Image by TylerIngram via FlickrImage by TylerIngram via Flickr
If everything goes smoothly, this will be the last post I make to this blog whilst hosted on Typepad. I'm attempting to port it across to Wordpress on Dreamhost to live with all my other sites.
I've used Wordpress a lot recently, and now understand its total superiority to Typepad in pretty much every regard. My $150 renewal fee is due in a couple of days, which has focused my mind somewhat. This blog has great Google Juice, and I really don't want to give that up, so I'm particularly keen to keep the URLs the same. There are quite a few posts on the web about how best to do this, they all seem different :(
If anyone's done this recently, please share your wisdom.
See you on the flip side.
Image by alexkingorg via Flickr
Seldom does a change in day job generate a vast amount of excitement for the professional freelancer. It's always interesting to move to a new project, overcome new challenges etc., but an office is an office and a project is a project.
I set the backdrop to illustrate by counterpoint just how psyched I am about what I'm going to be doing. As of next week, I will be working for Microsoft Research on the Chem4Word project. I'll be based in The Unilever Centre for Molecular Science Informatics at Cambridge University. My passions for science and software have never clashed like this - I quite literally cannot wait.
Joining us back in the real world are you? About bleedin time.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mokosh EMAIL: jarek@mokosh.co.uk IP: 79.123.58.10 URL: http://www.mokosh.co.uk DATE: 6 Apr 2009 11:50:23wow! congrats mate. sounds very exciting!
----- -------- AUTHOR: Tim Haughton TITLE: 37Signals vs GetSatisfaction NAME: /2009/04/37signals-vs-getsatisfaction.html STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: 0 ALLOW PINGS: 1 CATEGORY: Customer Relations DATE: 5 Apr 2009 08:28:38 ----- BODY:With great interest, I've been watching the unfolding drama that kicked off with this post on 37Signals, later followed by this response from GetSatisfaction.
In case you missed its arrival, GetSatisfaction is a really nice web app focused on facilitating open conversations between businesses and customers on a level playing field. The essence of Jason's complaint on the 37Signals blog is this:
I'm going to use (everyone's friend) Bob Walsh as an example. Bob's awesome task management application, MasterList Professional is sold by his company, Safari Software Inc. Now, let's say that Dave, a customer of Bob's pops across to the GetSatisfaction website. He searches for Bob's company but can't find it. Now here's the interesting part; Dave can, without Bob's knowledge, set up a support site for Safari Software and MasterList, and ask a question on it.
So what does Bob do? Nothing. Why? Because he has no idea that this unofficial support site exists, let alone that one of his customers is asking for help there. Now that doesn't seem like a nice state of affairs does it?
That wasn't the only (or even the main) problem. On Bob's unofficial support site, GetSatisfaction might use Bob's company name, even his logo, making it seem quite official. What really rubbed Jason up the wrong way, was the badge that GetSatisfaction placed on the GetSatisfaction website.
Clearly the suggestion is that if you're not signed up for GetSatisfaction, you're not doing open the open conversation thing.
This has been something on my mind since I started using the service. I do use GetSatisfaction for Home Document Manager, and I like it. It's a good app, and integrates well with product websites. But there has always been a subtle undertone of 'participate here or be excluded'.
To participate fully on GetSatisfaction, you also need to get a premium account, and they're not cheap. In fact, they're pretty pricey, especially for a micro ISV. Their basic plan starts at $99/month. They used to offer a $49/month starter subscription, but I couldn't find it just now, there has been a bit of a redesign, so it may have vanished altogether.
But whether the price was $49 or $99 per month, it would still be the single biggest outlay after my office. And that just doesn't seem....right. $49/year and I would sign up in a heartbeat, but $49 is insanely pricey, for what it is. And $99/month is just....silly.
If GetSatisfaction are truly comitted to facilitating open conversations, they should offer all companies a free, single user pro account, so that small companies can compete on the 'level playing field' that GetSatisfcation seems so keen on. If they got the buy in from startups, they would no doubt make the income as the startups grew.
They offer a good service, but I think that a single free pro account to each company would go a long way to losing the "mafioso protection" image that Jason was writing of.
That's why you should just have a copy of HelpSpot (http://www.helpspot.com) for $199 and you're done. Comes with a free year of support and is only $49/year after that! :-)
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ian Landsman EMAIL: ian@userscape.com IP: 69.126.32.87 URL: DATE: 5 Apr 2009 13:56:46FYI, the link above broke. Looks like the URL linker didn't parse it correctly.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Sohail EMAIL: sohail@worklogassistant.com IP: 207.81.121.15 URL: http://worklogassistant.com DATE: 5 Apr 2009 18:06:40@Ian - the whole reason I am using gsfn is because I don't want to install and maintain the software. Do you have hosted helpspot? What is the pricing? How does someone "test" helpspot when they are already using something else (like gsfn?)
@Tim - They've made their whole site ad-free now which goes a long way towards making it viable for 1 user pro accounts.
@Ian - might well take a look, although if I'm going to go to the trouble of managing it myself, I would want it living under the same domain for maximum Google juice. I had been considering the Simple Wordpress Forum as an alternative to GS.
@Sohail - The ads would never bug me as with Adblock Plus I'd probably never see them. The missing functionality for me on the free account is topic management.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ian Landsman EMAIL: ian@userscape.com IP: 69.126.32.87 URL: DATE: 20 Apr 2009 16:51:27Hi Tim,
Sorry for not seeing this response soon. Yes, there is a hosting option and the pricing is very affordable: http://www.userscape.com/products/helpspot/pricing.php
You can host it on your domain, even if you use our hosting provider. You can point a subdomain to them or purchase a dedicated domain for it if you like.
----- --------