This analogy just seems a bit confusing to me and threw me off the main point...
End users, readers = coffee consumers
Bloggers = baristas, either working in their own store or a Starbucks.
Mixing the two up doesn't make sense. Well, there are a couple of bloggers that are their only readers - hopefully less guys than the ones that brew their own coffee though ;).
Is's hard to find a analogy that really fits well...
Bloggers typically benefit from their activity, wether they blog on a platform or have their own blog. In both cases, they have an audience.
As your main point is about fully controlling the tools you'd use for their work, maybe something like racing drivers building their own cars would work better...
I´m a bit conflicted.. on one hand they lost user confidence by discontinuing Reader, on the other I completely get the approach to focus on a few things and really do them well.
In Government / from within, hackers generally don´t have the skills to be able to change the system - Government is run by politicians - the effect of a good hacker is about as small as in your typical old-world corporate run by finance guys…
Compare that to companies where hackers are the CEOs…
We're not talking about being filing clerk #4325 in the bowels of the Veterans Affairs administration. There are many parts of the government where a good hacker could have a major impact.
Word isn´t the problem... Converting from Word to something else is some pain for users. Converting from Excel (especially Excel Macros) to something else is in the Millions of $ for developers/re-engineering of those Macros...
Kickstarter would be great for this, especially building a community.
Maybe a way would be to do a 5$ Kickstarter for people to get early access to the app, even before their friends can buy it from the App Store. This could work through the Apple Enterprise Program, but it might not be allowed in the small print...
That could generate some hype, and backers would have something exclusive for a while till it´s available in the app store. It also would build a community that surely gives great feedback and the first few iterations wouln´t need to go through the app store approval process (which would mean faster iterations / feedback).
Absolutely. There's nothing worse than debuting an app just to have it destroyed by 1-star reviews commenting on stupid things you could have learned about through a more open beta process that something like Kickstarter would allow.
Thanks... that really motivates :)... Let´s do some market research here if you don´t mind: how much would you pay and what price do you think is fair?
Domo arrigato gozaimas... you seem to have some experience in marketing apps... would be great to talk a bit about how you would approach it and if what part (if any) you still would work on... we´re at dev@beatmaticapp.com
Beats could fit that profile. Just make the colors a bit brighter and the successor to the 5c cheaper.
Or sicking with the beats brand (style over quality): Why not use 4s internals ;)?