Lessons Learned From Sproutbuilder Shutting Down
February 16, 2010
Don’t trust the cloud.
Or I should say, don’t trust the cloud alone.
Sproutbuilder is a service that was recommended to me by a friend to check out. Since they had been around a couple years, it seemed a good fit for a few projects so I signed up for a monthly subscription. Well, Sproutbuilder is shutting down in the next 45 days, and so all the work we’ve done on that platform is going to be lost (and we will have to spend time re-creating).
Look, I get the need to focus the business. Although ditching everyone who pays less than $3,000 a month when you had service offerings that were less than one tenth of that seems quite a stretch, I get it. I understand you gotta focus. However, there are lessons to be learned and I will NOT consider paying Sprout’s ransom to keep my account. I’d rather spend the money in time recreating things than to be locked down.
Subscribers of the service cannot download or keep any of the materials they create. Even with this losing of service, everyone is screwed because Sprout is not allowing you to take the stuff you created, so many people are just going to be out of luck completely. In our case, that’s my fault for choosing a service like that, even though at the time it seemed like the perfect fit. I should have remembered my lessons.
Lesson One: If You Can’t Take It With You, Don’t Use It
Sproutbuilder locks you into their proprietary files, and you can’t download and save your work locally. This is why I will not even consider spending $3000 for a service from a company I obviously cannot trust, because they’ll just pull the plug with little support. It’s not just Sproutbuilder – you should never trust cloud services on their own. If you cannot keep a local copy or mirror of your stuff, do not use it. You’re putting your business fate in the hands of others without a backup plan.
Lesson Two: Companies Will Fail
Even the biggest of companies can fail, and you cannot have yourself be exposed to it. We’re losing quite a few hours of work because we can’t bill recreating stuff, but we have to do it, because we’re living up to our responsibilities even when Sprout did not. Again, easily solved if one could take what you created with you. Sprout Inc. and Sproutbuilder is a customer relations failure because they don’t let you do that, and they’ve erased any trust I might have to pay them $3,000 per year.
Lesson Three: You’re Going To Have To Pay More In The Future
I personally think the days of inexpensive or free services that are reliable are coming to a close. Outside of ones funded by Google, I don’t think that there’s a possibility for these services who start free to have a future. Very few (if any) have shown that they can make the transition from free to paid. The real route to success is having a paid product or service to begin with so it has an established a value with the consumer.
Sproutbuilder was a free product at the start, and I think that monetizing from free to a subscription is simply a hard road to go down and I would not invest there.Much better is to just charge from the beginning – what’s the point if you have a half million users if you’re losing money on them, unless you’re a charity?
Why Freemium Doesn’t Work For Almost All Businesses
The reason why the transition from free to paid doesn’t work is psychology. Although you love your product or service and it may have value, outside of the tech bubble if you set your price at “free” the monetary value by the purchaser is zero, no matter how much they rely on you. Convincing more than a very small percentage of people that it’s worth more than free is extremely hard, and even harder is getting them to pay an amount that makes money. Bits are free, but people are not.
Logically, if that convincing users to the paid product had occurred in sufficient numbers in the case of Sproutbuilder, they wouldn’t have discontinued the service levels. It’s always easier to lower your prices than to raise them.
I’ll take any of your recommendations in the comments for other services and Sprout or Sproutbuilder alternatives. The work we need to recreate is relatively small, and of course, we’re willing to pay for the service. I also hope there’s a general lesson remembered (at least on our part) that if you can’t take it with you, don’t use it.
Questioning God
December 4, 2009
There’s groupthink in any industry, but I think ours in Social Media is full of it to an extreme extent.
Because it’s so relatively new (although some of us has been interacting socially on the web for 15 years before the tools got nifty pastel gradients and friendly icons reminiscent of songbirds) people are busy looking for any validation of their beliefs due to either their inexperience, their need to be like others, or simply professionally being able to point to someone else.
Unlike any other marketing/PR/customer service/etc. function, social media crosses so many barriers and traditional silos that it literally scares people. We who live “in the biz” forget that this isn’t second nature and intimidating to most not just because of the tools but the impending culture shift, contradicting what years of B-school and hierarchies reinforced.
