We are branching out! We want to let other folks take advantage of some of the things we’ve learned building Bscopes. We have learned an amazing amount about cutting edge web technologies in the past few years. Plus we’ve created a few specific pieces of specialized software as part of Bscopes that we think might be useful to others as well. We have been asked to supply this knowledge to other folks.
The real-estate on Bscopes is just too valuable. The pages seemed just too crowded. We’ve heard this from a number of folks looking at the site. And we just keep debating it back and forth. So now it’s gone.
The idea was that the ads would supplement the paid subscriptions. And we knew that the click through rate on Google Ads is low. Not 1% low, not even 0.1% low. But, over the last couple of years the rate, for us, has dropped through the floor. Frankly, the ads weren’t bringing in revenue. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Bupkis.
Steve finally left the dark side. He’s got a new lightsaber and is willing to admit that the space could be put to better use.
Now it is all up to you all buying Bscopes subscriptions. We need to pay our mortgage and buy some food and one of us still has kids to send to college.
Tell your friends. Click on the Subscribe button today. Don’t delay. While supplies last. Operators are standing by. (Ok, they aren’t but I’ve wanted to say that for a while now.)
The guys over at knowabout.it recently did a blog post where they gave Straight Answers to Tough Questions. Apparently they received these questions from a friend/Angel Investor who they don’t name. (To bad, I’d love to link back the original source of the questions.)
So, just in case any Angel Investors are out there looking at Bscopes and we don’t know it… here are our answers to these six questions:
1. What problem are you solving?
It’s the frustration from the eventual overload from too many sources of information to keep up with.
Bscopes addresses this problem of overload by picturing the massive information so that you can tell what things are hot at a glance for both general topics and your specific set of info.
2. Who is your target audience to use the product?
The most overloaded folks struggling to keep up with the fire hose of information coming at them all the time. Like who? Well, some folks recognized this early and have been complaining about this for quite a while. The rest of us will continue to feel this more and more in the future. Eventually, everyone will be on this list along with these folks at the front of the curve:
It’s ironic, the very people who most could use Bscopes to solve their information overload are too busy to being overloaded to find out about Bscopes. For a while now, we’ve written blog posts… We’ve coded features… We’ve commented on other people’s blogs… We’ve tweeted… So we are going to continue to try and tell anyone and everyone we can that there are tools out there to help with the overload. We’ve always thought of ourselves as a Purple Cow (a la Seth Godin).
4. Who is going to pay you money and what value are they going to garner (even if it’s a guess today)?
Who? The most overloaded of all those trying to keep up with the many blogs and changing content on the internet. The ones who don’t just want, but need, to keep up with more and more information every day. That’s why we are going with a Freemium model for now, right Fred?
What will they get?
Relief from the pain of overload, and
The right information, not just the ability to consume more information, and
Guilt free use of the mark all read button.
And are those are things worth paying for? @lysglimt certainly thinks so.
5. Why are you better than the competition?
Bscopes is unique. It’s a picture, not just more text. A visualization, not simply filtering. We cut through the clutter by visualizing the blogosphere.
6. How can I help?
Well, if you are the mysterious Angel Investor, then you are welcome to help us quit our day jobs so we can focus on Bscopes full-time.
Everyone should come and participate in the Bscopes community
The biggest thing you can do right now is to tell someone that there is hope and point them to tools like Bscopes. Spread the word so we can continue to innovate.
And if you have something you’d like to tell us, the comment button is right below.
Disclaimer: I was sent a review copy by Chris Anderson for free on the promise to write about the book, because the Bscopes business model is one of those described in this book. Neither Chris nor his publisher dictated the content of our review.
Further dislaimer: As a living example, all of the links to the book on Amazon are affiliate links. So, if after reading my review you want to buy a copy of Free: The Future of a Radical Price, then please use one of our links to buy the book on Amazon. That way Bscopes will earn a little revenue while providing you this blog post for free.
