Yeah, but what’s the speed of DARK?
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Nag MethodolgyFebruary 24, 2007 - 6:45pm
To get money, I have to bug people. It’s a sad fact of software development, but if the software didn’t destruct in a period of time, I’d be working for naught. Right now, Notae goes four weeks (28 days) in a full-access demo and then locks down, hard. I’m seeing the majority of conversions within the first three days, and most of the rest in the first week. While I look at it and say “I would, myself, appreciate thirty days to get used to something as intimate as a notes program” I can also see getting used to it within two weeks as well. Of course, with a time period that short, you run the risk of someone downloading it, opening it, poking around, and then forgetting about it. Some weeks later he goes to test it out seriously and bam the demonstration period has expired. Suck. A compromise, then. I’m considering letting Notae run in a full demo for two weeks, and then locking out the user for two weeks before resetting the demo. That should be just enough time to get used to it if you just downloaded it and then enough of a wait so that if you wanted to try a new release after a couple of weeks that it would let you. The registration dialog would explain this and then give either the date of expiration or the date the lockout will reset. My concerns, then, are these:
“If you attempt an actual argument with a modern paper of opposite politics, you will have no answer except slanging or silence.” — Chapter 3, What’s Wrong With The World, 1910 – G. K. Chesterton  |
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An alternative scheme might be to keep track of how long your main window is the frontmost one, and expire after a certain number of hours spent actively using Notae. Maybe track your own usage of the app for a few weeks to get a feel for how long you think it would take you to explore enough to make a decision.
Another idea might be to have a button they can click to request an extended trial once.
Either way would save you having to guess whether they’d really tried it out.
There’s a balance between piracy prevention and developer laziness I’m trying to hit.
I think at the most complex, I would count the number of days it was running on and use that. If you left it open for three days, that’s three days. If you left it open for two and two days later ran it for one, that’s also three. At the most complex.
Putting in a demo reset is phenomenally more simple. The only caveat being that it must at some point actually break, otherwise it’s no longer a demo and just nagware.
Or something like OmniWeb where you get to start the program on “x” number of days before it locks down.
Then again, 28-days (or even 14) is usually long enough. I generally decide on trial software after a couple of days. I either end up buying it or deleting it. I think the only exception was Pathfinder where I demo’ed it twice because I couldn’t figure out why everyone was so “ga ga” over it and figured I’d missed something.
Adam:
I’‘m a developer by day and night as well so please don’t hate me for disagreeing with you but I have to say that having just read Wil Shipleys latest post I’m inclined to agree entirely with him.
I know it probably doesn’t help but might make you think differently…
All the best.
Jamie
jkp
That’s more for activation or piracy or things of that nature. This is actually about making the demo more friendly. Right now, it’s 28 days and then nothing, ever, even upgrades. I’m considering automatically resetting the demo to give people a second chance at using it.
I think that’s (two weeks) probably enough time. I downloaded the program and then bought it about an hour later. I think people know pretty much right away if a program is going to meet their needs or, at least if the program is designed intuitively enough.
I’ve been searching for awhile for a better way to organize my notes for my PhD comprensive exam. (Basically this involves knowing a lot of facts, reading a lot of books and taking a lot of notes.) I think you are really on to something. (At least I hope so—I’m counting on you!!!)
Two weeks would’ve been enough for me, I think.. I think I bought it after about fifteen minutes. If you decide to count days, then counting running days is definitely smarter than counting startups... Let’s just say that with the number of times I actually shutdown or reboot, I haven’t had to buy Connoisseur yet, and I’ve been using it for quite a while…
I really dig (dug? I bought it) the 28 days … Notae was pretty much a whole new way of looking at things —and BTW, where are all those Smart Folders — so it was great to pick it up again and See The Light.
I’m assuming, though, that you-all are keeping any number of notebooks — delightful as it may be not to worry about a note’s whereabouts, I’m already sick of that packed list of notes.
One thought, maybe belongs somewhere else? I’d love to see QuickNote grab the contents of the clipboard. (Am somewhat unclear what goes where: trac, forum, email, yada.)
But damn it, you were right. I own every note thing in the OS X world (more’s the pity) and there is something about this little beast …
Zo
So far, while I want to change the demo length, I’ve not touched the registration code for 2.1. I’m pondering if it’s even worth it, really, as it’s all theoretical and I haven’t had any complaints.
Smart Folders (Saved Searches, really) will come with 3.0, I expect, and Leopard. For now, there’s the Tag Browser, which I’m working on shoehorning into an outline view instead.
And while I’d prefer bugs in Trac, putting them here works well enough.
Glad you’re liking it. The next version is much more stable in areas and I’m trying to get tags to behave for it(NSTokenView sucks mightily right now) so stay tuned.