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Anna Lear and I have a disagreement on the validity of a question on P.SE:

How to promote Facebook app?

To me it seems, that the promotion of an application is subject to localization and the subject matter of the application. The best promotion for two applications will not be the same.

eg.

If I were to promote a music application, I would likely want to promote and partner with music websites and sources. If I was developing a game however, this would not be the ideal source for promotion.

Do you believe this topic (and topics like it) is off-topic, or is there a better location for such a question?

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As I mentioned in the comments on that question (which will likely be cleaned up eventually), I think this question is on-topic. There certainly will be differences in how different applications are promoted, but there is some general advice that could apply, i.e. "partner with sites that share some themes with your application". Obviously one wouldn't promote a game on a music site, but promoting it on a gaming site would make total sense.

Additionally, I don't think having only 2 answers (one of them good, one potentially editable into a better shape with more detail) is a bad thing. Not every post needs many answers. If a single answer is sufficient, that's okay. If someone comes along a few months later and has more experience to share, that's okay too.

Far as other locations go, answers.onstartups.com may be a good place, but I'm not familiar enough with them to say that for certain.

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  • Is there a sense in which programmers are uniquely qualified to comment on such questions?
    – Jeremy
    Jun 2, 2011 at 0:14
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    @Jeremy Programmers who happen to be freelancers and promote their products would absolutely be qualified. The rest wouldn't, but it's the same as me being unqualified to answer C++ questions when I don't really know C++, for example.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Jun 2, 2011 at 0:16
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    What I meant was, not only programmers would be qualified to answer this question, but anyone who has promoted an application. It isn't because someone is a programmer that they can answer this question - its because they've promoted products. They might also be able to give good tips on bass fishing.
    – Jeremy
    Jun 2, 2011 at 0:26
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    @Jeremy Sure, but bass fishing isn't at all related to software development, whereas application promotion can be seen as a freelance/business concern, which are described as on-topic in our FAQ.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Jun 2, 2011 at 2:05
  • @AnnaLear, I disagree. The key is in programming freelancer is freelancer, not programming. By that I mean you are considering this on-topic because a freelancer wears many hats. I think this leads down a dark path of letting many non software development questions onto here. Truly, this is a Market question, not a software development one. By the logic above, you would let someone ask a how to pick music to put in an application.
    – Dan McGrath
    Jan 10, 2012 at 16:47
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off-topic: the promotion of an application is a marketing question, and the answer is not specific to programming:

  • search-engine optimization
  • word of mouth referrals
  • advertising
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Probably irrelevant to the question, but the latest answer to it is clearly spam. It's not obvious at first, but checkout the user's other answer1 on a question that's actually about promoting Android apps.

I think we should consider the possibility that promotion questions have a very high potential of attracting spammers. I wouldn't mind declaring them off topic just for that, as I completely agree with Craige and Steven A. Lowe.

1 Now deleted, it was almost exactly the same as the first answer.

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I propose that since SO is for technical issues, that http://facebook.stackoverflow.com/ would be off-topic for those relating to promoting facebook apps?

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  • Yeap, as per their faq: "We feel the best Facebook Stack Overflow questions have a bit of source code in them"
    – yannis
    Jan 10, 2012 at 11:46
  • @Downvoter are you agreeing or disagreeing with me that it's off-topic?
    – StuperUser
    Jan 10, 2012 at 11:48
  • Agreeing, obviously :), but -1 for not checking their faq. Please don't make me add -1 / +1 to my comments, I hate them, post meta answers in a way that it's obvious what votes mean....
    – yannis
    Jan 10, 2012 at 11:50
  • @YannisRizos I don't post much on meta; thought it seemed a bit "double negative". I've updated the format of the answer, so that if you agree that the answer would "be useful". Make sense?
    – StuperUser
    Jan 10, 2012 at 11:54
  • Well, I can't really say it's useful, because it's still a question, not an answer. But generally voting on meta is different than the main site, don't worry much about downvotes.
    – yannis
    Jan 10, 2012 at 12:00

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