Hugo's marketing strategy

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Hugo’s front-page sports a huge photo of a MacBook, alongside earbuds, an analog camera and notebook that looks like a Moleskine. The photo has a filter applied to it. Now, I have nothing against MacBooks (I’m typing this from one) or Moleskines (I am guilty of buying them) or even analog cameras (I own and regularly use a Polaroid for Pete’s sake), but this photo objectively screams ‘Hipster’, and by extension gives off as a first message to potential users ‘Hugo is for hipsters’, and I am not sure if that is intentional.

I don’t mean to scorn or disrespect; I can imagine that there are a lot of people that find the current homepage appealing. However, I can also imagine that many are immediately put off by it. For example, journalists, scientists or owners of small businesses, i.e. ‘serious’ people looking for a way to host their ‘serious’ content. Sure, people can shrug off the initial hipsterish look and try to assess Hugo by it’s technological merits instead of judging it by its cover, as they should! However, marketing matters and I think there needs to be a discussion about this in the community.

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Alrighty. Out of curiosity, what sort of “image” would you propose for Hugo’s homepage instead?

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I think it’s great when people dive in with such comments (though I’m just a regular Hugo user, often less mainstream, more diverse in my opinions / approaches).

Actually, I’m not keen on the entire front page. If it was my project, I’d start at the docs site. I think it shows a more practical, more accessible project.

Good question. I know it’s not for me, but I guess I’ve answered it anyway (accessible and practical)…