If I were developing Shareware software then this would be the ploy that I
would use...
1) 30 day trial period on the software. Basically the piece of software
that you were offering as a demo.
2) To receive an additional 60 days of trial / extend the trial period,
fill out a survey about the software. This way you get meaningful feedback
from the user and they are more likely to keep using your software.
Now implementing #2 can be simple or complex, it depends upon your
"shareware making" tool. You would basically need to code logic in that
the extension key could only be used once. It wouldn't be to difficult
provided that your tool has some flexibility built into it.
Sometimes receiving customer feedback is more important than getting the
registration fee. Of course the software I've written is customized and is
not for general release (just yet) as it is much more of a development tool
and to be marketable I would need to create a considerable amount of
documentation around the ASP (Active Server Pages) code.
Harvesting email addresses as a way of auditing the number of downloads can
better be done using different techniques. I still like the idea of
completely a User Experience Survey to get extended trial time. Of course,
this is only practical if you do not compromise your ability to expire your
software.
Mark B
Blue Lantern Technologies
416.721.7149
www.BlueLanternTech.com
sales_at_BlueLanternTech.com
"Have a Dynamic Website? Need to Administrate it?"
www.bluelanterntech.com/wsm/
(now with screen captures online)
Received on Fri May 31 2002 - 17:58:30 CDT
