In response to Six Log: How are you using the tool?
I have this blog, of course. I have lots of tiny personal logs, some on eleganthack, some on nothing-new.com which is a old wreck of a destination, but where I mostly like to put personal stuff. personal logs include things like a bookmark list, travel notes, a bad start at a novel (I actually wrote much of my first draft of my book in MT), and a list of comics I’ve read. What’s funny is most of these are meant to be read by one person: me. In fact, to the degree that I have even password protected some. So # blogs is misleading, and even domains is a funny one.
I’m using it for Boxes and Arrows, and even though we technically only have about 4 editors, three copy editors and a tech person plus me we have ot list each contributor as an author to make things appear. Boxes and Arrows currently makes no money, so it couldn’t be considered commercial.
Widgetopia might not be so relevant, as I’m trying to switch to drupal for feature reasons– I want people to be able to sign themselves up to author, allow folks to rate entries, good taxonomy control etc. But that currently has four authors, and shows no sign of being even a break even proposition despite experiments in adsense.
I’d pay 40 bucks for it without blinking. With features I wanted and no limits I’d probably go up to the asking price of 70 bucks.
BTW, this is a dreadful way to do user research, and will result in sample bias:
Threat to the representativeness of a sample that occurs when the procedures used to select a sample result in the over- or under-representation of a significant segment of the population. –washington.edu
I’d recommend to 6A that they send an email to all their customers to fill out a survey crafted by a researcher to inquire into pricing/value issues at the least to get better representation. Moreover, they’d do well to email users of their competitors as well with the same questions, as well as potential customers.
It’s amazing to me that so many companies– many far bigger and far more established than 6A make the same mistake, choosing pricing plans and feature sets from a subset of their overall user base, then wondering why things go wrong. Message boards in particular are prone to misleading companies- they are noisy, but represent a sample of folks who are angry or fanatic enough and have spare time enough to go to the site and find an outlet for their ire. Hardly an average user.
My momma used to say the squeaky wheel gets the oil, but there are plenty of things that go wrong with a car without making a noise until it’s far to late. Research is like a check-up– do it to the entire car, not just the parts that are making strange noises, and do it often enough to prevent trouble.