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I am searching for a good recourse where I can advertise my open source project. I have made a web-development framework which I want to make available to download, and I want to target a large audience.

It is an open source project so I make no money off of it, so I do not really want to pay for advertisement. I already pay for the server where the website runs, and I have spent a lot of time developing it.

I opened account on various search engines webmaster tools, so people can find it on there.

I have also made a video-sharing account where I uploaded a few tutorials. This can accumulate some traffic also.

Can someone recommend any more places to get your work spread.

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  • So what is your goal? Is it more downloads? More users of the software? More press and blog mentions? More contributors? More people testing it out and giving feedback and finding bugs? In short: if the advertising you want to do works, what will have happened?
    – artlung
    Jul 21, 2010 at 21:40
  • Thanks again for the feedback. I have a few projects I want to share, and I just wanted to know if there are special places that are mainly for advertising, because I do not think that SO is the place. The purpose of the advertising would be to help the projects grow and get better. This way other people can benefit from it as well. Sorry if the question is a little vague. Jul 21, 2010 at 22:22

6 Answers 6

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There are 4 that I know of that let you host open source code:

  1. http://bitbucket.org/
  2. http://github.com/
  3. http://www.codeplex.com/
  4. http://sourceforge.net/
  5. http://sharesource.org

These sites serve both as a place to host your code and as a way to advertise because they get so much traffic and you can include documentation which will make you show up more often in SEO results.

Also, checkout these sites for pure advertising:

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  • My projects are already in git and sourceforge. I will check out the advertising websites. Jul 21, 2010 at 21:24
  • Don't forget sharesource.org (disclaimer: I'm an admin there)
    – Tim Post
    Jul 23, 2010 at 15:29
  • Can we move it up to hosting? We do a bit of promoting for projects, but its mostly just hosting
    – Tim Post
    Jul 23, 2010 at 16:16
  • @Tim - Sure. You know more than I do about it! Jul 23, 2010 at 16:32
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Stackoverflow.com uses spare banner views to display advertisements for open source projects. I would submit your project there and see if you can get it voted high enough that it will be seen on the site. The thread with votes for the current quarter is located here: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/53346/open-source-advertising-sidebar-2h-2010

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  • Thank you for the suggestion. I just made a banner and posted it. meta.stackexchange.com/questions/53346/… Jul 21, 2010 at 21:23
  • The FOSS advertising is meant to be for contributors to the project, not just adverts for FOSS products. Not that the rule is followed, of course ;) Jul 21, 2010 at 23:33
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Part of advertising for open source projects is usually in where you host the code (this can be separate from your project site). SourceForge, GitHub, Google Code, etc all have search and project listings and that is one way you can grow a community. If you're looking for community involvement, try posting on StackOverflow's open source advertising thread.

Beyond that, however, the best method of advertising (after having a useful project) is having a useful project site. Clear documentation, screenshots, demos, videos, testimonials, etc are all essential to having a successful project that's worth advertising. Encouraging your community is important as well. By providing ways for feedback, support, and contribution, you'll help grow your community. You can do that through having a bug tracker, public source control, forums, etc. A blog is also a very big deal. There are a ton of programming/tech/development related social media sites like dZone, yCombinator, Reddit's programming section, etc. that will allow you or your community to post updates. Provide widgets on some or all of your pages to facilitate sharing on various social media sites.

In short: Have a useful project, host the code at the right place, have a helpful website, grow your community, keep your community informed, and make it easy to share.

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  • +1 Thank you for recommending the SO advertising thread, I made a banner for my project. meta.stackexchange.com/questions/53346/… . I am going to check out the other links too, dZone looks promising! Jul 21, 2010 at 21:21
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    Saif, I took a look at your project. One thing I would recommend is expanding your documentation out by default. I almost didn't catch that it could be expanded and I suspect that many people would not. Also, although it may be early on in the project, more examples would definitely help your cause. The current Hello World example is fine to start, but it doesn't offer a whole lot to someone who really wants to dig into your framework. Embedding your videos might help some too. Hope this helps. Best of luck! Jul 21, 2010 at 21:46
  • Thank you for the comments and the documentation is first on my list. I am working on examples as well. Jul 21, 2010 at 22:26
  • No problem, glad I could help. Jul 21, 2010 at 22:40
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I'd consider Github. That will give you easy version control and a great way to get contributions back from other users.

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  • Hi, Yes I am aware of git repositories for your source code. But I was really looking for advertising that you have your project on git. My project is on git for a while now, it didn't get that much attention. Jul 21, 2010 at 21:22
  • Added clarifying questions to your question.
    – artlung
    Jul 21, 2010 at 21:41
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There is a relatively new service called OpenHatch which aims to help projects get some publicity.

The focus is mostly on getting more eyeballs on bug trackers, but its still good exposure.

Having your project tracked by Ohloh is also not a bad idea.

Nothing (imho) is better than blog posts that you write telling the world how much fun you are having working on your new project, how excited you are and (very specifically) what problems you are solving by writing another framework.

Just like anything else, you have to work a bit to promote it. Give it some space in your signature on forums. Don't be afraid to suggest that others try it.

Finally, make sure to put up a proper (even if small) web site for your project. Its frustrating when people "just" host at github with a one line description of the project and no feature lists / about / roadmap / etc.

I've never had a free/open source project not attract at least a few people, usually more. As long as its actively developed, I'm sure people will find you.

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  • +1 Thank you Tim for the nice comments and support. I will be spreading the project around some more and write a few more posts about it. Jul 25, 2010 at 23:13
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Using some lateral thinking if you use Pivotal Tracker for maintaining your feature/bug development as a public project you will be able to describe where you are taking the project, get free hosting for your project plan and free publicity on the Pivotal Tracker site.

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