Well, it's been an interesting couple of days since I posted my little diatribe on Adobe. I figured it was a good time for a followup.
It got picked up by reddit.com, which drove traffic through the roof -- for that page. something like 16,000 page views to date, the vast majority of them from reddit. There have been secondary, much smaller waves from techmeme and digg (although it looks as of when I type this that reddit's influence is fading and digg might be giving it more visibility, since the referrals seem to be increasing).
Google analytics indicates that something like 99% of those views only looked at that page -- and the average stay was something like 15-20 seconds. Not sure you can actually read the article in that time, so there seemed to be a lot of casual browsing, or perhaps I'm just a boring writer...
But I mention that merely as a data point on these kind of usage tsunami's. I've talked a bit in the past about services that borrow resources from another site or service needing to return the favor in some way (the "quid" needs a "pro quo"); this at first glance seems like a classic case of this (the link to my site benefits reddit or digg, but the benefit of serving all of those pages back to me?) -- but it's not that simple. One key metric it's too early to tell is how many (if anyone) subscribed to the RSS feed; and more important, how many, if any, will stick around and join the fun down the road.
And even more importantly, focussing too much on short term metrics is the wrong view here: people are actually reading it, and maybe something good and useful will come of it, even if it's only information on alternatives. We can't let raw numbers or a lust for an audience ignore the larger picture that we're trying to communicate and lean here (and if we do, then we become, well, network television).
Anyway, I wanted to throw a few tidbits out into the mix here on the situation. There are lots of good comments attached the the posting that aren't hitting the RSS feed, so I encourage people who are interested to go take a look. Most heartening, after I took my gentle shot at GIMP, were the people who popped in to describe some of the things that folks are working on with that tool. I'm actually quite encouraged to see the active community there -- it's a package that has good bones and I hope they keep working to improve it. It sounds like they're on the right track in a number of places.
others pointed to other tools. the one I find most intriguing isn't out yet, Pixelmator, but I'm certainly going to keep an eye on it.
One reason I'm not that interested in Dreamweaver (but I'm way more interested in Dreamweaver than I ever was in GoLive) is that there's another tool that I think is way better. it's from Panic, and it's called Coda. It's new, I haven't used it much yet, but what I've seen is really intriguing, and I'm going to give it a hefty spin around the block before I decide whether or not to work in Dreamweaver. I really like what I see so far.
Two questions came up in the last couple of days that I thought deserved further discussion:
First: why did I post this? What's my agenda? A very legitimate question. I've actually been sitting on the fence saying anything for the last couple of weeks, in a "this isn't really a fight I want to take on, not worth my hassle"; but when I ran into a couple of others having very similar issues with Adobe, I decided it was a good idea to just toss it out there, both as a warning to others that these problems exist, and maybe, to help encourage Adobe to fix them. Their IT systems suck, and their customer policies suck worse, and to me, the company is in that classic "as long as we're making money, it's not a problem" mentality that, frankly, got Apple in such deep trouble in the days of Spindler. By the time the money goes away, it's really hard to rebuild the last goodwill of the customer base. So the answer is: because it's a useful data point and I thought it might lead to suggestions on alternatives. Which it has.
Second: what do I expect to have happen? Frankly, nothing. I'm not looking for adobe to "do anything" here for me. A couple of folks suggested fighting back through my credit card company or small claims, but as I mentioned in the original piece, I've wasted enough of my life on Adobe here -- I wrote it off as a bad debt and moved on, because the amount of time and energy for something like small claims is more than it's worth here. I'd rather have my time than the money back, and use the time for something productive. Now, what'd I like to happen? For adobe to fix their problems; I'm not, well, holding my breath given current management.
Finally, Shelley brought up an interesting point I want to carry forward a bit:
Burningbird » Photoshop Misery:
I'm also turning to open source for my needs more frequently. I've made the transition to NeoOffice for my Office replacement on the Mac and have never looked back. The software is stable, easy to use, and improves with each release. I also like OpenOffice for Windows, and have had no problems using it with my Windows XP box (I also am holding on upgrading to Vista).
For the new book, instead of putting any time into Photoshop, I decided to cover GIMP and other tools, instead. There is an installer for GIMP for the Mac that works nicely, but instead I installed Darwin/Mac Ports, and then installed both GIMP and UFRaw, the wonderful tool for handling RAW images, using the Ports installation program. Both installations went through without a hitch.
well, given how good Adding Ajax was ("Adding Ajax" (Shelley Powers)), I can't wait for this one. And I am heartened to see people using GIMP -- I don't want to give the impression I think it's a bad tool, but on the Mac, it still requires X11, and for me, the X11 interface and hassle is a stopper. Maybe if the double-click project I know was being worked on happens, I might be more amenable.
