Messages

101

Developer's Corner / Re: Pricing Strategies for Products and Services

« on: December 22, 2012, 05:55 PM »

Paul you lost me once again. What I meant was I've been involved in pricing decisions (both as a business buyer and a seller) for over 30 years. I've run a few businesses. Started a couple. And served as CFO for three more. So most of what I "know" (or more correctly believe to be currently valid assumptions) is based on my own real world use and refinement. And since the environment and contexts of business keep changing, they're all subject to ongoing refinement, modification, adoption and dismissal. And FWIW, pricing strategies aren't always based on logical considerations since buying patterns seldom are. Especially when it comes to consumer purchases.

-40hz

Way to make it tough for me to post a long reply guys.  

That's what I got from your post too except the CFO part.

It's why I used the white analogy. Logical and illogical the white clothes and white teeth was both.

On the logical side, the idea was that people wanted clean clothes to be so clean, they're white.

On the illogical side, modifications for these are through things like a famous celebrity telling a poor person to change brands instead.

Refinement side, certain things like talking toothbrushes were used to make a toothbrush look appealing.

Adoption side, you now have some mall doctor ad that scans the tooth, says it's dirty, hands the person a toothpaste and told them to wash their teeth and come back and the scan says clean.

Dismissal side, you have ads that sell the whiteness of the person but without stating it and instead using pretty people to kiss each other and so on and so forth.

The idea can be rotated all ways. It can be said to still be working. There's nothing finished about it as an art nor did business stop using it...the flaw was that no one had realized that it ended up creating a culture where every or almost every major visible ad still sell these whiteness that it literally blinds them to the fact that they're too focused on the white but each one of them is telling the customers the same forms of ad and it lead to many unintended consequences that are obvious such as stale ads and worse, there are many nuance of the same ad that keep repeating and the model lacked any foresight for the product.

For example, now I can't speak for what's really up with the ad producers here but anecdotally it's gotten so bad that a brand that sells dental floss doesn't have many TV ads for their new product but they waste everyone's time talking about talking toothbrushes with an old redesigned special toothbrush. Worse, the new ad with the talking toothbrush model is less interesting than when the years gone by earlier toothbrush was still showing. No competitor seems smart enough to realize that the doctor could be doing a PSA or that the product can be something other than generation and generation of stale. There's not even an attempt at an education ad. The same for detergents. It took ages before someone moved from the white clothes plus established character into a serial ad.

That's what 's happening here (in your statement) and that's what's so bad about articles like these. *You* think the article is saying something like snob pricing but it's not. *You* think my post is about snob pricing or local considerations when it's not.

The article is not even saying anything remotely close to these and if you drag a random passerby who doesn't know about snob prices and let them read the article then hand a definition of say...snob prices to them, they won't get the connection.

That's how bad it corrupts. You don't even feel fine defending or not defending it as if I was somehow attacking you and we aren't two users who have talked long enough that we don't need to defend our opinions to each other. You forget even that.  

If you don't believe me, here's my ultimate proof:

You say:

Many people gladly pay more for something just to feel an affiliation with the image the product presents.

Snob pricing in Google results to:

The snob effect is a phenomenon often observed in the field of microeconomics that refers to the situation where the demand for a certain good for individuals of a higher income level is inversely related to the demand for the good by individuals of a lower income level.[1] The "snob effect" contrasts most other microeconomic models, in that the demand curve can have a positive slope, rather than the typical negatively sloped demand curve of normal goods.

...but where in the article did any research study say this? Remove the article from the research study part. Where did it imply anything like this?

Speaking of snob prices, for a long time...and it still holds somewhat of an effect here but Dunkin Donuts IS the Starbucks of Donuts in a poor country. I didn't bring any local consideration until this sentence.

That's how bad these things twist it. It rips the context out. It changes the food for thought. There's nothing wrong with snob prices if you are talking about coffee brands. There's something wrong IF what you get from a study is making apples and oranges comparison but replacing them with donuts and coffee. That's when you know it's already extremely sloppy. If what the article wrote was what you wrote, then there's less of an issue to be made about the actual article. If the article convinces you to write an entirely separate example but you feel it was saying the same thing then that's like the Apple effect of delusion only Apple actually provides a product. That effect is a problem especially the pay-off. The article is not only handing out advises but it's bringing down the research studies with it and it's making people who already know other things about pricing strategies to misread attributes of what it's really saying and replacing it what they think the article is saying. Guess who's the most punished? The reader who actually needs the advise, considers it but can't even google snob prices or other people effects unless they read some forum or comment thread. Then later on, it's the customers of that reader and the copycats of that reader that create another obfuscation level such as force everyone to traditionally accept that the words "small" must be added to any fee because that is what works.

102

Developer's Corner / Re: Pricing Strategies for Products and Services

« on: December 22, 2012, 02:48 PM »

I can't debunk it but all I can say as a food for thought counter is that 30 years is not enough.

30 years ago, this idea of white was popular in marketing concepts. People love white teeth. People love white clothes. Flash forward today, the ad theory has changed but only for developed countries. The same white teeth is still being designed and revolved around in less well off countries and not for lack of sales reasons.

When I say incomplete, I mean it as a science and I don't mean it as a science.

As a science, the words incomplete mean "progressing". Not stuck. This sticks that's why it can stay for years and corrupt people.

Advises like put the word small in front of fees is the equivalent of saying put a facebook icon in  your webpage and we're done. I've just done your web design.

It doesn't come off that way because it's anchoring research studies to sleight of mind and weaken your own standards if it were a subject of your niche.

In short, even though I don't know if the author intended it to be that way, there's more to learn from how the author structured the article than what he wrote though both are minimal and leaky even given leeway for a blog article.

For example, solution selling has come and gone as an art, not an art, a tired old cliche, a model that still works for a lot of big companies. It's been there and done that and yet, even though it doesn't claim to be a science, it's still less of a dead-end than bringing up the rustiest and leakies and long term inhumane routes of corrupt selling 101 to it's reader.

Hate it, like it, find it it's all smokes and mirrors, It's still being replaced and it's being replaced by new food for thoughts that question the old way of thinking without debunking it. These advises don't even register as blatantly stupid and dangerous examples even though they've come and gone.

It's not always the question or what's been swallowed. The context issue is also a red herring. The author already said it was research studies. He threw the context down and ran away with it. It's his responsibility to elevate or deflate the common false interpretation and tired applications of those studies and raise the bar to something that actually counts as a suggestion or food for thought.

As an example,

He doesn't even address what would happen if everyone added the words 'small' in their fees.

Worse,

That's even older than the "start free then sneak in monetization" strategy!
That's even older than a 2 for 1 sales strategy!

It's not even old in a golden rule or food for thought way, it's not even strategy!

