|
| Precedente :: Successivo |
| Autore |
Messaggio |
Zeus News
Ospite
|
 Inviato: 04 Ott 2010 09:27 Oggetto: Xmarks chiede aiuto agli utenti per non scomparire |
 |
|
Commenti all'articolo Xmarks chiede aiuto agli utenti per non scomparire
Il servizio di sincronizzazione, già noto come Foxmarks, dovrà chiudere i battenti. Oppure diventare a pagamento.
|
|
| Top |
|
 |
ioSOLOio
Amministratore
Registrato: 12/09/03 19:01
Messaggi: 16342
Residenza: in un sacco di...acqua
|
| Inviato: 04 Ott 2010 14:23 Oggetto: |
|
|
Non so quanto potrà ricevere in donazioni....
Le estensioni sono spesso molto utili ma vengono utilizzate perchè "ci sono" e "sono gratis"
In caso contrario spesso si possono ottenere medesimi risultati con un minimo di lavoro in più o scegliendo strade differenti. |
|
| Top |
|
|
TheBigPit
Eroe in grazia degli dei
Registrato: 26/03/10 10:15
Messaggi: 165
Residenza: Castel de Callèr
|
| Inviato: 04 Ott 2010 15:05 Oggetto: |
|
|
Le loro spese ammonterebbero a 2 milioni di dollari all'anno??
Sarebbero quasi 1 milione e mezzo di euro...
Tre miliardi delle vecchie lire...
Per fare quello che fanno? Ovvero estensioni per i browsers?
Boh, o non sono al corrente di alcune cose o mi sfugge qualcos'altro.
Con quella cifra mi pago i locali e i macchinari, e posso dare 5000 dollari di stipendio mensile a 30 dipendenti.
Mi sembra eccessivo, ripeto, per realizzare estensioni. |
|
| Top |
|
|
Zeus
Amministratore
Registrato: 21/10/00 02:01
Messaggi: 13272
Residenza: San Junipero
|
| Inviato: 04 Ott 2010 15:46 Oggetto: |
|
|
| TheBigPit ha scritto: | Con quella cifra mi pago i locali e i macchinari, e posso dare 5000 dollari di stipendio mensile a 30 dipendenti.
Mi sembra eccessivo, ripeto, per realizzare estensioni. |
Va bene, tu avresti fatto così. Ma non tutti siamo degli Steve Jobs o dei Mark Zuckerberg 
Lo scopo di Xmarks non è "realizzare estensioni"...
Ho evidenziato la parte che ti interessa di piu', ma leggi tutto il discorso e capirai meglio...
| Citazione: | First off, a big thanks to all of you that sent kudos and “Nooooooo’s” in response to our shutdown announcement. We take enormous pride in the sync service we worked so hard to create and it means a lot to hear how much our users love what we’ve built.
We’ve also received a lot of credible interest from companies interested in acquiring the Xmarks assets and taking over the service – no guarantees, but we’ve been pleasantly surprised by the volume of interest and we may yet find a path to a continued Xmarks sync service.
But on to the main thing we’ve heard… many of you have cried from the rooftops that you would be willing to pay for Xmarks. There’s an interesting thread on our customer support forums discussing this. I want to add some history and data to this discussion, so you can better understand where we’ve been as a startup and why we haven’t tried to pivot into a premium service.
But first, the punch line: we’re revisiting the idea of Xmarks as a premium service. We’ve set up a Pledgebank page where you can sign up if you’re willing to pay at least $10 a year for Xmarks. No credit card is required, but please only pledge if you are genuinely willing and able to pay:
www.pledgebank.com/XmarksPremium
This is not a scientific experiment to predict what % of our base will pay, but it’s a data point that will definitely help.
So, why hasn’t Xmarks tried to charge for a premium service in the past? Here’s a three-part answer:
1) Charging users for sync was not our original strategy
* Foxmarks started, before I joined, with a strategy to crowd-source bookmarks at scale and then aggregate and analyze that data to create valuable new web services that tens of millions of users would use every day.
