Lost!

I recently revisited the Alfresco website since I’m seeing a huge amount of interest in it, according to my logs. I figured I’d download the newest version of it and play around with it, just like I do with SharePoint. Well, right away, something hit me that was a little odd.

Right on their main page, there is a banner area that states the following:

Frustrated with the high cost, complexity, and vendor lock-in of Enterprise Content Management? Alfresco costs up to 96% less and is powerful enough for the Fortune 500.

This is interesting because SharePoint, the main competitor of Alfresco, uses the same “open standards” as Alfresco does (still looking for that link). Other companies also subscribe to the same standards to help move information back and forth. I’m not saying I’ve ever used these “features”, but they’re supposedly there. Now, the funny part is, there are issues with migration of SharePoint to Alfresco as well.

Cost
To this day, I still cannot locate costs for the Alfresco product on their website. Microsoft still maintains the SharePoint pricing on their website. If Microsoft can and has been listing the SharePoint pricing on their website, why can’t Alfresco? Why is my lowly little blog the FIRST hit on “alfresco cost” AND “alfresco pricing”? Perhaps the Alfresco team will get the point with this blog posting. I’m honestly getting a little tired of harping on this Open Source company. They just still maintain that I must contact sales to get pricing. In this new “world”, with the new economy, I feel that this is a very bad idea. If I can’t find the price quickly online, why should I take the time to contact you just to have you attempt to sell me your product? How do I know that your not changing your pricing based upon a company coming in? How do I know that Adobe didn’t get a special price break so you could list a big name that just moved to Alfresco? Too many variables and questions…

Email Campaign
If you sign up for a Alfresco trial, be prepared - very prepared, for an email marketing campaign that’ll probably annoy you very quickly. Unfortunately, this marketing campaign isn’t really targeted, it’s just sent out to anyone that’s registered on the Alfresco website. On top of this, you still find problems here and there. This sample came in today (23 June 2009). Can you spot the problem?

The Alfresco Enterprise 3.1 release has focused on simplicity.
This webinar covers:

* Spaces and content,
* Permissions and searching,
* Versioning,
* Check-in / check-out,
* Ruels and Actions
* Workflow, and other topics

Unfortunately, this is something Microsoft would have caught, heck - I caught it while skimming the email for news. It’s small, perhaps insignificant to most, but its there and does matter to some people. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not perfect (I even wrote a story on my idiocy not too long ago), but COME ON people - a marketing email that has spelling mistakes? Normally, for each story, I read, re-read, re-read again and read again once it’s published. Some days, I miss things, but if I had a marketing dept that was paying for email service (Alfresco uses Eloqua.com for their email campaigns), I would certainly expect this to get caught. Guys, in Office or Open Office - hit the dang F7 key to save face.

Beyond spelling, Alfresco sends out at least 1 email a month, if not more. I’ve been known to get 2-3 at a time. This could be due to Eloqua, or multiple emails being sent. While I have a decent amount of their stuff in my trash - I tend to purge this type of stuff. If they happen to get nailed by my spam filter - it’s automagically purged from everywhere.

The “Who Uses Us” Campaign
This typically doesn’t annoy me about any company, but I saw something that caught my eye - again. Alfresco maintains that NASA uses Alfresco. Saying this is like saying the US Army uses Alfresco. There are so many departments that could be using it, and it could just be for a test, that anyone could be using it. But hey, who the heck an I to say that NASA uses SharePoint. That was the first link on this Google search, which includes SharePoint jobs for NASA. It appears that the Goddard Center may be using Alfresco, but I can’t get to the published URL, possibly due to a firewall issue on their end (I wouldn’t blame them for blocking Europeans ;-). While there may be a dept using Alfresco, they’re a SharePoint customer, plain and simple (Just like the US Army).

Forums
This is actually a good thing that Alfresco is doing, and has been doing from the start. The Forums on their website maintain a huge amount of community information. Everything from support to features to performance is talked about directly on the Alfresco website. While Microsoft has forums, they’re as not in your face.

After all that, I’ll download and install the newest version of Alfresco next to my SharePoint install on my computer. Once I’m officially writing stories again, sometime in about 3 to 4 weeks, I’ll Q one up to compare the two side by side. Who knows, I may actually have something good things to say.

I’ve been reading about VesatileMonkey.com’s story about launching a Blackberry application (did you know you could download Blackberry Applications?). One thing caught my eye - the learning experience that Marcus had when he found a PR posting that Ryan Block wrote. I’ve read it before, but not when I was having Ryan’s problem….

