EduTainment Titles

[Lynn Fredricks]

Hi Sivakatirswami,

> With the advent of Rev Stacks running inside a browser, there 
> is interest here in our shop with the idea of doing 
> educational stackware.
> 
> The perception that such titles by CD would probably never do 
> well compared to
> 
> a) distributing printed materials
> b) PDF's of the same
> c) Some Browser app
> 
> led to us never putting any energy into educational stackware.
> 
> The "run a stack in a browser" changes the equation, big time.

You might be focusing too much on the techology here.

Almost every major educational software company and major academic press
house in the USA has licensed Valentina. Most of them are using Director, a
few Ive pursuaded to get into Revolution. 

One thing is clear to me though is that they choose solutions that have lean
tech requirements and focus almost entirely on the content itself. Here's
sort of a short list of what I see in common between them:

1. Focus on the content. Almost all work they do is towards making the
content compeling to their audience - really rich audio, interesting
graphics and video and the like. "Interesting" meaning, it may either be
very special and on topic, or it could be fun or exciting on the branding
side.

2. Minimize recommended configurations. They make sure the titles can work
without a web browser, best even without any internet connection at all. A
lot of school labs which account for very profitable volume sales will have
highly controlled internet access. If it cannot run without an internet
connection, its often a "no buy".

3. Easy to use local management. If its an application that benefits from
"lab" level administration, make the teacher side of it easy to set up. A
lot of Valentina customers get our Bonjour add-on because they can simplifiy
a lot of lab level configuration by using it.

4. Protect Privacy. This is a big one - if your software tests
understanding/comprehension/etc, then make it secure.

5. Branding. Just one title doesn't really cut it; come up with several
titles that can have a shared brand. When you ship your first title, make
sure you can transfer your branding efforts to new titles.

In most cases - these companies do not push the limit of what Director (or
Revolution) can do - they don't want to, because it means they won't be able
to be used in so many schools.

Best regards,

Lynn Fredricks
President
Paradigma Software
http://www.paradigmasoft.com

Valentina SQL Server: The Ultra-fast, Royalty Free Database Server