fluffypony, I think marketing is weak side of Monero devs team. And imagine, it is simplier to fix: communication with alive people is much easier than sofisticated code writing: just 1 wrong charaster leads to heartblead, etc... If you start marketing company for Monero with alive people and make some mistakes, it indeed brings some profit.
People are more grateful than iron computers! But almost nobody knows about Monero!
hrm, well one way forward which is good for both monero and monero holders is the whole "if it gets a crazy value, people will notice" - i.e., if monero goes "to the moon", it will naturally attract attention. This path to marketing supports the development concept - make the coin awesome (GUI, database out of memory).
the other avenue, I think, is to capitalize on the new "nothings private" problem of the modern era. If we can market private online shopping (FB, google, etc doesn't track your purchases to get info on you that they can sell to others etc). I have a business idea for this, just waiting until february (when I have more time.)
I completely share your point of view.
You describe two ways:
1) "if it gets a crazy value, people will notice"
2) "to capitalize on the new "nothings private" problem of the modern era"
The 1st way is already 'in the game', but it is not sufficient because core devs DO report they have no enough money to simply work 8 hours a day on Monero project only.
So, we should power on 2nd way - in terms of marketing - *to sell monero idea worldwide as the only solution for "nothings private" problem*.
As we all do know, Monero (and cryptonote technology) is actualy the only fundamental, academic AND practically working solution for "nothings private" problem.
But most people just don't know about Monero, while they do know about "nothings private" problem.
So when ready, let us know about your business idea for this, you've mentioned
