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Charging for a BETA? ...without very many services?
You're CHARGING for a BETA!!! Get real... I might spend $15 dollars once you have 50-60 services, PLUS the ability o add whatever service you are missing (and you know you're always gonna be missing one...)
I’m disappointed
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The best answer from everyone
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In my 20+ years of IT, I've seen many different methods of getting software out to people. This isn't the first time I've seen companies request payment in advance, but it's certainly a rare way to operate.
The developer does whatever they need to do. It's their decision. It's their 'baby'.
The more common method is free during beta, and then switching to a paid model, usually, with a discount for the beta testers. I believe this works better for the developer for a number of reasons.
I believe that if the developer wants maximum, quality feedback, then they need as many people as possible to use, fault find, report bugs, etc etc. Having a paid-beta, IMHO, is reducing the amount of people willing to hammer and test the program, and therefore increasing the time to get it to a releasable state. It also makes it hard for people to really test it.
I downloaded EventBox a couple of weeks ago for a quick look. I didn't use it for long, I was busy with a couple of projects, so I deleted it off my machine. Tonight, I thought I'd give it another try. At about 10.30pm, I downloaded and started it up. I started to get a little interested in the program, but when I quit and restarted it (it was now after midnight) the program refused to open saying it was out of it's trial period.
Now I'm not going to spend the money to register it after an hour and a bit of testing it to see if it works the way I hoped it would. But because of the methods for beta release chosen by the developer, it means that they have now lost any feedback that I could have provided. (I have a reasonable track record for helping developers work through bugs and with problem resolution).
I'm not trying to offend anyone, I'm simply trying to explain that by choosing this method, you could be missing out on valuable resources. I'm prepared to put in time with a developer, through the beta period, in order to resolve issues, and in return, I feel the developer needs to respect and consider that the beta-tester is doing them a favour too. I refuse to pay the developer to use a beta program AND THEN give up my already very limited free time to help them through the beta stages. It's give AND take, it works both ways.
Maybe, an alternate method would have been to release the product in a very limited beta.. invite only maybe? But what's done is done.
I've worked through some niggling issues in programs with a couple of developers in the last 12-18 months, and in both issues, they gave me a free licence for their program as a thank you. This was not something I expected, and it's not something I'm angling for here. What it did do was make me a very keen spokesperson for them, and their product, and I will mention and recommend that product whenever is appropriate.
A lot of respect for a company comes from their early actions and decisions. Alienate people too early, and it may hurt later.
Like I said, I'm not trying to offend.. I haven't come in ranting about charging in beta, instead I'm trying to offer some thoughts from other angles.
Regards
Nick
I’m indifferent
4 people say
this answers the question
Create a customer community for your own organization
Plans starting at $19/month
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Inappropriate?50 - 60 services is a little bit exaggerated. But in general I agree. Anyway there is another thread covering this topic: http://gsfn.us/t/nkw -
Inappropriate?not an exaggeration... go check http://profilactic.com . I'm sure there are at least that many there...
What's difficult these days is that you have to go to so many individual sites in order to interact with their functionality. Websites like Profilactic ("lifestreams") are only snapshot views of activity -- what's missing is a single portal from which I can interact with all my social services. I.e., respond to mail and accept friend requests from multiple sites (and there are a least a dozen or so which fall into just this category containing "friend requests")
I’m amused
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Inappropriate?Personally I would prefer the way culturedcode chose. Free beta (as it should be IMHO) and a discount for beta testers / early adaptors...
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Inappropriate?In my 20+ years of IT, I've seen many different methods of getting software out to people. This isn't the first time I've seen companies request payment in advance, but it's certainly a rare way to operate.
The developer does whatever they need to do. It's their decision. It's their 'baby'.
The more common method is free during beta, and then switching to a paid model, usually, with a discount for the beta testers. I believe this works better for the developer for a number of reasons.
I believe that if the developer wants maximum, quality feedback, then they need as many people as possible to use, fault find, report bugs, etc etc. Having a paid-beta, IMHO, is reducing the amount of people willing to hammer and test the program, and therefore increasing the time to get it to a releasable state. It also makes it hard for people to really test it.
I downloaded EventBox a couple of weeks ago for a quick look. I didn't use it for long, I was busy with a couple of projects, so I deleted it off my machine. Tonight, I thought I'd give it another try. At about 10.30pm, I downloaded and started it up. I started to get a little interested in the program, but when I quit and restarted it (it was now after midnight) the program refused to open saying it was out of it's trial period.
Now I'm not going to spend the money to register it after an hour and a bit of testing it to see if it works the way I hoped it would. But because of the methods for beta release chosen by the developer, it means that they have now lost any feedback that I could have provided. (I have a reasonable track record for helping developers work through bugs and with problem resolution).
I'm not trying to offend anyone, I'm simply trying to explain that by choosing this method, you could be missing out on valuable resources. I'm prepared to put in time with a developer, through the beta period, in order to resolve issues, and in return, I feel the developer needs to respect and consider that the beta-tester is doing them a favour too. I refuse to pay the developer to use a beta program AND THEN give up my already very limited free time to help them through the beta stages. It's give AND take, it works both ways.
Maybe, an alternate method would have been to release the product in a very limited beta.. invite only maybe? But what's done is done.
