Benefits of Donating (Market Research)
Media Manager has consumed more of my time than I ever initially imagined. The endless tinkering and perfecting is even driving me crazy. Or perhaps it is simply sleep deprivation psychosis. But it is too late for that I suppose.
Part of the reason I write this is not to hold out my hands and ask for money, but to understand what incentives I might be able to add to the product so that people may donate more on their own, without any prompting.
So I am curious, is there a feature you yourself would pay for?
Where would you draw the line in regards to "intrusiveness" inside of the application in regards to prompting people to donate?
How would you respond if $5 would unlock the ability to set your own Amazon Associate's ID?
What do you feel is a fair price to ask for this software?
I am interested in hearing from anyone who has experience, advice, or feelings about how free software can actually support itself.
Comments
$5 is more than a fair price, I think you could get away with charging at least $10 to $15 minimum. I've seen a couple of plugins for sale at $10 that do far less.
I personally would to offer a free cut down version, Media Manage Lite, if you like, that has limited functionality - no wishlist import, no more than 10 items in a queue, only allows books to be searched etc... and then offer a fully featured paid version, for a price.
Posted by: nickpunter | September 15, 2005 9:26 AM
At first, I thought "HOW DARE HE USE MY SITE TO MAKE CASH MONEY!" But then I thought about it and decided that as you're up front about locking associate IDs in the "Lite" version it may not be such a bad idea. You could make a nice little kickback, maybe as much as $10/site.
$5 is more than fair. I'd be willing to pay as much as $20 if it meant free point updates and you were willing to provide a modicum of support.
And a donation is coming shortly.
Posted by: dw | September 15, 2005 1:31 PM
I would love to see "real" Typelist functionality" as we know it from Typepad. I would like to enter a short description/review already on the level of the "Currently Reading" list. For this feature I would willingly pay 5$.
Posted by: Michael | September 15, 2005 1:42 PM
Especially because the purpose of the associates id is to earn money for the user, I think $5 for unlocking the associates id is a MORE than fair deal. My unscientific theory is that a $5 unlocking fee would also yield more individual contributions and presumably more total $ income for the product than a significantly higher price (like $15 or more) would.
Posted by: kate | October 1, 2005 8:10 AM
I wuld like to take part in as many surveys as I can! Thank you, Lisa Gentry
Posted by: lisa | May 25, 2006 8:17 AM