At 06:50 PM 3/20/2002 -0500, Seth Dillingham wrote:
Quoting David Bayly:
>I also think that for all its faults, Manila is a better developer
>bet than Conversant. If I add features to Manila, it can leverage
>on all the good parts of Manila - and there are many . Until now I
>haven't even seen the innards of Conversant, and even if I didn't
>have reasons to be cautious about doing so, there going to be
>another learning curve. Looking at things from my p.o.v., what is
>there about Conversant to make me wish to be a Conversant developer?
(Take into account I know little about the inner workings of either Radio,
Frontier, or Conversant):
First, I think Bayly hits the nail on the head. As a definite True Believer
in the software, the problem is that Conversant is a much better product
than Manila, but it hasn't received nearly the amount of attention. What
you need to do is find a way to get people using the software. The good
news is that everybody and their grandmother is installing Radio these days
and the product is dirt cheap -- that's why I asked about Frontier; it
makes a big difference if I have to buy Frontier than if I have to buy Radio.
Second, from an end-customer POV, I really like CityDesk's pricing structure.
You can download the software for free and play around with it making a
site that has up to 50 pages. Then if you find it useful for keeping a
personal site, $79.00 gets you a version with up to 500 pages. Or go whole
hog and spend $349 for the whole thing.
Now using Conversant lingo, why not release analogues to that. For free,
you have a distro. that will install in Radio and get people rolling with a
weblog, and enough of the other features so they see just how much they can
do with the software.
Then you have a second tier version, moderately priced version that is just
one zone/one conversation.
Then a third tier version that is in the $300-500 arena that is unlimited.
I don't have any clue about the economics of running a software business
like this, but my point is that the reason so few people use Conversant is
that so few people (relatively) have ever tried it. But with Radio's
release you have an excellent opportunity to get publicity for Conversant
and get some people to sit down and give it a whirl.
And, IMO, you should definitely stay in the hosting business (no, that
wasn't self-serving). There are going to be people who like the software
but don't want the headache of running their own server. Plus there are
still going to be people who want the software but want it customized to
their business, etc., so you've still got plenty of space at the high end
for both yourself and other developers.
Whatever you do, I would strongly leverage the hype over Radio. I don't
think you're likely to get a second chance where you can put something out
there and it is going to get a lot of notice just because of the
association with another hot app.