And what do people do when they’re scared? Come together. At times through religion. Add into the mix it’s digital and many people over 40 don’t have much value for bits and bytes and/or culturally don’t understand their significance, you have a flock of converts under attack looking for leadership.
The Universal Law (Benefit) of Social Media
However, in order for our industry to grow, and for the real, universal benefit of social media – connecting people to make things happen, whatever that “thing” is to you – true progress is going to be made not by parroting the current leaders of the social media industry, but by taking their experience and trying new things. Working it. I say this with the utmost respect, but the only real difference between them and everyone else is the willingness to try something and do the hustle to make it work, and being willing to fail (which by the way, is much easier said than done, and one of many reasons to respect thought leaders).
After all, there is no formula when dealing with people; and this is dealing with people to the largest extent. Every situation you’re going to want to draw on yours and others experiences, real data, ask hard questions and be willing to listen to the answers, even if they don’t match your initial thought.
You need to be willing to act quickly, decisively, and comport to the needs of your community, not necessarily your needs.
So go out, be fruitful, be an evangelist for your brand, love your users, love your community, and charge on. We might have different sized caravans – or lone riders on a trusty steed. But if you want to make things happen – be that trailblazer with your own ideas.
11,000 Reasons To Disclose
October 5, 2009
This has been coming for months, and as of December 1st, it’s here.
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) has decided to put their hand into the blogosphere (as well as other types of endorsements) and have a policy shift that requires more disclosure than before. This initiative (started and most of the formulation was done by the previous presidential administration) is no surprise – but an under-covered story. Now that’s it’s on our doorstep, I hope more pay attention.
In some ways, this is a good thing – digital is being taken seriously enough and has proven it’s efficacy enough to require being noticed. But, with prestige comes responsibility – and since we’re talking about transactions, even if they’re “freebies,” you’re influencing people because of influences you normally wouldn’t have.
I’ve always been a proponent of full disclosure – I think that the culture of the web (which is the deciding factor – not of your profession or company) leans toward being transparent
Social media etiquette is like when you go to someone’s house – the deciding factor of whether you take your shoes off at the door is the discretion of the host, not the guest.
Open The Kimono
I honestly don’t understand the outrage of people who are against disclosure. Why does it matter to tell your audience if you received a sample, gift, or are paid for the review? If your audience ACTUALLY trusts you, it won’t hurt your credibility whatsoever.
Here’s some suggestions for disclosure:
- Lay The Disclosure At The Reader’s Feet: The footer disclosure. At the end of the post, possible as a p.s. or italics, there’s a straightforward disclosure line.
- Integrate it into the post. Just come out and say, “The Acme company sent me these freebies the other day, and I tried….”
- Have A Post That Tells The Story. Especially if your site is a review site and you’re brought on retainer by a PR or ad firm to write about their products (I know bloggers who are in this situation), et all, you should have a post that states the relationship directly, offer a place for questions in the comments, etc.
Again, if you actually have trust with your readers, you have nothing to fear. It will be interesting over the next few months how the public reacts to this disclosure. However, if you’re really serious about your blog and reputation – step into the dojo:
Black Belt Judo Move: Develop and Publish Your Policy
Yep, I’m encouraging individuals to have a policy on this and publish it.. according to what you’re comfortable with and what’s within the bounds of the upcoming regulation. I believe readers (even if you don’t consider yourself a journalist, however, evidence is mounting that’s the default standard the public has once your readership reaches a certain level) deserve to know what you’re internal barometer is. This is a big reason WHY mainstream publications are trusted by most and continue to have high level of readership - and continue to be the “originators” of content. If you’re going to be a quality, followed, content originator, trust needs to be built up over time. Here’s a great for-instance from CNET on how they approach disclosure. Not saying you should copy exactly, however, it’s an idea how a respected publication takes it. One initiative our network uses is Blog With Integrity.
The Field Is Moving Forward
I believe December 1st is a turning point of sorts. I think the entire discipline is growing up so different rules are being applied, and just like people forever thought “blogging is dead,” it’s just because the people who weren’t dedicated and not as good didn’t have the readership or passion to continue – and Twitter, at 140 characters, was easier.
