One of the most fantastic things is the feedback you get from the BdJ netizens. Ordinarily, when a person with a particular problem appears at your site from Google, they are probably looking for an application to help them, with the deliberate emphasis on “an” – it doesn’t matter if it’s your application or someone elses, so if yours doesn’t fit the bill, they hit the back button and move on.

On BdJ, it’s subtly different – because it’s your application on offer, they are looking for your application to solve their problem, and they are not shy about letting you know if there’s an issue or something they don’t like. Listen to the feedback – it’s invaluable.

Bits du Jour is also a great way to stress test your operation, everything from your installation to your store front – if there’s a problem, there’s nothing like a massive increase in traffic to show it up. It’s worth emphasising that using BdJ is not about the money – it’s about getting a bit of money – but mainly it’s about getting a lot of traffic and customers compressed into a 24 hour period.

Some of my observations:

Installation

I use ClickOnce for all my deployment. I like it primarily because it means I can push out updates and have the clients update themselves with no action required on the part of the user. A few users experienced problems with the installation. After digging through some of the issues, I had one persons installation time out. I had one person whose installation was hanging and one who was inexplicably seeing a 404.

• The installation time out was caused by an ultra slow connection from someone in Tanzania. Whilst I have nothing against people in less well connected countries, my focus is inevitably going to be on countries like the UK, US, Canada, Australia etc. I make the tacit assumption that if you’re on my site you’re using broadband.
• The hanging installation was caused by a machine that refused to install the .Net framework. This persisted even when the framework was downloaded straight from Microsoft, so there’s not much I could do about that. I’m not about to start offering support for the .Net framework.
• Didn’t manage to get to the bottom of the 404, noone else was seeing it.

Runtime Errors

• One user was having a problem because the software couldn’t get write permission to a part of his user profile that he absolutely should have access to. The fact he couldn’t did make me wonder how any other software was working, but I sent him a registry patch to move Home Document Manager’s data folder which got him moving.
• Another user installed the app but it wouldn’t start. I’ve not figured this one out yet, but I suspect there will be a wider problem that I can do nothing about.

Activation

When customers make a purchase, they are emailed a serial number which they enter into the app – the app then calls my licensing server and they are sent a license file. This is one of the parts that I was very pleased with. There were no issues with the activation at all.

One person said they weren’t going to buy because I used online activation, but that’s one person in 14 months so I’m not too worried.

Summary

All in all, a very worthwhile experience and very positive feedback from the vast majority of customers. PDF Scan Pro comes on BdJ in around a week, it’s less mature than Home Document Manager, but seems to have had better traction, so we’ll see how that goes.

I’ve done a lot of keyword research recently and have come to really value the Google AdWords Keyword Tool as a way of estimating potential market sizes. For example, Home Document Manager and PDF Scan Pro both feature powerful OCR engines, and OCR related keywords convert well for me.

Whilst researching keywords, I noticed an interesting thing (click for larger version):

These are only approximations, but still…110,000 monthly searches (globally) for ‘free ocr’, and 49,500 for ‘ocr freeware’. I don’t spend a lot of effort targeting keywords with ‘free’ in them, but this looks like an opportunity.

There has been some suggestion in the past that Google favours the .org TLD, so you can imagine how quickly my Visa card came out when GoDaddy tells me that freeocr.org is available. So I spent the weekend developing the FreeOCR microsite. On this single page site (not published yet), you can upload a scanned image, and the web application will OCR it, and convert it to a searchable PDF of formatted text file, and email you the result.

The website will, of course, feature Ads for both Home Document Manager and PDF Scan Pro, and so will the email that is sent with each use of the site. I’m reasonably sure that there aren’t other sites that offer such powerful OCR and searchable PDF creation for free, so hopefully I can get right to the top of the SERPS and drive some highly targeted traffic.

I have always been impressed with the marketing efforts of the NitroPDF guys. They do a similar thing with their PDF to Word converter. I plan to offer Word as an output option too, potentially adding another few tens of thousands of visitors.

I’m really interested in using microsites, and will keep you posted as it progresses.

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Potential customers arrive at your page with a mug full of suspicion. It’s your job as a copy writer to remove that fear. I’m trying something a little different with PDF Scan Pro.

I thought about what might prevent someone from making that initial purchase and becoming a customer. I think some of it is going to be because they’re not sure if your app is the one for them. Is it right? Is there another app out there that is better/faster/cheaper. A traditional approach might operate a little like this:

“Don’t bother checking out the opposition, we’re the best.”

I think people are so used to this approach that they’re immune from it. I’m not going to spend my time developing an application I didn’t believe in – so I know my applications’ USPs, I know there strengths and their weaknesses, I know where they sit in the market. So why not spend a little time telling your customer about your competition, so they can see where your product fits in?

I’ve not tried this before, but I’ve added a section to PDF Scan Pro’s Trial/Moneyback page listing the competition. I’m hoping that this approach might show a little confidence, and might alleviate fears that ‘the perfect product’ might just be a Google search away.

