Do Not Adjust Your Screen…This is an Exercise in MarketingPosted May 31, 2007 at 9:56 am by Austin Sarner & John Casasanta
So what’s this all about?
The past year has been pretty crazy for us. From My Dream App to MacHeist and Disco to iClip 4, it’s been kind of nonstop and a bit overwhelming. Overall, we’re both numb from all of the experiences. We went from being relative nobodies in the indie Mac dev world to, well, slightly better known nobodies.
Creating software is one of those things that can easily become a monotonous task that closely resembles a 9-5 desk job. That’s why we never take the traditional approach and always choose the road less traveled. We love creating experiences and creating relationships with users, but we also try to have as much fun as possible developing and leading up to shipping a new product. Building the foundation of these relationships starts with a solid introduction and first impression. With the Disco blog, for instance, Austin allowed people to join in and watch the development process.
Development Isn’t Simply the Key to a Successful App
Including users in these new ways has allowed us to introduce innovation to our marketing. Update, release, repeat…we’ve fallen into this trap in the past while we focused only on putting out the next minor update to be on the front page of MacUpdate. While this traditional formula is a proven way to build up your app’s recognition over long periods of time, we’ve discovered that putting as much thought and effort into our marketing as the actual development of our software works amazingly well.
The word “marketing” is often perceived to have negative connotations. When we started out in software development, we didn’t have much respect for marketing…we were programmers first and foremost and didn’t want to “stoop down to that level of the filthy marketers.” In retrospect, we realized that it was mainly fear that was preventing us from making an effort to effectively market our products.
We felt at home programming, but we had no experience with marketing so we chose the easy route to dismiss it and just complain when our software sold poorly. We’ve seen this time and time again with other developers too. The path of least resistance is often to do nothing and then complain about it.
When we finally gained respect for marketing and embraced it things changed dramatically. Without marketing, nobody will ever find out about your products. The key is to do it in a tasteful way. Among other things, we plan to talk further about our ideas and practices on marketing, software design, etc.
The App
Not so long ago, the two of us were brainstorming new application ideas. We wanted something that we could have a good time bringing to market and creating, and we eventually found an idea that we were happy with. Well, we have a ton going on right now (see above), so we brought the talented Sophia Teutschler and Ollie Wagner on board to help. Billed as the ultimate Mac shareware side project (not to mention the least ambitious software project ever…the savvy Mac reader will get that reference), the app we’re developing is going to be a culmination of all four of our experiences in the shareware scene over the last years. Our goal is to combine what we’ve learned in every aspect of the Mac shareware biz and deliver a killer experience worthy of being called delicious.
And speaking of the whole “Delicious Generation” thing, we’ve taken Paul Kafasis’ narcissistic, pessimistic, manipulative, envy-driven rant and turned his negative “flashy but frivolous apps” meaning into a positive one. We’ve co-opted the phrase to relate to apps that strike a great balance between form and function. Form and function aren’t mutually exclusive. And this is what we’re about.
Blogging and Tweeting as a Means to an End
Along with this new app, we’ve decided to start this blog where we could post our thoughts, opinions, and other ramblings about Mac development and other related topics. The two of us seem to like the idea of blogging but neither one of us are self-centered motivated enough to actually delve into personal blogging. John registered his personal domain over two years ago and he’s been sitting on it ever since. Like Austin, he’s been pack-ratting a ton of blog post ideas that have never seen the light of day. So this so-called “development journal” will be our outlet for them.
In addition, we’ll be tweeting, since this is the fashionable flavor of the month and we wouldn’t want to look outdated, right? (To put it mildly, John hates Twitter.)
While we work on this side project, you’ll find rants on any number of “extremely interesting” subjects here. Right now, we aren’t ready to reveal anything on the app itself yet, but news and details of it will certainly be made known in time. For now we hope you subscribe and check back when we’ve posted some more content.