I can't speak for professional photographers and graphic artists, but I can't help thinking the amateur photographer and web developer/designer who does some graphics, would get all they need from the open source community, rather than having to pay the Adobe tax. Not just GIMP and UFRaw–there are dozens of interesting single and multipurpose tools and utilities that allow us to create all sorts of interesting work; all open, all free except for what you can spare by way of donation.
I'm not adverse to proprietary applications or companies who profit from such, but when a company's proprietary acts cross over the edge to the predatory, like Adobe's has with Photoshop, I think it's time to look elsewhere.
I'm also very open to the open source stuff, if it's not obvious, but I am someone who is not interested in the "open source always wins" mode of some. I want to stay out of the politics that get involved here -- my focus is on what are the best tools to let me get what I'm trying to do done. Sometimes it's an open source tool (apache, php, perl), sometimes it's a commercial tool (photoshop, aperture). We get sidetracked into all of these side issues -- and sometimes forget that the core thing is to accomplish a task.
Now, having said that, I also admit a bias for tools that are mac centric, and to some degree, from smaller companies that support the mac and focus their work on it -- I think they're the ones doing the real innovation in commercial software and really taking advantage of and pushing the envelope of computing. Hence part of my interest on Coda over Dreamweaver.
This is because I think if you use Mac OS X as a base for what you build, and then leverage it and build the tool well, you get a better tool than one that's built to run generically on both OS X and Windows, or on a generic open source platform. If you think about it, that's a problem with me both with Adobe (cross platform uber alles means that is takes advantage of neither platform's strengths) and GIMP (working with GIMP forces you into GIMPs mode, so you lose the power of a tool that integrates into what you find familiar in your OS; in this case, OS X).
If you think about it, for all we criticize Microsoft (and much of it is legitimate), they always let Office for Mac be a Mac version of office, not a ported version of Office for Windows. Compare that to what Adobe's done, and this is one place you need to give Microsoft some serious credit. And have you noticed how much LESS ANNOYING their installers are, even though they're 2003 technology? But I digress.
Oh, yeah. I deleted one three comments by people who decided to call me variations of idiot. Criticism is fine, insults and abuse, you can put them on your own blog, if you're able to set one up. Life's too short, and I'm not here to play target to trolls. Overall, not a bad ratio of useful comments and emails to idiots, all things considered. Oh, and I also wanted to note that I did leave in the comments about pirating photoshop, but that should not be taken as an implication I support that action. I don't: my position is simple, if you don't pay for it, don't use it, and all the rationalization done around piracy is just that, rationalization (one of these days, I'll write something on the amusement I get from people who see no problem sharing 30 gigs of MP3s or videos on the net of content THEY DON'T OWN who whine every time they think someone might not be living to the exact letter of the GPL, and don't see the double standard they live. But not now...) -- but the piracy note really emphasizes how much adobe is actually getting in the way of letting the user use the software they DID pay for. When a company falls into "the customer is the enemy" mode, bad things happen.
I mean, think about it -- Apple hasn't exactly fell apart by coming out with the OS X individual and family pack options. Most users are mostly honest; screwing your honest users over to try to stop the dishonest ones is a bad business model. Even where Apple has used serial numbers (pro apps like Aperture), it's pretty innocuous. the big limit I have is I can't run Aperture on both my computers at the same time. whoop. Adobe could learn a lot here.
but honestly, I doubt they will. and that, ultimately, was my point in posting...
Update 1: the post now seems to be getting high visibility at Digg, so we're in for the second round of page views. So far, Digg users prove themselves to be a lot more pro-piracy and grumpier in general. Digg users: decaf for you! (grin)
and in the "don't get it" category, this comment:
Why do you need to upgrade to begin with? Stop whining and stick with CS2, it's pretty powerful as is.
which clearly shows this guy doesn't know, and probably doesn't care, that I'm a mac user, and the joy of CS2 on an intel-based mac... But nevermind....
Update 23: Troll comment deletion is now up to eight and counting. Digg shows up, and so do the trolls. If I were in charge of Digg, this would scare me, because it's a great way to convince sites to stop encouraging users to use it. And the first "macs are gay" comment has arrived. I'll probably shut down comments fairly soon, since the only thing missing is someone calling me a nazi. Or adobe a nazi. or whatever.
we can add in a couple more stupids, one moron, and one more "apple is going to die soon" note. yeah, look at that stock price.
What kind of depresses me is the relative lack of originality and humor among the trolls. C'mon, guys, if you're going to show how little you know, at least be funny. or Something. most of the troll messages are wastes of electrons. Prove that you can fog a mirror, or stay quiet.
oh,by the way, as of 1PM pacific time, 37,000 page views today, Thanks mostly to Digg. I'm impressed. or scared. or both. or something...
What amazes me is that the referrer logs are showing sites that seem to be aggregators of sites like digg, which are aggregators. I guess for people who are too busy to actually view two or three RSS feeds and only want one really large firehose splashing at them? I wonder what value they bring to the sites they're aggregating... or their users.
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