Anyone else tried this or anything similar?

I’m learning.

Like a lot of micro ISV‘ers, copywriting is not my strong point, but, I stumbled across an interesting way to boost traffic to the Home Document Manager blog. When I issue an update, which can be as frequently as once a week, I found I was making a series of posts with repetetive, uninspired titles – “Update Released,” “Minor Update Released” etc. Then, for one of my updates, I wrote a small piece explaining some of the issues with TWAIN. The post was entitled “Ne’er the TWAIN shall meet,” an obvious reference to Kipling’s “The Ballad of East and West.”

Suddenly, instead of a dull and uninteresting nuggat about an update, this small, boring post, became the most popular post on the blog. The main traffic sources were people searching for the quote, so it wasn’t highly targetted traffic, but since these kinds of posts would seldom attract traffic anyway, untargetted traffic has to trump no traffic. It can’t hurt my Google standings either, since the post makes a reference to Kipling, as well as the TWAIN specification. The double entendre is an interesting way to get a free traffic boost. Take this post for example, I wonder if it will start ranking for the “Tales of The Unexpected” TV series??

The second unexpected traffic source came from a review I wrote about my new shredder. This too became the hottest post on the blog, and is still pulling in 3 times more traffic than any other post or page. This is different because it is, of course, pretty highly targetted traffic. I’ve gone on to publish a review of one of the Scansnap scanners to see if I can replicate the earlier success. I guess this goes back to one of the first principles of micro ISV blogging – blog about things your customers are interested in.

XPS document conversion is a pretty niche
area, so I’m not expecting an avalanche of customers to crash my server
with traffic, but every little helps, and a link back from Microsoft
certainly can’t hurt.

I’ll be sure to keep an eye on my analytics to see if anything of interest changes.

Image via Wikipedia

The disruption from changing contracting gigs is dying down now. I’m
really happy to have changed projects because I’m working on a
completely different kind of WPF app now, and it’s really rounding out
my WPF knowledge.

I’ve finally got over my sugar rush from doing some awesomely cool WPF
over the last year, and started taking a more mature look at the Home
Document Manager interface. I’ve decided to opt for mimicking Outlook 2007.
Not because I’m particularly fond of it, but simply because it is
familiar. There are no surprises. Every menu and button is exactly
where you would expect it to be.

I really wanted to be innovative, but I’m coming around to the idea
that “simple and familiar” will win over “different and showy” with non
prosumers every time.

The cloned UI is coming along nicely. I’ll hopefully have a screenshot in the next week.

Image via Wikipedia

There was a time when in order to be considered ‘forward thinking’,
one need only to have a blog. Those days are gone, and we find
ourselves, or at least our online selves defined by the network our
social objects form.

What do I mean by a social object? There’s a good synopsis here. Essentially, a social object is a node in a social network. It is a reason for people to connect. Flickr and MySpace succeed because they are networks built around social objects, namely photos and music.

Although there is increasing indication of an increase in social
network apathy creeping in, I suspect that has more to do with the
individual networks themselves, rather than any fundamental shift.
Networks always form around objects. As Hugh MacLeod points out, the
nodes, or objects always come first. Lose that focus, and you’ve lost
the battle.

Increasingly, the web-savvy are learning the art of identity
management. We are learning which objects to use to present ourselves.
Taking myself as an example, I use comparatively few social networks. I
use LinkedIn, that’s it. The likes of Facebook just don’t interest me. I have an account there, but that’s just in case The phenomenen of micro blogging (a la Twitter)
makes me tired just thinking about it. I just can’t bring myself to be
even remotely interested in it. I find that being so short of time, I
like to concentrate my information management in 1 place.

Blogging is important to me. It forms a social object through which I can connect to people.

What social objects are you using to present your personal identity? What about your business? Do you use YouTube? Facebook? Twitter? Why? Or why not?

A couple of days ago, I made a video of me using Ergo
to search for Rambo. Why? Because I had a crazy notion that using
YouTube might bring the occasional hit to our web site. Well…

I wasn’t at all sure that the effort would pay off, so I did a
mediocre video, without a soundtrack, and watched it appear on YouTube,
just as a proof of concept. When I talk of mediocrity, that’s not
modesty, here it is:

After I made my first coffee yesterday, I discovered that we were
topping the Science and Technology channel with around 22,000 hits.
Needless to say, we were very pleased, and a little surprised. Worse
was to come. By dinner, we had attracted 567,000 hits, and were the
third most viewed video on YouTube. By my first coffee this morning, we
were approaching 750,000 hits and were (and still are) the top video on YouTube.

We’ve had mostly negative comments, largely due to the fact the video is mediocre at best, but still…

I wonder what would happen with a decent video?

Edit: Our 15 minutes is up, and the video is back on its way to obscurity, where it belongs.