In this book, Chris Anderson traces through the many meanings of the term “free” especially as they apply to the Internet. As a business book, it’s a nice read. I was able to work my way though it over the course of a few days in my (copious) spare time. It clocks in at around 275 pages and alternates between fascinating reading where you want to pour over every word, and repeated information where I felt like a could skip ahead to the next section.
One of the things this book does best is to serve almost as a history text book. It documents, describes and catalogs the different kids of free. A detailed analysis is provided on the 20th century model(s) of free that apply mostly to the world of atoms versus the 21st century model(s) of free that apply to the world of bits. It serves as a great compilation of the early days of free on the Internet right up through Web 2.0. This is invaluable in proving wrong those who say “it can’t be done” by showing how it already has been done. There is a wonderfully detailed section that reproduces many of the most common arguments against “free” that have already appeared and Chris refutes them point-by-point.
The book is a business and case studies text that documents how people have made money using “free”. In addition to a ton or references and citations, Chris’ book does a nice job of tying together information provided in other books that are related including Dan Ariely‘s Predictably Irrational and Seth Godin‘s Unleashing the Ideavirus. For example, he uses Dan’s description of the difference between 1¢ and 0¢ to help explain the uniqueness of free. He also provides detailed information on multiple “case studies” that break down the specific pattern used by that example product or service to earn money using “free”.
Where the book seems to fall down is when it acts as an economics textbook. The analysis and estimates of various market sizes of free are so full of qualifiers, assumptions and weasel words as to render them nearly useless. This effort weakens an otherwise useful section on concepts such as reputation and attention. The shallow and incomplete nature of this part of the book takes away from the thorough style in the other sections. I think it might have worked better to simply describe the incomplete nature of what is known for certain in these areas and then move on.
Much of the book’s content has already been made available online for free. If you’ve been reading Chris’ blog over the past few years, then you’ll have seen the information as it evolved. Even now you can go back and scour those posts and put together the information yourself from the original pieces. Or, if you go to Chris’ blog you’ll find some recent posts describing all the ways you can get an electronic version of the book for free.
In true meta fashion, there are then three markets that this book appeals to and several ways that Chris attempts to monetize each one:
His faithful blog readers: They’ve already consumed much of the content:
So they have no need to buy the book unless they are willing to trade $ for their time and convenience.
Or unless they view the book at a souvenir that they can keep and display
Or as something they wish to lend or give to others
New people who heard about the concept and who have the time to obtain the info:
These people are also willing to trade time to save $. For example, college students.
They can find an audio version as well as a written version for free on the Internet. So not much revenue, but he’ll gain exposure.
New people who heard about the concept but lack the time to deal with obtaining all the info:
These folks are willing to pay for the convenience of having it all in one place.
They may also be willing to pay for having it in hard copy book form for reading away from the computer screen.
As a content creator, this experiment neatly summarizes the two trade-offs of this free pricing model: A bigger pie (audience), where 2/3 of the audience may obtain the content for free versus and contribute no revenue versus a smaller pie where all of the audience brings in revenue. The first case’s bigger pie is due to the word of mouth, attention and reputation gains that giving away the content for free brings. Plus, secondary revenue streams are increased as well. I’m sure that Chris will make a tidy sum through speaking engagements based on the book’s (and his) reputation.
Free: The Future of a Radical Price shows itself as an example of Chris’ adage that to compete against something that is free, you must offer something of greater value. In my opinion, this book does that. I’ll be spending much time over the next few months looking to this book for new ideas on how Bscopes can continue to make money (we still to pay our mortgages and deal with college costs) while we provide a useful product where much if it is free.
Late last week a new tool was unveiled in the war against Blog RSS Overload: Fever. Here’s how they describe this new tool on their website:
Your current feed reader is full of unread items. You’re hesitant to subscribe to any more feeds because you can’t keep up with your existing subs. Maybe you’ve even abandoned feeds altogether.
Fever takes the temperature of your slice of the web and shows you what’s hot.
