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MacBreak 74: Hot Lips and Hawkeye

MacBreak Weekly 74: Hot Lips and Hawkeye

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Hosts: Leo Laporte, Merlin Mann, Andy Ihnatko, and Rich Siegel

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A look back at Macworld, Office spreads out, MacHeist, .Mac future bright and cloudy, certain gestures and more.

Here's a direct MP3 download of MBW 74.

I think this might be one of my favorite episodes of MacBreak Weekly. Say what you will about the podcast medium, it's amazing to be able to pull an articulate person like Rich Siegel into your conversation midway -- (~00:38:15) -- just via IM and a phone number. Very cool.

So. That said. I really want the promoters and developer-fans of MacHeist to have their opportunity to respond to what Rich (and we) had to say. Clearly we all think a lot of the Mac indie community, so it'd be valuable to continue the conversation in a way that's fair and civil for everybody.

Directions on how to get your voice heard appear around (~00:57:11) of this episode.

update 2008-01-25 08:21:01

Philip Ryu and Awaken's Jerry Brace will be on MacBreak Weekly next week to respond to Rich Siegel's criticisms of MacHeist in show 74.

AaronCP's picture

What percentage of customers actually contact support?

Or, for that matter, actually become regular users of an application in a bundle? I bought the MacHeist II bundle and have only contacted one of the developers with a problem I was having (and received a quick, courteous and helpful reply). Only a small percentage of those who purchased bundles will contact developers for help.

Right now there have been 35,000 bundle sales. Rich's suggestion that the moment one of the buyers contacts the developer for support it blows any money they made on that customer and beyond is absurd because he's assuming all a good number of those 35,000 people contact the developer.

For every one person that contacts the developer for support there are 500-1000 who don't. Even at a paltry $3.00 per bundle sold going to the developer, they are coming out ahead. They gain thousands of customers, word of mouth, exposure, name awareness, etc. The incredible support costs that Rich would have us believe is the bane of the MacHeist bundle is covered by the thousands of users who DON'T CONTACT support.

This doesn't even take into consideration the number of users who buy the bundle and don't use all the apps. The developer of that unused app got paid and will never have to offer support, ever.

MacHeist challenges the "way its always been done"... it has presented a new way of getting great software from great developers. And that scares a lot of people, especially those unwilling to embrace new things.

 
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