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Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

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Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

#61

Post by Kylekramer »

alexqgb wrote: post #59
Kylekramer wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Azure itself is pretty safe from Gruber's crosshairs. Google was less successful, but there is a common trend of companies paying their way into the good graces of Apple bloggers' inner circle (Squarespace, Backblaze, Everpix).

I'm sorry, but what you're implying is that these companies have sub-par products that unscrupulous writers have been willing to treat as well-made in exchange for cash payment. As someone who (very happily) uses both Backblaze and Squarespace I can safely say this is not the case, and that they're not just "buying their way into" bloggers' good graces. I'm pretty sure that if they're in anyone else's good graces, it…

No, I don't think they are sub par. But I do think their exalted place in the Apple blog world is not earned by quality, but ad money. You don't see many of these bloggers actively using Squaresquare for anything but side projects, but they all push it as the go to platform to use even outside of ads. I would also contend that you can certainly buy your way in. See ads for stuff like Clean My Mac, which I am positive Gruber would never use himself.

I don't think there is anything extremely unscrupulous going on, just that there isn't much of a wall between editorial and advertisement with Gruber's model as some people claim.

Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

#62

Post by Osmium »

alexqgb wrote: post #59
Kylekramer wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Azure itself is pretty safe from Gruber's crosshairs. Google was less successful, but there is a common trend of companies paying their way into the good graces of Apple bloggers' inner circle (Squarespace, Backblaze, Everpix).

I'm sorry, but what you're implying is that these companies have sub-par products that unscrupulous writers have been willing to treat as well-made in exchange for cash payment. As someone who (very happily) uses both Backblaze and Squarespace I can safely say this is not the case, and that they're not just "buying their way into" bloggers' good graces. I'm pretty sure that if they're in anyone else's good graces, it…

> As someone who (very happily) uses both Backblaze and Squarespace

Just wanted to second your comment and add that Everpix too was also a really good product before they closed down (I still haven't found an alternative that works for me).

Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

#63

Post by atYevP »

Yev with Backblaze here -> I'm a bit late to this party, but I can tell you that advertising with John has worked for Backblaze from a monetary perspective. It's a mutually beneficial sponsorship. John's used us in the past, Marco uses us on occasion, and due to that, the ads are read with a certain knowledge of the product and ring more "true" than a lot of things that I hear on various podcasts and websites. The majority of the ads we've done with John are sponsorships of "The Talk Show", but those have been quite successful.

Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

#64

Post by camillomiller »

cmyr wrote: post #5

Really interesting to see these numbers. I've been reading DF for years and years, and its is the only advertising model I've encountered that doesn't grate. His advertising is considerate, audience appropriate, and vetted. I feel good supporting his advertisers, because I feel good supporting him, and because they're just consistently things I'm happy to hear about. I would really love to see more independent journa…

John's model is unique, though, not scalable and heavily gruber-dependent. It's something we can analyze as a particular phenomena, not a way to reinterpret advertising on the Web.

Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

#65

Post by atYevP »

alexqgb wrote: post #59
Kylekramer wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Azure itself is pretty safe from Gruber's crosshairs. Google was less successful, but there is a common trend of companies paying their way into the good graces of Apple bloggers' inner circle (Squarespace, Backblaze, Everpix).

I'm sorry, but what you're implying is that these companies have sub-par products that unscrupulous writers have been willing to treat as well-made in exchange for cash payment. As someone who (very happily) uses both Backblaze and Squarespace I can safely say this is not the case, and that they're not just "buying their way into" bloggers' good graces. I'm pretty sure that if they're in anyone else's good graces, it…

Yev from Backblaze here -> I love advertising with John. He's used us before so he approaches every read with a bit of knowledge. At this point, I just give him a few bullets I want him to hit (often new things in the product) and just let him riff on his own. It works great and allows the read to be more natural, instead of mechanical like some of the various other podcast sponsorships.

Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

#66

Post by jtheory »

This section confused me -- can anyone explain?

