MacHeist is giving away my Mac app ShoveBox and $154 of other apps
macheist.com
macheist.com
As the only things I write are technical papers, I don't have much use for either Mariner or WriteRoom (this is where LaTeX and Microsoft Word with its automated bibliography and table of contents shine).. But 'Hordes of Orcs' seems pretty cool. I previously trialed Twitterific but didn't like it much - TweetDeck is so much better.
I don't know whether or not TinyGrab will come in handy; I think it's one of those apps you've got to live to truly appreciate it.
At any rate, nice bundle. Thanks :)
I'm hoping to return the app a little to its roots and make it something more hackers will want to use in version 2.0, while keeping the existing functionality/marketing approach.
For instance, there's a feature called Targets that replaces Rules and makes it so you can define targets in addition to the existing ways to get info into the app (e.g. add your own menu items, bookmarklets, floating blob/tab thingies). And I really want to have bindings for everything in the app in some language -- I'm thinking Lua. AppleScript is kind of a pain.
Captain Kangaroo was a very nice man. He (Bob Keeshan) and Hugh Brannum used to come into a restaurant where my Mom worked and make me origami. They also gave me a stuffed toy frog once. He shouldn't be on your list. On a more serious note, Shovebox looks really cool...can you also organize files with tags?
Tags are coming in v2.
I should note it's not really meant as a file organizer -- it just-so-happens to import certain types of files, but that's not the primary use case it's designed for.
That is a great idea friend and not one many are willing to consider because they would feel defeated by giving something away that they work so hard on.
Cheers and the best of luck. If you want any feedback directly from me as a first time user of your software with high hopes, let me know.
When they are collecting this data, how are they going to know why someone would be willing to put out $20, $25 and so on for the bundle?
Just an observation. For me, I really need to give this ShoveBox a try. Wish I knew it was out there a long time ago. I've constantly complained about my Safari bookmark management and that there has to be a better way. Is ShoveBox it?
Looking at MacHeist, if you haven't bought those apps before, then they have not been worth 20$ for you - so you don't save a thing. Instead, you spend money on stuff you wouldn't have bought otherwise. Yet many users fall for it, somehow.
Edit: I'd love to have a web interface with this but.. can't have everything right? lol Definitely getting the iPhone version to sync up
Edit 2: If you guys could add uploading as well to share on twitter for eg. Well gosh darn that would be something special right there ;)
EDIT: According to @oscardelben above it took him almost two hours. He didn't use candy.
Maybe the big values (like in MacHeist past) will come in later?
In this case, a supposed $150 value is being offered for free. That's news worth posting.
So can I sell your email address to all the spammers?
Know how you found the computer you're using? It was marketed to you. The books you read, the movies you watch, all marketed. Do you read content online? It's paid for by advertisers who're marketing their products. If you've seen a movie in the last decade you've seen things paid for by product placement. Every article of clothing you wore was marketed to you, either in a catalogue or just positioned in the store in a way to catch your eye.
Marketing is an incredibly subtle trade. I should know: It's what I'm learning. Practically everything counts as marketing. When I make my headline big on a web site, that's to market the title to you. When I make my fonts attractive, I'm marketing a certain attitude as a designer, which is why a site that uses certain fonts looks and feels different than other fonts. It's all manipulation, which isn't to say it's bad. Manipulation is a natural part of life, and it helps us find things we wouldn't see otherwise.
Because I'm learning this, and spending quite a lot of effort to comprehend it all, it rather bothers me when you, Anonymous Internet Person, denounce it while simultaneously showing you don't know what marketing is. I follow politics, too, does that mean I approve of Naziss? And I really do like technological advances, which means I definitely support nuclear weaponry. Of course I don't like spam. But this isn't spam. It's marketing.
Second, yeah, my response was a bit short, as I did not have enough time.
Third, I hope as you study more, you'll abandon your tunnel vision with respect to marketing. At the moment "to a person with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail" comes to mind.
I have nothing against people writing interesting articles for marketing, that is, marketing essentially paying for those articles. That doesn't imply I have to like EVERYTHING that is done in the name of marketing. For Hacker News there is a certain expectation. I don't think "save 20$ on groceries with this cool voucher" would be welcome here, for example. The expectation is that the articles posted have some relation to "hacking" (in a certain wider sense), that is, enables me to learn stuff.
That is why I mentioned spam, because if you pour marketing content into a channel where it isn't welcome, it is spam - that is the analogy I saw, even though it is a grey area. I just wanted to refute your argument that marketing is always OK. Some people might subscribe to a "the best free offers" list, and they would welcome news about vouchers.
Since this MacHeist stuff got a lot of upvotes, obviously opinions in this community also differ. I am just surprised, that is all - I think it is an Apple effect... Because I don't see the big difference to a groceries voucher.
Perhaps one could argue that the MacHeist way of selling stuff is in itself an interesting hack (a marketing hack). They sold a frigging 4 millions pieces of software people wouldn't probably have bought otherwise. I would be interested in discussion on how they pulled it off...
Edit: to make it clear, if the news had been something like "new version of ShoveBox is out", I would have felt differently. It would have been new technology that is available. "ShoveBox now costs 20$ less" is just a voucher.
I was fine with the submission, because it let me get six applications for free. That's a good alert to send out.
As for anonymity: I consider everybody I don't have a personal relationship with to be anonymous. Knowing who you are doesn't make you any less of an Internet Person to me.
Furthermore, take a look at the top 30 currently on HN, approximately 1/3 of them are in some way promotional (either of some product or self-promotion, delivered as news or a testimonial or story).
Like these headlines: 1. Thank You Rails 2. The article about Mark Pincus at a startup at Berkley Mixer 3. HP working on distributed sensory mechanisms 4. The physics of bras 5. How to write a great novel 6. The interview with Y-Combinator that wasn't 7. Japanese teenage boy improves rails 8. Being open and honest about the startup process
In some way, these articles promote a company, a technology, the author of the posts value, and so on.
This post about MacHeist is just feels more blatant.
But I am happy to have people like you in the community that open up debate.
I am sorry, I just don't see the MacHeist thing in the same category as those other articles you mention. There is no information or news in the MacHeist thing. Obviously a lot of readers here disagree, so whatever...
It should be promoted on Hacker News because it does relate and benefit many in this community.
But I think your concern is appreciated and it is always great to have those watching out for the community's best interest.
Now that the comments indicate everything is above board, I wonder if MacHeist plans on having an "Android Annex", or will leave that to another company...