Follow-up on 15 000 Free CustomBars

[MattInglot]

(Up now at www.custombar.net)

A while ago I posted an idea in the private discussion forums about giving away 15 000 free CustomBars. There's a good reason for it, but I want you to know it without me having to explain it more.

This is all going down May 18-20. The reasons and the website page are here:

http://www.lizardsoft.biz/temp/cbfree.png (original)
http://www.lizardsoft.biz/temp/cbfree2.png (updated)

I would like you to critique this page and tell me as honestly as you can, whether you would agree to such an offer, and the reasons why (regardless of the answer). I have 2 more days to fine-tune this page.

I have several key concerns but I won't bring those up as I don't want to taint any opinions.

Tear this apart folks!

IE Users: IE might resize the image, so um make sure you view it fullsize.

(I'll of course post the results of the whole thing here too, provided I get some useful feedback ;))

[Jack Norton]

Well surely it's an interesting idea. One thing though, you think you'll "sell" 15000 copies in 2 days only? it's a very large amount even for something given out for free :)

[Nauris]

I like it. Especially, the honesty regarding why its being given for free. No corporate horse excrement, but valid, understandable reasons.
15000 might sound much, but I suspect that word of mouth in forums and such will empty your "stock" rather quickly.
Its also enticing because it makes clear its not some lite, chopped up version but fullblown app, I personally percieve it as a valuable offer for once.

[DanDanger]

Getting stuff for free is always good. What is custom bar anyway? It sounds like some sort of spyware thing to me, the sort of thing that takes over your browers tool bar kind of a thing, though im guessing it isnt :) Anyway thats my tuppence worth: if I saw this on a webpage I probably wouldnt sign up for it because it smells of spyware.

[Bmc]

Yeh I was thinking the same thing as DanDanger.

That's the only I can see wrong with the page ... it doesn't describe what the CustomBar is.

PS. I noticed the Features link right beside but still. A summary of the features on this page would be good.

[ErikH2000]

I would like you to critique this page and tell me as honestly as you can, whether you would agree to such an offer, and the reasons why (regardless of the answer). I have 2 more days to fine-tune this page.
I have a general distrust of desktop enhancement products. There's the spyware fear, sure, but I find a lot of times these things really sink their hooks into the system and cause troubles. CustomBar may have none of those problems, but it takes a lot for me to want to risk installing it. So the type of product that CustomBar is would prevent me from claiming a free copy. That doesn't say anything about how good CustomBar is--I just haven't installed any software like it in the last decade.

Assuming you had a product available that I wanted, though, the page seems pretty solid to me. I like how it is made clear that this is a regular product that I can get for free, and not simply freeware. I like seeing on the left and right side, extra related links like "forum", "existing customer", etc. that I'm not going to follow but suggest legitimacy.

-Erik

[Robert Cummings]

Please use the correct numerical wording which is 15,000 instead of 15 000.

[Martoon]

I agree with the others. Even though it's free, you still need to "sell" it on that page. It may not cost me money, but I'm taking the time to download and install, and taking the risk of installing something I'm not familiar with. I need something front and center on that page that tells me why I want to do that.

[Nauris]

I dont think any additional info on product is needed, if there`s whole page about it. After all, this page is equivalent of payment processing page, if you still have to tout the features of product, something must be terribly wrong with the rest of the site.

[ErikH2000]

Even though it's free, you still need to "sell" it on that page. It may not cost me money, but I'm taking the time to download and install, and taking the risk of installing something I'm not familiar with. I need something front and center on that page that tells me why I want to do that.
Yeah, I started to write something like that earlier, but then I looked at the other links on the mockup page--all the info you need about CustomBar is easily discoverable, i.e. there is a "Features" link to the left. Presumably, you would come to this offer page from the main site or a product description page, and get a little orientation before arrival.

But if you were coming to this offer page cold, like from a banner ad on another site, then I agree there should be a little more about the product on the offer page. I don't even know what CustomBar does by reading the offer page. So for this to serve as a point of arrival, at least a one sentence description of what the product does would be in order.

-Erik

[HairyTroll]

Please use the correct numerical wording which is 15,000 instead of 15 000.

It depends on the country...

15,000.00
15 000,00
15.000,00

... are all correct.

Decimal Separator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator)

-Luke

[MattInglot]

Thanks a lot for the very insightful feedback. I'll do my best to make features clearer on that page as well, even though it's not the page that's intended to be linked to it is perfectly true that people may link to it directly anyway. The spyware fears are a huge obstacle, I'm hoping that over time Lizardsoft will build up trust that will help combat the classification of CustomBar as "probably some spyware program". I take it that the No Spyware button on the navbar isn't doing its job?

Tomorrow's the big day!

[electronicStar]

Yes you need to tell about the product. You don't need a full description but maybe a little subtitle or header or banner at the top of the page with promotional text would do, sthg like:
"CustomBar : The best tool to enhance, blah blah blah blah your desktop. Get rid of these nasties blah blah today!"

As for the product himself I tend to think that the best way to enhance my desktop is to get rid of the useless err *stuff* that chokes my computer. IMHO it will be difficult to fight the fears and classifications attached to your product, because , to be honest, this kind of software doesn't fulfill a need.