That’s all for now, stay tuned…
Actually, hold up a bit. We’ve got a few gripes here. In fact, we’ve got quite a few gripes. Probably more than most people could imagine. We’ll limit it to said few, for now. As we’re gearing up for this new project, we’re also bracing for impact as we wait on people like Erik Barzeski to send us a friendly email, exchange emails, write a positive review, then come full circle and write a “me-too” post when hating on our software becomes the popular thing. Or better yet, maybe we’ll get a Paul Kafasis situation where he goes on a tirade about our software, only to later act like he was never the aggressor. Maybe we could even get a Gruber post fueled with another extremely well thought out bit of logic about selling beta software or perhaps even a completely uninformed, highly speculative statement about our sales figures and what cuts we’re giving to people.
As a Mac developer myself, I’m always thrilled to see another new project come out, especially if it gets people fired up about the “development community”. Your blog post was great… for the most part. I’m all for more marketing, and sometimes more than just a post on MacNN or MacMinute is needed to get some obscure apps in the open.
But come on, that last paragraph soured an otherwise good first post. You came over as incredibly whiny and tore open an argument that was over months ago. To top it off, you try to “soften the blow” with an incredibly lame and rather boring lolcats picture. Who’s narcissistic, pessimistic, and manipulative now?
I agree with Geoff, it was a good article until the last paragraph, though the mini rant against Paul Kafasis in the middle was in bad taste too. Something I’ve seen a lot about people in the “delicious generation” is that they like to criticise those who criticise them. If anything is an exercise in “marketing” it is your last paragraph: Insult key figures in the Mac community with the hope that they’ll respond and drive traffic to your site.
Now this is not to say that you haven’t done good things. MyDreamApp was great, MacHeist was pretty good, Disco - great idea but I think the UI is kinda sucky. I suggest you have a read of this post I made on my blog a while ago, I think you could do with taking some of the advice in it: http://pilky.mcubedsw.com/index.php?/site/comments/the_generation_game/
Often the best way forward is neither a nor b, but the best of a and b
It’s interesting because your heavy venom towards Pauls trikes me as terribly risky for your PR. It makes you sound like a sore victim. Even if Paul’s crimes were half as bad as you allege (which I frankly don’t read), it seems a better policy to take the high road.
Then again, they say that media loves a conflict, so maybe you’re on to something. At the risk of your personal image among those who find it distasteful, of course.
Since you closed comments on the staging page, I have to ask here. You’re pissed at Gruber for linking to an “in progress” website that you posted as world-readable to the *entire* Internet? Are you kidding, or have I completely misunderstood what happened? If a site is on the Web and publicly-readable, it’s fair game; learn the not-so-mystical ways htaccess if it’s a problem.
Paul is a troll, plain and simple. His response to things is fueled, perhaps, by the limited appeal of the applications he develops. I own licenses for more pieces of shareware than I could possibly ever imagine having installed at one time yet have never used a piece of Rogue Amoeba software. It simply doesn’t appeal to me - functionality is buried under a user interface that, while not being horrible, isn’t great. Audio Hijack Pro is something I’d expect to see on Windows.
As for Gruber… every generation as a Dvorak. Only Gruber has more hair and a less impressive rolodex. He comes up with some good stuff every once in a while and gets points for defending Apple even when they don’t necessarily deserve defending but in his attempt at being a journalist (more appropriately, a glorified blogger) he falls into the trap of sensationalism. From experience, fact isn’t everything to people with that mentality. But they’re execptionally skilled at turning their material into linkbait.
On a related note, anyone know if Gruber’s gonna be at WWDC? I imagine he wouldn’t refuse a chance to kiss up. I can’t help but envision a second Showdown at the O.K. Coral with you guys vs. Kafasis, Simmons, et. al. I wonder if they’d let me through the airport with a bullet proof vest on… hmm.
Look, guys, I’m not getting into either side of this argument, but I will say that calling yourselves “The Delicious Generation” is, well, pretty stupid. It’s not like you’re some new wave of developers overthrowing the old regime of shitty interface design, or whatever else. You just have more pretty shiny things on your apps.
