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Yet Another Photo App

Yet Another Photo App

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Photo applications and websites that create galleries of photos seem to be a dime a dozen; so why is ExpressDigital so successful? 

A key ingrediant is found in Joel’s  MicroISV interview:

Michael:
…If you could pick one tip based on
your experience in going from zero to hero, what would be the thing you
would tell yourself from five years ago if you could give yourself a
piece of advice now to be the one thing not to miss – the one thing you
should do.

Joel: Can I have two things?

Bob: You can have two things.

Joel:
The number one thing is a micro-ISV shouldn’t be one person, it should
be two people at the very least and one of them should have the
business and marketing and sales skills experience.

The second part, and Bob alluded to this earlier, which is my
prototypical example of the photo gallery which is probably nine
million micro-ISVs have made an application where it’s like “Hey,
everybody’s got these digital cameras my application lets you upload
all your pictures and put them on the web and make web galleries.”
There have been about a million of these and a very tiny number of them
have been successful and the vast majority of them have been instant
flops. For some reason this is an incredibly appealing idea for
software developers to do, maybe because they feel like they know how
to do everything, all the steps they’re going to need to do to write
the code to make this work, but for some reason they never really make
it work.

But what I’ve always told these people time and
time again, and they never listen to me, is instead of making the
generic “upload your pictures application” take a very, very small
niche audience – wedding photographers – and make the ultimate
application for wedding photographers. Find out exactly what wedding
photographers need. There’s a lot of money around wedding
photographers, they get paid an awful lot of money, and figure out
exactly what their workflow is. If you need to find wedding
photographers because they’re in the yellow pages and there are
directories of these things. Call them all and find out what they want
and try to sell them your solution.

I want a better swap site

I want a better swap site

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My recent experiences with Craig’s List and Austin FreeCycle make me yearn
for an opportunity to develop a swapping service that I’ve had on the back
burner.

Online classifieds work. And people don’t necessarily need to make money off
of their possessions they are willing to part with.

I was shopping for a loft bed for Cassidy and Craig’s list delivered a
resident here in Austin that was willing to sell me her gently used one for 40%
of the cost of a new one. I loved it so much and it worked out in Cassidy’s room
so well that I bought a SECOND one, on Craig’s list for again, roughly for the
same discount. I even negotiated $50 off the price by agreeing to disassemble
the bed myself.

More recently, I used Austin FreeCycle to get rid of an old Sony 32" TV that
I no longer wanted. It worked but was falling apart and I didn’t care to take
the time to fix what was wrong with it. Austin FreeCycle delivered eight
interested parties within 12 hours.

All this took some time and travel (contacting and waiting for replies,
coordinateing schedules, borrowing pickups, driving across town). How wonderful
would it have been if I could have scheduled the same transacations in my
immediate neighborhood.

Throwback Christmas

Throwback Christmas

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We had a great Christmas.
We did not get an XBOX 360 or an HDTV TV, our big wish-list items.
Instead, Christmas included some gifts that were well received, inexpensive and a throwback to my childhood. First there was PaddlePool.  I remember my four sisters and I playing this all the time. We even took it with us to Evansville Indiana that year we got it. 

Next, David received an electric racecar set.  No batteries (yeah), just an AC adapter and two controllers.  It was a blast.  I remember wanting this one I was a kid.  Ours has a loop but this picture gives you an idea of the set:

Finally, David also received this wooden Tommy Gun that shot rubber bands.  The rubber bands don’t shoot very hard but go far enough to make it fun.

Bribing or good PR?

Bribing or good PR?

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I learned of a recent campaign by Microsoft, to encourage bloggers to write about Windows Vista, from Joel.   Specifically, they sent new high-end laptops loaded with Windows Vista, to selected bloggers asking them to try the OS and laptop out and blog about it.  The recipients were free to keep, return or give away the laptops afterward.  Apparently, Microsoft adjusted their offer and asked for the laptops back.

Since laptops were sent unsolicited, I don’t automatically conclude that the gesture was unethical and that any blogger accepting the laptops are unethical for not immediately returning them.

When I get an unsolicited survey with a "dollar" included in the envelope, I don’t bother to mail it back.  I also don’t fill out the survey.

Joel writes:

Even if no quid-pro-quo is formally required, the gift creates a social
obligation of reciprocity. This is best explained in Cialdini’s book Influence (a summary is here). The blogger will feel some obligation to return the favor to Microsoft.

Certainly, the blogger MAY feel an obligation and with full disclosure the reader can decide for himself whether to give the blogger’s review any credence.  But to assume a gift recipient’s review will be biased is unfair.  Otherwise, it would seem to follow that no public official should accept any non-anonymous donations otherwise the donation could be seen as a bribe.

Having said that.  Anyone that takes the stance that Joel has taken to eliminate any appearance of favoritism, by refusing any "gifts" has my respect and their opinion will be more highly regarded by me.

 

Related: A Sell-Out’s Tale

 

Doing it right on the first day

Doing it right on the first day

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I started my new job as Senior Developer with ExpressDigital yesterday.  I’ve had some great jobs in the past.  I feel spoiled that for most of my career, I’ve actually looked forward to going into work.  I could tell ExpressDigital was going to be one of those places.  I love their products and their software is right up my alley.  They have the intangibles down too.  They arranged to take me out to lunch the first day, and even toasted me!  Talk about feeling welcomed.  I never understood why companies often ignored the little things that make coming to work a joy.  Maybe I didn’t get an Aeron Chair,  but I did get my own office with a beautiful view of Lake Austin and the 360 bridge. Sweet.  I’m looking forward to helping make ExpressDigital even more successfull than they already are.   Expect a lot more posts about them here.