[MattInglot]

I'm thinking an approach to combat the negative perceptions may be to play up the geekiness of it and stay away from looking too corporate (*cough* certain corporate site thread *cough*). I'm going to play with the site design a bit and see how I can spice it up and make it more informative at the same time.

And the bar does serve a need, for those that love having everything in one place :)

[ErikH2000]

I take it that the No Spyware button on the navbar isn't doing its job?
I think it is easy to miss, because there is a lot on that page. In fact, when I wrote my post earlier, I was typing out "You should have some kind of 'no adware' logo," and slapped my forehead when I realized you already did have one--I just missed it. I guess that's the trouble when you've got one page that has to do so much, i.e. "describe product features", "rationale behind offer", "benefits to user", etc. I felt that emphasizing the commercial value of CustomBar like you did helped a fair amount to alleviate spyware fears. If I saw "Absolutely Free!" all over the place, the spidey senses would tingle.

-Erik

[Chris Evans]

It seems like you're targeting (correct me if I'm wrong) mostly computer savvy users. I realize you're against changing the name, but "Custom bar" just scares off most computer savvy users. If it's becoming a huge uphill battle to fight off the "IE Toolbar" perception, then it might be better just to not wage the battle at all. Right now, your disadvantage is the name. Why not just get rid of that disadvantage entirely and just change the name. I realize changing the name of an existing product is never easy or trivial, but I think you'll be better in the long run and your marketing efforts (time and money-wise) will be more efficient.

You may want to appeal to the same people who are comfortable with using Firefox and downloading its various extensions. I think you're on the right track of thinking by playing up the "Geekiness" of it.

As for your offer page, I think it's pretty good. I just think the name of the product will unfairly turn away many people of your target market prematurely. Also, I highly advise getting rid your slogan, "The Ultimate Desktop Usability Enhancement Solution". It sounds very Gater-esqe. :) You should probably avoid corporate-speak like that for general users.

[MattInglot]

Slogan is definitely going. It was originally a joke that managed to remain in the design long enough to be forgotten.

Feel free to suggest good ones, I may even rotate through them randomly or something. Right now I have "The Dream Geek Utility in Bar Form"

Updated shot: http://www.lizardsoft.biz/temp/cbfree2.png

[Robert Cummings]

It depends on the country...

15,000.00
15 000,00
15.000,00

... are all correct.


I disagree. It is in English, so use the correct numercial wording for the English language. If it's in Romanian, then use the correct numerical wording for Romania. It isn't in Romanian, so it needs fixing.

[HairyTroll]

I disagree. It is in English, so use the correct numercial wording for the English language.

Unfortunately that doesn't do it. The exception makes the rule: I'm South African; English is the main language and we use comma notation "15 000,00" (because we just have to be different)

The OP is located in Ontario, Canada. I'm guessing he is French speaking and is therefore correct in his use of the comma notation.

I prefer "15,000.00" though. I've always disliked the spaces.

-Luke

[MattInglot]

I'm not going to change the comma because I'd rather be consistantly "wrong" than miss changing it somewhere. Please consider that issue closed.

[soniCron]

Frankly, internationalization is no simple task. Everybody's got their "right way". It just depends on where the user is from. It has nothing, however, to do with the country's first language. (The metric vs. imperial systems don't.) I think skipping it all together and using the spaces was the easiest way to accomplish his task. I know it kinda bugged me for a while, but I'm an ignorant American, so it didn't occur to me that 15,000 is incorrect elsewhere. If I were to see 15.000, I'd probably think "Fifteen point oh?" But using spaces avoids that confusion, as I think we all got the point with the spaces.

EDIT: Just noticed he responded to this while I was writing this post. Sorry for the redundancy!

[MattInglot]

Still working on the front page and advertising but if anyone wants to be an early bird, the freebie page is up!

http://www.custombar.net

[MattInglot]

So one day of the promo has passed. 2500 registrations given out so far. Response is very positive. It may come as a shock, but people like free stuff.

My main problem right now is finding places to submit news about this to.

[Savant]

Do a press release through Terin. That's always done well for me...

[terin]

Always done well for me too :-)

We could do an "emergency" Press Release. Write it up and send it tonight... with E3 going on your coverage wont be as much as normal, but hey, a 24 hours turnaround isn't so shabby :-)

-Joe

[MattInglot]

Doh! I really should have done that. The offer ends tomorrow so I don't think it would make sense to try getting a press release going now, but PM me with your rates and I'll consider your service for 1.1's release.

[BlueWaldo]

Is it just me or is CustomBar_101_monitor_beta_setup.exe the same file as CustomBar_100_setup.exe?

[MattInglot]

Just you :)

The multi monitor has multi monitor support. Although otherwise they are identical.

[BlueWaldo]

I thought the 1.1 would be a patch to upgrade the 1.0, but it looked like a full install. And when it installed it said 1.0 not 1.1. Just a FYI.

Sorry to go off topic, but I can't seem to get one bar on each monitor. They both go to whichever monitor I tell the second one to go to.

[MattInglot]

1.1 isn't released yet, the multi monitor patch has little to do with 1.1

Interesting bug though, could you post on the bug report forum on http://forums.custombar.net with your bar .tds file and a bit more info on your monitor setup/videocard (and OS) please?

[BlueWaldo]

Ah, I got 1.01 confused with 1.1. I’ll post in your bugs forum.

Now back to the real topic.