Competition: The WINNER
Locked
 
|
Folks,
Okay, just to put you out of your collective miseries, the winner is Guillermo Sapaya who guessed 4. Guillermo, well done! You obviously have your finger on the pulse of Internet marketing and will be well placed for a top job at any of the forthcoming Web 2.0 companies. Please e-mail me your address and size of shirt required (M, L, XL: I'm afraid we have no S sizes left). So that is a total of $120 from 4 people out of 2000 downloads. Frankly, even I was surprised by the poor response which is around 0.2%. There has been a thread on comp.lang.smalltalk recently calling for more free books on Smalltalk to be written. Someone asked why an author would spend significant time writing a book for no payment and someone else replied that if people read the free copy on the net then many would later buy the printed copy. From our experience with the "pay later" form of marketing I would say that, in reality, this would be a non-starter. PS: I think Travis Kay who guessed 201 also deserves a shirt for outrageous optimism (that would a 10% conversion rate). Whilst you are soon to be one of the more stylish people waiting at your local bus stop I don't think you need apply for any top marketing roles just yet :-). Please send us your address and size of shirt required, Travis. Best regards, -- Andy Bower Dolphin Support www.object-arts.com |
Re: Competition: The WINNER
|
|
Hi Andy,
> So that is a total of $120 from 4 people out of 2000 downloads. > Frankly, even I was surprised by the poor response which is around 0.2%. I tried searching for DCE on download.com but didn't see it. I would guess a listing on download.com would generate about 50 downloads a day ... much higher if the editors take a shine to it. The conversion rate would be very low, but it is their bandwidth and who knows ... maybe people are getting tired of downloading yet another P2P client. Another thought is that the text on the Splash screen, that promotes the professional version and nags for a donation, is very small. My eyes just "skip over it" as it looks like the stock standard boring stuff found in most splash screens. The only thing that really stands out is the green next button. (the pictures are nice!). DCE users probably won't like me saying this, but everything that I have seen and read suggests that the more crippled/nagging a free version is, the higher the conversion rate. Looking at DCE (albeit only for 5 minutes), I don't think it is obvious just how crippled it is without the RB UI. Populating the refactoring menus with commands that open an information screen that explains what they are missing could help. Thats my 2c! Steve |
Re: Competition: The WINNER
|
|
In reply to this post by Andy Bower-3
Andy Bower escribió:
> Folks, > > Okay, just to put you out of your collective miseries, the winner is > Guillermo Sapaya who guessed 4. Guillermo, well done! You obviously > have your finger on the pulse of Internet marketing and will be well > placed for a top job at any of the forthcoming Web 2.0 companies. > Please e-mail me your address and size of shirt required (M, L, XL: I'm > afraid we have no S sizes left). Congratulations Guille! We're a winning team! In just one week we won a stylish OA polo shirt and a Blue Book! :-D Our football team didn't win the world cup, but at least we have something to celebrate! Regards, -- Esteban. |
|
|
In reply to this post by Andy Bower-3
Andy,
I'm very happy!!! I will be sending you my address in private!!! It seems to me that my smalltalkers folks here in Argentina will be interested in get a shirt too (otherwise they will envy to me :-)). The problem is the cost (remember that the relation Euro vs Peso argentino is 1 to 4). Best regards!!! Go Dolphin!!! Guillermo Sapaya Andy Bower escribió: > Folks, > > Okay, just to put you out of your collective miseries, the winner is > Guillermo Sapaya who guessed 4. Guillermo, well done! You obviously > have your finger on the pulse of Internet marketing and will be well > placed for a top job at any of the forthcoming Web 2.0 companies. > Please e-mail me your address and size of shirt required (M, L, XL: I'm > afraid we have no S sizes left). > > So that is a total of $120 from 4 people out of 2000 downloads. > Frankly, even I was surprised by the poor response which is around 0.2%. > > There has been a thread on comp.lang.smalltalk recently calling for > more free books on Smalltalk to be written. Someone asked why an author > would spend significant time writing a book for no payment and someone > else replied that if people read the free copy on the net then many > would later buy the printed copy. From our experience with the "pay > later" form of marketing I would say that, in reality, this would be a > non-starter. > > PS: I think Travis Kay who guessed 201 also deserves a shirt for > outrageous optimism (that would a 10% conversion rate). Whilst you are > soon to be one of the more stylish people waiting at your local bus > stop I don't think you need apply for any top marketing roles just yet > :-). Please send us your address and size of shirt required, Travis. > > Best regards, > |