Software houses that use Agile Software Development techniques have
to negotiate contracts like all other companies. Wherever possible,
agile teams will try to steer clear of fixed cost, fixed scope, fixed
time contracts, preferring instead to opt for an optional scope, or
time and materials contract. There are a number of reasons for this,
but the one that sticks out in my mind is this: Fixed scope/cost/time
contracts are gladiatorial. They pit the interests of the customer
against the interests of the vendor. Optional scope contracts, on the
other hand, align the interests of the two, specifically because
optional scope contracts are typically short, 90 days or something, so
it is in the interests of the vendor to continually impress, rather
than to take the quickest dirtiest route to satisfy the contract.

When I think about issues of trust, specifically investing in trust,
I wonder whether traditional micro ISV website designs are the right
idea. After all, by their nature, they exist to sell ‘the product’. I
wonder if this too might be gladiatorial. I wonder if potential buyers
browse sales oriented sites with their guard up, as if they’re wary,
looking to see if they can trust you.

If I ask the question “what might a non-gladiatorial micro ISV web
site look like?” I find that the answer is “a blog”; a blog that sells
stuff, but a blog nonetheless.

So say if you write task management software, what would happen if
your site was a GTD blog, a GTD blog that sold task management
software. If you write <cough> some document management software
for home users, your site is a blog about decluttering and organising
your home documents. If you’re passionate about your domain, and write
passionately about it, I wonder what effect it would have on your
customer’s perception of your trustworthiness. Your interests are now
aligned with your customer’s interests, so would this breed trust? I’m
not sure. But it has to be worth a shot. I’m prepared to be wrong.

It opens up other interesting possibilities: Guest bloggers. If
you’re lucky enough to get prominent voices in your field, having them
guest blog on your site will further increase your credibility, and
make you even more aligned with your customer’s interests. I’ve seen an
increasing number of sites use a ‘magazine’ layout for their blogs, and
it’s one I think would be particularly suited to the task. It is
content rich, and it helps foster the notion that you sell a product
because you are passionate about solving a particular problem, not
because you think you can make a quick buck out of it.

I might be way off base. But like I said, I’m prepared to be wrong.

—–
EXTENDED

Turns out they had released just a little too early. They ship a
sample application, along with a few sample images to show off the
component’s OCR capabilities (left). Here’s how their sample
application read this image:

l. INTRoDucTIoN

About OCR
OCR (Op cal Charater Recogni on) is  e techndo thd all   u to transfonn im es (e,g,.
inwg  scanned from paper documents) into editable ten based co uter files,

About bprl$e OCR SDK
Embedded a high perfor ce OCR en ne. Asprise OCR SDI{ is OCR sofhNare  opment kit
d can be used    J   , Nd. Ddphi. Visual Basic  9. Borland C. etc,

Fe ure$ of bpri$e OCR
An inco lete list of fearures offered byAsprise OCR ,
l, H hest Level or  c ray
Asprise OCR can e ilyrecognize difficult docu nb of poor i e qu i ,
2, EKcenent Fonnat Reten ‘on
T   l ub on the input documents are persewecl
3, H h Spee
Asprise OCR us  op rrnzed OCR engine to perform excellent reco i on in v short   ;
4, Ease or Use
We s ive to make  e dNel er’s life easier, Co lex par er confi rahons are r  d
from Asprise OCR SDI{, You onlyh  to supply e inwge dRu t, Asprise OCR can
intdligently dderrrnnes the b t sd ng intern ly
5, Ba o  Recogni ‘on
B ide characten (lmers and numbers). Asprise OCR can recognize  nNst  kind of bar
code, You can choose to reco ize barcode or characters or bdh,

; ‘ , ‘ ,d  ;,; ::,:  3;

I particularly like

“Asprise OCR can e ilyrecognize difficult docu nb of poor i
e qu i “

Which should have read “Asprise OCR can easily recognise
difficult documents of poor quality”.

Turns out there is such a thing as releasing too early. This is what we get from the OCR component that comes with Office:

1. INTRODUCTION

About OCR

OCR (Optical Charater Recognition) is the
technologythat allows you to transform images (e.g. images scanned from
paper documents) into editable text-based computer files.

About Asprise OCR SDK

Embedded a high performance OCR engine. .Asprise
OCR SDKis OCR software development kit that can be used Wth Java. Net.
Delphi. Visual basic @78). borland C. etc.

Features of Asprise OCR An incomplete list of features offered by.Asprise OCR:

1. Highest Level of Accuracy

Asprise OCR can easily recogni difficult documents of poor image quality;

2. Excellent Fonnat Retention

Text layouts on the input documents are perservect

3. High Speed

Asprise OCR uses optimized OCR engine to perform en2ellent recognition in veryshort time;

4. Ease of Use

We strive to make the developer’s life easier.
Complex parameter configurations are removed fromAsprise OCR SDK You
onlyhavetosupplytheimage do3ument. Asprise OCR can intelligently
determines the best setting internally.

5. Barcode Recognition beside characters (letters and numbers).

Asprise OCR can recogni almost everykind of bar code. You can choose to recognize barcode or characters or both.

Not perfect, but a hell of a lot better. Of course, it requires Office to be installed.