The unintended consequence is that those who actually do still blog got more authority and audience due to the lack of commoditization – if you’re writing blog posts, you’re obviously putting in more effort than a Tweet and more and more people aren’t willing or able to do more than a Tweet – and they NOW realize how much more difficult it is as far as writing, time commitment, research, etc.
What do you think? Is the government stepping too far in? What justifiable reasons does a blog writer or person have to NOT disclose relationships?
Stop Whining About Google Mail
September 24, 2009
Seriously? The blogosphere and Twitterverse (and whatever other celestial body references we can make for social media sites) are obsessed and “freaked out” by a second Gmail outage in a short time.
I think it’s an indication of people who’ve never worked for a large company or within an IT infrastructure. As usual, those who grew up getting everything for free, and then complaining if it doesn’t work.
First, some facts. It wasn’t a wide spread outage this time – I had some slowness with contacts, for instance. Second, it’s painfully obvious that most of these people have no experience spending hours a week where email doesn’t work, or having at least one outage a month. And at VERY large companies who’s IT staff supposedly is a crack team. Even more hilarious, the regular outages at IT firms I know about. Stuff breaks.
I have personal experience working at 1000+ person organizations where mail is out for mornings or afternoons at least a few times a year.
Meet Elmer FUD
But here’s the real FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) behind all of this – there’s a lot of IT people who do not want Google Mail or apps to succeed in the business marketplace, because it threatens their jobs.
There’s a saying – “You can’t convince a man of something that’s against his wallet.” And it’s true. Many in-house IT people (of which many are on social networks) are petrified of the mass outsourcing of core functions because in their view, it’s their job. Not to mention the purchasing folks who have spent thousands on office, Exchange servers, et all. You can be for darn sure those who have skin in the game are waiting to pounce on everything Google could perceived as doing as a misstep.
Not saying GMail is the perfect answer for everything – but it’s good, and those paying the relatively paltry fee to get Google Apps for business are getting pretty good service. And for the cost/benefit, even if it’s as reliable as your in-house mail service, it can be way cheaper and you’re not dealing with the headaches. And there’s other options too – Gmail is not the only player by far – but housing all this infrastructure in your company is a recipe for expensive disaster.
What are your thoughts? I’m a proponent of the cloud in some cases – it’s served us very, very well. But I’d love to hear your perspective.
The Problem With Making Money Online Is Perception
September 21, 2009
There’s tons of talk about Hulu going paid or subscription of some sort.
Also, talk of how journalists are worried about how they’re going to get paid.
Well, it’s for a simple reason – it’s because, for instance, a Hulu viewer is worth $920 less than a broadcast viewer. Nevermind the ads could stick better, stand out from the flotsam, and can’t be easily skipped. There’s no financial choice to keep things the way they are – either programming or costs need to be cut drastically, or revenues increase. Either way, in a few years if trends continue, TV could be the next financial victim of the digital age.
The common saying is, “Trading traditional dollars for digital cents.” It’s so far proven mostly true – but why?
Perception.
I’ve learned, from personal experience, people are willing to pay more for a physical product even if the content is the same. I also know that ad buyers still “feel” like they don’t get as much benefit from online, and in some ways it’s because of the exact metrics they get (we only could guess if real TV metrics were rolled out how much damage that would do – yes, there’s Nielsen, but those ratings are nothing more than educated guesses and miss all kinds of niche audiences).
As long as ad buyers and media folks continually feel that digital is worth less than traditional, it will be. The real question is – how to change that perception? Why is digital so darn cheap, even though real numbers and even actions can be counted? Is the future in the affiliate marketing world, where there’s lots of folks making handy profits – of course, that limits you to certain kinds of products.
I know that in business, once you start out at a price, it’s easy to cut but very hard to increase – which is always a model that befuddled me. But that’s the past – what to do now to move the bar? If you buy media, what are the things you’re looking for that would warrant higher rates? Or, are we just going to have to adjust to this new reality that viewers or audience are only worth so much?
