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I remember very vividly what made me first come in contact with Muds. It was a light article in a magazine, not a Game Magazine or even an internet one, I believe it was a litterary magazine actually.
It described, in a rather humorous way, the nature of a Mud, how the world was set up, and the interaction between the players. It also said that MUDs were usually a game for the introverts, people who'd rather read a good book than go to the pub. And it mentioned how addictive it was, how a kind of virtual society developed in a mud, and how students were known to have blown their exams by mudding to much.
I remember how intrigued I was by the article, it made me want to look for myself, and since it gave the URL address to the Mudconnector, I checked it out, connected to the first Mud on their list that let me in - and that was it. Pretty soon I was hooked well and good, and it didn't even matter that the mud was pretty much stock, it was my first mud and I loved it.
What I wanted to say with this rant is, that a couple of articles like that in a number of magazines probably would be a lot more effective than any advertizing campaign with banners and stuff, and it would also reach totally new audiences, of the kind that we all want - namely people who like to read.
I would never have even noticed a banner or an ad myself, furthermore I simply loathe aggressive advertising like popups and spam mail, and I think a lot of people react in the same way.
The main problem would of course not be to write the articles, I could even do that myself. The hard thing would be to persuade the right magazine to publish them, or to get some professional journalist interested enough to write about it. But I definitely think it would be possible, after all it IS an interesting phenomenon that Muds have survived for so many years, and still get developed, even with all the competition from video games and graphical muds around nowadays. It shows that good old text still holds its territory.
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