He took a research on dvds and twisted the context into a fee-based analogy and twisted it into what amounts to telling the customer it's cheap with no follow-up on how to execute or what font to put it in or....or...I could go right now into Facebook's unregistered page and his own mis-applied twist of an analogy would be worth something of actual value than his actual words and can anyone really say there's something oh so food for thought about staring at Facebook's sign-up page?

What's worse had he actually tried to form a legitimate article and combined his 7 Pricing Strategies, he would have found the obvious flaws of his statements if he had a small inkling of what those results' notability were about. Instead it's an article that hopes that by adding research studies and repeating the results, readers will forget the fact that everyone has tried adding adjectives into their sales before. I could get a better strategy from a fruit vendor without them even trying to give me 1 pricing strategy. I could be a kid with bad charisma and I could stumble on the strategy of making my services sound cheap.

And I think if this were really food for thought, we'd have moved on to the thought. Instead in order to have any thought in the discussion, the readers must go away from the food or put more weight into the packaging than the food's tastes. A real food for thought thugs as back into the subject. Even talking about Apple or Pricing Strategies or that Blog Article tugs us back into those terms. None of the examples tugs us back in as we're talking. We're all trying to avoid what the writer was actually saying and honing in on these keywords so that it could seem that the writer actually gave some thought to what he wrote and it wasn't just a regurgitated copy-paste of those research studies with some horrible and bad follow-ups that are so silly, describing what's wrong with it is as silly as describing what's right about it.

103

Developer's Corner / Re: Pricing Strategies for Products and Services

« on: December 22, 2012, 10:43 AM »

I can't say I have enough experience (in fact I'm extremely extremely inexperienced on this subject) but the list is incomplete at best and at worst it's cute but it's wrong.

I don't know where exactly I got the notes for this but I believe I started with this link but I really don't know who was it that said it:

http://hbr.org/2012/...-solution-sales/ar/1

The notes I have, had this written:

We seem to be trying to fix highly complex problems at the same level at which they were created.

In established procurement lines, where the level of knowledge transfer is low, Transactional salespeople with thrive.
    
In established procurement environments where knowledge transfer is low but integration complex, Solution salespeople will thrive.
    
In environments where the level of knowledge transfer is high, but the solution not integrated, Advisory salespeople will thrive.
    
In environments where knowledge transfer is high and the problem not clear (let alone the solution) Insight/Challenger salespeople will thrive.

At the level they were created is the key I think.

Pricing is bonkers because the customer started with some sort of minimum median line for your work. Over time this became an industry to itself with no consideration for long term i.e. if you pay for a service provider you liked/trusted with higher than normal prices then the chance of them being able to better improve their services increases compared to if you both agree on just getting the job.

As far as customers, you can't really expect them to care for this. Not all of them is looking out for you.

As a price strategizing advice though, I can't provide a better alternative advice but if you're going to do lies like this:

For example, instead of offering a generic "website redesign" service, customize the service to the the customer’s needs (e.g., "a website redesign to increase online leads.") That one small change will make sure that your solution is incomparable and will make it harder for customers to reference the low price anchor.

Aren't you and the customer better off for providing actual optimized "cult feel" good types of values than throwing out white lies in order to nab a client similar but obviously not up to scale of Apple?

One is morally distasteful but at least you're providing some key unintentional attributes to your client in the form of either transaction security, insight to what they don't realize, challenges and education to their old way of thinking, advises... these are big fluffy words too but at least it shifts things away from silly crap marketing urban myths of:

Be the Starbucks, not the Dunkin’ Donuts.

If everyone can get away by being a Starbucks, wouldn't you think everyone would build Starbucks?

But if you want to provide the same solutions as Starbucks, you (the provider) have to change your product not just your brand or the perception of: your brand from the outside. It's not always price=food or price=jobs or price=business. There's price=strategy. That word that denotes that even if the word small did something to your sign, there's still the person inside or the service out there or the menu and toolbars for crying out loud even website designs don't just change the webpage title and make the skin look like Starbucks' as the basis of their pricing strategy even if that could help sell them to their clients!

I guess this topic just holds a special hate for me. When Starbucks penetrated the vain office workers demo of our country, it could have lead to better services but instead the copycats and the fans followed the same product template but none of the same pricing strategies so when Starbucks stopped innovating , so did most places and we just end up with a bunch of places now having free wi-fi. Worse, the lies. The lies of why to sell to these cash spending people and the how. It...worsened the already worse view of treating and selling to people as if they were idiots and pawns.

It just creates an industry of the wrong set of contexts that get to be the right set of contexts because of the monopolizing effect of industry expectations which are good for the insular pricing strategy "of those in the know" but horrible for actual pricing strategies or elevating both customers and service providers to the next level of price and value. It also changes the wrong way to be outliers and leads to more corporate style firm mindset in situations that shouldn't have and can't excel with the same tricks used by corporations.

P.S. I've also been reading a forum topic on how hard it is for novelists/scriptwriters because of how Hollywood works and reading this just made me lose it.

104

General Software Discussion / Re: Purging old stuff off your comp

« on: December 22, 2012, 10:11 AM »

It's not a tablet related thread but welcome to the wonderful wonderful world of why I hate Tablet computers. Even with programs that uses checkboxes to uninstall, there's always that one program you haven't tried or have only recently installed but all that icon is making it too hard to drag and squint for that one right icon that you tend to accidentally click.

Also: This is IMO why all software need to have package managers.

105

Living Room / Re: An example of why some will always see open hardware and software as a threat

« on: December 21, 2012, 10:44 PM »

The video lost me at hand-optimized the codebase.

Any coder care to explain? What additional coding function is being added?

-Paul Keith (December 21, 2012, 05:45 PM)

The CPU in the RasPi is pretty slow - so they probably fixed tardy programming to speed up critical routines.

-f0dder (December 21, 2012, 07:56 PM)

Thanks. 

106

Living Room / Re: An example of why some will always see open hardware and software as a threat

« on: December 21, 2012, 05:45 PM »

The video lost me at hand-optimized the codebase.

Any coder care to explain? What additional coding function is being added?

107

Living Room / Re: Patent Silliness to affect Crowdfunding?

« on: December 21, 2012, 05:28 PM »

I wouldn't read too much into Kickstarter being named. It's a standard legal ploy to sue everybody who passed within twenty feet of the party they're primarily after. Usually they're hoping to cut a deal to get somebody to speak against the defendant or reveal inside information about the defendant during the deposition stage.

Just the usual BS lawyer tactics folks. Nothing to see here. Move along....

-40hz (December 21, 2012, 12:52 PM)

That's the thing though. It's usual BS but this time it's about two integral things that the law have never yet known how to address: 3d printing and crowdfunding.

There's an opportunity here to set a precedent for future incidents before future incidents gobble both of these words and it's truly back to standard legal ploy. It's one of those rare standard cases that can be be turned into a home run case depending on how ambitious the defendant is.

Kickstarter's big problem IMO is that they leave themselves open for this because they charge a percentage rather than a flat fee for a listing on their site. That makes what they do look more like a partnering arrangement with a client than it does selling a their service to a customer.

That's the opening the attorneys saw to go after them. They'll argue Kickstarter's revenue is dependent on the success of the projects they host - which makes their arrangement more of a partnership since there's some risk to Kickstarter using that formula. And the degree of "at risk" has long been a factor taken into consideration when determining whether or not somebody is actually "in business" with someone else.

And seriously, why should one Kickstarter project cost more to list than another? Kickstarter's costs should be mostly fixed and predictable by now. They could charge a flat fee and still make money.
 

-40hz

See here's the thing though...attorneys live by finding openings anyway so it's not really a big opening. It's common nowadays to say a lawyer can get you charged with anything because there's really no small problem anymore anyway.

The real punishment here is if crowdfunding or Kickstarter would always rely on some obscure nitpick to defend their concept and everyone misses the opportunity here to make a bigger splash in creating a landmark opportunity for patents to be redefined, crowdfunding to be better known and to settle the 3d printer debacle before the real serious business debates gets politicized.

From a moral standpoint, I also don't like this idea of using legal mistakes to justify non-legal related complaints. Sure this time it's something that may be could make a service we like better but it's this type of attitude that has turned law into a joke. Like suddenly the future of 3d printing and crowdfunding is less important than what fees Kickstarter does. I can't do anything about it, it's just a moral horizon I'm not comfortable hearing. I know the more people learn about law, the more you just have to accept the reality of certain things but...it just reads like it cheapens the whole case right now where as the opportunity for fixing the law here can only come from valuing the case beyond what's been scripted to happen one way or the other.

108

Living Room / Re: Want to run Khan Academy Offline? Introducing KA Lite!

« on: December 21, 2012, 01:40 PM »

I've gotten that optimistic  

I think when it comes to poverty, one of the greatest miracles of the world is how the poor can quickly catch up. In my old self, I saw the poor as being somewhat on par with the needy. Yes, many are needy especially when it comes to access rather than talent where poverty may strengthen a man's mind.

They, however, are also fast and furious at achieving greatness so to speak. What I described wasn't a form of pessimism, it was great respect at how good the poor can be.
 
The recent change in outsourcing, the recent dominance of immigrants selling cheap vendor products, the more I see/read/hear about squatters being able to form internal governance of theft, castes and hierarchies and be superior to a ghetto in organization...the more I read about the copycat business plaguing the poor...the more I respect how the poor can quickly unite with the rich's demands such as the question posted on this blog post never coming from the rich so the poor never threw out the same question but the poor being fast at prayers, donations and working together is very much in agreement with the harmony of the middle class and the rich and the non-needy at reacting: http://getrealphilip...devastated-mindanao/

...the more I'm awed by the poor and the clearer it is to see how skilled, empowered (or hard working) and fast (at adapting) most people are including and especially the poor. When they wanted tablets, the poor and needy got their tablets like a chaotic free market democracy towards a product. Yet once they got their tablets, the poor who needed education weren't as fast as acquiring the education they feel deep inside they don't need even though many will morally accept that they do need education.

It sounds pessimistic but it's actually a form of extreme optimism. The poor can and will wield opportunities once they are handed the opportunity. They don't care what the tool aims to be, they care at what the tools can and will do.

This is not to say these projects aren't needed but these projects, if successful, will evolve to the terms of the poor and the market while leaving the higher aim intact which is to provide education to the needy...but it will still evolve. The poor or the needy will make sure of it even if it's simply through creating a space for a less well intentioned supplier to supply it.

It may also just be that I finally read (but haven't finished reading) this

I don't agree nor understand many of the things in it but it did upgrade my vocabulary of a welfare state from a welfare state to a welfare colony and now I see education as everything through that possibility.

His wikipedia page actually has a free pdf that's similar to the chapter on this found in the book:

http://www.un.org/es...s/2006/wp14_2006.pdf

@mahesh2k

The usb drives can't apply to the goal because the primarily target is: using cheap tablets such as the Aakash, which is now available to students in India for ~$20 and it's not about a static storage media.

Not that there's no merit to it but it's an entirely different goal. USB drives and storage media have no real time capability to tweak a database and are limited by their internal memories and require computers. This is almost entirely for televisions with the exception of the cheap tablet that has been mentioned. Unless USBs and storage media have found a way to sync with each other in a wireless p2p range that deletes the data inside and replaces with new videos - it's not really comparable and people in poor countries do use usbs in cases where they can have usbs. You could even say there's too much empty usbs being handed out but there's too little demand or idea as to how to make a person be interested in the content of the usb on a general basis.

109

Living Room / Re: Patent Silliness to affect Crowdfunding?

« on: December 21, 2012, 11:28 AM »

I'm on the opposite end. I hope Kickstarter is brought up because it's the only way to morally prove that it wasn't infringing on a patent.

The record is a sign that there's some merit to the 3d printer being like a public good such as a car rather than a car design. Legally it sounds wrong but crowdfunding wise, a good lawyer can argue for the difference in theft. (I hope)

The important key is the funding part. Theft can't be funded by the masses. Theft is there to sell to the masses. Crowdfunding isn't selling, it's funding. Funding means an object requires a group of accomplices to shell out money for your project. Those accomplices are therefore part of the scheme. If Kickstarter is sued, you have to sue the crowd too.

The trick is defining crowdfunding as not selling but selling only after the project has been crowdfunded.

110

DC Gamer Club / Re: GOG.com End of the World Sale

« on: December 21, 2012, 11:17 AM »

It ended so I couldn't check out the link but if you're talking about the ones with the spiderweb collection, I was thinking more about the work put into the game. There are multiple games that can have low graphics and there are the Witcher 2 that have high end graphics being one example. Then there is the Ultima series which are older low graphic games but are more of a classic than Indie games.

I don't know how GoG works though but that sounds great if the site doesn't bias based on title reception and perceived title demand so long as there's enough Indie bundles that were still bought through it. I was just looking at it the other way. If I was a customer, an indie bundle being cheaper in the list could make me considered taking a risk at checking it out over a popular game if the quantity looks to be a better deal. Remember these are promos, someone will still more likely wait for acquiring a popular modern title or support an aging classic in the future than go back and re-consider paying for indie titles in full. It was also an attempted side remark on how crazy indie prices work sometimes.

111

Living Room / Re: Want to run Khan Academy Offline? Introducing KA Lite!

« on: December 21, 2012, 11:05 AM »

I'm not discounting the project...

-Paul Keith (December 20, 2012, 11:10 AM)

@pk: of course you are... ;-)

the creators of pi took strong steps to keeping their device from being another olpc-like thing to either be ignored or hijacked by big businesses like olpc was. in my daughter's school the administration openly admitted they worried about things like the raspberry. because from what they heard about it, the self-taught kids were more knowledgeable about them than most teachers were. so where would their math and science teachers fit in with something like that? that is a question which begs a even bigger question. ;-))
and don't even get me started on what their attitude towards the Khan Academy is.

-Gwen7 (December 20, 2012, 12:30 PM)

XD

Ok, I walked into that when I wrote that first sentence but really I'm not discounting it. It has huge potential but it's hard to see how you can protect it from big business. If the thing is as good as it is, you've just fixed streaming and changed the demand for tablet market in a world where some still use Instant Messengers to communicate in an office or where text messages rule the communication airwaves. The only limitation is the server content but it's a concept that turns every thing from porn sites to movie streams to television into a potential mini-ISP that can be viewed with micro-subscriptions.  The only way to monopolize it would be to legalize it with patents in a world where legality is iffy.

To answer Renegade's question, the long text doesn't read like it's offline. More like a one way traffic. The concept sounds like web clipping. You have the offline html and it can be clicked but the webmaster still has the content and is still the one logging in and accessing the site but because the range is closer to the country, you have a more powerful and stable connection to the site content almost like how people play competitive portables in the early days where two Gameboy infrareds have to be close to each other. The server is by far the tricky bit but that's how it's planning to secure itself I would assume.

The first obfuscation is the raspberry pi which has it's own attempts at protecting itself. The second obfuscation is to limit the raspberry pi to a mere wire that sends videos to the television. In doing so you have more stable connections but in the form of a wireless wire instead of a wire and in the form of a wireless internet that isn't a wireless internet but more like a mini-p2p without the p2p aspect.

It's also worth highlighting: Emily also did a lot of work making a streamlined version of the khan-exercises framework so that it would be fast enough to run on the RPi's limited processor.

It's a new form of Video Radio. Not a new form of encrypted internet. TVs are hard to tweak at a whim. Radios can be tweaked via caller requests and instant remixes.

112

Living Room / Re: Want to run Khan Academy Offline? Introducing KA Lite!

« on: December 20, 2012, 11:10 AM »

I don't want to be that pessimist but if it's just going to be a static webpage/TV show it's already been attempted in local edutainment shows and whiteboards/blackboards since it's the Khan Academy model which is how most poor people in schools are already receiving their droning courses.

I'm not discounting the project, offline video set has merit. I'm just questioning Why Khan? The Raspberry PI is still an OLPC-like object. The flaw has always been it gives an excuse for governments to just throw that thing at your potential students like it's relief goods. You combine the most boring white board videos on the most tedious basic elements and it's a market for replacing night schools, not poverty (in the 3rd world).

Even in the private elementary school I attended where sometimes the video *can* be mildly entertaining, students tend to regret Video day. It's something you want to sleep off on. It's that time when you know your teachers are going to be even more disinterested than you. The Khan Academy encourages dynamic feedback/exercises even on their own developing world case example sales pitch youtubes.

113

DC Gamer Club / Re: GOG.com End of the World Sale

« on: December 19, 2012, 02:51 PM »

That's crazy how the Indie offers are worth more than the Witcher 2 discount and the Riddick game but awesome.

114

Developer's Corner / Re: The Myth of the ‘Post-PC Era’: Why tablets and smartphones will never replace...

« on: December 18, 2012, 11:34 AM »

No, there's an interface alright. Pre-Swype the Swype interface was a circle which was both better and much more intuitive but as with most things innovative, it was ugly and even the circular-like swype keyboards today are not well received though they are of inferior and cluttery designs. Still the paradigm have shifted towards a Swype rather than a Touch interface which is both a paradigm shift for the PC and for the smartphone. Other minor examples of this paradigm is how people use pinch zooming to zoom documents or how stores will change the culture of where and how casuals search for software.

Vibration-wise, there's been work on touch interfaces that are speed/friction sensitive. Just a youtube of touch screen shows this: http://www.youtube.c......1ac.1.V6nqTMs6v3E

Then as far as digital art, there's less power but:

For me, the most interesting of his current recommendations is the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 for annotating and editing pdfs - so much easier with long-form writing for the writer to be as close as possible to paper-free. The Galaxy Note 10.1 still remains (I think) the only pure iPad-style tablet with a digitiser under the screen, although Adonit are trying to achieve the same effect with the Jot Touch for the iPad, and I’ve heard that more (less expensive) tablets with digitisers (and probably Windows will be launched in the New Year.

-Hugh

Source: http://www.outliners.../topics/viewt/4627/5

and...

http://youtu.be/Ueyiw6gv04U

Source: http://evernote.com/...started/moleskine/#0

The key difference I think between smartphones and all the other previous gadgets are that smartphones have the potential to make slaves out of everyone so that's what's going to drive it compared to the previous techs that were intrusive but were always going to be points of power.

For example, the remote control is not the television but the remote controlled television replaced television because it was a good way to charge extra/keep the "interface innovations" of a TV set improving which justify raising costs/etc. etc.

The tablet market is very much a remote control market slash wireless desktop interface. You rip the desktop interface and the PC falls apart for most users. The ignorance between the two things is not a myth, it's the natural pathway for the personal computer since the dawn of it's birth.

The remote control couldn't kill the television because they had the same method of input. Smartphones can outsmart PCs because they don't have the same input so by killing say wireless mouse, even if Smartphones don't kill the PC, it will kill it by virtue of adding another "operating system"-like filter requirement to PCs that the desktop OS was slowly not requiring so maybe smartphones won't kill the old existence of PCs just like old BBS computers still exist but the next generation and the next generation of people being born would slowly lose interest in PCs which is just as good as replacing it. If the Linux Operating System is just for sys admins then it doesn't matter if it's free and passable as a desktop OS, it's not the PC that people understand. In the future (the far far future), if the PC doesn't have a tablet with it then it's not the PC that people understand. If it's not the PC that people understand, there would be less software made for it or to pirate a new software, you can't use it fully featured without having an un-warez acquired smartphone that you have to jailbreak. In turn, like how even warez account today who often got things for free due to torrent software, many are still sourcing from UseNet. If there's an annotation or a highlight or a OCR or a Smartphone Interface for the new generation of Facebook Image Sharing...those send powerful PCs to the counter. Those turn the PC into a printer or a scanner.

115

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: December 15, 2012, 08:32 AM »

In other words, on the MACRO level, a tag tree can be as effective as the trees are we know and use all day long: the main items will get a tag "car assurance", and within 1,000 or so main categories, this creates the category / tag "car assurance", as we would create that same category in our big-tree, by placing a heading there... and in the same way the car assurance, in a tag tree, would be placed under car and under assurance, a cloned "car assurance" heading under "car" would provide the car assurances in our UR tree, whilst the "original" would be placed in the "assurances" compartment of our tree.

IMO it's wrong. It's a common hole to fall into: Linking tag hell to tag conceptually when analyzing and linking the "visual map" effect of tags to the concept of a sole tag.

Mainly there's two big wrong assumptions here:

Trees being something people know and use

People don't know trees. They're handed trees especially those who don't know how to install or find alternatives to data management.

Once they do, people use programs that don't have trees or tree programs that have more advanced feature.

It's at a macro level that tags work because the brain can still remember some part of the data

This phenomenon fails:

But it's at the MICRO level that tag trees don't function: They ain't able to order these 60 items UNDER the heading / main tag in a way that'd be sensible for accessing these 60 items later on: Our big tree might appear convoluted on the main "tag" level - that's why I advocate the "zero" = PM level on top of it, allowing for creating natural GROUPS of headings -, but on the micro level, on the level of detailed information, it allows for creating, by placing any new item where we want to to place, a LIVE CONTEXT SYSTEM - tagging system FAIL here completely (or force you to do it artificially, by OVER-TAGGING, whilst in our traditional tree, there is NATURAL (and highly beneficial) additional meta data for each item: its very POSITION within the subtree and beneath the corresponding sub-headings there - if a tagging system wants to replicate this micro meta data, there's a tremendous manual work to do for its user (if ever it's possible from what the tagging system offers to begin with).

...not because the user went on a micro-level but because he finally took a macro level look at his tree instead of just searching for whatever it is he has bookmarked. The fallacy is just the Dunning-Kruger effect of information management especially PIM. You think you can remember a couple of bullet list so you think it could scale until you start looking at the totality of your data and suddenly your personal data doesn't even say back to you: this part is your personal mission, this is your life, this is your love life. Instead, that's delegated to the novelty of goal pre-planning and most of the working data are just reminders, grocery lists and random article trinkets you can sprinkle to your blog, that depending on your skill, you can sprinkle into a full blown book or academic work.

The short analogy here is to simply say footnotes and bibliographies and other links don't mean shit to the actual PIM user. It's the junk collecting hobby of personal data. That's why tags manage them better than containers. It's easier to find your junk if there are more drawers with less interrelated items inside and you've macro thought the structure of your data instead of micro-think it for future proofing, CRIMPing, backups, contemplation, visualization, inspiration and other long term thoughts that make the tag fail to scale when it finally fails to scale.

116

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: December 14, 2012, 01:41 PM »

Depends on the tags. I would say most tags aren't. That's partially why I used the verb pretend.

My Documents for example. Hated it, but it's instant. You can immediately drop it.

Tags you can't once you actually have to apply that more-than-one list mindset not just set it up. For example, you're still only using one list in Google Reader despite labels which is how most tags function.

Once you have to actually think about the concept of utility or the containment by which utility is on there, it's tough to think in Usability. You'd have to be passive or have pre-biased information because if you start contemplating, most tags will read like "Usability-Windows8", not Usability: Windows8; Usability: NotWindows8.

...and that's just the basic tag. Editing hell, review data, bookmarks...you slowly need to cheat with quickfind bars or trees or accept hashtags and then you have to cheat your instinct and then you have to dumb yourself down while adding unnecessary complexity.

The long term result I feel is that it's more like two-headaches-in-one list of stuff and the more-than-one list of theory is only for data that don't need two lists to begin with and can function with just one or only need an additional set of tag for filtering and not reviewing and even there, if you look at the public lists that really host bulk data like delicious bookmarks, it didn't really change the bookmarking world for filtering. People still used Google Alerts instead of Delicious. Curation is still a much more straightforward way to have more-than-one-lists. Multiple views is still a better split for two lists. Tags are still present. They still can be useful. Just the concept seems to be built on novelty (and the talent/intelligence of the user relative to his goal for the data inside that list) no different from users pretending you can have priorities with colored icons or bullet points can instantly make good outliners or the multitude of data that don't need to be organized that are sprinkled with tags.

The only true more-than-one of tags,conceptually, in my opinion is that it's a parasite for more than one data. It's like being able to find two clean dogs when you bury the other dogs in garbage. Yes, that might seem like more-than-one but can the human data interpreter (the brain) really still be filtering through two attributes like "find" and "dog" or are they simply pretending that's what they're doing only to be subconsciously looking for the sole adjective "clean"? What then? At least folders are a dumpster. You don't want them, you throw them out. You need more-than-one, it's the fault of desktop OS for not popularizing the revision feature found in Dropbox and offering it for free. Tags? You can co-exist with it and organize multiple contextual items so long as your data can exist with the sole list of having multiple parasites. Once you can't live with it for your data, it's no longer more-than-one list. It's one or more parasite eating away at your entire set of jumbled data and needing to be evacuated or exterminated from the old tags so the new parasite of tags can align with your data to brain registration ecosystem of multiple lists for multiple contexts.

117

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: December 14, 2012, 03:37 AM »

I think while the distinction is welcome, it's also important to note that there's been several (often web-based) implementations that also changed the implementation of tags that makes tag support certain things of those needs.

For example, http://www.coolendar.com/ 's field is built with tags and those tags can't do anything but by modelling it around tags, the dates can be presented and inputted in a different manner from InfoQube's "date field".

The tags don't support this but it's only through the mechanic copying of tag mark-up registration that coolendar can achieve the state of field that coolendar provides.

Short version: Concepts are changing. There's no true and false anymore. One day the descendants of Infoqube may have mp3tags embedded in each field that autoplays to replace a reminder or vice versa, tags can support fields (like how Scrivener uses the word processor field to fill the index card field.)

118

Living Room / Re: Browse for porn at your own risk if you use Google starting 12-12-12

« on: December 14, 2012, 03:08 AM »

Sheesh, what the heck is happening??

-superboyac (December 13, 2012, 04:26 PM)

It's 2012. THE END OF THE WORLD MAN!

-f0dder (December 13, 2012, 04:27 PM)

Please...lol.
I gotta say, something has happened the last 2-4 years.  i don't know what, but it's all tied to this.  Feels like the golden age of information is ending and we're about to enter some kind backwards mode with all this for a while until everyone stops freaking out and starts thinking clearly.

-superboyac (December 13, 2012, 04:51 PM)

The internet happened. That money went into the Internet. Then Facebook happened so now it's easier to mobilize legislations what with communication being soft centralized towards walled gardens and Google being a top search engine only needing a couple of links to target for first page results of certain key terms.

Money destroys people connectors.

Still there never was a golden age of information. Pre-Internet, human hysteria killed the Constitution. (The first major social worldview doctrine that allowed an authoritarian text to be potentially wrong thanks to it's Amendment feature which gave a short breathing space of room where society can be followed and benefitted by wrong people who used that wrong to better the world rather than the opposite view of regulators being supreme guardsmen among corporations/villains/etc.) World War era changed information into propaganda. Cold War era changed information into nightmares. Post-Vietnam War era changed information into sensationalist halves. Internet era brought the backwards mode of the Wild Wild West then the backwards mode went forward and then information regulators caught up and then money came back in along with politics. (not the government or corp kind but group politics)

It's the backwards mode that allowed information to flourish because information regulators are not prepared. The golden age occurs when the people who "adapted" to the backwards mode "as a free market" evolved their own regulations which leads to peaks that create the illusion of golden ages which then lead to enthusiasm which is the reason behind people shelling out money for the race for a new peak and a successful bubble creates golden ages until money corrodes the golden age and the cycle of information continues back to worse than the golden era level lies, falsehoods, propaganda, sensationalism, horror, urban legend and then people over time dress up these things in pretty clothes like newspapers, fictional TV, fictional genre with analogy/inspiration to real life, political reforms leading to an invisible or inevitable inside corrotion willingly accepted by the confused or lied to population until new technology opens up a new backwards mode of space for information or a dark age resets everything and the cycle gives everyone if not most everyone amnesia until the victims revolt and a new victor of history retells and makes everyone forget the old cycle in favor of the new "old" cycle and things like silver age, millenium age, internet age becomes some new fandangled age with it's own fandangled version of revolution, information reporting, social trends until the cycle reaches an extreme state leading information to flow back to a backwards mode that frees it from the chains of it's human regulators.

119

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: December 13, 2012, 02:35 AM »

tranglos says (somewhere on DC) that he finds it necessary to have the hierarchical tree, that (from memory) he's uncomfortable leaving organisation solely to tags.  I'm not sure.  I don't use tags religiously and wouldn't want a system that enforced them, but I do sometimes add words to a note so it contains the form of words I'm most likely to use myself.

-rjbull (December 12, 2012, 03:30 PM)

That is why tags are 'ok' for personal use not for something blog posts. You may be able to train your own mind to make tags intuitive and meaningful for you. I find I use them sometimes but I think the best approach is to make the title of a node, note, etc. meaningful and give clues as to contents. One thing I like about All My Organizer for example is that you can see previews of child nodes/'folders' contents when a parent is selected. I believe Evernote is the same (?)

-rgdot (December 12, 2012, 05:10 PM)

To be a devil's advocate, this is why tags are bad for personal use.

The average group will always have data that are less information and more data. This is because information is managed separately and information attributed activity is moved by the groups' philosophy/goals/mission/duty. No one really cares about the end result of the data and no one is affected by it because the mission goals are about contributing to the group, not contributing to the individual needs above those of the group.

In comparison, personal often comes down to individual. If you want to buy an apple for health reasons and you tagged the healthy tag, you're training your mind to always register healthy when you buy an Apple and the more you use that intuition, the less you will ever try to explore the unhealthiness of an Apple. In short, it's bias fulfilment.

The difficult part is in the question of how much harm it does.

Certainly trees and folders also have their conceptual limitations but here's the thing: they don't pretend. Tags pretend the brain. It has a verifiable effect that can immediately be experienced by the recipient as soon as they got "their" tagtuition.

I don't mean to be a tag demonologist, certainly tags are not evil. I'm just making a devil's advocate case for the possibility that tags may be like TV ads. Also how intuition depends on data we surround ourselves with. If people as smart as scientists and economists can self-manipulate their idea which then demolish and creates a wrong paradigm shift  in their theories (sometimes to their entire lifetime and beyond depending on how influential their works become), so too and especially, can personal information using tags worsen the bias of intuition.

As far as proof, I don't have any strongly backed ones. I don't even know if there's an official name to it but if you notice many of the "software hackers" of these tag based products: many who often try to create templates for their tags via the use of official names for their tags, many if not all tend to have worse sets than the average folder names.

For example, the average My Documents, Music, Downloads folder in OSes are extremely bad, bland and many times redundant. What I mean by this is that the Music folder is rarely used, the My Documents punishes the computer newbie who thinks he has to save his documents in that folder, there's no immediate reminder for backups, manuals, etc. in the same folder...but at least it's more nuanced than the average tag sets.

There's an "intuition booster" of Work, Fun, Web. It barely registers an effect on the person but at least it's there so far as information concept is concerned.

The only information concept that tags often boost are find and it's not even because of the tags but because there's a search bar.

Now try to turn a nuanced intuitive information data that's in a folder into a tag and you'll feel a slight tug out of your intuition like something's micro wrong. It's at this point that the first problematic data switches from foldertag to tags entirely data. Conceptually foldertags only work as a dumbing down of tags to begin with. Comparatively, a propaganda ad that doesn't register as propaganda in your head or registers a propaganda with a positive message in your head will seem less evil than a normal TV ad even if it has every signs of being a propaganda and you know it consciously.

The harm here (guessingly) is not that it dumbs down the brain but the brain has to reserve space for the intuition to use itself up for registering the tags for information finding that once you have the actual data you no longer have the chance to utilize that data intuitively outside of how you belittled that data. Fitness is no longer a tag for the dictionary word fitness, it's a tag for looking good, diet, slim waist. Forget survival. Forget the dictionary. It's about being socially attractive in public and long term, it's about being vulnerable to unhealthy fitness products sold in the market. That's IMO the conceptual difference between words besides a note and a tag. One can still register as an icon to the brain despite being a word and one has to register as a set of affirmation like words to the brain despite being a tag that no longer has to register consciously as a word and is intuitively just a data finder markup.

120

Living Room / Re: A different perspective on the failure of a Kickstarter

« on: December 13, 2012, 01:59 AM »

If it was a direct reply, then I don't see why the point for point was against my points, which seemed as if it was a reply to my reply.  It's apparent that we have different views on things, as I allowed for in my final point.  And the debate doesn't seem to be even in the same realm, as the arguments are quite nebulous and unsubstantiated, i.e. I backed up my statements on what kickstarter is with quotes from the site, and from the creation of the prospectus.  But you seemingly tossed those away, in favor of what you think that kickstarter is, rather than how they position themselves.  But as you said that you aren't making arguments and were replying to mouser, I'm just going to bow out now. 

-wraith808 (December 11, 2012, 12:15 PM)

I replied because you replied. That's the point. 

Platform? Let's get real.

Kickstarter is basically an unregulated forum for solicitation of investors.

You can call it whatever you like. And I'm all for what it attempts to accomplish. But it's still a mechanism for people to solicit money from the general public. And it's ripe for abuse because of it's current lack of regulation and status. So it's only a matter of time before the con artists start taking advantage of that.

We've already seen some amateur attempts at gaming the Kickstarter system already.

-40hz (December 11, 2012, 06:33 PM)

Well there's always two kinds of world. The perfect one and the imperfect one.

All businesses is based on imperfect ones IMO but to borrow wraith808's word, they want to "position" themselves as a perfect one.

I would just like to emphasize that perfect here is not quality but peace of mind.

In an imperfect world, there are scams just as there are legitimate products and a platform that can elevate scams, can also elevate legitimate products. Cue the internet.

In an illusionary perfect world, there are criminals who are invested to bypass the rules and the regulations end up hurting the more amateur project providers of legitimate products. Cue the "if you ban something, you subsidize it".

