From: gopher-bounce@complete.org Date: Mon Aug 11 01:20:51 2008 Subject: [gopher] A new convert to gopher! Sorry about going off-topic from the current discussion threads, but I just wanted to share a small anecdote about a recent gopher convert. My wife is a typical computer user: She can navigate a browser, but if you mentioned "gopher" to her she'd think of the animal, not the protocol, and no amount of explaining would change the fact that gopher is, in fact, an animal. I recently discovered Cameron's weather forecasts that he is carrying on floodgap (gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/1/groundhog). I know my wife is always watching the weather, so on a lark I sent her this link and asked her what she thought about it. The conversation went something like this: Her: "This is pretty cool...does it update?" Me: "Yep...every 2 hours a new forecast comes out." Her: "Where are the popups?" Me: [pointedly avoiding the word 'gopher'] "Well, this is a site that eliminates all that." Her: "So this updates automatically? And I don't have to deal with clicking on a lot of links and popups?" Me: "Nope...here, I'll make it easy for you." [helpfully puts link in toolbar] Her: "Very cool...looks like it's going to rain tonight! You'll need to bring the grill in, and clear the back table, and..." At any rate: A new gopher convert. It was that simple: Just showing here something she's not seen before. Never in a thousand years would she have stumbled upon this on her own. And I believe she represents the typical computer user: Unless there is some handholding involved, it will be unlikely such a user will ever discover gopher on their own. Just a small anecodote that demonstrates how easy it could be to gain new gopher converts. Granted, this is a very tiny case study that is by no means generalizable across the population of computer users, but I figure if I was able to get one new person hooked on one aspect of gopher, there's no reason to believe there aren't others out there who will be receptive to the message. --Brian Thread start (DIR) [gopher] A new convert to gopher! (DIR) Followup: [gopher] Re: A new convert to gopher! (DIR) Followup: [gopher] Re: A new convert to gopher!