Over the last year or so, when I started focusing on ECM content (note: I haven’t focused so much on it, but I know I need to move back into SharePoint and Alfresco stories - some are already Q’d), I started getting spammed by various PR agencies. One specifically emailed every single last PR announcement about their product that they could - and they continue to do so to this day. Unfortunately for them, I’ve blacklisted them from my address so I no longer see their emails and I have never done a review of their product (and probably won’t).

While I’m just a small time blogger, I do get product announcements and such. I really just wish PR people did their research. Some products, I just don’t care about, while others I think a lot of people would care. The other thing is, I have been approached by websites wanting to syndicate my stories. While I accepted one, I took about a 6 month leave of absence the week I agreed to do it. Never heard back from them, and frankly, I don’t think want to. I like my small-time feel and I like being able to take breaks once in awhile. On top of that, I’ve learned that I really do need to limit my stories to one a day or less or I start to run out of ideas. I try to maintain that now, but it’s nice to miss a day once in awhile.

Sure, I won’t make it like the big boys and have millions of viewers, but that’s fine as well. I wouldn’t be happy (nor my wife) if I were attempting to meet deadlines every single day and trying my absolute hardest to build traffic. Blogging is something I like, but not something I think I could do full time.

Well, we’re getting down to the wire. In a very personal post, I’ll admit that things have been bumpy on this site for awhile. I know I post in weird spurts of activity and this is no time to change that habit.

Tomorrow morning, my dogs leave for Oregon two weeks before my wife and I. We’re doing this to assist with cleaning the apartment, making travel easier and ultimately - to prevent any serious issue from happening at the bitter last second causing us to miss our flight. We’ve personally babysat a dog that the owner had to leave in Germany due to Continue reading…

Many people feel that the first thing they need to do when they have an idea is just jump right in. They also think of money very quickly, in the beginning, as well.

If you’re in something for the money, I’m going to take a guess that it most likely won’t work. You’ll start out fine, you’ll even put some hard work into your idea, but when you first launch it and it doesn’t make near what you thought, you’ll most likely drop it like an old fishing weight…

Perhaps the first thing you should do is research. What is your angle, who are your competitors, is there a NEED for your website? For me, I can answer all of those. Unfortunately, while I’ve been sitting on this idea for nearly a year, competitors have noticed the area I’m thinking about as well and have moved in. Right now, however, I only see 2 competitors on the first Google Search page of the term I’ll be using. If you’re not on the first page, you’re not getting near as much traffic as you’d like to think. So, my focus will be on these two competitors.

Competitors
One of these competitors has been around since I first started thinking about my idea. They have a mature and pleasing website. They have a lot of informaiton, a decent amount of content and a decent amount of visitor generated content. They are also the very first link off Google for the search term I’m focusing on.

Competitor number one has a problem, in my opinion, is that the site seems a little cluttered and not too friendly to use. It’s a great Web 2.0 template, but the execution of how they do it is a little lacking. Where they really shine is on how users submit content. Overall, they are doing exactly what I’ve been planning on doing for awhile. This can be unfortunate because, even though I came to this conclusion on my own, they are the ones that implemented it first. It’ll flat out look like I copied their idea.

Competitor number two is still in the infancy stage. The website looks like little time was spent on the template, the graphics leave little to the eye. There is a small amount of user generated content but the information in comparison with Competitor Number One is almost nill. I expect, once launched, I’ll quickly surpass Competitor number two on Google’s search and on user generated content. That’s a lot to say from someone that doesn’t even have the code done for the website yet.

Website
Since I just mentioned the actual website, I figured that I’d talk about research for it, specifically, the Template. I’m a coder at heart - a CODER. I consider myself challenged, when it comes to creativity though. I can copy a website very quickly (ie: recreate/clone - not actually copy), but I don’t like doing it for people (I’ve done it ONCE, since I’ve been coding) and feel that it’s not something thats for me. I also embrace the fact that I’m an idiot when it comes to layouts and such. There is a reason I use other templates on my WordPress Blogs…

So, with that, I headed over to Template Monster to get an idea for sites. Mostly, I looked at Business and Web 2.0 templates. I’m not a huge fan of regurgitated templates, so again, this is an IDEA jumping point.

