GOOSE BUMPS

[Richard Gaskin]

Alejandro Tejada wrote:

> http://www.ries.com/articles-positioningera.php

Excellent article.

"Google", "Yahoo", "Twitter", even "Kodak" are all colossally stupid 
names; for the reasons that article points, out positioning is about far 
more than names.

The product experience is what people buy, and what they talk about.

This post from earlier this morning echoes perhaps the most 
frequently-cited challenge in learning LiveCode, and perhaps the biggest 
opportunity for enhancing the product experience and therefore its 
mindshare:

<http://mail.runrev.com/pipermail/use-revolution/2010-September/145768.html>

Programming languages are different from toasters or any other consumer 
product.  They have unique challenges, and the size and scope of the 
ecosystem plays an uncommonly strong role in perceptions of a 
programming tool's worthiness.  Developers need to know they don't have 
to reinvent every wheel.

The more prefab components included in the out-of-the-box experience, 
the more empowering the tool will be.  When sufficiently empowering, the 
buzz will take care of the branding organically; conversely, even the 
best branding in the world can't make up the difference if that 
empowerment is lacking.  Branding can help lead to downloads, but only 
the product experience can lead to conversion.

Mark Stuart raised some of these issues in our last local Rev User Group 
meeting, and I'm looking forward to exploring them further in our next 
one tomorrow night.

For all the benefits of LiveCode, a few other tools still have some 
significant advantages in being able to assemble great data-rich GUIs 
quickly.  We'd like to see what we can do to help close that gap, 
perhaps as a project through the Rev Interoperability Project (RIP).

Here's one small corner of that problem:  data input validation.  A 
great many apps need it, but input masking and validation must currently 
be scripted by hand, while most DBs provide them as simple properties.

One of the RIP initiatives is to provide a common behavior object that 
can be assigned to fields, set a property or two, and masking and 
validation would happen automatically.

This initiative could use some help; most of us have been busy with our 
own products.  If anyone here would like to lend a hand you're very 
welcome to join in:
<http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/revInterop/>

The code will be released as either public domain or MIT license, so 
this may be a good starting point for those interested in furthering 
FOSS goals in the LiveCode ecosystem, a relatively small task in which 
the process can be refined leading the way to bigger initiatives, and 
the output from which would be enormously valuable right now.


> By the way, when this thread started some days
> ago, i searched for livecode in google and runrev
> webpage appears in 7th position. Today is 5th.
> This is really good.

If the prospect already knows your name and is sufficiently motivated to 
search for it, most of the job is already done and they will find you no 
matter what your name is:

http://www.google.com/search?q=revolution+programming

Search engine optimization is the challenge of helping people who don't 
yet know who you are to find you:

http://www.google.com/search?q=rapid+application+development

Relevant backlinks, keyword-based domains, domain longevity, appropriate 
keyword richness, and consistent keyword usage in backlinks help make 
that happen.

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World
  Rev training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com
  Webzine for Rev developers: http://www.revjournal.com
  revJournal blog: http://revjournal.com/blog.irv