JungleDisk: Use it, Pricing Comment
JungleDisk. I haven't talked about this little app that I've been using at work and at home for backup. It just went "non-beta" (i.e. "We, the makers, are confident enough that this is stable to use regularly." beta = "We have think this works for us, but it may not work for you, it may even break your machine.
Get it
Point 1: Go download it, try it (30 days), then buy it (U$ 20 "for life"). Oh, you need to have an Amazon S3 account (that is where everything is stored). You pay Amazon monthly (currently, it's costs me U$0.50 at home for my computer) and it comes off my credit card. It's secure (encrypted with Department of Defence approved algorithms) and redundant (it doesn't say "I've got your data" until it has it at least 2 different machines in different geographic locations).
Pricing
Point 2: Pricing. I don't really get pricing generally. Because I had some thoughts, and the price seemed to make sense, I'm writing it down. There is some talk about pricing on the JungleDisk blog. The low price and the "for life," raise some questions.
"For Life"
From time to time, a company will release a product that has no further cost for life (Tivo did it, some web hosting firm I remember did it, and it seems that I've seen a few others). The problems with this are if the company goes out of business, or if too many people abuse it and the company "doesn't like it anymore." Here, JungleDisk could go out of business. It's a risk, but U$20 is pretty cheap. And they've been operating off $0 for a little while at least now (May 2006 is when the blog started - so that gives them 1 year) - so they won't go under unless they are running off their own $$ and are running out or if they are currently doing this as a side project (my guess) and they decide they now have $$ to quit the day job (and find out that that they don't have the $$).
So there is a risk to me. But the alternative is to charge me every time they make a new version. For a new product, I'm not real interested in that: I'd probably pay the first time, and just use that version (I thought thought of sticking with the Beta forever is enticing especially since I can't find the notes on what changed from the version I have to the most recent version).
To upgrade I need a reason. It costs time and, sometimes, money. With a backup program, what could they add? I'm sure that they could find new features to add, but I just set this program up and then leave it alone: there isn't much you could add to make it better.
If this happened, they'd have people using old versions. Which means they could clutter help responses with outdated problems and the only answer would be: "pay up and get the new version" - which isn't doesn't endear yourself to users (current or potential).
This would also mean that people wouldn't give feedback on new versions and new features: you'd be building new things for fewer and fewer people for less and less money. Not exactly a recipe for success: so often people stop upgrading it. And the program stagnates as your current user base stops growing and just slowly shrinks as other options come online. Again, not a recipes for long-term success (but, if you just want to cash out on your work now, it's an option).
Low Price
Often good applications are free these days (Google's: Documents, GMail, etc.), so you need to keep the price low since many people will see anything above $0 as "too much."
Point 2: you don't have any barriers to entry. The storage isn't theirs (so you can drop JungleDisk and use the storage yourself) and the data isn't locked (they give you open source tools and there exist other tools that can "read" JungleDisk's encryption - since it's a standard).
What this means: you can leave for any reason, and if JungleDisk charges too much that may be a good reason. As mentioned above, anything more than free can be seen as too much.
So, is a cheap price needed? I think so.
Blog Link: http://blog.jungledisk.com/2007/08/03/jungle-disk-beta-no-longer/
Get it
Point 1: Go download it, try it (30 days), then buy it (U$ 20 "for life"). Oh, you need to have an Amazon S3 account (that is where everything is stored). You pay Amazon monthly (currently, it's costs me U$0.50 at home for my computer) and it comes off my credit card. It's secure (encrypted with Department of Defence approved algorithms) and redundant (it doesn't say "I've got your data" until it has it at least 2 different machines in different geographic locations).
Pricing
Point 2: Pricing. I don't really get pricing generally. Because I had some thoughts, and the price seemed to make sense, I'm writing it down. There is some talk about pricing on the JungleDisk blog. The low price and the "for life," raise some questions.
"For Life"
From time to time, a company will release a product that has no further cost for life (Tivo did it, some web hosting firm I remember did it, and it seems that I've seen a few others). The problems with this are if the company goes out of business, or if too many people abuse it and the company "doesn't like it anymore." Here, JungleDisk could go out of business. It's a risk, but U$20 is pretty cheap. And they've been operating off $0 for a little while at least now (May 2006 is when the blog started - so that gives them 1 year) - so they won't go under unless they are running off their own $$ and are running out or if they are currently doing this as a side project (my guess) and they decide they now have $$ to quit the day job (and find out that that they don't have the $$).
So there is a risk to me. But the alternative is to charge me every time they make a new version. For a new product, I'm not real interested in that: I'd probably pay the first time, and just use that version (I thought thought of sticking with the Beta forever is enticing especially since I can't find the notes on what changed from the version I have to the most recent version).
To upgrade I need a reason. It costs time and, sometimes, money. With a backup program, what could they add? I'm sure that they could find new features to add, but I just set this program up and then leave it alone: there isn't much you could add to make it better.
If this happened, they'd have people using old versions. Which means they could clutter help responses with outdated problems and the only answer would be: "pay up and get the new version" - which isn't doesn't endear yourself to users (current or potential).
This would also mean that people wouldn't give feedback on new versions and new features: you'd be building new things for fewer and fewer people for less and less money. Not exactly a recipe for success: so often people stop upgrading it. And the program stagnates as your current user base stops growing and just slowly shrinks as other options come online. Again, not a recipes for long-term success (but, if you just want to cash out on your work now, it's an option).
Low Price
Often good applications are free these days (Google's: Documents, GMail, etc.), so you need to keep the price low since many people will see anything above $0 as "too much."
Point 2: you don't have any barriers to entry. The storage isn't theirs (so you can drop JungleDisk and use the storage yourself) and the data isn't locked (they give you open source tools and there exist other tools that can "read" JungleDisk's encryption - since it's a standard).
What this means: you can leave for any reason, and if JungleDisk charges too much that may be a good reason. As mentioned above, anything more than free can be seen as too much.
So, is a cheap price needed? I think so.
Blog Link: http://blog.jungledisk.com/2007/08/03/jungle-disk-beta-no-longer/
posted by Jeffrey Priebe | 11:29 AM 
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