Re: Interest in Lua Web Plug-in?

[Philippe Lhoste <PhiLho@...>]

Kein-Hong Man wrote:
> Don Hopkins wrote:
> > I think a Lua web plug-in is a wonderful idea whose time has come, as 
> > long as it's open source, and done right!
> > (And it would be quite nice if it had a good 3d graphics module, too.)
> >
> > Making it open source is crucial.
> > It's impossible trying to get people to buy into a commercial browser 
> > plug-in (although Flash is the exception that proves the rule).

Flash isn't a commercial plug-in, his strength is precisely that it is 
free, while owner earns money by selling content creation software.
A now classical commercial scheme.

> I'm very surprised that nobody's mentioned the most important bit yet: 
> It isn't about technical merits or how good the technology it. The 
> technology doesn't even have to be good.
>
> It's all about marketing and branding.
>
> If you can sell it, and I mean *SELL* it, then by all means, you have my 
> vote, and please do go for it. :-)

Well, a crucial point is actually to persuade browser makers (Microsoft, 
Mozilla, Opera...) to distribute your product with every released 
browser. If user has to go fetch some plug-in to see some content on an 
obscure site, there is perhaps 95% chances that he will just go away...

Since the above is unlikely, another way is to create a site of 
user-contributed content: with lot of cool stuff to experience, one 
might be willing to get this plug-in to explore further.
I saw that on some 3D plug-ins, but they are still unknown to most...

Or, variant of the previous two, almost as difficult as the first, 
persuade a _very_ big site, say Yahoo! or Google, to adopt your 
technology and offer lot of content.
But they often choose to use existing technologies, like Flash for 
YouTube or Ajax elsewhere, etc.

See SVG which is a cool technology, initially not dependent on only one 
plug-in. Beside dedicated sites, you won't see it much around.
Same for VRML, and so on.

Anyway I would love to see this project and wish it lot of success!

--
Philippe Lhoste
--  (near) Paris -- France
--  http://Phi.Lho.free.fr
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --