http://www.stuffbysarah.net/2007/07/11/when-to-sell-and-when-to-give-away/ PHP, WordPress and Business Ramblings Sat, 28 Aug 2010 15:58:26 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 http://www.stuffbysarah.net/2007/07/11/when-to-sell-and-when-to-give-away/#comment-15428 Sarah Sat, 14 Jul 2007 10:08:57 +0000 http://www.stuffbysarah.net/2007/07/11/when-to-sell-and-when-to-give-away/#comment-15428 Hi Brian, thanks for your comment. This was my other option, offer small handy scripts for free and use that to build up a reputation to then offer large, more commercialised scripts at a cost.nnHowever, remember, just because there are plenty of free photo galleries out there, doesn't mean they're bloatfree, secure, easy to use or CSS/XHTML compliant ;) That's what I try and base my work on. A lot of people use coppermine, but that can be hacked. I reviewed a gallery called 'Scooch' for a magazine, and that was spammed to hell after I'd left it up for a short period of time.nnPlenty of people have signed up to the Pro service offered by Flickr, so I think there are still plenty of people who would be prepared to pay a small upgrade fee if they liked the basic version. Of course, I'd have to work out how to put a restriction in place that wasn't easily changed anyhow! So perhaps the freeware version is much simpler to do :D Hi Brian, thanks for your comment. This was my other option, offer small handy scripts for free and use that to build up a reputation to then offer large, more commercialised scripts at a cost.nnHowever, remember, just because there are plenty of free photo galleries out there, doesn't mean they're bloatfree, secure, easy to use or CSS/XHTML compliant That's what I try and base my work on. A lot of people use coppermine, but that can be hacked. I reviewed a gallery called 'Scooch' for a magazine, and that was spammed to hell after I'd left it up for a short period of time.nnPlenty of people have signed up to the Pro service offered by Flickr, so I think there are still plenty of people who would be prepared to pay a small upgrade fee if they liked the basic version. Of course, I'd have to work out how to put a restriction in place that wasn't easily changed anyhow! So perhaps the freeware version is much simpler to do

]]> http://www.stuffbysarah.net/2007/07/11/when-to-sell-and-when-to-give-away/#comment-15429 Brian Thu, 12 Jul 2007 09:25:18 +0000 http://www.stuffbysarah.net/2007/07/11/when-to-sell-and-when-to-give-away/#comment-15429 Your gallery sounds just like the one that I developed on my site. I didn't want anything overly complex either -- just show the friggin' pictures!nnI'm sure that there's a market, but there are so many free photo galleries out there that it would be a tough sell. I think your ROI (investment being time) would be higher by giving it away and including a link to your site in the footer. That way when someone installs it, you have an automatic link back to your site that should help search engine rankings as well as increase visitors.nnIf you're a professional developer, you also get the benefit of being the first person people ask when wanting to hire someone to customize their gallery. If not, you'll at least get the increase in traffic and ad revenue.nnI can say that from experiences because my steady stream of customers are generated through a few open source projects that I offer for free. They seemingly appear out of the ether from all over the world. I'd suggest not worrying about a "lite" and "pro" version and just make some great open source software that others will enjoy using and you'll probably make more money than if you sold it outright.nn-Briannhttp://www.brianburton.org Your gallery sounds just like the one that I developed on my site. I didn't want anything overly complex either — just show the friggin' pictures!nnI'm sure that there's a market, but there are so many free photo galleries out there that it would be a tough sell. I think your ROI (investment being time) would be higher by giving it away and including a link to your site in the footer. That way when someone installs it, you have an automatic link back to your site that should help search engine rankings as well as increase visitors.nnIf you're a professional developer, you also get the benefit of being the first person people ask when wanting to hire someone to customize their gallery. If not, you'll at least get the increase in traffic and ad revenue.nnI can say that from experiences because my steady stream of customers are generated through a few open source projects that I offer for free. They seemingly appear out of the ether from all over the world. I'd suggest not worrying about a "lite" and "pro" version and just make some great open source software that others will enjoy using and you'll probably make more money than if you sold it outright.nn-Briannhttp://www.brianburton.org

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