allura), anything you post in the project blog is also aggregated for me. The blog tool isn’t enabled by default on Allura projects. However, even if you already have a blog somewhere else, what I recommend is that you enable the blog tool (Click Admin, then Tools) and create a blog called “Release Notes”, or something similar, where you can post release announcements.
Which brings me to part two – what should you write?
The most important thing to keep in mind when you write release notes, or any kind of press release, is that it will be seen out of context. That is, your announcement is going to be taken and published elsewhere, and the person reading it may not be familiar with your project. Because of this, you should tell them everything they need to know, in every release note.
This may seem overkill when looking at a list of news items all of which describe your project. But when someone sees the message on Twitter, or on Facebook, or in a tech magazine, they don’t have your website in front of them, and you need to tell them everything.
Bad press release:
v1.34 released! Shiny stuff. Fixed bug #844.
Good press release:
Click Track version 1.3.0 released. Click Track is a Metronome and click track generator for Android. http://bit.ly/wxtBa7
* Change position of click track marker.
* Delete click track marker.
* Add click track marker.
* Added help.
* Added XML editor tool.
* Added WAV to MP3 tool.
As an added bonus, you’ll notice that the first paragraph is less than 140 characters, so I can immediately copy and paste it into Twitter. This has the benefit that it’s more likely to get picked up and retweeted by other people, and possibly eventually make it into some tech news aggregator or newsletter. The extra few minutes it takes to condense your good news into 140 characters can really pay off in getting new eyes on your project, and new participants in your community.
Of course, it also saves me a little time, which increases the chance that you’ll end up in the @sourceforge Twitter stream.
So, to summarize:
* Write good press releases
* Follow @sourceforge on Twitter
* Keep releasing awesome software
Luminance HDR