Comments

• 

  Micah

  Posts: 894 August 2007

  Hey guys, the Obsidian Portal team needs your help!
  
  With adding features and fixing bugs consuming our nights and weekends, Ryan and I have very little time to actually promote the site. Like it or not, promotion plays a big part in getting a new site like this off the ground. We think Obsidian Portal is a great site, but only the cutting edge of the tabletop RPG market (ie. you guys) know about it.
  
  Anyways, the absolute best way for us to promote the site is to promote the great campaigns already posted here. A month ago, we had very little. Now, we have several great campaigns and some very excellent content posted by all of you. With your help, we can keep the momentum going.
  
  Rather than promoting Obsidian Portal directly, we would like you all to promote your campaigns. Here's a couple ways you can do this:
  
  # Place a link to your campaign in your signature on all your favorite message boards
  # Put a link on your MySpace or Facebook page.
  # Save your campaign to "del.icio.us":http://del.icio.us, "StumbleUpon":http://www.stumbleupon.com/, or other social bookmarking sites
  # Put a link to your campaign in your blog's sidebar
  # Use your campaign URL as your homepage when leaving comments on blogs or signing up on websites
  # Use your campaign URL in your signature on e-mails
  
  Anyone else have any good suggestions? Post them to this thread and I'll add them to the list.
  
  Still not convinced? Tell us what we can do to help! With a little effort we could probably make some banners and the teensy-weensy forum badges that seem so popular. We could even stick your campaign name on them. Would anyone use these?
  
  Or, besides the banners, is there anything else that we could provide to help you promote your campaigns? I'm not the most creative guy in the world, so that's why I'm asking the community. If there is any help you need in promoting your campaign, just let us know and we'll see what we can do.
  
  I look forward to hearing from all of you.
• 

  Micah

  Posts: 894 August 2007

  nobody has any thoughts?
• 

  deadshot

  Posts: 16 August 2007

  I am at a conference with rather flaky wifi but I think the best place to get some traffic is through ENWorld especially with Gen Con coming up. A lot of people are checking into the major gaming sites to get news so it would be a great time to try to get a news bullet on that site. Other than that, you really have hit the best ways to get traffic (sig links etc).
  
  Link buttons are cool though. :)
• 

  Randolpho

  Posts: 27 August 2007

  I've posted this on ENWorld, and a couple other forums I frequent.
• 

  Micah

  Posts: 894 August 2007

  Thanks Randolpho.
• 

  Randolpho

  Posts: 27 August 2007

  I've also been mentioning Obsidian in the new 4e section at the Wizard's board.
  
  
  Speaking of 4e.... it looks like some portions of the D&D-Insider subscription are conceptually similar to Obsidian. I keep trying to pimp Obisidian by mentioning how similar those portions look to the already up and free Obsidian. :)
• 

  Micah

  Posts: 894 August 2007

  I've been trying to keep up with Gleemax/D&D-Insider stuff, but I've fallen behind. Obviously I'm very interested to see what they're planning to offer. My hope is that Obsidian can grow a large user community prior to the release of the new stuff from WizO, and it looks quite possible to me, considering the timeline they're putting forward (months!). Besides, like you said, we have features now, not just promises. It is irritating to read people speculating so much about planned features that already exist on Obsidian, and I'm eternally grateful that you would drop our name in those discussions.
  
  Assuming you're ElectroKitty, make sure to put a link to your campaign in your sig! I'm sure most people would much rather see your campaign than Obsidian Portal's homepage :)
  
  Thanks again for the kind words. They mean a lot to me.
• 

  jwt

  Posts: 5 August 2007

  Have you considered contacting Paizo. You might even be able to get permission to get DM resources in electronic form, which would be HUGE for DMs using your site. I mean if you told me that all the NPCs and Unique Items from the new Pathfinder Adventure Path were available here, I would be all over it!
• 

  Micah

  Posts: 894 August 2007

  jwt,
  
  That's a pretty neat idea! I can try to get in touch with people, but there is a very, very large chance they will flat-out say no. Intellectual property and copyright are big issues, and most companies jealously guard their creations. In addition, I see Obsidian Portal as a competitor to some of the digital initiatives that Wizards is working on, so it's doubtful they (or Paizo) will do anything to help us.
  
  Still, it's a good idea, and I'm glad you posted it.
• 

  jwt

  Posts: 5 August 2007

  Well Paizo has split from Wizards, and when left alone Paizo tends to be comprised of gamers who understand that a campaign is a shared experience. Not just shared across gaming groups but across the gaming community as a whole. As such they tend to be more forgiving when it comes to allowing folks to use their ip - so long as you are reasonable, and aren't trying to make cash off their ideas.
  
  I think they may (and I don't want to put words in their mouth here) see this as a great way to facilitate that sharing experience. The real issue with Paizo may be finding some cycle time to tap into all that info they have. They are slightly busy, it seems.