I've worked through some niggling issues in programs with a couple of developers in the last 12-18 months, and in both issues, they gave me a free licence for their program as a thank you. This was not something I expected, and it's not something I'm angling for here. What it did do was make me a very keen spokesperson for them, and their product, and I will mention and recommend that product whenever is appropriate.
A lot of respect for a company comes from their early actions and decisions. Alienate people too early, and it may hurt later.
Like I said, I'm not trying to offend.. I haven't come in ranting about charging in beta, instead I'm trying to offer some thoughts from other angles.
Regards
Nick
I’m indifferent
4 people say
this answers the question
1 Comment Add a comment
This answers the question
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You wrote all those things I wanted to say but was to lazy to ;-) -
Inappropriate?haha.. yeah took me ages too!! :^) See the lengths I'll go to!! Imagine all that time put back into testing EventBox. Oh wait... I can't!! My 'trial' expired. hahaha
I’m a sarcastic bugger... sometimes! :^)
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Inappropriate?At the very least, the time limit should restart after each beta version install.5 Comments Add a comment
This answers the question
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I totally agree.
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Agreed.
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Agreed.
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Agreed.
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Agree as well.
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Inappropriate?I played with an early beta version, found it lacking in some areas so I didn't buy. Now, from what I can tell from Twitter comments, some of those features are added in. Unfortunately, I can't use the latest beta because my demo time expired. Too bad, I would love to see if it's worth buying.2 Comments Add a comment
This answers the question
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Isn't that stupid..
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Same here.
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Inappropriate?I would really like to help stress-test this app, it looks extremely promising and I've enjoyed using it so far. However, I feel somewhat insulted by being asked to pay in order to help out a commercial product. I realize that a lot of work goes into the development and the developers need to make a little money in order to fund the continued development, but charging during a beta period is somewhat of a broken business model. If the developers would like to make money during the beta, I'd suggest distributing it for free and having it be ad-supported.
The guys at Iconfactory have a free, ad-supported version of their desktop Twitterific client and an advanced, ad-free version for 15 dollars. This sounds fair to me.
http://iconfactory.com/software/twitt...
I’m frustrated
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Inappropriate?Liron,
you can stress-test Eventbox for 15 days (and even more, once they add major new features, because the trial periods will be reset, or so they say) and that should be sufficient time for you to figure out if the app works for you or not.
During those 15 days, you will not see any ads at all (unless your friends tweet them) and you will see more than just tweets, you will also get RSS, Facebook, Flickr and Reddit integration.
Although I am no developer, I am a heavy user of EB and I would not want an ad-supported trial / full version of the app. Ads annoy the living hell out of me and are my #1 reason not to try an app.
I realize that everyone has different needs / wishes and I can see how this might frustrate you, but I strongly suggest you give Eventbox a try.
The "beta" moniker really isnt true if you ask me, because I associate "beta" with applications that crash and Eventbox is very stable for me (so far, in over a month, it has crashes but once).
I’m helping frustrated people
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Inappropriate?I'm with texinick (and others). I downloaded this a while back and then got sidetracked with work, life, etc etc. This evening I remembered I had downloaded EventBox and thought I'd fire it back up and see if it had some features I was looking for...but sure enough I can't try it because the beta period expired. Obviously I'm not paying $15 to use software I haven't even tried...so with the current setup I'll simply never use EventBox.
A suggestion would be to only allow the program to be launched X number of times. Then it's clearly use based. Sure people could just leave it open forever, but like other's have said, I bet you'd get a massive amount of additional feedback and bug reports.
Hopefully this beta setup will change...I'd really like to try the software out one day.
I’m bummed
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Inappropriate?Okay, I told you before but will do again: Other developers do it right (see Things.app above), you don't. Another example: Realmac just did a beta test of LittleSnapper. It was closed beta with invitation only but as the app grew you had a good chance to jump on board. Of course it was free! And even better, after releasing LittleSnapper Team Realmac offered free licences (>40 $) to all the people who filed bug reports. Awesome.1 Comment Add a comment
This answers the question
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As I said in my long reply above, I will happily work with developers in identifying & resolving bugs and issues... I was one of those that raised issues and filed bugs with LittleSnapper!! :^)
I'd love to help out on the EventBox team, but I still refuse to pay money for beta testing software. The way I see it is helping beta test software and identifying bugs is doing the company a favour, without beta testers, the product development cycle is a lot longer.
I've said enough in my earlier post. I'm not going to say it all again. If that's what these guys want to do, so be it. It must be working for them. -
Inappropriate?Paxton,
keep in mind that the developers from realmacsoftware.com have more than one product to rely on and as such have more income.
I also think that their time is a tad bigger than The Cosmic Machine one's is.
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Inappropriate?Here's the deal. I'm willing to keep trying EventBox and offering suggestings and reporting bugs. But I'm not going to pay them to do this. I'm offering my time, and I'm activly reporting bugs I find -- that should be worth more then the registration fee to them.
As it stands, once my 15 days are up -- I won't be able to use EventBox anymore, and thus, I won't be able to report bugs anymore -- and EventBox will probably never get me back as a user.
I’m sad
1 Comment Add a comment
This answers the question
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I've recently had some very good coversations with the developer of EventBox, and he seems like a good guy. I think as long as some sort of progress is shown and there are regular updates of EventBox adding features and fixing bugs --- I might register. Even if it is a beta.
