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Number   :  99
Date     :  2001-05-20
Author   :  Jim Witherspoon
Subject  :  Re: XXCOPY, Freeware for personal users only
Size(KB) :  2


Hi Kan,

I doubt that a mailing list can bring you many new paying users, but it
could be something that "adds value" to the product you are selling. Paying
users could come to the mailing list and get ideas or perhaps answers to
questions they have, by searching the archives.

I was thinking that the biggest thing that might help you get new paying
users would be a favorable recommendation from some famous computer
columnist. Just for example, a recommendation from John Dvorak can have a
tremendous impact - small software vendors have become overnight successes
when he has mentioned their software in PC Mag "Inside Track". Remember
Paul Mace and the Mace Utilities? I think it was John Dvorak who made him
an overnight success! And Dvorak is the type of guy who can appreciate the
value of a command-line utility.

Jerry Pournelle might have had a lot of clout too, back when they stil
published BYTE. He might still have a lot of clout, too.

I also thought about Lockergnome, because I didn't see it mentioned on your
web page. You are probably already aware of it, but I found that XXCOPY was
recommended on Lockergnome in the 3/8/2001 issue:

http://www.lockergnome.com/issues/daily/20010308.html

I bet you got quite a few new users out of that mention, even though I don't
know about the technical orientation of the Lockergnome subscribers -
Lockergnome puts a lot more effort into a humorous presentation than
technical analsysis of a program.

As you know, I sent a notice about this discussion group to 6 Usenet
newsgroups. I was amazed how few people joined! I thought that the
alt.comp.freeware people would be interested in this, because they are very
knowledgeable about good utilities. "Son of Spy", who started the
"Pricelessware" list, has a special "SOS Uses" icon next to XXCOPY in his
freeware listings:

http://www.sover.net/~whoi/WinUtils5.html

Another idea the way this discussion group could help you is if some users
become expert enough to help answer technical questions in the group. I see
this in the Microsoft newsgroups, especially. I am going to try to become
an XXCOPY expert but I have a long way to go!

jim



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