I was mooching around the Home Document Manager wordpress back end today when a thought struck me – I hadn’t seen any core or plugin updates for a while. After a bit of investigation, I noticed that 2 plugins had enabled themselves (or had been enabled by some other actor); namely “Disable Wordpress plugin updates” and “Disable Wordpress core updates”. I have never used these plugins so was understandably perplexed by their presence.

After disabling them, all maner of plugin and core updates appeared. I’m not sure if this represents anything sinister, but it’s certainly odd. Anyone else noticed this behaviour?

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.

When adding a new post, Zemanta comes to life and gives a little bit
of added value to your post. While you are typing, Zemanta is busy
looking for related articles and images, and allows you to incorporate
them with a single click.

The images come from Wikipedia, Flickr
and other stock photo providers. The articles come from a list of top
media sources, and the links it suggest I think are entirely from
Wikipedia.

A couple of criticisms and suggestions:

• The images have so far not impressed me.
• The “suggested articles” would be better pulled from sources on your Google Reader list. It doesn’t feel very ‘bloggy’ to be giving outbound links to sources I don’t read.

But all in all, seems quite nice, so I’m going to run with it for a post or two and see how I go.

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

Every company on Earth screws up from time to time, what’s important
is that we’re honest about it, and above all, we say the S-word.

I recently re-read Hugh MacLeod’s account of a US lock
manufacturer missing the whole point of the conversational aspect of
Web based customer relations. It goes a little something like this:

DAY ONE:

KRYPTONITE:  Our bike locks are the best.
THE MARKET: Yes, your bike locks are the best.

DAY TWO:

KRYPTONITE:  Our bike locks are the best.
THE MARKET: Yes, your bike locks are still the best.

DAY THREE:

KRYPTONITE:  Our bike locks are the best.
THE MARKET: Ummm… yeah I’m sure they are, but what’s all this about some recent video on the net that’s supposed to show how you can crack your locks in 10 seconds using a simple Bic ballpoint pen?

DAY FOUR:

KRYPTONITE:  Our bike locks are the best.
THE MARKET: Hey, I just saw that video on a friend’s website. And I’m
kinda ticked off because I just paid $60 for one of your new locks 3
weeks ago, and I’m wondering if a Bic pen can crack my lock or not…
does the pen crack all Kryptonite locks or just one or two models?

DAY FIVE:

KRYPTONITE:  Our bike locks are the best.
THE MARKET: Hey, I just visited your website and saw no mention of the
Bic pens. What the hell are you doing about it? Are you going to fix
the locks? Are you going to give me a refund?

DAY SIX:

KRYPTONITE:  Our bike locks are the best.
THE MARKET: No, they’re not. You guys are assholes.

It’s stories like this one that make me feel really heartened to read true apologies, like this one from Typepad:

We’re sorry. We messed up, the anti spam system got way too aggressive,
and we were trying to dial it back in small increments instead of what
we eventually did, which was flipping all the way back to a setting
that we know works for most people.

The
post continues, but there’s the crux of it. I’m sorry. We messed up.
It’s quiet tricky and we got it wrong. Full marks to Typepad.

A few months ago I had the good fortune to be hired by a great company in Marlow (UK) called SpinVox. I hadn’t heard of them when I got the call but was very impressed by what I subsequently read and experienced.

Started by Christina Domecq and Daniel Doulton in May of 2003, SpinVox has very quickly established itself as the de facto voice-to-screen provider world wide. SpinVox offer 2 services that will easily be of interest to either the Micro ISV, or the serious blogger.

Spin-my-VMail  is a service by which a
voice-mail is converted to an email and/or a SMS text message. For
micro ISV users, this means that you can offer a phone number for
support or sales, but not feel guilty for not manning it 24/7.
Support/sales requests can easily be picked up on your mobile or
Blackberry.

Spin-my-Blog is a similar service, but for
bloggers. Essentially, you call your SpinVox number and record your
voice message. The message will then appear on your blog as text. Neat.
SpinVox even go so far as to allow readers of your blog to leave
comments using their phone, again, appearing as text on your blog. Blog
posts are currently limited to 60 seconds of voice time, so I think it
would be better suited to “on-the-scene reports” from conferences, geek
dinners, airports etc.

SpinVox has a very likeable public persona. For family reasons, I
was only able to spend a few weeks with them developing a new UI for
one of their applications, but I can declare this: they are just as
likeable from the inside, and in today’s ultra-competitive marketplace,
that is no mean feat.

As for me, my to-do list for this week includes getting a SpinVox
account. I hope to be spinning at least some of my future blog posts
from then on.

Something else I learnt while I was there – it’s amazing just how
many people use the word supercalifragilisticexpialidocious in a voice
message!