[thechat] what's OT for thechat (was RE: UNC student in need of insight from the web developercommunity!)

[Matt Warden]

2009/3/24 Stéphane Deschamps <lists at nota-bene.org>:
>> web dev is offtopic
>>
>> essentially, if it's okay on thelist, it's off topic for thechat
>>
>> but I'll bet nobody boots you if you break that particular rule
>
> Joel said it better than me.
>
> It was just an occasion to jest.

I guess I figured it would be considered spam on thelist. I did find
it interesting, though. These guys want to charge *$500* for a
"product" that is a glorified contact-us link with some extra
reporting abilities. But no thought is put into motivating the user to
actually report issues and give feedback, and what effect that will
have on the type of feedback (will it always be negative?)... or if
there was thought into it, and that's why they compare with competing
websites, that is not at all spelled out in the material.

There is also no thought into the pricing model. They say they will
charge you $400 and you charge your client $500, making $100 profit.
That's great, but not everyone operates in the reseller model. Can you
mark-up the price of things like this to your client? Sometimes,
sometimes not. Sometimes you are representing the at-cost line item
for things like this, and the extra $100 should be represented as
installation or whatever the value-add really is. Sometimes that is
not feasible. They should be offering a commission model to avoid
billing misrepresentation.

As-is, the product isn't going anywhere. Overpriced, undermarketed,
and not really thought out from the end-user's perspective. I guess I
would have expected more out of a group from Kenan.

Anyway...

-- 
Matt Warden
Cincinnati, OH, USA
http://mattwarden.com


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