Not that it has much of an effect for "rich" countries or Kickstarter per se (their major base) but if Kickstarter gets regulated, it would hurt many amateurs on it and motivate many amateur scammers to be more professional about their scams as there's a legitimate space left behind by those who are willing to back amateur/micro-funded projects. It's one of the ironies of crowdfunding IMO as well as markets in general.

If it were a mere mechanic for moving money, it would be no different than a microfinance site but lack of regulations led to more time for creativity, more time for creativity led to a different enthusiasm for solicitation, the attitude shift create a different kind of culture which then led to a more dreamer type expectation of shopping mechanic than the less exciting and serious world of micro-loans and you get a "platform" of a different brand. One that has a dynamic that transcends the mechanic for good and for bad.

121

Living Room / Re: Browse for porn at your own risk if you use Google starting 12-12-12

« on: December 13, 2012, 01:40 AM »

It depends I think.

Porn is also built with hypocrisy. As they say, Sex sells. Just look at more disney girls being more jailbait then they post nude or act more like sluts for publicity than say a Marilyn Monroe.

I would go so far to say if you're searching for porn with Google Images, it's hotter now with safesearch on because they removed all the seo spam porn images. The rest can't be prevented. Cat's out of the box. Reading this thread for example made me browse for porn now just to see what the hubbub is all about when I wasn't planning to browse for porn.

Also I doubt the adult industry would care less for search engines now. Video-wise, it's been all about streaming. Image-wise, it's all about porn placement in shows, ads, etc. Culture-wise, I hear the top TV show now are Game of Thrones and American Horror Story Asylum. Two shows that can get away as being top produced porn shows.

Summary-wise, as an industry, we're now in the "It's culturally acceptable and popular to hold a 50 Shades of Grey book in public".

122

Living Room / Re: A different perspective on the failure of a Kickstarter

« on: December 11, 2012, 11:16 AM »

I think it's exactly that. Kickstarter is a platform. Youtube is also a platform.

Platform is just a fancy way of saying things are here.

In fact, opening up a youtube channel does have a promise. A webseries sucks if it has no ending.

It's only disingenuous to individuals who find something to feel bad about it. No different than someone feeling bad that a donationcoded software is not on DC. It can happen but it's on the individual, not on the actual model.

I would even go beyond and say you are going against your case.

"If" Kickstarter is a "promise" then what is this? Jerk moves to break promises?

Real projects have no consequences if funding is sought before they start, and that funding is not reached.  In that, they are similar to Kickstarter.  I've started quite a few projects, tested the waters, and bailed because there was not enough interest/I couldn't raise enough funds.  That's the same level of involvement that you are starting at Kickstarter.  If they receive the funds, then cannot deliver, there are very real consequences.

The answer is obviously no but it sounds like this "if" we apply the wrong analogy of Kickstarter being a promise. Yes I know what the nice sounding quote is but there's quotes and there's reality. The quote you pasted was a rhetorical FAQ style question. It wasn't meant to be some sort of official adjective for Kickstarter

Ok.  How many?  I've backed almost 100 projects.  Some have been late, and the execution on some have been less than I'd thought.  But (1) looking back at the proposal, I see in hindsight what I missed- that part is my fault, and (2) sometimes things happen that are out of the control of the project and weren't taken into account.  That stuff happens.

A LOT.

People learn from mistakes. People like to think they learn from mistakes especially business people. (Not alot of them are able to write really good books on it that go beyond feel good platitudes and bullet points but hey, it's a necessary irrational attempt)

The problem here is, again, you're making the case for why Kickstarter is not a promise. At least no more than a Youtube video being a promise to Youtube viewers.

If we apply the promise analogy, it just seems like a jerk move. You were late for your "promise" and you didn't execute it. K...but what's the compensation? Is it equal compensation? No, because it's a project not a promise once it fails. See how that works?

...there's something else aside that, something that's promise-like but I don't think it can be clearly defined when you want to stick to your version of a Kickstarter as a promise. One that allows you stop making that promise when it's convenient cause it's not really a promise at all.

Until you can see how wrong that is, it will sound like the point of crowdfunding is about backers but it's not. You know it when you jump away from backing or promises when you defend Kickstarter but jump back to crowdfunding when you want to focus on one sentence about the model.

If this were only about what Kickstarter's definition should be about, it's one thing but it's not.

And in contrast to your heading for #1, there are horri-bad projects in your eyes.  What's one man's garbage is another's treasure.  This is what Kickstarter measures.  The pet rock, the wrist band shapes, and several other questionable things have made tons of money because there was a demand beyond what I'd perceive as value.  Were they bad ideas?  An emphatic no!  They made their creators tons of money, and I wish I'd thought about it.  Just because it has no intrinsic value to me, doesn't mean that it doesn't to someone else.  And if they're willing to put their money where their mouth is, then who am I to speak on the value of what they see?

Pet rock - would still have a base after it get funded
Wrist band shapes - would still have a base after it get funded.

You're making the mistake of talking about trees while missing the forest. Why did I reply? What was mouser's statement? What was your statement? What was the article about?

The sentence is not There are horri-bad projects that get funded but Counter to #1: There are so many horri-bad ideas with insane backings for their value.

If it was kickstarter itself, wouldn't that number be higher?

Why is 44% low for a market? Because Kickstarter is a crowdfunding website not a:

Having that platform allows there to be a critical mass of backers, true.  But that's like saying having a street corner by grand central station to sell your creations from is the reason for your success.

It's one of the most well known crowd funding site. It's one of the most successful go-to sites. It's on the internet which has a different scale both for ease of entries and actual entries.

...and a street corner has to compete for space. Kickstarter has to compete for attention. It's just an immediate wrong analogy.

No offense but I think your reply just got off the wrong premise. As soon as that wrong premise start flowing, everything was just jagged. It's not criticism so much as explaining why I tried not expanding on statements such as directly counter to your second point. Maybe it's my fault for bolding it but my statements were counters to your statements. They don't function as headlines or sentences in isolation.

If you treat them as isolated sentences to be cherry picked, we get to such rhetorical bullet points as:

recognize your audience
tailor your proposal

...even: Kickstarter has nothing to do with incentives (which raises issues like how an interface can promote behaviour and only works if you don't have this view that Kickstarter is solely a platform that allows you to promise something)

Finally, I think it's important to emphasize that I'm not making arguments. I'm making a direct reply to what mouser is saying only instead of making it a direct reply, I based my direct reply on counter-evidence to why in my opinion, it was neither.

If you focused too much on what is traditional and not traditional, it would just lead to more fruitless disagreements and not because we are looking at different ways this time but because then we'd be truly arguing on which one of us is the one having a traditional view when that isn't the subject to begin with. There is no tradition here. There is no argument against Kickstarter here. Kickstarter is not being attacked. Crowdfunding is not being redefined. It is about projects. What lessons could be learned from them. (the main article) Why we disagree with mouser's impression (both of our replies) and what was the nuancy behind what mouser is saying which led to our own contrarian replies to him.  

