Eric's Blog

An experiment with Donationware

2011-02-09T13:01:00.000-08:00

I'd like to share the results of a six-month experiment with a Donationware software title that began under a traditional share-ware model of (Demo, Fee) title. There are, no doubt, quite a few success stories under both models. Owing to the immense learning opportunity from my experiment, I wanted to share the other side to all of the happy-feel-good stories of Donationware.

First thing is first. Donationware is when you provide software with the expectation that a certain percentage of users will donate a certain amount of money to play the game. The reasons vary. If you want to look at this brutally, it is users subsidizing users.

There are several examples on the internet of reasons why to switch your platform or application to a donationware model. However, they fail to mention a couple key bits that are important in the consideration of the activity.

Theory of Community Destruction

This is a theory. Something rather remarkable happened when I switched to Donationware, which is that the overall quality of feedback visibily declined. While there will always be a certain segment of the userbase that you simply cannot please, what can be quite surprising is to see the champions of your application begin to fade away over time. When an application has a fee for a full version it serves to gate the horde out. When anyone can and does gain access, it becomes a commons and only a certain percentage of users try to keep the place kept up--in a manner very similar to a public or shared space. My theory is this. Donationware is a negative pressure on a community that seeds the destruction of the application licensed under this model.

Evidences of Community Destruction

Now, what I am about to say with bring a flurry of comments to my moderated comments section with the counter-point: it's the app, not the users. However, after running a parallel experiment with a completely different application and conducting the two at the same time in different ways, the similarities and differences are quite telling.

Let me show some crude outlines of this by presenting numbers that explain what I see in the spreadsheets:

Application A (Demoware Model)

1,000 demo users
$1.00 a day conversion

Application B (Before Donationware Model)

1,000 demo users
$1.00 a day conversion

To make a little more sense out of the conversion number, that's the money per day you get for users buying your full version of the application. The dollars here are imaginary to help illustrate where I'm going, as the actual numbers are property of RTS.

So, on any given day for Application A and B, there are $2.00 a day worth of new revenue coming in. Then, users begin pushing to open up one of the applications to a donationware model.

Thus begins the experiment. What do you suspect happens?

The first week after converting to Donationware the application makes an exhilarating amount of money and downloads shoot up fast. This causes new users who weren't targets of the original niche to show up and begin their interaction.

Then, just as suddenly, the bubble pops, but the gates are still wide open.

Donationware is Prayware

You pray your users will pay you. This isn't a reliable way to do business.

Today, Application A consistently brings in revenue. However, Application B is in Donationware-stalemate. The surrounding community fell victim to trolling and, lacking an appropriate counter-troll defense, the gated community was smashed to pieces and fed to the commons. This leads to developer apathy and lack of traction on the part of any technology leads you may have hired for the project.

Making Donationware Work

Contrary to the above, I do believe Donationware can and will work as evidenced by the other success stories on the 'net. However, if you've ever been to a start park with an 'honest drop' box for money for admission, I'd be willing to bet it's highly dependent on the niche. It must be possible to let people build up their own spheres of influence with your product. Be careful not to poke holes in those spheres by dorking around too much with the business model behind it, especially if your application is one of those unfortunate types that require frequent updates to inspire the user base.

If you'd like a discussion point on this for your group, consider this: Compare and contrast donationware software to the tragedy of the commons.

Micro-loan funding in Iowa

2011-01-09T12:32:00.000-08:00

It isn't much of a secret that I hold an endless fascination with the power, promise and returns of micro-lending. In my mind, micro-loans are a democratization of the lending process that pushes the promise of compassionate capitalism by seeding the next generation of enterprise, no matter how bold or out there the idea might be.

http://www.iowamicroloan.org/

Truly a remarkable time, not just for Iowans, but for the world at large. If you are at all familiar with programs like Kiva, then you may already be one of many people who have helped develop a local economy in a place that your friends likely aren't even aware exists.

We are not far away from the first international success of these efforts, an adventurous tale and modern day retelling of the Horatio Alger story to inspire generations to come in the context of the international, and the inspiration and perspiration of the community that grew with them. And, as the web is growing, no-doubt that incarnation of said story will be something akin to a Storify re-capture of the immutable events of the web.