|
|
In reply to this post by Andy Bower-3
Andy Bower wrote:
> So that is a total of $120 from 4 people out of 2000 downloads. > Frankly, even I was surprised by the poor response which is around 0.2%. What about making a special "deal" .... we'll pay (a good price) for the shirt and get a DCE license "for free" ;-) I at least would order 4 of them ... (assuming each shirt is less than 50€ :-). CU, Udo |
|
|
In reply to this post by Andy Bower-3
"Andy Bower" <[hidden email]> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:[hidden email]... > Folks, > > Okay, just to put you out of your collective miseries, the winner is > Guillermo Sapaya who guessed 4. Guillermo, well done! You obviously > have your finger on the pulse of Internet marketing and will be well > placed for a top job at any of the forthcoming Web 2.0 companies. > Please e-mail me your address and size of shirt required (M, L, XL: I'm > afraid we have no S sizes left). > > So that is a total of $120 from 4 people out of 2000 downloads. irrelevance of Smalltalk. As I am a Smalltalk fan, I don't like the situation. I guess it is caused by the fact that many (if not most) software developers do not get what Object Orientation is really about and thus do not catch the power of Smalltalk's way of OO in combination with dynamic typing... There are some things that bother me regarding Dolphin Smalltalk or, in other words, where you (Object Arts) can improve the situation: 1. Your Web presence is a little bit boring and static. This starts with the initial appearance on www.object-arts.com: a single graphics and nothing else. And the last message is of January 27th, nearly half a year old! 2. There are very few releases (either major or minor ones). Especially as a customer I would like to have more frequent releases of bug fixes. 3. Marketing: I haven't seen a single advertisment so far (eg. in a magazine) 4. Missing documentation: The situation has improved from Dolphin 5 (non-existing) to Dolphin 6 (some), still I am missing both decent beginner's and advanced information (eg. what are ##(...) expressions). Nethertheless Dolphin 6 is a great product and I think it should have a greater audience. BTW: I am already a Professional user and would be happy to pay another 500 or 1000 Euros for a Linux (or even better: Solaris) version of Dolphin ;-) Andreas |
|
|
Hmmm,
Poor marketing is a valid reason for the lack of Smalltalk becoming mainstream. However, this goes back to the days of Digitalk,Parc Place and Visual Age having playing the role of "Big Gun" for large corporate contracts and projects. The high prices associated with Smalltalk has kept the ordinary programmer out of Smalltalk. Lets not forget the poor corporate management for Digitalk and Parc Place which no longer exist. Smalltalk was never marketed to the masses but new blood in the Smalltalk market such as Dolphin have made great strides in creating a great development environment in addition to affordable cost. Unfortunately, documentation and libraries still suffer from a lack of attention. Just my two cents... Pax |
|
|
In reply to this post by Steve Alan Waring
Steve,
> I tried searching for DCE on download.com but didn't see it. I would > guess a listing on download.com would generate about 50 downloads a > day ... much higher if the editors take a shine to it. The conversion > rate would be very low, but it is their bandwidth and who knows ... > maybe people are getting tired of downloading yet another P2P client. Frankly, I've never paid much attention to Download.com. I never really saw the point of going to a third party site for download hosting rather than finding what you want via Google (say) and then going straight to the source. However, it's obvious that many people do see the utililty of such sites so I've created an entry for DCE on Download.com which should appear in 15 days or so. Thanks for the advice. > Another thought is that the text on the Splash screen, that promotes > the professional version and nags for a donation, is very small. My > eyes just "skip over it" as it looks like the stock standard boring > stuff found in most splash screens. The only thing that really stands > out is the green next button. (the pictures are nice!). Thanks. So far the effort spent