Nothing wrong with the pretty stuff, but I think fundamentally you’re after the same thing that everyone else is after, and that’s a better user experience. Flaming Paul Kafasis just makes you look like assholes who think you’re better than everyone else. Last time I checked Rogue Amoeba sells a lot of software. Waving the name in everyone’s faces just makes you sound whiny. “:( stop making fun of us u guys!”
Robert: I don’t see how you can class Paul as a troll. Whoever wrote the last paragraph of this blog post is a troll. Try reading the delicious generation article and you’ll see that Paul does not try to say that flashy interfaces are bad or anything like that. What he tries to say is that you shouldn’t go for style unless you have substance. He refers to himself and other developers as “crotchety old men” and tries to say that there should be a middle ground between the old way of thinking and the new way of thinking. In a nutshell, have style, but have the substance to back it up
As for your remarks about his applications having limited appeal, every application has a limited appeal. Disco? Appeals to those who don’t want to use Disk Utility. AppZapper? Appeals to those who don’t want to clear out preferences by hand. Just because you aren’t interested by his products doesn’t mean that others are. After all, if his products were that limited in their appeal then he wouldn’t be here to talk about others products. People need to stop trying to turn this into a war.
Wow.. Long post.. Anyway, looks good! I cant wait to see what you guys come up with. Austin and John and Ollie and Sophia’s apps are all great.. I cant wait to see the amazing work of art that these guys pull off together.
Martin: I’d generally agree that for incredibly technical users, Disco and AppZapper have no use. People who live in the terminal, I’ve found, prefer not to buy software if they don’t have to. Someone who would rather use Disk Utility than something like Disco or Toast isnt’ the target market of the applications in question. In fact, such an individual isn’t the target market of Paul’s apps - they’d be content to use something like Audacity. But let’s ignore that for a second and look at the functionality of the applications. My mother needs to burn CDs and DVDs, she needs to uninstall a piece of software without worrying about something that it left behind (admittedly, I rarely use AppZapper and only installed it to try and fix the Photoshop CS3 Beta bug) but she doesn’t need to know that anything Rogue Amoeba puts out exists. She doesn’t know what Garage Band is and has probably never opened it but she’s certainly used iMovie, iDVD, and iPhoto. Audio tools have a smaller market share than system utilities (like Disco and AppZapper) and to state differently is to discredit any further arguments you might present. Austin and John write applications that I use very frequently, they don’t lack functionality as Paul contends. iClip, in particular, has saved me hours worth of work on more than one occasion. And Disco is the embodiment of what OS X is all about, putting a beautiful face on top of a huge system that can do almost anything. When people argue that something like Disco is a rip off because it doesn’t do anything that Disk Utility can’t handle (which isn’t entirely true, but we’ll ignore that point for the sake of argument) I really do feel compelled to tell them that they should then ignore Aqua and install FreeBSD. Almost anything you can do on OS X can be accomplished on another platform, just in a fashion that makes you want to grab the stylus from your Treo and repeatedly stab yourself.
While I’m excited about the app you could develop, the shots fired at Paul and, to a lesser extent, Gruber and Co. seem simply unnecessary. I’m sorry, but Paul’s post wasn’t “narcissistic, pessimistic, manipulative, envy-driven” — that’s complete over-exageration. He was just expressing his opinion. Sure, he didn’t like Disco, he’s allowed to say it, no? Gruber does things I don’t like, like linking to the unfinished post. But trying to attack these people is just so useless. A better idea would be to concentrate on the app itself. After all, this website is mainly about the app, no? Not about complaining about the anti-Delicious people?
Your attacks on people that have criticized your software are downright childish. Marketing is indeed important, but you certainly don’t seem to have mastered it. Well made applications I’m willing to pay for, but I don’t support developers who disrespect others as you do. Disagreeing is one thing, but your last paragraph contains only blatant insults. So far the “Delicious Generation” is a term for software developers who choose to sacrifice real functionality for eye-candy; don’t make it become synonymous with a lack of professionalism as well.
