Site Overview Information

Macosx.com

Launched in late 2000, macosx.com started off as a gathering place for individuals participating in the Public Beta of Mac OS X to discuss their experience with Apple's new operating system. With the growth and success of Apple's operating system, macosx.com continued to grow over the years becoming a large forum community to share, discuss and help with using Mac OS X. In 2005, macosx.com launched free personal technical support which was staffed by volunteers who answered questions individually (outside the forums). Over the last year, the growth of the site expanded at a rapid rate, doubling the user community base in a very short time.

In June of 2006, macosx.com expanded support to include other operating systems with Apple's move to the Intel platform and the ability to run other operating systems on Mac hardware. With this move, it only seemed appropriate to relaunch. The original multi-platform free tech support site, No Wonder, the very site we based our free technical support model after. Hence, No Wonder was reborn and became the new flagship moving forward.

Advertising and Promotion

In 2005, macosx.com took steps to expand brand awareness. The first ad was in the April issue of MacTech magazine (Fig. A). The aim was to grow our tech user base to get more people helping out on our free support mission.

The August edition of MacWorld magazine (Fig. B), the newsstand version featured our largest ad on the magazine insert. The insert was included only in newsstand editions which included a CD with a plastic wrap.

(Fig. B) MacWorld Aug 05
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This awesome ad size was given to us at quite a discount from MacWorld, and we do appreciate them for doing that.

Our next step will be to attempt to get inside the magazine into the showcase area to do a promotion to see how it works out. If anyone from MacWorld magazine is reading this, hint hint. ;)

Finishing out the year, Macosx.com went after another audience with the December issue of MacAddict (Fig. C). Using the design from our T-Shirt, we made it into the magazines Showcase advertising area.

In all cases, we had mixed results on how well each ad did. Other simultaneous promotions online and in other locations, the success of the magazine market was difficult to track. Since we don't have a product to sell, advertising expenditures is more novelty than productive. That said, we hope to try some other locations in 2006.

Logo Merchandise

Throughout the years, Macosx.com has had various merchandise items available with our logo on them. Until 2005, we used CafePress and as you might imagine, not a whole lot of items rolled out of our online store. We decided to do away with them and had our own T-Shirts screen printed in bulk offering two styles, mens and ladies fitted shirts. The concept, no doubt, is very Mac centric and using a concept by Scott, Indicia Design was able to create an awesome shirt design that later went to be used in one of our print advertisements.