From TRR to ...

2010-06-17T15:31:00.001-07:00

After a bit of research into the lottery game of publishing with the big-time players and many hours contemplating the situation mentioned previously, I found this curosity to consider.

Now, TRR begat in a time when plenty had not yet arrived to the masses but was just on the teetering edge. In our current world, TRR is a nice little blip on the radar.

I say all this to say that when I'm sitting over here mulling over the current publication system, the trend towards free, that there are worlds of plenty out to explore in the vast conquest of the mindscape, there arose three key points we should go over together.

* TRR isn't mass market. It doesn't need to be.
* TRR is still young and growing.
* The nature of content consumption is changing. Fast.

Our current fan base is evolving with the technology and the technology is drifting fans in and out of the theme. I've had requests for more phone content and others have asked me about other multi-media projects tied in. Owning a nook and reading books on the phone is now more of a family affair in my home as indicated by the checkbook register showing that our purchase of traditional print literature is nearing the zero line.

I bring us here because our digital download purchases by TRR fans are getting very close to outmatching the print copies--a trend I considered on the surface was simply because of price. TRR is not cheap in the print realm for a handful of reasons not the least of which is overall distribution cost for print. However, considering my nook library is starting to outpace one of my bookshelves, I'm starting to realize this isn't a price point consideration, but a fundamental shift in how we consume content at the indie level.

Earlier I gave thought about publishers and gaining favor with larger firms. I don't see that as a natural fit for TRR. So, yes, long post previously with a very short answer.

Looking now to the future for TRR and the rise of digital content, in a world where we don't re-read, and become a nation of skimmers, what does that mean for the fictional universe that we play in? Should TRR grow to support multiple small mixed media projects? Sponsor more independent artists? Or yet something else, something that's mixed in with all these things. And lastly, how exactly does one keep something like TRR moving at a more regular release cycle in a world where we release ideas before the QA and marketing team ever really touches them, where threaded discussions are limited to 140 posts and crpytic shortkey, and sites now have more links to social networking sites than links that matter.

Filling a cup with liquid gold has nothing at all to do with this post.

2010-06-13T16:30:00.000-07:00

I made an arrangement with myself about a year or two ago that I wouldn't resume blogging of anything beyond "helping others" because, well, hawking the latest in diet fashion, some internet application, or the latest youtube video showing kittens taking over the world ... just seems unethical. Seriously, wouldn't you just rather watch some videos on kittens than reading anything written by these careless fingers?

Clearly not ... because you are still here.

Lately, I've given myself the luxory of fleeting thought. OK, let's explain. "Giving a gift to yourself of fleeting thought" isn't something to be taken for granted. Most of the time I'm lucky to have a thought that isn't obsessed with something to do with my daily adventures, which are quite time consuming and I'm bound by six documents (at last count) that say I more or less can't talk too much about them. Except to say that I can't talk about them.

Probably already said more than I should have.

However, today something weird happened....

So let's do this. Let me take you through my day today so you can have a bit more appreciation for why it is that I've decided to set aside, for an unknown amount of time, this crazy thought that maybe I'll try blogging again here and there with material that takes you backstage into the general craziness that began on this Sunday the 13th of June.

Sunday:

0. Awakened
1. Rain
2. Donuts
3. No rain
4. ... oops, more rain
5. Clam chowder
6. Technology conference material review
7. Take some paperwork up to the office
8. Return home, hear from wife that my books are being sold on ebay
9. Review book sales, discover they're up again
10. Swear
10.125 Check websites
10.250 Walk around in circle
10.750 Check other webistes
11. Swear a little bit more
12. Start blogging!

Back-out plan: Videos of kittens!

As you can see, my plan is perfect.

So, after an investigation of research into whether an author should blog or not and trying to figure out why blogging authors were somehow different than print authors, I decided that the best thing to do would be to encourage more book sales, get the other TRR books out, maybe start working on a new set (gasp) and maybe work on finishing up those philosophy books (double gasp) by getting connected to a real publishing house who could get my silly yet short name on the shelf.

One of the small footnotes buried inside the linkity-link above is a quote indented four levels deep from technologically obsolete punctuation (tx twtr!) is this thought that there is a certain authorial benefit to sharing the backroom with the userbase who is interested in the style, mannerism, and prose of their favored authors and the enduring struggles that they go through in order to see their work pushed to print.

