Why there’s no Best of Everything Software in 2008 --- Only a few days for 2007 package
Given this week’s discussion of coolest apps, I feel comfortable briefly discussing Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine’s Best of Everything Software Package and Best of Everything Demo CD. For three years we have offered what IMHO is the best software package ever (content and value) in the history of any computer operating system!
Basically, we approached Best Software Award winner and finalists. We offered them year long publicity on-line, in print, and on a Demo CD, plus banner advertising. In exchange our partners provided us with a limited number of software licenses which we sold as a package.
We will stop taking orders for the 2007 Best of Everything Software Package, on Thursday, January 24. That gives customers just one week to register the software they want to use in the package, since we close down our registration site January 31. Due to contractual obligations, no exceptions can be made about registering software after January 31. (The registration process makes sense by visiting a clone of the actual registration site.)
We actually planned to have a 2008 Best of Everything Software Package and Demo CD. In fact we had well over 70 vendors and 100 products already signed up as late as November.
So why cancel in 2008?
The short answer – our web site! For over two years I have wanted to “fix†this site. We’ve made a number of false starts with not much to show for it. On the one hand, IMHO, we have an awesome site of outstanding content: these blogs, forum, Best Software Awards, Encyclopedia of Software and Accessories, archives of ALL past issues of Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine , device comparison chart, free newsletters, and the VIP site!
The problem is that the site has grown organically both inside and out. The main site has one look. These blogs, the forums, our VIP site have a completely different one. The site consists of canned packages, like for these blogs, and custom code written in ASP, ASP .NET, PHP. Data is stored in two completely different data base languages.
Consequently, the site is difficult to maintain and upgrade, and looks like completely different sites as you visit from place to place.
Our solution is to port everything to a Content Management System (Drupal.org) and create a much more modern and uniform look among modules.
So what does our redesigned web site have to do with Best of Everything Software Package and Demo CD?
We have a small staff. Creating Best of Everything Software Package so it is a great user experience takes months. Our small web and marketing team would have to drop most of their work on the new site to create the 2008 BOE. I finally decided we simply had to get the new site up and so pulled the plug.
If you have any insights, suggestions, or can even volunteer quality time creating our new site comment below, or E-mail me at hal [at] thaddeus [dot] com. THANKS!
- Hal Goldstein's blog
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That's really awesome. I can't wait for the new site. I am sure many others share the same sentiments too.
We can't wait either. Realistically (I hope), it will probably be May or June before we re-launch.
Nate, it was a very difficult decision not to produce a 2008 package - especially as you say giving up the income which is extremely important to the health of the magazine.
However, in the age of the Internet, it is very difficult for a print magazine to be viable without a strong Internet presence.
As I tried to explain in my post our current site although it has great content, is a hodge podge of pieces. To do simple things can be a major project. For example, if I want to change text in the Best Software Awards home page, either I have to do it in HTML or ask a programmer to do it. There is absolutely no reason why I shouldn't be able to add content and change things on any page on our site as easily as I do it here on the blogs with a simple text interface.
We want readers to more easily be able to post content -- we are thinking of having a blog consisting of posts of our readers about neat stuff they have discovered and do.
We want to support video on site. We need to allow more web advertising.
Users need to feel comfortable all throughout our site. Information needs to be more easily related. So, yours and other blogs about, say SPB Pocket Plus, relates to our awards and Encyclopedia entries and a magazine review.
Moving existing data to Drupal, relating content, and coming up with a new design that meets many objectives is not a task we can delegate to volunteers. (Having said that there will be plenty of opportunities for volunteers for example to tag content).
Hopefully, we'll have a Best of Everything program in 2009.
The 15% discount on software for our subscribers (VIPs) is based on an agreement with Handango. We have discussed increasing the discount rate, but it really isn't much in our control.
Yeah I can understand Hal's position on moving all to a new system. Writing for this blog is fun but the technical aspects of it could greatly be improved and we could come up with more pleasant looking articles. I am not saying we should forget about content because that is even more important but I think the re-design will work for everyone, both front-end and back-end, in the long run.