One of the best resources we have (that people seemingly don’t use enough) is apt.ubuntu.com.
In the beginning we tried doing apt:// links, but that required websites and programs supporting it, so now we have a URL that you can just give to a person like http://apt.ubuntu.com/p/banshee, they clicky, and it fires up the Software Center and prompts them to install it.
Try it:
This is way handier than telling people “apt-get install blah …”, easier to use, and very handy for tweeting, etc. Well, apt.ubuntu.com is ugly, and doesn’t work on Chrome, which is a bummer for me.
Well, Marco Ceppi has been working on this, check it out:
As it ends up, mpt has an entire specification on how this is going to work, so Marco implemented it, here’s a demo: http://apt.marcoceppi.com/
Marco’s ready to take this to the next level, but he needs translations. Luckily, the project is in Launchpad, so any help you can lend a hand would be appreciated: https://translations.launchpad.net/apturlredirector
(Oh, feel free to snag the code, submit branches, etc.)