Users of Bscopes and readers of the Bscopes Blog may findthisfamiliar. This is great. For too long now, we’ve felt like the only ones trying to do something radical with the existing feed reader approach. Shaun Inman seems to be a kindred spirit. Someone who is also frustrated trying to keep up with the information overload. It is good to see that he’s trying to do something about it too.
Fever is a hot new RSS reader that aims to cure “second inbox syndrome, unread item guilt, and unbold elbow.” In other words, the common plights of the modern RSS power user.
I’ve heard the first two terms, but “unbold elbow” is a new one. I like that term, and if you don’t mind too much Dan, I might just use it from time to time. I hope that having more people focused on solving the problem of Blog Overload for those RSS Power Users will help to let those overwhelmed users know that help is available to them.
Good luck to Shaun and to all of us out there trying to keep from drowning in this sea of RSS feeds.
There was a great crowd who was full of interesting questions and suggestions. They gave us some much needed praise and feedback on Bscopes. It is fun to get to have a real-time dialogue to exchange concepts and ideas.
Next time, though, Steve is considering wearning his high heels too!
Everyone in the Baltimore-DC area should keep an eye out for their next Forum. Their newletter is at www.loyola.edu/loyolacomputes. They are building a great new Software Engineering Graduate program. We are looking forward to participating again in the future.
Also, a big shout out to “He who must not be named” (who last appeared on Bscopes a year ago in this post) for making a special guest appearance in the audience. We’ll be watching for him this summer at a nearby theater.
See… this is what happens when you get too busy. You forget to mention some of the important things. Even when you’ve known about them for a while.
Steve and I have been invited to do a presentation tomorrow at the Loyola College Advanced Technology Forum. Our topic is: “Bscopes: Visually Organize The Blogosphere”. (I’m sure that came as a surprise)
We’ll be discussing what Bscopes is all about and conducting a live demonstration of the Bscopes site.
It’s no secret that I’m a member of the Seth Godin Tribe. So when I read in his latest blog post that he going to give me “the secret of the new marketing”, I got all excited.
It sounds simple. Just find ten people. That’s even easier than last year when Kevin Kelly told me to find 1000 True Fans.
Seth tells me that Steve and I don’t have to “launch”. We don’t have to create press releases or have a big release party. We don’t have to buy a superbowl ad with the VC money that we don’t have. (I think our wives will be glad to know that).
This makes sense. And, then, I realize that Seth is — once again — writing directly to me. This is what we’ve been doing here at Bscopes. We have:
Figured out our passion: visualization and web 2.0
Seen a problem that needs solving: Blog and RSS overload
Built a product to meet the need: Bscopes
Started telling other people with the same need: in the Bscopes Blog and via word of mouth
Then, if we follow this approach, as Seth outlines, then our idea spreads. And, our business grows. “Not as fast as you want”, Seth cautions. “But faster than you could ever imagine”. I hope so. (“From his lips to Gods ears” is what my Grandmother would have said if she heard him).
I believe that we have started. That there are at least ten people out there reading this blog — there are certainly a ton more than that using Bscopes.
What Else Should We Do?
While I’m sure I could just sit back and wait, that doesn’t sound exactly right to me. And, I remember that as I kid I was told that if I didn’t ask for what I wanted, didn’t speak up, I would never get it.
I would like the ten of you who have begun to fall in love with Bscopes to go tell someone. Or ten someones. If you have a blog (like our first fan Christophe) then please write a blog post about Bscopes.
That’s it. That’s all. Just help spread the word. With your help, we can keep building Bscopes into the kind of a business that can do something about the problem of information overload. And never forget… you were there at the beginning.
Bscopes is, first and foremost, about helping bloggers manage their information overload. We have seen that some of our users are already hitting the limits on their free Bscopes accounts.
Introducing Bscopes Paid Memberships
Today we are adding three new levels of Bscopes memberships: Bronze, Silver, and Gold. Of course, you can still continue to use Bscopes for free. You always will — that’s a promise. But, when you need more, now you can have more.Each membership level gives you more of the Bscopes capabilities you need:
Larger feed subscription limits
Bigger Bspaces with more feeds in each one
More frequent updates of Bscopes and Bspaces
Larger sized graphs
Interactivity: click through Bscopes and Bspaces
Ad Free pages
Additional Features To Come
More and more features are coming to Bscopes. As they are added, Bronze, Silver and Gold members will continue to get access to more of them with fewer limitations.