You guys just called out John Gruber. Considering you aren’t an incompetent hacker or an misinformed industry “analyst,” I have to give you props for that. You have the cojones.
mdmunoz: They used “uninformed” and “highly speculative” about an accurate article that even has two named sources.
They are pissed because he revealed what they hoped to keep a secret, since their writings (see Gruber’s article) would have you believe that the developers participating in Macheist did not receive a flat fee (i.e. the more bundles sold. the better for the them).
This flat fee was later confirmed by several other articles that even had interviews with some of the participants. So what exactly is the problem with Gruber’s article?
Disclaimer: I was a participating developer (and no, Gruber didn’t get his info from me).
wow, good job guys.
in the long run, this is not the way to go.
you should have focused on a properly designed homepage instead of all the backstabbing.
and what about these cheesy pictures of a cat and a smiling pie? makes one wonder how old you are.
seriously, grow up.
FWIW, the clouds remind me of 1997.
I gotta agree with others, you guys sound awfully childish. Gruber’s article has been backed up numerous times, so what exactly is your beef? Also, re: the cat pics, they aren’t cool at twitter, and they’re even less cool here.
your comment form does not line up with the headings, and why doesn’t it save my info, i don’t want to fill this out every time i comment.
It lines up fine in Safari, Firefox, and Opera. If you’re going to make a complaint about something technical you should provide more info related to your problem. For instance, what browser are you using?
As for saving, I don’t think it’s intended to save information. While I agree that it sucks since it lets anyone pretend to be anyone else, it’s not really a needed feature. Safari and Firefox both fill the form in for me anyway.
Actually, I thought that the pictures were kind of clever, but random. To me, it hints that this is going to be a fun application.
I do have to agree with the others that you guys sound immature when you take a stab at Gruber.
I have some helpful website feedback for y’all.
Everyone scrolls through this endless page to read the comments and such, and there is this beautiful little picture of a double door at the bottom. Why not make the double door a link that brings you back up to the top? It would be easy and it would make sense!
Oh, and are those clouds MOVING? Sweet…
@Allen:
Regardless of the accuracy of Gruber’s post about Macheist, why the griping about the “raw deal” that you got?
Nobody put a gun to your head. Did you realize income that you might not have gotten otherwise? (yes) Did you make a maximized amount of money from the deal? (no) Is this team the only marketing team in town, and is there anything keeping you from coming up with your own promotion to optimally retain sales income? (no and probably not, other than having a life)
I’m not going to support the gripes about the backlash — its what typically happens when you try to whip a crowd into a frenzy. I will agree that they probably need to develop thicker skins — if you make yourself a target, you’ll usually get shot at. (Usually by someone that makes a living by sniping targets)
All in all though, its rather amusing to watch. Don’t even have to fire up the sling box to get a nice soap-drama. And I even get to comment on the drama in a very “meta” style.
I like almost all of the software that the “Delicious Generation” has put out. I purchased AppZapper, Disco, and will definitely purchase Cookbook when released. I like the philosophy and design of these apps. However, there is one thing that I can’t help but be worried about. With all the new apps your guys are coming out with, who is going to continue to support and update the “old” apps? Personally I love Google’s philosophy of releasing early and releasing often. I would like to see that applied here as well. Disco still has bugs, yet it’s been a while since we’ve had another release. I can appreciate that you are bringing on additional developers for this new app, but are they going to maintain it by themselves when you have moved on to other apps? When I purchase an app I expect much more than version 1.0.x. I hope we see more than that in the future.
adin: Regardless of the accuracy of Gruber’s post about Macheist
Regardless? This blog entry claims Gruber is uninformed, I confirmed he is not — that’s all I wrote.
adin: why the griping about the “raw deal” that you got?
I didn’t gripe about my deal — and economically I have no complaints about it, as I was the only developer not getting a flat fee.