While I perused the templates over at Template Monster, I remebered that I started working on a template long ago for this idea. So, I also fired up my virtual machine and started looking over my past work. I quickly realized that I didn’t need a template. My work in the past had actually come up with a slogan, content areas, ad areas (for when I turn them on) - the works.

So, while I don’t need a template, you can start for ideas at Template Monster. I’d also recommend some other sites to help you get ideas:

• The Webby Awards: Awesome place to start. Websites from various categories are submitted, reviewed and ranked. In the end, one website from each category wins, there is a runner up for that category too. In the end, you get to see what the best websites are for that year. This is the Grammy Awards of the web - a big deal for larger websites.
• CSS Zen Garden: This website was started to specifically show people how to use CSS to run your templates for you - something I’m a huge fan of. Why use a template engine when CSS does it for you? Anyway - CSS Zen Garden is known for their nice templates and they switch them occasionally so you get new ideas of things you can try. Amazing what you can do with a plain jane HTML page eh?
• CSS Heaven: Sort of like CSS Zen Garden, but more about general templates and showing off what CSS can do. Check it out, you might be surprised at what you see.
• All of your competitor websites: Without knowing how your competitors look, act, walk, etc - you don’t know if they’re a duck or a swan. When you find the swan, write down what you like and don’t like of their website. Try to implement similar features and looks, but don’t copy.

There is one last thing. I’ve seen in the past, present and will see, in the future, people that know absolutely nothing about how websites work, how to code, or even how to install (what I believe to be) simple web applications. If you fall into this category, pray, very hard. In order to make your idea work, if you do fall into this category, you will need 1 or more of the following:

• A partner who can code: Someone that knows something about websites.
• A large pocket book: For a custom coded website by some firm you found online to handle everything for you.
• A small pocket book and a lot of luck: For those of you that are brave enough to try code for hire websites such as RentACoder.com, Elance.com and others. (Note: Read this before even thinking about using these services.)
• Lots of time: To read the For Dummies series on HTML, then about 6 months to hone your skillz as a l33t web hazor. Then you need more time to start working with graphics.

Honest to god recommendation for those that know nothing about the web and want to start a website: Walk away for about 2 years. Learn how to code your own stuff, then come back. After that, you’ll further understand how sites work, what you’ll need to bring in visitors, etc. Either that, or start a blog and use Adsense to attempt to make money - but then again, those people are just in it for the money. So, after a few months, they’ll have $12 and they’ll give up because it’s literally not worth their time.

If you haven’t heard of oDesk, it’s another website where you can find global Independent Contractors to do whatever you can think of. While I was originally excited to see something like this, I found out quickly that, typically, these sites are not setup for anyone in the US - oDesk is the same.

oDesk solves the problem of billable hours and how your project is doing based upon the oDesk software that is installed on the workers computers (Click here to see a quick about video that includes this feature). The software basically screenshots your desktop every 10 minutes, snaps a webcam picture as well as monitors your mouse clicks and keywords that hit the screen. The buyer can actually bring these up to verify that you were working when you say you were.

So, without being an end user, I see that oDesk falls into the pit of the others due to one thing - pay. I quickly found out that there are a lot of people that are still not willing to pay a decent wage to anyone other than those in Third and Second world countries. As an IT Professional based in the US, I absolutely cannot afford $3 an hour for a project like WordPress Customization. I’m quick, but not that quick, especially when I’m use to pay MUCH higher. It is actually better for me to go out to McDonalds and get a minimum wage job than to bid on any project that pays less than minimum wage. oDesk solves a problem that others have by putting a camera in the bidders face and watching what they’re working on. If they take 5 minutes to edit an old PHP form to do what you want and charge 2 hours, you’ll see it, but at the same time, there is still a problem with wages.

So, to answer my question on if oDesk is worth it? That really comes down to you. If you can consciously pay someone $3 an hour for something you know they should be getting much more for - then go for it. Personally, I’m not someone that can take advantage of that fact, nor am I someone that can afford to spend time on a project that pays $3/$4 or $5 an hour. There are even posts on oDesks own forum site that have been kept alive for a year because many are finding that the pay is just not worth it.

For those of you that feel that I’m being harsh on people with small businesses, and that I just don’t understand - dead wrong. I’ve run smaller startups with less than a shoe string budget in the past. I’ve run my own web design business (see the last paragraph on the About page) and I’m considering starting up another small business on a much larger shoe-string budget. Even though I’m in the phase where I’m considering what to pay employees, I’m still going to pay them the industry norm or BETTER for the quality of work they provide.