Consider domain name change

[danford1]

While the redesign of summerofmaps.com addressed the brand association issues we heard about from nonprofits during research last year, the domain name still does not include explicit reference to our company brand.

Goals

• Make association with Azavea clear
• Enhance branding of company and programs we run
• Eliminate potential for confusion

Options

• Nested domain
  • azavea.com/fellowships/summer-of-maps
    • creates option to design landing page for fellowship programs
    • provides contingency in the case that additional programs are added in the future
• Subdomain
  • summerofmaps.azavea.com

@lossyrob @rcheetham @hectcastro @designmatty @eneedham:

Note that there is a related issue in the Azavea Open Source Fellowship website repo:
azavea/fellowship-program-website#51

Can you please comment your thoughts below? Let's address this potential branding issue in tandem with the Azavea Open Source Fellowship website domain name discussion.

[dmcglone]

I think the new website has made the brand association much more clear. I'd actually be wary of any more conflation with the Azavea Fellowship at this point. The Summer of Maps has an entirely different model of working with outside organizations, which is an important distinction. It also requires the program speak to an additional audience (nonprofits) as opposed to the Fellowship only speaking to students. I don't have an opinion about the nested vs subdomain, but with the decline in nonprofit applications this year, I'd also be wary of any major changes to the domain at this time.

[eneedham]

I think I am in agreement with Daniel that I'd prefer to keep the summerofmaps.com domain as-is. I chatted with Robert about this and he feels similarly. If you want to create a subdomain and redirect to summerofmaps.com, that could potentially be an option?

[rcheetham]

We have built up a brand around Summer of Maps that is recognizable and well-known at a national scale. I think the potential to scale Summer of Maps remains an option, and scaling may involve other companies, universities, and organizations. As such, maintaining the Summer of Maps brand as a separate web site and domain makes sense to me.

We had previously talked about a fellowships landing page at azavea.com/fellowships and using that page to explain that we have two programs and then pointing to both the open source fellowship and summer of maps as the two options. I think it still makes sense to do this.