on the DCE splash screen has by no means been repaid so we're loathe to fritter away more time in this area. It's my belief that DCE is actually too good (except possibly in the area of documentation/tutorials, as always) but it's difficult to know how to cripple it further (i.e. what to take out) to force people to consider the Pro version. > DCE users probably won't like me saying this, but everything that I > have seen and read suggests that the more crippled/nagging a free > version is, the higher the conversion rate. I agree. The difficulty with Smalltalk (becaase it is so open) is that is quite hard to add a nag that is removable on registration that isn't also fairly easy to hack past. We looked at a couple of ways of doing this before deciding against it. > Looking at DCE (albeit only for 5 minutes), I don't think it is > obvious just how crippled it is without the RB UI. Populating the > refactoring menus with commands that open an information screen that > explains what they are missing could help. Yes, that's a good idea and possibly one for a future release. Also I think we need a DPRO trial version. Best regards, -- Andy Bower Dolphin Support www.object-arts.com |
|
|
In reply to this post by Andy Bower-3
Andy,
As a (former) shareware developer, and a user of DCE, I can understand the frustration. I'm not one of the donations, but I do plan on making the purchase to the Pro version as soon as I have a little free time to work on my next project. I think Dolphin is perfect for it. I wonder how many users of the CE are in the same boat I am (waiting/planning to purchase, and therefor don't donate)? Donations are "tough", because you are targetting a group of people that aren't going to pay/upgrade to begin with; they obviously don't find it useful enough to buy, so is it useful enough to use regularly? Dolphin is (without a single doubt) the *best* Smalltalk IDE I've had the pleasure of downloading and working with. The fact that CE has just about everything the Professional version has is fantastic, and I hope this isn't going to change. Even if people don't donate/purchase Dolphin, you are exposing a lot of people to Smalltalk that otherwise would only have access to it through Squeak. I have nothing against Squeak, but it doesn't scream "I can make professional software with this!" Dolphin does. It's a great product. I (and many others) will be using it soon. Just don't let lack of donations get you down. Jeff M. |
|
|
In reply to this post by Andreas Wacknitz
"Andreas Wacknitz" <[hidden email]> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:[hidden email]... > > "Andy Bower" <[hidden email]> schrieb im Newsbeitrag > news:[hidden email]... >> Folks, >> >> Okay, just to put you out of your collective miseries, the winner is >> Guillermo Sapaya who guessed 4. Guillermo, well done! You obviously >> have your finger on the pulse of Internet marketing and will be well >> placed for a top job at any of the forthcoming Web 2.0 companies. >> Please e-mail me your address and size of shirt required (M, L, XL: I'm >> afraid we have no S sizes left). >> >> So that is a total of $120 from 4 people out of 2000 downloads. > I am a little bit disappointed by these numbers. IMO it shows the > momentary irrelevance > of Smalltalk. As I am a Smalltalk fan, I don't like the situation. > I guess it is caused by the fact that many (if not most) software > developers do not > get what Object Orientation is really about and thus do not catch the > power of Smalltalk's way > of OO in combination with dynamic typing... > > There are some things that bother me regarding Dolphin Smalltalk or, in > other words, where you (Object Arts) > can improve the situation: > 1. Your Web presence is a little bit boring and static. This starts with > the initial appearance on www.object-arts.com: a single graphics and > nothing else. > And the last message is of January 27th, nearly half a year old! > 2. There are very few releases (either major or minor ones). Especially as > a customer I would like to have > more frequent releases of bug fixes. > 3. Marketing: I haven't seen a single advertisment so far (eg. in a > magazine) > 4. Missing documentation: The situation has improved from Dolphin 5 > (non-existing) to Dolphin 6 (some), > still I am missing both decent beginner's and advanced information (eg. > what are ##(...) expressions). I have to add one point to this list: 5. Missing breakpoints: "self halt." isn't really comfortable and disturbs version control as packages are marked as changed. |
Re: Competition: The WINNER
|
|
In reply to this post by Andy Bower-3
"Andy Bower" <[hidden email]> wrote in message