> I was so unprepared for this deluge that it stunted what was already going to be a banner month as I simply did not have enough review copies and tokens to go around. I ended up having to wait-list over 30 prominent blogs which hurt my momentum severely.

He's selling software, right? It sounds here like he hit problems that simply shouldn't exist for a digital product.

Is this an AppStore-specific problem? If so, why in the world should it work that way?

Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

#67

Post by saddington »

jtheory wrote: post #66

This section confused me -- can anyone explain? > I was so unprepared for this deluge that it stunted what was already going to be a banner month as I simply did not have enough review copies and tokens to go around . I ended up having to wait-list over 30 prominent blogs which hurt my momentum severely. He's selling software , right? It sounds here like he hit problems that simply shouldn't exist for a digital produ…

I'm given 100 "tokens" or "review copies" to give away for free per every single release via the MAS.

Essentially, I ran out and couldn't give free copies for review for big name blogs and news sites and thus lost a lot of opportunities for free press.

Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

#68

Post by saddington »

camillomiller wrote: post #64
cmyr wrote: post #5

Really interesting to see these numbers. I've been reading DF for years and years, and its is the only advertising model I've encountered that doesn't grate. His advertising is considerate, audience appropriate, and vetted. I feel good supporting his advertisers, because I feel good supporting him, and because they're just consistently things I'm happy to hear about. I would really love to see more independent journa…

John's model is unique, though, not scalable and heavily gruber-dependent. It's something we can analyze as a particular phenomena, not a way to reinterpret advertising on the Web.

I think Gruber is definitely unique and if he "disappeared" it would be hard to replace him.

In other words, what makes DF "work" is Gruber... and if he wasn't there... it wouldn't really work. It makes you wonder about the sustainability of "people-centric" companies.

I have thought often about this in terms of my own projects... how many of them would be sustainable without my very explicit presence?

Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

#69

Post by sliverstorm »

saddington wrote: post #67
jtheory wrote: post #66

This section confused me -- can anyone explain? > I was so unprepared for this deluge that it stunted what was already going to be a banner month as I simply did not have enough review copies and tokens to go around . I ended up having to wait-list over 30 prominent blogs which hurt my momentum severely. He's selling software , right? It sounds here like he hit problems that simply shouldn't exist for a digital produ…

I'm given 100 "tokens" or "review copies" to give away for free per every single release via the MAS. Essentially, I ran out and couldn't give free copies for review for big name blogs and news sites and thus lost a lot of opportunities for free press.

Could you have simply wired them $29 to buy the app? Or would that be seen as dishonest.

Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

#70

Post by jsankey »

jonstokes wrote: post #24
saddington wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can always get a refund for the app... and I'm really sorry it didn't work for you. It's honestly really tough being an indie developer... I have to do EVERYTHING related to not just building the DAMN THING but all of the business, marketing, Q/A, financials/accounting, blogging... the list is eternally-long. v1.0 was lucky... in a lot of ways. v1.1 addressed a shit-ton of issues... v1.2, out in a week (hopefully…

Believe me, I understand how hard it is. I've been working alone on a project for the past 2.5 years now (not quite ready for prime-time, but soon), so I know exactly what you mean. However, two things are just inexcusable to me: 1) this is a writing app /with no support for paragraph breaks/. That is unbelievable to me. Nobody who writes for a living can use an app that shows all of your text to you as a really larg…

$30 is most certainly not "a lot of money", and it is this attitude that makes indie development so hard these days. This app is meant for serious bloggers (i.e. those that spend many hours writing each week), so if it works for them $30 is a steal.

Remember that out of the $30 John gets just $20 from Apple, and if you take another third out for other expenses you're looking at less than $14. Needless to say you need to sell a lot of copies at that price to break even on your development time, on the order of 10,000/year, which is more than 27 copies/day! Then take into account that the App Store makes it difficult to get repeat revenue out of customers even if they use your app for several years...

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