* As CEO, under the direction of my investors, I led my team to execute on that original vision. I’m proud of how agile we were in launching, testing, and iterating on a number of search and discovery services. Ultimately, none of those services achieved significant user traction and scale, but they were spot on our strategy of leveraging our “corpus” of over one billion bookmarks. Keeping the sync service was an essential part of our strategy to grow that bookmark corpus as quickly as possible.
2) Early “freemium” tests and models were discouraging
* We were one of the first add-ons to turn on the Mozilla “contributions” feature, allowing users to make a suggested $7 donation when they download Xmarks. Participation was abysmal… less that 0.001% of users contributed. (Interestingly, most of the contributions came from Europe, not from the US.)
* In a true freemium model, we would hold some features back behind a pay wall. Successful services in this category typically see 1-3% of free users convert to paid. The popular service Evernote, for example, have said publicly that 2% of their free users convert.
* For Xmarks, 2% of our two million users paying $10 a year would generate $400,000 of annual revenue. Today Xmarks costs over $2 million a year to run. For two developers in a garage this could be a nice business, but we had big aspirations (per point #1) and have already invested $9 million dollars to create the technology and grow the data corpus. If $2MM / year seems crazy high to you, remember that we staffed senior engineers to keep up with changes on multiple browsers and operating systems, plus a team building our search features.
3) Free alternatives have significant market power
* The advent of Mozilla and Google building in sync to Firefox and Chrome has had significant negative impact on Xmarks. While we have lots of users signing up for Xmarks, we have also seen increased “churn,” with users switching over to the native Firefox and Chrome sync solutions. When Firefox 4 is released with free sync built in, it will become harder for a standalone add-on that must be purchased and installed separately to compete.
UPDATE: Many comments point out that Xmarks is the only game in town for cross-browser sync; that’s something that Firefox or Chrome can’t hold a candle to. Absolutely true! Point #3 is still relevant to our business prospects, as over 75% of our current users are Firefox-only.
Hopefully you can see that, for us and our investors, we were aiming for a different business, and staffing at a different level, than what it is likely appropriate for a freemium model. For a new company taking a fresh start with Xmarks, a freemium model could be really compelling. The overwhelming positive user support from all of you, combined with strong interest by companies looking to take over Xmarks, means that the service might just find a ninth life. Please stay tuned.
James Joaquin
CEO, Xmarks Inc. |
In particolare in quest'altro post viene spiegata la nascita di Foxmarks (poi Xmarks), le aspirazioni, i costi che l'azienda deve sostenere e i motivi dell'annunciata chiusura. |
|
| Top |
|
|
dany88
Dio maturo
Registrato: 12/02/09 12:14
Messaggi: 1300
|
| Inviato: 04 Ott 2010 19:41 Oggetto: |
|
|
| io aderirò se riusciamo ad arrivare a 100k. |
|
| Top |
|
|
{carlo}
Ospite
|
| Inviato: 04 Ott 2010 22:10 Oggetto: |
|
|
| Offritegli una birra... Spiace per loro. |
|
| Top |
|
|
{utente anonimo}
Ospite
|
| Inviato: 05 Ott 2010 03:55 Oggetto: |
|
|
| 2 milioni per sincronizzare i preferiti paiono un po troppi... |
|
| Top |
|
|
Zeus
Amministratore
Registrato: 21/10/00 02:01
Messaggi: 13272
Residenza: San Junipero
|
| Inviato: 05 Ott 2010 08:52 Oggetto: |
 |
|
Siamo a 22mila adesioni, ma l'andamento lascia presupporre che non si arriverà all'obiettivo.
Tuttavia pare che ci siano diverse aziende interessate all'acquisto o alla compartecipazione a Xmarks, e probabilmente questo è l'obiettivo ultimo della campagna.
p.s. Chi vuole sincronizzare i bookmark e basta, può farlo con i numerosi strumenti alternativi disponibili gratuitamente, tra cui quello ufficiale di Mozilla. |
|
| Top |
|
|
|
|
Non puoi inserire nuovi argomenti
Non puoi rispondere a nessun argomento
Non puoi modificare i tuoi messaggi
Non puoi cancellare i tuoi messaggi
Non puoi votare nei sondaggi
|
|
FAQ
Cerca
Lista utenti
Gruppi
Registrati
Profilo
Messaggi privati
Log in
