MT 3.0: what’s going on?
This combination of articles explains the MT 3.0 release and its perceived problems very well:
Meanwhile, as an MT 3.0 beta tester (which I wasn’t!) I received an e-mail from 6A which tells me: “Based on feedback we’ve received, we’ve also made some changes changes to the licenses that will be posted later tonight.”
Those changes can now be viewed on 6A’s website, including this one: “Coming Soon: Personal Edition Add-On will allow you to add 1 weblog and 1 author to your Personal Edition license for $9.95.”
I like that one a lot. Other changes just about cover most of people’s concerns, I should think. The ones I had at least. From the site:
And elsewhere:
Good response from 6A, I think. I hope the company’s image recovers from their PR faux pas. They really don’t deserve the bad rap. They are a family business growing up in public. We are collectively experiencing their growing pains.
« MT 3.0. Get your wad out. | Dance me to the end… »
May 15th 2004
Wow, that really does address every single issue that I had with the announcement.
Well, I always say that the mark of a good company is not that they don’t make mistakes (which would be an unfeasible aspiration), but that they address mistakes promptly and appropriately. All credit to Six Apart here.
Still a few inconsistencies in their announcement though, at the time of writing. The paid license terms include optional use of TypeKey, which is noted as not being available to users of the free license, but then use of TypeKey has now appeared in the features of the free license. I appreciate that they’re probably working at breakneck speed to reverse the unfavourable perceptions generated by the original announcement, but that kind of thing does them no favours.
May 15th 2004
Yeah, and the number of authors / blogs, and various charges are inconsistent accross their sites and pages, but that is to be expected.
May 15th 2004
Now there’s NO doubt that I’ll be paying up. Yay for Six Apart, boo for the assheads who started shoveling dirt onto them the minute they heard the word “pay.”
May 15th 2004
I wouldn’t say “Boo” exactly. There are reasons not to be happy about the pricing scheme. Not saying that the software isn’t worth paying for, just that for some people other software will do just as well, or better and not cost anything. That doesn’t make them assheads.
May 15th 2004
They are not a family business. They are a VC funded company with branches all over the world. Who are you kidding? They started as a family business but they are not anymore. They are trying to get as much monye as possible, as we witness today. Since better or same alternatives are available, noone has to accept this pricing structure which is quite weird and hard to comply with. I have to track when the authors have posted to make sure whether they are considered to be active or not? What is this, there are tons of weblogging software I can use for free or at least far lower than this without the restrictions.
Typepad destroyed MT, period.
May 16th 2004
I still don’t get it. I have to pay $10 to add my sister to my family blog? It’s still crazy!
May 16th 2004
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May 16th 2004
Why is it crazy? I’m not being belligerent, I’m interested in your viewpoint.
Ten dollars seems a reasonable amount to me. If you’re using the free version, you can only have a single author and can’t use add-on licenses, so you’re implying that you must have bought a personal license.
If you have the lowest level of personal license you already have five authors and you’ve paid $70 for the privilege (unless you don’t take advantage of the special offer, in which case you’ve paid $100).
Having paid seventy dollars for five authors, I’m interested in why you feel that an extra ten dollars to add another author isn’t good value.
(Disclaimer, just in case I didn’t make it obvious enough above: this is not a flame, I’m interested in the psychology of pricing structures.)
May 16th 2004
MOVABLE TYPE ON THE MEND?
I was telling Laura last night that I really felt sorry for Ben and Mena Trott, the couple behind Movable…
May 17th 2004
My only real issue is the cost of $10 if you want to have someone as a guest blogger, or to log in and fix your templates - but frankly, $10 is perfectly reasonable.
Clearly the whole thing was a rush and a botch - the communication was fumbled badly, their website remains inconsistent, and their documentation was updated patchily. However, the repricing is a good response to a bad cock-up, and I really hope it was quick enough for 6A to avoid the loss of goodwill.
May 17th 2004
No matter what their responses are to the critism they got in the first place, harm has already been done.
And maybe I am ans asshead (without shoveling dirt though), but I am seriously reconcidering my blogging tool.
I have been in the alpha and beta tests of MT3.0 and from my point of view the code isn’t worth the bucks. (crappy, very much based and related to TypePad)
There are nicer, cleaner, well-coded alternatives which will do the same job or even better.
And sticking to version 2.66x isn’t an option. The web evolves so should your blogging tool.
Only the migrating and tag-learning-again is a big con in favor of the other alternatives.
Jul 1st 2004
You can visit my personal homepage.
Carl Ross o