Thoughts on Announcements Posted Here

[Jerry Daniels]

Friends,

Many of us on this How to Use Revolution list enjoy the helpful, learning environment it offers to all its subscribers. I am one of those people who read it, enjoy it and contribute where and when I can.

I'm also one of those people who follow every link when there's a product announced here. I do not consider announcing products (mine or anyone else's) to be purely commercial. I learn MUCH more from downloading every demo, watching every video, and going to each website than I could from just reading the text-only information offered here.

My motto: people can say or type anything, but what do they actually do?

These products people are creating and announcing here are their accomplishments. They're real and vibrant with knowledge. I love to see how other developers approach their market, create their app's workflow and and do their UI. I really enjoy seeing break-through stuff like Chipp's diagramming tool. I wonder...how did he/she did that? Often I email them and ask.

I buy a couple thousand dollars worth of software a year for my Mac, iPhone and iPad. I don't necessarily use it all. Most of it I learn from. I play with it and get a huge transfer of knowledge from people who put their intelligence and devotion into solving a problem with a real product. Sometimes they just entertain me. That's great, too.

Even if I was not a software developer I would be buying apps just to explore them. My brother Jon spends more than a couple of thousand dollars a year going to baseball games, buying baseball books and collecting baseball paraphernalia. Is he wealthy? No. Does he play baseball? No. Not even a little. Lots of people have their hobbies and passions and want to spend time and money on them.

So, I encourage others to post links to their products and other products that strike their fancy. I don't even care if they're not Revolution products. I haven't seen a software project or product where I didn't learn something that helped me in Revolution.

All that said, I do think there should be a few lines we don't cross with our announcements. 

- I would recommend that commercial product announcements don't "call for the sale" but rather offer links to additional information--not "buy" links.

- Announce something new, or a noteworthy development in a known product. Don't hammer everyone with the exact same thing over and over--or with minutiae. Thankfully, we don't see much of this. This isn't Twitter, after all.

- I also recommend avoiding download links in an announcement. Downloading from an email makes many people nervous. I guess I'm one of them.

- Also, the [ANN] prefix in the subject line makes it easy to filter or avoid announcements, if that's really desired.

BTW. I'll be posting my product announcements here, too, and will do my best to follow my own announcement strictures.

Best,

Jerry Daniels

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