Blogs, vaporware and product announcements

Found this interesting article today.

I especially like this bit
Quote:

How many times have some Amiga developers shared information only to be beaten with it soon after. Miss a date? Don't worry, somebody will bring it up again and again. Your customer quickly turns from your best friend to your worst enemy as soon as anything goes wrong.

So is it best to keep secret and control when information flows to your potential customers or is it better to spam the web with your blog and endless announcements?

Hi ssolie,


The question is, are they* liars, or were there hitches beyond their* control?


"YOU*" have to decide whether you* trust them*.


At any rate, how loyal are customers?, IOW, when an alternative pops up, do they* turn and run for the greener grass?



I'm here for the long, long haul.


Yep, that's how long me and my antics will have to be put up with!



Now, I hope that we get some Superbase5 (and AMOS Professional someday) happening "real soon now"(tm).






* Whomever

Quote:


I think it's probably somewhere in the middle.

It seems in the Amiga scene it's either dead silent with no information for months (or years) or constant announcements that's it's 'just around the corner'. Or "marketing speak" to get people to click over to your blog so they can track you and get information on you.

Just honesty and openess would be good, at least for this small of a market. I don't think it is unreasonable to show snap shots of you work (software or hardware) even if the work is not that far along or that great.

People will wait if they can see that something really is going on and can feel like they can trust or at least have no reason to distrust the person/company.

We don't need lies and promises. I think it would be better and people would be more satisfied hearing the truth that something is only 15% of the way done, then hearing a 'lie' by saying over and over "we'll have a prototype on display at the next show" or whatever.

The truth shall set you free

@ssolie

To be honest, i believe everything first when it comes to announcement
in the Amiga market whatsoever...may it be hardware, software, freeware,
beautiful girls in red and white checked bikinis offering me drinks on
white peebled beaches...
leaving aside me dreams i normally cannot check the truth of these
announcements, so i'm bound to stay and see what comes out of it...

besides, the waiting time is the by far most best time, the anticipation
for a new product, it's like christmas the whole year

...and pushing the devs doesn't lead to anything, it only produces stress
and stress kills imagination

Let's hope for a calm and peaceful christmas this year, that's all i wish
for...everything else positive, whatever it may be, will be a wonderful
surprise and considered a present

Let's share a wonderful christmas, shall we?

Quote:

It is going to be a confession-like post, a long one and hopefully not enturely dull.

Amiga scene is very singular speaking marketing-wise. In days of Commodore the marketing of Amiga was scarse and announcement timings were weird. Then (after Commodore banckrupted) appeared several, leading then, companies which seemed to do a good business (I was offline these days and raided through bookshops in my town for AmigaFormat to see what's going on and all the hardware/software buying decicions were based on that info and info looked good ). Not having Amiga-related dealer in my country wasn't fun, but there existed hardware options, some were better (phase5) some were definitely wrong decisions in long term (Ateo products). The hardware existed. Now there's one hell of a vacuum. Everything went wrong when Phase5 died. There were some promising projects that time with nice colored posters. I remeber myself being excited by one called AmiJoe. I contacted them to get some info and the feeling was that an a couple of weeks they would start the production, at least that their answer clearly radiated. Then there was Escena which went into NG Amiga project which became A1 (notice, all during that vacuum period) along with other part of NG Amiga project which is now called Genesi/BPlan. As an owner of A1200 I was naturally into the Escena part of the project and ocassionally found myself in AmigaOne camp when the first vacuum era ended. If I was into standalone-board part of NG Amiga I would have wound up in Morphos camp. Although the very curved path I'm happy that I ended up with AOS4. Now there's vacuum again and the level of anxiety I experince now as an owner of dead A1 is in no way to be compared with the patience before the release of AmigaOne and . Eyetech leftAmiga business. I was unlucky then to fry my A1 CPU. Too many hopes followed, things seemed to be steering even when no anouncements on future hardware were made, it was like being pulled by the nose from time to time. On the other hand a complete lack of info would cause me to end the AmigaOne experience about half a year ago. Instead of this I'm now hanging on every bit of info and trying to refrain myself from spitting sarcasm and ranting in the forums...

Quote:

As my old man says once in a while: "it's a stick with two ends". Announcement keep the heat in the campfire. On the other hand too long waiting times drive people mad. And being Amigan requires being at ( least partly) irrational, correct me if I'm wrong.
And that's isn't so bad after all.

Happy Chistmas and holidays to every one and lets the new year be full of A1 hardware (software will follow),
Jack