Sharing the backroom is all well and good, but it'd be doubly good if I could use this platform as a vehicle to land some sort of publisher deal and with that in hand go from "they're hawking my books on ebay for ebay rankings" to "they're hawking my books for BMWs". I'm all about helping my fellow man.

So, I posted this on my blog.

The Five General Steps for Acquiring a Skill

2010-01-03T15:20:00.000-08:00

1. Observe the skill to be learned as a whole.

- Assess its prerequisites and learning curve

- Verify the perfect end result that the skill aims to accomplish

- Determine the sequence of steps done when performing the skill

Ex. the skill of good writing

Fundamentals: Spelling, grammar, vocabulary

Perfect end result: well-written stories, poems, essays

Steps: Learn basic spelling and grammar, read good literature, expand vocabulary, write 4 hours a day, edit you work after a short interval of time

2. Segregate the skill into steps and diligently train in each one.

- Determine a reasonable amount of time for each training session. Make each training sessions short and intense.

- Plan a system for training, allotting the time and energy to each step

- Perform your regimen and stick to it.

- Repeat the sessions until a habit is formed

- Remember to focus your attention and energy with each training session so as to embed your skill into your conscious and unconscious mind.

- Remember not to overtax yourself, as a tired brain is less efficient in learning.

Ex. Read four hours a day, write fours hours a day

3. Connect the steps into a seamless whole

- Put your steps together and aim to create the skill’s perfect end result

- Continue practicing diligently until the skill is second nature

Ex. Write your first novel

4. Obtain expert feedback

- Show your work to someone else, as practitioners often have a blind spot for their work’s weaknesses.

- Value the opinions from people who understand and practice your skill above those who do not.

Ex. Allow an editor to look at and clean up your writing after you finish it.

5. Re-assess your results and your regimen, and make adjustments to your training where necessary.

- Kaizen: Learning a skill is a continuous process; there is always a better way to do things.

- Use your skill continuously. As with any muscle, a skill unused wastes away.

Why a Donation Button?

2009-10-24T19:20:00.000-07:00

Eric wanted to share the following with you:

"One of our members contacted me today and asked if, rather than having a selection of price points for the different products, if I'd consider just putting up a donate button so loyal fans like YOU could donate to the collective projects operating under ericRHEA.com by clicking a single button.

I said, YES! If someone doesn't feel the pre-set prices adequately cover what they feel is a fair price for the value we're adding to their life, and they want to use the donate button instead, then I think that's a just request. I'll have it added to the site in the coming days and, well, we'll see what happens!"

So, we have a donate button now. Cool! :-)

100 Startup Tips for the Small Business Centurion

2009-10-24T18:28:00.000-07:00

Having worked in a number of statups, Eric is keen to point out the relationship across business boundaries from ISVs to all sorts of other businesses. "It's important to explore the success drivers for another industry for one very simple reason: get prepared for when you need them."

The list below is cobbled fromhttp://blogs.jobdig.com/wwds/2009/07/04/happy-independence-day-to-all-independents-or-who-want-to-be/ . If you're self-employed (we note that a large number of you are:) ), then take this as a friendly reminder of all the things you have to keep on doing to remain competitive and on track.

If you're inclined to know how the items in the top100 list can spin out horribly wrong, then we suggest picking up a copy of Eric Rhea's Enterprise Gremlins as an important item in your must-read list. It is a fun filled book that spotlights real world trouble in the small business environment.

This selection from the top 100 list is the same that the ISV community also found interesting:

Speed reading

A must-read list

Get comfortable asking for advice and help

Present your startup idea to anyone who will listen

Get really, really good at concisely stating your business idea

Find a metaphor that works for your business idea

It is about leadership, not management

Love your prospects

Know what you are good at

Build your team

Storytellers needed

TIVO-Ability

To sell many, sell one

Your sales people don’t work for you

Be ready for luck

Never talk down,talk up

Communicate with your stakeholders often

Better to be OCD, than ADD

No one will like change, except you

These are ideas that don't just apply to a startup. Turn them inward and see what happens!