I find the parallels of all of this fascinating. As some/many point out, the apps offered by those involved here are just ways to charge for functionality already present in other apps or manual labor. MacHeist was another method of charging for something else that was already available. I think that is how the Delicious Generation defines itself by virtue of the fact that marketing and aesthetics are valuable and should be chargeable. I COMPLETELY AGREE.
Let me describe another generation… although I don’t have a name for it even though I’m a “member”. I value the way people DO business as much as I value the PRODUCT. And if the methods behind the product stink, I don’t care how good the product is. This is why I don’t own any of the apps mentioned above, I haven’t participated in MacHeist and the names of those involved in these escapades join the lonely David Watanabe in names I just won’t ever do business with. I know a growing number of many others that feel the same way.
“incredibly technical users” use Disk Utility
The last five words of my above post got munged… I meant to finish off with: [snicker]”incredibly technical users” use Disk Utility[/snicker]
Um…I’m not sure I completely understand this, but it sounds exciting! I just hope we’ll get some good free software out of it.
Am I the only one who seemed to notice an insane amount of bias against anyone involved in MyDreamApp/MacHeist on the MacTech 25 list?
http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.23/23.06/2007MacTech25/
>Am I the only one who seemed to notice an insane amount of bias against anyone involved in MyDreamApp/MacHeist on the MacTech 25 list?
Yes.
This is so BORING. Jeez guys, just make good software and stop talking about making software and what you want to do, just do it. If you have to keep explaining yourselves you’re not doing something right. Please don’t rant either, the internet is already full of that.
Your childish behavior underscores the complaints people have with your works… Listen, learn, move on to bigger and better things.
Yawn.
Congratulations, mighty marketing geniuses. You just lost another potential customer by posting this nonsense. Excellent example in how not to market Mac software. Keep up the great work!
I think y’all need to pull back a little bit. From an outsider’s point of view–someone not in software development/marketing etc.–Kafasis’ post wasn’t so everything-you-accused-it-of-being. I’ve just spent way too much time looking at this little tempest and have to agree with a number of previous commentators that you have lowered yourself by your tantrum. This is the kind of discourse I would expect from college students, and freshmen at that.
If you believe in a great balance between form and function, as you say, then by all means prove your case by DOING it. Your product will speak for itself.
I see you taped up the door at the bottom… perhaps to keep me from clicking it furiously in hopes of it magically turning into a link to the top of the page?
does it feel like, to anyone else, the whole “delicious generation” of app developers have just dropped off the face of the planet? Inventive.us (iClip) has gone dead-silent, with one lonely post in the blog, Discoapp seems frozen in time, ResExcellence got an engine update back when I still had a Christmas tree up, PhillRyu has posted, well, the invite to their WWDC party and a review of Pirates 3, which, well, I guess is something, not a SINGLE MyDreamApp winner has actually launched (how long doe sit take to code a cookbook database? and yet they’re trying to get developers for round 2???), appzapper needs some WORK, people, and yet just sits there motionless (though i guess with free lifetime upgrades, they’ve built in some time for themselves)… i’m probably forgetting a few, but the silence is DEAFENING, especially to a group that was so VERY vocal at the end of 2006. are you all just spread too thin, or what?
i am beginning to feel a bit scammed by it all.
p.s. this is almost the exact same post i put on the latest resexcellence comment thread, but i honestly don’t know if anyone is approving comments anymore, so i thought i’d post here, too. maybe sooner or later we’ll see some life
I have a lot of issues with what you guys have written here. Let’s list a few of them.
1) Your gripes seem to increase linearly with the number of negative comments you received. You should have had a logarithmic curve. Here’s the thing: you used viral marketing, which gets a lot of people to talk openly about your app. It can either swing one way or it can swing the other; in this case, you got both. And as the Internet goes, if there’s negative criticism to be had, you’re going to hear it more than the positive criticism. Negative criticism also tends to be more outrageous. You can either interpret it poorly and run for your lives, or you can realize that the Internet is the Internet (google Penny Arcade’s Internet Fuckwad Theory), get used to negative criticism, and learn to pick apart EVERYTHING you read for the valid points that other people make. That is how you should respond as a Mac developer.
