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Thoughts on yesterday's paid vs free visitor.js

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Re: Thoughts on yesterday's paid vs free visitor.js

#11

Post by rmc »

relix wrote: post #4

Visitor.js is arguably not very innovative. The only "added value" that I would consider is having it all in one nice library. The knowledge necessary to create visitor.js is almost at the level of a beginner. How many 'hello world' tutorials aren't there on the web that display how to use cookies in Javascript by showing the last time you visited the page? The incentive behind creating something like visitor.js shou…

Visitor.js is arguably not very innovative. The only "added value" that I would consider is having it all in one nice library.

No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.

Re: Thoughts on yesterday's paid vs free visitor.js

#12

Post by cheez »

Meh, not true.

I have a friend that wrote a very uninnovative, very shallow app a few years ago in a couple of months and barely works on it nowadays. He thinks he will make $60K this year and there are at least five or six different open source competitors (read last word as Daniel Plainview please.)

I could write something to replace it in a week or two.

Just make sure you know your audience: if you are selling to developers, you are probably SOL. If you are selling to managers, they really don't care whether they pay or not but it solves their problem.

Re: Thoughts on yesterday's paid vs free visitor.js

#13

Post by rmc »

rmc wrote: post #11
relix wrote: post #4

Visitor.js is arguably not very innovative. The only "added value" that I would consider is having it all in one nice library. The knowledge necessary to create visitor.js is almost at the level of a beginner. How many 'hello world' tutorials aren't there on the web that display how to use cookies in Javascript by showing the last time you visited the page? The incentive behind creating something like visitor.js shou…

Visitor.js is arguably not very innovative. The only "added value" that I would consider is having it all in one nice library. No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.

This reply is the Slashdot review of the Apple iPod when it was released. It is a great example of how some people (incl. many geeks) look at a product/service, and only look at the raw technical specs, and presume that it's very easy to replicate or not very innovative. Since the iPod was a massive success, it shows how sometimes raw technology doesn't make or break something

Re: Thoughts on yesterday's paid vs free visitor.js

#14

Post by spullara »

rsoto wrote: post #9

I don't know what's all this about. Yes, someone open sourced a service that is providing an all-around solution for data that's easily trackable-- but the user's location. If you've used free services to convert an IP to location, you know it's not so reliable. And that's the issue with the open-source version, which tracks me to the US, while I'm actually in Mexico City and it's quite accurate (12.8 kilometers off)…

That's ok, the commercial libraries aren't much better. The visitor.js website I am in Reno instead of San Francisco for example.

Re: Thoughts on yesterday's paid vs free visitor.js

#15

Post by gerad »

rmc wrote: post #13
rmc wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visitor.js is arguably not very innovative. The only "added value" that I would consider is having it all in one nice library. No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.

This reply is the Slashdot review of the Apple iPod when it was released. It is a great example of how some people (incl. many geeks) look at a product/service, and only look at the raw technical specs, and presume that it's very easy to replicate or not very innovative. Since the iPod was a massive success, it shows how sometimes raw technology doesn't make or break something

But it is different when your product is for a technical audience. In this case, people who know how to write JavaScript.

Re: Thoughts on yesterday's paid vs free visitor.js

#17

Post by codejoust »

jseims wrote: post #16

I just wanted to say you guys crashed my site with all your traffic. Lesson learned: don't send HN to an EC2 micro instance. I upgraded to a medium instance, let's see how it works...

Running wordpress and PHP, nonetheless. Wordpress isn't light on resources.

Re: Thoughts on yesterday's paid vs free visitor.js

#18

Post by pkamb »

cheez wrote: post #12

Meh, not true. I have a friend that wrote a very uninnovative, very shallow app a few years ago in a couple of months and barely works on it nowadays. He thinks he will make $60K this year and there are at least five or six different open source competitors (read last word as Daniel Plainview please.) I could write something to replace it in a week or two. Just make sure you know your audience: if you are selling to…

Would you/he be willing to post a link to the app?

Re: Thoughts on yesterday's paid vs free visitor.js

#19

Post by Xylakant »

relix wrote: post #4

Visitor.js is arguably not very innovative. The only "added value" that I would consider is having it all in one nice library. The knowledge necessary to create visitor.js is almost at the level of a beginner. How many 'hello world' tutorials aren't there on the web that display how to use cookies in Javascript by showing the last time you visited the page? The incentive behind creating something like visitor.js shou…

The added value is running the whole thing as a service. They are responsible for running it, maintaining it and monitoring it. They track dependencies and provide the geolocation backend. This is added value. There's quite a few services that actually just take an open source component, provide a little glue code and a configuration backend and actually make money off that. (cloudant, redis2go,...).

Whether it's worth the price charged certainly depends on your point of view and your needs as well as your technical setup.

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