What is Ankh Theory?

2009-10-23T21:01:00.000-07:00

You could look at Ankh Theory as a descriptive, logical system involving functions that Eric uses as a means to crib notes on complex system design. In his own words, "I came up with Ankh to help me model, and thereby understand, how more sophisticated systems might come together. I found it useful first in the business world, but then I realized that because the underlying notation were based on sound footing, that I could start drawing conclusions derived from use of the symbols themselves."

"From there, it wasn't too long before I decided a book was in order to help me organize where the notation had started and how it had developed over time. Ankh is now one of my little research projects where I'm able to use pure Ankh script to come up with new ideas as a fun diversion in the wee hours of cold winter night."

Hall pack

2009-10-23T20:36:00.001-07:00

Requirements: TGE 1.5.2
Demo scene not included

Original Sources Included: No

About
One of the more common modeling tricks deals with how to recreate some of the fancier, big engine lighting in the small engine capabilities. While my approach here isn't elegant, it works. The windows are mesh entities whose textures you can swap out easily and can be used to replace your DTS structure windows with a little resizing. Carpets and other ornamental pieces are also missing in TGE, so I included a couple to get you going. Simply copy the shape to another directory and swap the texture out and you're off and rolling.

Contains:

Hanging Lamp Elements

Shaded Light Strands

Lighting friendly light strands

Window Glass Object

Broken Window

Carpet

Eric's Name Your Own Price scheme

2009-10-23T20:01:00.000-07:00

There are a number of companies experimenting with this concept of permitting their market to name their own price on their established, or fairly well known, product lines. In the spirit of the reason for the site, Eric has decided to enable a more flexible pricing strategy for the products that are available on the site. As part of the grand, global experiment: you name the price.

The small catch is that the name your own pricing is valid for only a certain license type for the products. You can read the details of the catch here. The general deal is this. You can remix, share, and alter the work so long as attribution remains and you cannot use any of the products for outright commercial purposes.

The reason for this is suppress troll sites that would seek to pirate the material and good nature of the site and use the brand for their own benefit, rather than benefiting the direct ER community. So commercial licenses are worked out on a per project basis and will require talking to Eric to ensure that a reasonable level of quality is attained for commercial marketing of brand materials.

How it works

You'll find that there are products listed on the main page of the site. Simply select from the drop down list of available prices what you're willing to pay for the item and click "Buy Now". It's that simple. If, for some reason, you're just not able to pay for the item (you're broke, unemployed, impoverished college student, an underfunded startup) then just click on the download link for the product you're interested in, which will be listed directly beneath the "Buy Now" button.

Why you should pay something, if you can

The money you pay goes into the general operating fund for the company, which then helps support a larger network of people. Money that flows into the site has always gone out to various contractors working on any number of projects that Eric is involved in. These are enriching opportunities for people across the globe and, in small steps, help make the world a slightly better place. So every transaction here blesses at least seven people, around the world. We're not a big outfit and we're pretty sure you can't get much smaller. Pay what you can, when you can. If you can't pay now, but can in a few weeks. Great! Just remember to come back and pay what you feel is just for the material, insight, and overall value that you received from our work.

From there, we do more, and in the end, we all keep moving forward.

Six general steps towards skill acquisition

2009-10-19T19:54:00.000-07:00

These are six general steps to acquire any particular skill. This is a snapshot of the core patterns I've found in books that deal in skill acquisition across a wide range of subject matter.

1. Observe the skill to be learned as a whole
2. Break the skill down into very small chunks and compress practices into a small amount of time
3. Connect the bits together
4. Get external feedback
5. Revisit #2
6. Take the incremental training and practice and combine into a whole

Some further notes:

Don't waste time doing aimless practice. You must be totally into the moment of learning the skill. The skill learning needs to be short, intense and repetitive in order to have your brain reinforce the correct pathways. You will lose the skill if you don't lose it--your brain will treat the skill as being less valued and reinforce those areas with something else.

Seven more tips for blogging success

2009-10-19T19:21:00.000-07:00

In continuation of the eight tips for blogging success, here are a handful more in a handy list fashion.

