Will Morgenweck wrote
You didn't scratch the paint off your car when you removed the emblems did you? :)
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. We originally made it difficult to remove because of how it was being abused. We found that the people that wanted it removed were trying to pass it off as their own product, resell it or hide the price from their customers. We found that this was mainly happening with the < $100 versions. We eventually became more flexible with the enterprise edition.
If you buy a Holden car you will find that the car builder (Holden) will badge & brand it as they have sourced the components & made a car with them. You won't find all the individual components branded by the component manufacturer. For example do you see the steering wheel with the name of the person of who made the plastic or air bag plastered all over it? Do you see the name of the company that made the leather for the seats plastered all over it? Quite simply - you don't.
If you want to compare your “website component” to a car, then to me & every one that we have built websites for agrees that the person who put the entire website together (either being the client themselves or a 3rd party) has the right to brand the website in any way they want. It is the owners of the websites decision & not anyone else’s.
Just because you make a “component” for someone’s website does not necessarily mean you should be branding it - especially if someone has paid for this component.
“We found that the people that wanted it removed were trying to pass it off as their own product, resell it or hide the price from their customers.”
Do you think that Holden makes everything themselves? I have said this before & I am going to say it again – maybe DNN “component makers” should start working with project managers, skin designers & other module makers so they can resell their products in a more efficient & more profitable way for everyone.
Just remember guys that there is a lot more that makes a good website that one component. I truly believe that sometimes the DNN community really forgets about the other hard working people in the DNN scene such as sales people, project managers, skin designers, content writers, SEO experts, trainers & documentation writers (just to name a few).
Here are a few quotes from my comments on “http://seablick.com/blog/articletype/articleview/articleid/89/are-dnn-modules-underpriced.aspx”:
“I would like to say a few things from a website design business point of view that has purchases many modules from snowcovered, maketplace & developers websites.
First of all I would like to say that most of the module developers that I have ever dealt with as most of them have been great to deal with.
To give you an example Chad from Datasprings (http://www.datasprings.com) helped me fix a bug via a confrence (gomeeting) this morning (well yeterday in Chads time!). Chad has also made some great changes that he thought all his clients would benifit from at no charge (I must admit I did pay a second time for the module to thank him for his great work).
Scott from Ventrian (http://www.ventrian.com/) has some of the best modules I have seen & his pricing structure I am sure has got a lot of people interested & using DNN. Scott’s modules are great to get any newbie interested in running their own website design business.
Coming from as asp (classic) & php background I am not sure if I ever need to go down the ASP.NET track if modules were to become a wholesale type of product. Maybe from a business point of view I can spend my time selling websites (which is what a website design bisinesses needs to do to pay the bills) instead of programming websites. So in my point of view I am able to use DNN in more projects as I have more marketing time which inturn is going help DNN grow alot faster. If modules were too expensive & we had to do everything ourselves then we would not be able spend the time that we currently do promoting, supporting & training our clients on how to use DNN & some of its advanced funcionallity.
MODULES SHOULD NOT BE A RETAIL PRODUCT – THEY NEED TO BE TRANSformED INTO WHOLESALE PRODUCTS
If you are a business minded website design company, modules are considered to be a wholesale item that we can mark up (charge our clients for installation & support). Why are module developers branding their modules so hard so that our clients can find out who our wholesalers are. If you want DNN to grow leave it & it’s modules as unbranded as possible. The reseller systems that are currently in place have not been setup like a “wholesale” business should.
Do you really want that guy who is struggling to find how to login into his new website that he just purchased from me to contact you? These people are “NORMAL” people who stuugle to even use the internet. Why would you want them to contact you when their website crashes or if they are they can’t do something?
I washed an episode of the apprentice once (Yes, Donald Trump..) and the competing teams were selling water. One team was targeting retails outlets like shops & night clubs. The other team got smart & said “hey instead instead of targeting retail outlets lets see if we can crack the wholesale market” (don’t quote me on that..lol). Anyway the point being the the team that was selling to the retail outlets sold a bit of Trumps water, but the team that wanted to sell it more at a wholesale level did a deal with a distributor and sold him pallets at a time & killed their competitors.
Why doesn’t DNN & module developers realize that if you keep it cheap, keep it unbranded by default (hint..hint.. active forums, onyaktech etc), make at easy to use (sorry onyaktech, I made need to call you as your helpdesk user inerface just blows me & my clients away) & standards compliant.. Us website guys (& gals) will promote & sell your products to our 1000’s of customers for you & almost elimate support problems as we become experts in your products aswell. We are basically your business parntners who you work with so you do not have answer the same question 1000’s of time & chase around to sell, market & explain your products to “NORMAL” people.
If you keep your modules cheap & unbranded you will attract alot more business partners to sell & promote your products for you!
I will tell you one last thing, if you want to push DNN lose all the copyright crap on the help area of the DNN website & get series about making this your number one prioprty! Then give it us the right to use “UNBRANDED HELP” as a tool that we can use to make you the fastest growing content management system in the world!
If it is easy to use then people will use it (UNBRANDED video help would make DNN sell itself to business partners).”
“Michael great point about expanding your products & the need for feedback. Maybe every developer should have a link to them in the help area of the module, that sounds OK & might encourage module developers take advantage of DNN’s built in help feature to create less We also then weJsupport enquires for themselves at the same time don’t have to spend our time removing something that just looks out of place on our freshly designed site (do we all really want do go do that track every time we roll out a website?). The developer could have a standard place in the help area to promote their products to anyone wishing to purshase them & setup them up.
I have to admit $200 for active forums is a great price for a great product followed by great support. Alot of people out there may never work out that, what they call a message board we call a forum. If every one worked together to support this developer he would be able to buy his only island or choose to invest his money in his business to make his product even Jbetter
I know if I were a dedicated module devoper or a dedicated skin designer or a dedicated page copyrighter/seo expert etc.. I would be marketing my products to my business partners who I know that when I deal with 1 project manager/ business partner /middleman, I may infact be dealing with 100-1000 “NORMAL” people that may be in demand for my product.
We are lucky to have the some of the best developers in the world doing some amazing things & giving some amazing support with DNN. It would be great to hear some other peoples opions on this topic (module developers, skin designers, project managers/middlemen etc..) as I am sure we all have the same goal – developing great websites & functionality for other people.”
BTW, Will I hope you don’t think we are putting your products down because we all love then & think you offer great support. I hope though that we you read this, & maybe yourself & other DNN module creators will start working with the people who use or sell your products for you.
I would love to hear other people thoughts on this topic.