2) As it is, your interpretation of criticism leads you to an “it’s us against them! everyone grab your swords!” mentality. That’s not really what you need in this day and age, but that’s exactly what the Delicious Generation is all about. Everyone wants a great snazzy interface, you guys just take your own flavor of it. The division occurs where you say “omg everyone’s attacking from us from all sides, time to complain back.” It shows that you don’t quite understand the complexity of interacting on the Internet, much less with the developer community in general. This blog post doesn’t sound at all like you’re working with others; it feels like you’re asking people to pick sides instead.
3) Erik Barzeski didn’t write a positive review; please read it again.
4) Paul Kafasis wasn’t really going on a tirade, at least by how I read it. The sheer number of posts on your blog alone that disagree with you should hint that you might want to stop and reflect about how easy it is to label something a “tirade.” The way I see it, I don’t think he was honestly being cooperative either - but it sounded like he wanted to be. It sounded like he knew what the right road was, but he was having some real difficulty taking it. It doesn’t automatically negate the validity of the points that he makes at all. I understand that his blog post afterwards, listing his software, makes it seem like he’s taking advantage - but is he really that unusual? Haven’t you guys thanked (sarcastically or not) others for driving up traffic to your site through controversy? I remember seeing a bunch of “thanks for letting others know about us!” comments from Austin and John before.
I remember reading something insightful recently - you don’t fight fire with fire; you fight fire with water.
5) You know, the thing is, at the end of the day I have yet to see a clear refutation of Gruber’s posts by you guys. There’s just a ton of comments from you saying, oh, he’s uninformed. But Allan Odgaard’s comment there indicates that Gruber wasn’t making stuff up as easily as you think he was. Is he wrong? And how wrong is he?
That doesn’t mean you need to provide detailed sales figures. But if it really was that the promoters were making significantly more money than the developers were, it would have really, really shut up the discussion if you had just said it. Or said something to the effect of the opposite. Everything I’ve read, however, only alludes to how angry you are that details were publicized, rather than the validity of those details.
And about his post about beta software…. I think he’s right on the money. However, if you have something to say about that, then I would be really, really glad to hear it, mostly because I’ve heard nothing from your end about how Gruber is wrong - only how you don’t like that he’s negatively criticizing Disco’s release.
6) The LOLcats picture at the end doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense…. it’s not possible to know whether the cat is kidding or not, so it comes off as kinda fake. It’s not even quite clear what your point is - are you seeding further division or trying to unite people with this picture?
7) At the end of the day, you don’t have to respond to any of this, or the previous comments on your post. In fact, that’s exactly what you have been doing. The problem is, as long as you keep doing it, a large amount of people, judging by the blog comments and the stuff that I’ve seen, will keep having questions about the “Delicious Generation” and how you choose to do business, etc. And as long as these questions exist, more and more people will be soured by your conduct. You can set it right by calmly and objectively going through some of your criticism and answering up to it.
For example, your comment on Gruber’s “vaporware” post is true - Gruber isn’t necessarily free to use it as he likes, since vaporware will always a negative connotation. So speak up! That comment was buried in a MacHeist forum thread somewhere. It’s not where it needs to be.
Please feel free to email me if you have something like you’d like to say personally.
This may sound odd… “I like olives.” is a line from a television show I saw once in the early or mid 90’s. It was perhaps a Tales From the Darkside or Twilight Zone episode, and it had to do with not being afraid of Life. The main character is speaking to his best friend’s ghost who choked on an olive and died. He asks why so many olives? And the ghost replies, “I like olives.” This line was influential in developing my worldview as it pertains to risk and gratification. Does your site name have anything to do with this? I desperately need to find a copy of this episode. If anyone can help me please email at frijolesyarroz@hotmail.com
Thanks