Oliver,

I've got 210 unread messages in this folder, but this one happened to catch
my eye... Thanks for the !NCITEFUL (tm)(sm) analysis.. (and for an
appropriate subject line...:-).

I think your discussion should be expanded to include Radio, as most of
these same issues apply. UserLand may, or may not, eventually converge
these products anyway...


I express my views so strongly, at times, that people tend to take it that
I'm TELLING them what to do, or think, about a given subject matter... This
is furthest from MY mind, but I intend to just express, what I see as,
opportunities and challenges...


| -----Original Message-----
| From: sm.community@lists.scriptmeridian.org
| [mailto:sm.community@lists.scriptmeridian.org]On Behalf Of Oliver Wrede
| Sent: Sunday, April 21, 2002 6:32 AM
| To: sm.community@lists.scriptmeridian.org
| Subject: [SM] Frontier for ISPs? A community task? [Msg#16774]
|
|
| Read on the web at http://community.scriptmeridian.org/16774
| ----------------------------------
|
| >Read on the web at http://community.scriptmeridian.org/16770
| >----------------------------------
| >
| >> $899/year doesn't buy much these days.
| >
| >Hmmm ....
| >
| >I imagine that UserLand's Frontier cash flow is
| >fairly low these days.
| >
| >And, at $900/year, they're not gonna get a lot of new
| >buyers.
|
| Stanley,
| that is another discussion - so I changed the subject line.

<snip all the content I agree with>

| But we all
| could help UserLand by trying to be a "healthy community". I suppose
| the accumulated brain power and developer force of this community is
| quite high.

No doubt about both.


|
|
| Core questions:
|
| For what I know, there are a number of core questions for ISPs, that
| could be addressed with Frontier, if it would be developed further.
|
|
| 1. Looking at the application ISPs ask for:
|
| a) stability
| b) scalability (multiple instances, privilege system to
| manage multiple development teams)
| c) administrative power and quality management features
| d) response time for critical issues
| e) third-party apps
| f) total cost of ownership
| g) healthy cummunity
| h) interoperability

This is a problem ALL businesses are asking (or SHOULD be asking) about
their investments in IT. These days, more and more businesses appear to be
asking these same questions... Even more, government, scientific,
education, health care, journalism, Religious and other not-for-profit
organizations, etc, etc...

Well.. every one of these are businesses in a sense. They all operate
business systems, and they all function AS businesses.


|
|
| 2. Looking at the business ISPs ask:
|
| a) What market is there to sell knowledge about that CMS to?

The market is unlimited, but there are several areas that could be focused
on.


| b) What business models and service providing would work?

To be determined. Should not be hard to find what works and what doesn't
work, for this community, because this community is unlike the BigCo's that
have millions and billions on the line, and can't afford to take TOO many
risks exploring what will and won't work.


| c) Can I get experienced staff for running that business?

This is KEY. The larger user communities can support themselves to an
extent.. and the various lists are doing that right now. The users of a few
months ARE experienced, and can help those getting started...

However, there are limits to the scalability of this approach. I haven't
been reading the public Radio list for several months (and have not been
keeping up on the Beta and this list real well)... But I'm guessing that,
even with better search technology, those limits may have already been
reached.

The problem is that, if a user gets frustrated and can't figure out how to
do something they believe the software CAN do (either Frontier or Radio),
then that user has two options:

a) scale back on what they want to attempt to do with the product for a time
b) give up on the product as being insufficient to the task, and search for
other products

Frontier and Radio are losing users because of that, but the numbers won't
show up until you can see how many people don't renew their subscription
after a year. Problem is, once a user has given up on a product, they're
not likely to even look at it again for a couple years... Even more
(according to studies in retail), they'll tell 10 to 20 other people of
their (in their mind, exceedingly poor) experience with the product.

The press will drive up Radio (and ultimately, Frontier) sales regardless.
This is almost unavoidable, so Radio will APPEAR to be a success in any
event... The problem is that you do NOT want to frustrate and alienate
early adopters of a technology.



|
|
| 3. Things that make potential Frontier customers suspicious are
|
| a) complaints in the community about service
| b) case studies based on very old releases or pointing to rotted links
| (see: http://frontier.userland.com/stories/storyReader$1191)
| c) a marketing not addressing the above questions
| d) examples of succesful businesses using Frontier
|
|
| Interestingly the UserLand website does not talk clearly about most
| of these things in 1. and 2. and is also getting not-so-good marks in
| area 3.
|
| As an ISP I would conclude that UserLand does not really try to be in
| the ISP market! (well, I said I am not an ISP, just guessing here)

I agree. UserLand sure appears (from everything I can see) to want to be
the idea engine, rather than the vendor of a mass-market product. They
don't have the staff, and don't appear to be trying to gear up to be a major
vendor.


|
| Now my questions:
| What can we - as a community - offer here?

I'd ask this of UserLand.

I'd also suggest a 501(c)(3), for many reasons:

Dave has been criticized for not wanting to work with the SM Community, and
certain individuals in it. Not to drag old bones outta the closet, it would
seem that nobody, or company, in their right mind would want to deal with an
amorphous community that has a love/hate relationship with the vendor's
product. With no idea how long the community will be in existance and no
visible form of leadership to buffer the company from it's detractors.

There are MANY advantages of setting up a 501(c)(3) org, which are too
numerous to even begin to detail... Especially if the 501 is combined with
a for-profit "feeder corportation", to function in one entity. (That's mah
theory, and I'm stickin' to it...;-)



| Why should we want ISPs buying into Frontier at all?

It's a better mousetrap...? It provides a platform that can be expanded on
in unlimited directions...?

It could be enhanced to provide an efficient GUI for platforms that lack
one, like character-based "legacy" software AND (IM(NS)HO) the Internet...?

That's why I started looking at it, last summer, because my favorite
platform (the 38/400/iSeries) has a proven programming paradigm but lacks a
(IMV, decent) GUI interface. I don't consider using the iSeries as either
an intra- and/or inter- Net server to be very effective (looking at TOC).
Even after it's combined with the pSeries (Unix) platform (or I s'pose I
should say "if/when" it's combined...;-).

Imagine it's the same with other platforms, too.


There is a theory in software development, that you can build systems of
immense size with thousands and millions of tiny code snippets written and
supported by one individual. The same theory seems to lead in the direction
of: if one can't find out how to do something in a given language, then
it's just as easy to invent a new one (as Sam just pointed out).

There is a contrasting theory that large committees can engineer innovation.
That the economic stability of the software provider determines, in the long
run, which technical approaches will, or won't, work best.

Both of these theories have been proven to work... The Net is the proof in
the pudding.


And what is invisible is nobody really knows how much potential, that the
Net COULD offer, is being squandered by these two approaches. UserLand has
proven a business model: a small group of people can make a profit and
innovate over the long haul...

However what appears, imho, to be a better approach to developing cheap
(TCO-wise), and RELIABLE systems is to combine the minimal number of
sub-systems (hardware and software) from the most financially stable
companies.


So, to me, what remains to be seen is whether other "UserLands" will spring
up, or UserLand gets big enough to fully document and support their products
(not appearing too likely), or whether a larger organization than UserLand
(either for- or not-for-profit) will help accomplish this but stay small
enough to continue innovating...



|
|
| Regards,
| Oliver

Regards back atchya, Oliver, and thanks again...!

jt

"The difference between a challenge and an opportunity is attitude"
-- unknown, from an email I got from an IBMer.

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