One core tip or thought:

1. The success principles of a website apply to blogs.

Six general tips:

1. I've clearly articulated my blog's purpose.
2. I've made a list of other bloggers and participate on their sites ("Join the crowd")
3. I keep a list of what I do like about the other blogs
4. I keep a list of what I don't like about the other blogs
5. I read mainstream books on the subject of blogging and social media
6. I don't overdo the social network connection ("Gluttony doesn't care for company")

Eight general tips for blogging success

2009-10-19T19:18:00.001-07:00

1. Define what "success" means to you.

These general tips are the seven patterns I've found in researching "generally successful" blogs. Note any of these can be short circuited by either changing the definition of success or by breaking a content article that the world cannot live without.

Seven general tips:

1. Identify the general theme that others can identify with
2. Read other blogs regularly that deal with that theme
3. Comment on those blogs, as well as your own.
4. Network with other bloggers in this same domain (take conversations beyond the blog)
5. Recruit ghost writers to help advance your cause
6. Avoid obvious attempts at marketing, salesmanship, or poor promotion.
7. Write frequently and often. Remember: The web rewards the novel, prolific and interesting, while the market rewards problem solvers.

New to the site?

2009-10-16T20:47:00.000-07:00

Welcome to ericRHEA.com!

Regardless of how you found the site, this Starting Guide will get you started to the many little things Eric likes to work on to keep busy. Now, it is quite likely that you rank yourself one of those folks who wonder why the internet needs another self-serving webpage dripping with personal bombast of just how awesome the author is. Well, it's the next logical step.

It probably would be best to take you back to the origin of this particular site. In short, a few years ago Eric thought it would be a handy idea for his consultancy to have a website to help organize all the happenings that were going on. It started as a very small branch of the studio he was operating at the time and the general thought was, "it's where everything else goes that I can't figure out what to do with".

Over time, as business came and went, and the consultancy began to grow, Eric realized that he needed a bit more muscle behind the domain. So, he revamped the design and tossed up all the technologies that he himself was familiar with, plus the ever expanding roster of projects that he and his staff worked on. One of the observations that Eric will be writing on in the future ties into this idea that companies, and this is notoriously true in certain media enterprises, are attempts by people to rebrand and distance themselves from their true past. Eric realized that if you have a legitimate, positive reputation, past, and present, then distancing seems kind of silly, doesn't it?

As winter sapped away all the day light, Eric scaled back a bit on his worldly adventures to put more time into his website. This place. He realized, after many long thoughts, that he was going to have to evolve from a self-focused wares-hawking, consultancy growing capitalist to someone that found a way to help others have an improvement in their own lives.

In his own words, "You know, it took me about two weeks of thinking about it to realize that self promotion that was and still is pretty hip on the net with LIONS/ONS and other SNSs were inherently evil, the kind of small business networking evil that crops up here and there. What benefit was there in these little cliques? None, frankly. Just a waste of time while everyone has a pissing contest over this that or the other. Instead, I realized that I could plead for cash to fund my projects while at the same time helping people out. That way I could move my projects forward, my staff would get paid and have more hours available for work, and most importantly, I'm helping to make the world a little bit better of a place."

So, Eric began constructing a new website. One that would not only organize his interests, show the projects he and his staff were working on, but also provide resources to what he calls his "future friends". "I have no doubt", Eric tells me, "that in some point in the future I'll be running across some people whose lives will be impacted by the site. With a good deal of luck, it'll be for the better. So you can bet that I'll be putting a ton of safeguards in place to CMA. But really, it should be a great deal of fun. If at the end of the day just one person has a better day from something they found on the site and, in return, they find some way to barter, donate, give, or actually buy something we've worked on, then that'll be the realization of the ultimate golden rule: that there's no shame in making money, but you should improve the life of someone other than yourself in some small way."

From here, we'll continue to post additional guides to the site as the full site comes online. The goal is to, over the natural course of time, post guides to the site that are of some relevance. Eric has mentioned his belief in "posts that matter" over and beyond posts that are frequent in nature. "Sure you can game the SEO system and go for the gold on your page display index. Why bother though? I've got more important things to work on right now. If we're putting up content that matters, then everything will work out just fine. And if we're not, then I'm on the wrong path with the whole concept. Something tells me I'm not."

We couldn't agree more.