123

Living Room / Re: A different perspective on the failure of a Kickstarter

« on: December 10, 2012, 12:30 AM »

I think it's neither:

Counter to #1: There are so many horri-bad ideas with insane backings for their value.

Unlike ventures where failure has real costly consequences, Kickstarter projects are much closer to costly Youtube productions with real products that people could want if they do support that video. Because of the allure of that real product, you can get away with a worse Youtube quality video but gain the same audience so long as you can promise the core backers to shell out their donations. It's like a successful capitalist equivalent of a donation based infomercial and like most infomercial, it's not about the needs nor the idea.

Counter to #2: Good plans and proposals are often bad plans and bad proposals

Even a good start-up idea that takes off can have a faulty business model that forces it to shut down eventually. Bad plan/bad proposal but it took off.

Now consider how many kickstarter projects are even worse than that. How many that once they do succeed, they still fail. How many that if they weren't on kickstarter, they wouldn't be backed?

It's easy to assume that just because many have successful kickstarters that it was the marketing or the proposal of those people that helped them but for many, it's just as true that without kickstarter their proposals wouldn't get anywhere.

It's the marketing of the marketplace with Kickstarter as the marketplace that helps make these proposals take off. Yes, there are plans/proposals that can take off without Kickstarter but by all going to the same place and by helping Kickstarter become a notable place, those good proposals and plans in turn help those with bad proposals succeed or those with lesser proposals try to get in.

Yes, the attempt is there for each project leader to try to insert their own marketing and their own efforts but in the end it has nothing to do with their marketing nor the demand of the product why the kickstarter succeeded. If it did, many successful proposals had to have more sound ideas in them but they don't. There's no rhyme or reason other than when it comes down to it, the project has something "inside of the marketplace" for people to back it. It's not like a proper venture where you have to recognize your audience to target it, it's an extension of a proper venture. An example of the new economy provided by the web where the audience all gather to support kickstarter and it becomes a tradition/mode of e-commerce to go there thanks to the place being marketed by every failure and successful projects and people talking about them.

Counter to #3: What exactly are the good incentives?

I think if good incentives or stretch goals where standardized then every blog article advises on how to make a successful kickstarter would lead to success or at least 90% success rate and we wouldn't have post-failure articles like this making sentences of why it's a good thing.

The fact is this is another example of kickstarter doing the marketing for the products and the projects' marketing not mattering at all outside of the project's marketing needing to matter because it is part of the competency of the  one hosting the thing needing to be backed and cause the "fear of failure" is so ingrained to the project cause the rate of success is supposed to be high.

It would be on par with saying a good stretch goal to give reason for people to buy fish is to have the fish available for long periods of time or for optimum period of customers walking past the fish place.

In the end, the stretch goals is just a built in marketing mechanic for kickstarter to promote kickstarter by giving the vendors an incentive to entice the buyers, not for the buyers to be enticed by the vendors. The buyers simply want a product they could acquire and any added bonuses is not incentive but rather a way of acquiring the "full package" or the "special package" of the product. None of that is marketing or market driven. That's just sales. Sales that could be done with no need for stretch goals because neither marketing nor markets really come into play when people back kickstarter projects. All it takes is for it to be available and people being capable of giving back and expecting that what they give back would allow for a product to be available. No different for the reasons why people may want to donate to a NANY only DC doesn't market DC nor make more people want to market for it while Kickstarter does.

Counter to #4: Good marketing

...and here's the rub: If Kickstarter had good marketing, you'd think every product there would make people go crazy like every Apple releases or that more people would end up going there to sell something much like E-bay products having their huge pay-offs and their small pay-offs rather than the no-pay-off that Kickstarter has if the project fails.

The marketing exists but it's a non-factor compared to the art when a visitor first clicks on the product and the "notability" of the project after all that including the comments and the peer pressure of your money counting to the project cause it may not be popular enough.

It's a weird sentence to say "this is not good marketing" because it's not like I could do any better. It's not like Kickstarter hasn't become a successful tool.

The problem I have with saying good marketing here matters is that there's no real markets that are made from Kickstarter.

After a project is successfully funded, that's it. Maybe a few people would check back on the updates and maybe the project is still chugging along fine thanks to the funds but unlike a branded product or an actual venture where it's continued success and the stability of it's outcome still matters...most Kickstarter projects have none. Once the Kickstarter is over, it's over. It regresses not extends beyond a Kickstarter project where if good marketing did occur, the project should be bigger not smaller after the Kickstarter. After all, isn't this the core difference between marketing and sales? Marketing drives the demand, sales drive up during discounts, promos and trends?

If marketing or market demand was such a core aspect to why a project failed or succeeded, why do projects get treated as lesser products once it no longer needs Kickstarter/is part of an ongoing Kickstarter? Why does the base shrink?

A speculative venture needs marketing because it's base is always under threat and it needs to be constantly growing until it becomes notable enough to be a stable venture that can protect it's products and customers from being flooded by the copycats. Most kickstarter projects don't even get near that stage even with little competition. They just disappear to the brand much like NANY projects or DC apps disappear into the DC brand and few in the web talk about those software without first lumping them into Kickstarter or DC.

5 I don't have a counter to and I think it actually matters more than both marketing and markets. A failed Kickstarter could teach someone to spot where they failed to communicate their product more than understanding the market demand.

I mean look at that link. Post-kickstarter failure and people are still communicating about the failed project but where are the ones expressing why they demanded and didn't demand to have it? In comparison, failed ventures are rarely talked about except to lament why it failed. Successful ventures make everyone shut up instead of making the venture more successful. Failed marketing tricks don't get people thinking how to make it better so it can get back inside a marketplace where it failed and try again because it can't afford that risk. Successful marketing ventures get people to ignore their minds and act in-line with the marketing demands of the seller. Kickstarter projects very rarely have people that continue to want to fund it again on Kickstarter. It's often been about communication with the product/project managers. The actual marketing is being on Kickstarter and being noticed on Kickstarter itself because once in there, the marketing doesn't matter. People just want to get in, want to see the pretty stuff on the window and then they want to communicate cause they want to support and acquire it until it's over. The failed ideas didn't raise their notability except being failed ideas. The successful ideas didn't raise their notability except being products that successfully got funded. Very few markets have been established after that. Very few national products ended up being global and very few regional products ended up booming rather than being as if they were marketed and not just sold. In short, it was most, if not all, face value much like how selling things in a marketplace work.

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Finished Programs / Re: SOLVED: Automatically create a site link list

« on: December 08, 2012, 01:27 AM »

It's not a good solution but Scrapbook does have capture multiple pages: https://addons.mozil...ook-plus/?src=search

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General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: December 07, 2012, 06:59 PM »

Minor update. Probably old but it's been a while since I downloaded Jarte and I just found out they not only had a new skin (which I'm not a fan of) but also sports a new clickless mousing basically hovering the mouse instead of clicking on menus. Too bad most of the hover is on useless options.