Simple Monthly Subscription
Signup for any Bscopes paid membership level in just 30 seconds. Bronze membership starts at $4.99 per month. Your credit card is billed automatically every month. And you can upgrade, downgrade or cancel at any time. There is no commitment; no contract.
Feedback, please!
As always, we are interested in knowing what you think. Please take a moment and post a comment on this post and let us know what you think about the new membership levels.
We have been influenced by the folks over at 37signals. We read their book: Getting Real a while back and loved it. This week we both watched a presentation that David Heinemeier Hansson did at Startup School 08. (If you, too, are starting a business, go watch it. I’ll wait… Ok, now that you’re back, let’s continue)
The content was great. I read the 37signal’s blog all the time, but I hadn’t seen David speak. I like his style. But, more than that, it was nice to get some validation of some of the principles that we both agreed on when we started Bscopes. There were many things, but the most important to us was starting up a business that would replace the salaries we get from our day jobs. So that we could then continue to do the little things in life: pay our mortgages, send our kids to college, perhaps even afford to eat 3 meals a day. You know… the little things. And David’s remark about how having only a few hours on a given day, or a few days a week, to work on the project causes you to focus on the important things — that really rang true for me.
Both of us have worked for many business before — ones both large and small. And, at each company, we were both directly responsible for making sure that the business made a profit. So now we are doing this for ourselves. And David’s calculations are right in line with the modest goal (YES, they are written down) we had as just two guys in their home offices. Neither one of us is trying to be the next Google or Facebook. Not that we would mind if Bscopes became that popular, mind you. But we’d be happy just having a company with enough revenue for two guys.
So early on we decided that Bscopes would have to produce a revenue stream and a profit. For Web 2.0 sites, there seem to be two common approaches in use: (1) entirely Google AdSense supported and (2) the Freemium model where we charge for premium Bscopes products. Currently, as you can see on each page of the Bscopes site we’ve got AdSense running on the sidebar. One of our next short term releases, in May, will add user specific capabilities to the Bscopes site. Letting people register so we can associate Bscopes and RSS feeds with each person will enable a number of new features to be added to the site. It will also enable us to go to a Freemium model.
But we still have a number of questions that we are debating. One of them is whether or not to continue running AdSense on the site. Paying customers don’t want to see advertisements, and we agree! Should we continue to use ads to offset the cost for the free features? Or, could the revenue from premium customers pay for enough servers and bandwidth to fund the cost of the other users? Without knowing exactly how many customers will sign up and the exact price points, it seems like we need to keep the ads running for now and only turn them off when we have the revenue to cover the costs. If you disagree, let us know in the comments or on your blog.
Or we could just put up a Paypal donate now button like the one Mark Evanier has over at NewsFromMe. Or what about a “Buy us a cup of coffee” button like the HT Guys have on their website (What a good podcast! Go subscribe to it in iTunes)? Or not… Hey, Steve, it was just a thought. Really. Put down that rock. Hey…. Ow…
We are branching out! We want to let other folks take advantage of some of the things we’ve learned building Bscopes. We have learned an amazing amount about cutting edge web technologies in the past few years. Plus we’ve created a few specific pieces of specialized software as part of Bscopes that we think might be useful to others as well. We have been asked to supply this knowledge to other folks.
(a la 
and 
. For example, he uses Dan’s description of the difference between 1¢ and 0¢ to help explain the uniqueness of free. He also provides detailed information on multiple “case studies” that break down the specific pattern used by that example product or service to earn money using “free”.
Late last week a new tool was unveiled in the war against Blog RSS Overload: 
A big thank you goes to 
See… this is what happens when you get too busy. You forget to mention some of the important things. Even when you’ve known about them for a while.
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