(I posted this on blogsceptic.blogspot.com, blogsceptic@fastmail(DOHT)fm)
You guys should be out there shouting at the top of your lungs about Blogware. It's amazing how the blog world turned upside-down within the space of a week:
1. Blogger re-launches with the missing features that people moved to MT for, plus decent looking templates
2. MT comes out with a disastrously-received pricing scheme; and
3. Blogware 1.0 is finally released. AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS, BABY!. You need to build the Blogware name up. Nobody's heard of it. The reseller thing can't be your only way of distributing the software, because it becomes a generic blog tool. Blogware needs to offer a lower-priced self-maintained version for corporate settings, and a hosted service. Reading through the blogware blog it seems you guys already do the application hosting yourselves -- so why limit sales to only resellers? Do the branded hosting yourselves ala Typepad.
It seems your app has the best of both worlds: Blogger's ability to FTP blogs to one's own host, and a SCALABLE hosted service already up. There's a small window of opportunity and you guys should grab it. It would be kinda disappointing to see another under-appreciated Canadian product disappear. Also, seeing how easy it is to migrate an MT blog to Blogware, you need to implement a deterrant to migration: not a technical one, but a social one. Yup, since you'd be hosting the whole thing yourselves, you need to build a community, like Livejournal. There's a whole LJ culture built up, and despite the utter crudeness of their tool, people stick with it because all their friends are on it. If you do your own hosting it would be relatively easy to copy the friends/ LJ communities features. Then you'd have LOCK-IN, baby! Summary:
1. Ditch the reseller route.
2. Launch a branded hosting service that competes head-on with Typepad, offering more features at a slightly lower cost. Leverage your robust scalability. MT's home-brew Perl implementation is probably hurting them right now.
3. Offer Blogware to institutions at a reasonable price that undercuts MT 3.0 significantly. Every company has an intranet. Run it on Blogware.
4. Add friends/ communities for user lock-in through social means.
5. Promote it! Why on earth was there no announcement on Boingboing when Blogware was launched? You need a marketing guy. Hire somebody like Jason Kottke to spread the word online. Or Cory Doctorow. Actually Doctorow would be ideal because he travels a lot and has a high profile.
6. Hire some professional designers. Add some curves, some shading, some oomph. Right now it looks like a bunch of geeks cooked something up. This will make a BIG difference in standing out.
Six clicks. Movable Type, Six Apart. I love it!
Just a few quick comments. I'm sure Joey will have much better thoughts.
re: Ditch resellers
This is Tucows business model for their products. They've committed to staying that route w/Blogware.
re: Promote it!
They are starting to and it is getting better but it does need more visibility. Understandably though, these things take time and critical mass--today nobody is blogging about it but next week everyone it. I think the seeds have been planted, just waiting for the harvest.
re: Offer Blogware to institutions at a reasonable price that undercuts MT 3.0 significantly. Every company has an intranet
Not every company has an intranet. Many have one but don't have the staff to maintain it and add new features. An outsourced and hosted product like Blogware lets them get all the benefits w/none of the headaches.
re: Add friends/ communities for user lock-in through social means.
I think this is in the works and started w/the Address Book feature
re: Hire some professional designers.
I'd like to see the default templates be a little nicer, but I'd also like to see people start "skinning" Blogware. I think this will happen, but it will take time also.
View Comments
(I posted this on blogsceptic.blogspot.com, blogsceptic@fastmail(DOHT)fm)
You guys should be out there shouting at the top of your lungs about Blogware. It's amazing how the blog world turned upside-down within the space of a week:
1. Blogger re-launches with the missing features that people moved to MT for, plus decent looking templates
2. MT comes out with a disastrously-received pricing scheme; and
3. Blogware 1.0 is finally released.
AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS, BABY!. You need to build the Blogware name up. Nobody's heard of it. The reseller thing can't be your only way of distributing the software, because it becomes a generic blog tool. Blogware needs to offer a lower-priced self-maintained version for corporate settings, and a hosted service. Reading through the blogware blog it seems you guys already do the application hosting yourselves -- so why limit sales to only resellers? Do the branded hosting yourselves ala Typepad.
It seems your app has the best of both worlds: Blogger's ability to FTP blogs to one's own host, and a SCALABLE hosted service already up. There's a small window of opportunity and you guys should grab it. It would be kinda disappointing to see another under-appreciated Canadian product disappear. Also, seeing how easy it is to migrate an MT blog to Blogware, you need to implement a deterrant to migration: not a technical one, but a social one. Yup, since you'd be hosting the whole thing yourselves, you need to build a community, like Livejournal. There's a whole LJ culture built up, and despite the utter crudeness of their tool, people stick with it because all their friends are on it. If you do your own hosting it would be relatively easy to copy the friends/ LJ communities features. Then you'd have LOCK-IN, baby!
Summary:
1. Ditch the reseller route.
2. Launch a branded hosting service that competes head-on with Typepad, offering more features at a slightly lower cost. Leverage your robust scalability. MT's home-brew Perl implementation is probably hurting them right now.
3. Offer Blogware to institutions at a reasonable price that undercuts MT 3.0 significantly. Every company has an intranet. Run it on Blogware.
4. Add friends/ communities for user lock-in through social means.
5. Promote it! Why on earth was there no announcement on Boingboing when Blogware was launched? You need a marketing guy. Hire somebody like Jason Kottke to spread the word online. Or Cory Doctorow. Actually Doctorow would be ideal because he travels a lot and has a high profile.
6. Hire some professional designers. Add some curves, some shading, some oomph. Right now it looks like a bunch of geeks cooked something up. This will make a BIG difference in standing out.
Six clicks. Movable Type, Six Apart. I love it!
Just a few quick comments. I'm sure Joey will have much better thoughts.
re: Ditch resellers
re: Promote it!
re: Offer Blogware to institutions at a reasonable price that undercuts MT 3.0 significantly. Every company has an intranet
re: Add friends/ communities for user lock-in through social means.
re: Hire some professional designers.
It is possible to try