news:[hidden email]... > > Okay, just to put you out of your collective miseries, the winner is > Guillermo Sapaya who guessed 4. Guillermo, well done! You obviously > have your finger on the pulse of Internet marketing and will be well > placed for a top job at any of the forthcoming Web 2.0 companies. > Please e-mail me your address and size of shirt required (M, L, XL: I'm > afraid we have no S sizes left). > > So that is a total of $120 from 4 people out of 2000 downloads. > Frankly, even I was surprised by the poor response which is around 0.2%. That is interesting and unfortunate, however some people may have tried out the DCE and then opted to purchase the Professional version without making a donation. It feels like something seems to have significantly increased the traffic in this news group. I don't even have time to read all the posts like I used to. I would tend to think that might be due to the DCE version. Perhaps people are working with the DCE version now and if they develop something they really like and want to deploy it, you may see some additional purchases of the professional version down the road. Are you going to sell any shirts? ;) Chris |
|
|
In reply to this post by Andy Bower-3
Andy Bower wrote:
> Steve, > >> I tried searching for DCE on download.com but didn't see it. I would >> guess a listing on download.com would generate about 50 downloads a >> day ... much higher if the editors take a shine to it. The conversion >> rate would be very low, but it is their bandwidth and who knows ... >> maybe people are getting tired of downloading yet another P2P client. > > Frankly, I've never paid much attention to Download.com. I never really > saw the point of going to a third party site for download hosting > rather than finding what you want via Google (say) and then going > straight to the source. > > However, it's obvious that many people do see the utililty of such > sites so I've created an entry for DCE on Download.com which should > appear in 15 days or so. Thanks for the advice. > >> Another thought is that the text on the Splash screen, that promotes >> the professional version and nags for a donation, is very small. My >> eyes just "skip over it" as it looks like the stock standard boring >> stuff found in most splash screens. The only thing that really stands >> out is the green next button. (the pictures are nice!). > > Thanks. So far the effort spent on the DCE splash screen has by no > means been repaid so we're loathe to fritter away more time in this > area. It's my belief that DCE is actually too good (except possibly in > the area of documentation/tutorials, as always) but it's difficult to > know how to cripple it further (i.e. what to take out) to force people > to consider the Pro version. > >> DCE users probably won't like me saying this, but everything that I >> have seen and read suggests that the more crippled/nagging a free >> version is, the higher the conversion rate. > > I agree. The difficulty with Smalltalk (becaase it is so open) is that > is quite hard to add a nag that is removable on registration that isn't > also fairly easy to hack past. We looked at a couple of ways of doing > this before deciding against it. > >> Looking at DCE (albeit only for 5 minutes), I don't think it is >> obvious just how crippled it is without the RB UI. Populating the >> refactoring menus with commands that open an information screen that >> explains what they are missing could help. > > Yes, that's a good idea and possibly one for a future release. Also I > think we need a DPRO trial version. > > Best regards, > Couple thoughts. I just downloaded the dolphin community edition and frankly I didn't even notice the Help Out section on the web page. Until I read this thread. You might consider putting at the top of the page or at least make it more visible near the download links. Maybe I'm just a consumer conditioned to not see requests for money. Here's another idea. What if the donation was instead treated like a downpayment toward a professional purchase. I give $15 now knowing that if I'm happy and want to be professional later, I'll get a discount. btw - Since I just gave a donation, if I guess 5, do I win? :) Eric |
|
|
In reply to this post by Andy Bower-3
Andy,
> It's my belief that DCE is actually too good (except possibly in > the area of documentation/tutorials, as always) but it's difficult to > know how to cripple it further (i.e. what to take out) to force people > to consider the Pro version. I don't, myself, think that the ActiveX wizard is needed in the free edition -- it "feels" (if you see what I mean) like a pro-grade tool, that I'd expect to pay for. -- chris |
«
Return to Dolphin Smalltalk
|
1 view|%1 views
| Free forum by Nabble | Edit this page |