Success of Open Source software projects hinges on project site design

by | Mar 27, 2011 | Marketing & the Web, Web strategy

This isn’t tested research- just a gut feeling, but after watching several open source software projects grow or go bust- I believe there are some key factors in successful open source software projects- and they parallel marketing issues for other projects.

There are an overwhelming number of tasks for a software project to succeed, typically requiring a dedicated core team. This is the basis of open source- in that the core team can be as large as there is interest. A lot of people use or have need for your project- a lot of different people get involved. However- depending on the type of project you are working on- you may not get a good cross pollination of talent. Coding geeks often have narrow skill sets- that can leave some critical parts of the development process lagging.

I’m going to try to outline some key areas for you to consider:

Installation ease

After having struggled with installers for several open source projects, I can’t stress enough the need for a stress free install. One of the key WordPress early bragging lines was a 5 minute install process. Even after doing many installs of the early versions manually- I wouldn’t call it a five minute install process for the non-geek.

The inclusion of your open source project in a software installation script wizard early is key. This improves the likelihood of sampling, adoption and even awareness.

Some installation script packages are : Fantastico, Installatron, Softaculous, SimpleScripts.

Including data import tools from your main competition was also a brilliant strategy employed by WordPress - making it easy to import from other major platforms like TypePad and Blogger.

I’m also going to venture to say that worrying about installing on Windows or Mac servers should be a non-worry for open source projects- if you don’t run on Linux Apache MySQL PHP (LAMP) you aren’t an open source project.

User Interface

It wasn’t until WordPress turned 2.5 or so that a User Experience design professional  (or User Interface) was engaged by the core team- with usability being a key factor in the early success of WordPress- the dev team probably felt they had it covered. They didn’t.

The success of open source projects requires easy adoption- which means intuitive interfaces should probably be a key focus.

Documentation

Too often, it’s code first- and worry about documentation later. Or let the users write the documentation for you in true open source fashion (FLOSS manuals come to mind) after you code and release. This may be the biggest failure point- unless your user community is so large- all answers are just a google search away.

Instead- consider the documentation the true road map of the project- starting with a manual outline may save your project a lot of problems because if it’s too hard to explain- it’s probably too hard to use. Clear goals and directives on where the project is going can make the going that much easier.

Think of Stephen Covey- “Start with where do you want to end up” and the path will seem that much clearer to all.

Versioning- Releases

There are two schools of thought to release cycles- fast and furious, as soon as a new feature is ready- ship, and a  more ordered process. While the fast and the furious may keep the geeks happy- it plays havoc with those involved in implementing and maintaining it in a business environment. Explaining to your boss why you had to update the software 6 times in one month can be a bit difficult. Only release serious bug/security patches like this.

Set a release schedule, with milestones and stick to it. Mature packages do this.

Standards

Adhering to industry standards is critical. If you don’t, you risk being marginalized. Take accessibility, microformats W3C standards seriously- and don’t mix open source with proprietary code (ever). Standards are the way to gain a solid foundation of functionality- no matter how dumb you think they are- they were set by a whole bunch of people and that’s what you need to be successful.

Architecture

There are three areas where WordPress got it right- and then perfected it- and they got is by studying Mozilla.

  • Updating- a one-click internal updating process will guarantee the largest number of updates and less compatibility issues. If it’s hard to update- you’ll be fighting a versioning compatibility hell. Mozilla doesn’t even give a choice anymore- the updates within a major release are mandatory.
  • Extending- again, WordPress is a model of success. Both themes and plugins are maintained in a central repository with ratings, reviews, bug trackers, FAQs. If you hope to have a large community, you have to grant easy access to your user base.
  • Customization of interface: While plugins and themes are great- and allow for infinite tweaking- the fine control of an interface using AJAX may be the ultimate brilliance. Users like easy- and reordering a UI via AJAX is the true WYSIWYG experience. I can’t think of any technology that makes me as a user happier in using software.

Of course, you’ve separated content from presentation, built in search functions, RSS feeds and paid heed to what makes Web 2.0 what it is.

Community support

The size of your installed base will only grow if you make it easy for them to connect and work together. If you don’t have a well moderated and managed forum you are doomed. Unanswered questions, spammers, and the same question asked over and over are good indications that your project isn’t on track for greatness.

It’s also impossible to move forward if you don’t have a good handle on what your user base wants.

None of this is done in a vacuum, and there is nothing wrong with empowering people to make a living with your product- enable some kind of rating system for your contributors as well as a donation system, reminding people that even small donations are key to keeping the project going.

Even if you don’t agree with an approach taken by a plugin developer- don’t ostracize them or their methodology- build bridges not walls, and look at the communities acceptance of their project. WordPress alienated a coder named Dr. Dave who had developed an open source Spam solution that competed with their own Akismet- eventually forcing his Spam Karma II plugin into deprecation.

Marketing

While the project may be open source- and the software is free- you still need to make an effort to get your product name out and to let people evaluate it.

If you have created your product to replace something you feel is inferior- make sure you find some bloggers to do some comparison reviews. If you are in a brand new space- get some press coverage- and ask thought leaders to evaluate your business model. Google started out with a great service- but had no clue of how to make money until Bill Gross came along with his idea of sponsored search. Who will give you the impetus to get your strategy on track?

In most cases there are people already evaluating options in your field- make sure to reach out to them and get some press and ask for assistance to get the project seeded.

Your project website

I’ve been evaluating Customer Relationship Software (CRM) packages for a while- in fact, it’s what got me to write this post. The difference between packages- and what they do, is key to your business model and where the user first decides on if your project will be a viable option.

There are some critical things you must have in order to put your project on par with your competition:

A feature list- even a comparison to your competition. There are no secrets- if you don’t do it- someone else will. As a developer you should know who your competition is better than the others- and in Open Source- the idea is to create the best version possible- not ownership. Cooperation and integration with other projects should be the goal.

The SugarCRM vs vTigerCRM split is interesting- and why the two forks can’t work together more is embarrassing. One is targeted toward enterprise the other toward small business- there should be no need for acrimony.

The real competition are the closed source companies - that develop slick products that might lock a user experiencing great growth out of needed features. This is where we have to decide which platform makes sense as users- do we go with Salesforce because it’s a leader- or do we invest in an open source project because it will give us ownership of our business model?

Look at the closed source/proprietary software sites- you see an intro video on the home page, a clear feature set, support options, cost of ownership information, user testimonials and case studies, user forums, tutorials, documentation and even a blog- if you don’t have a site that answers questions about your project- you will end up relying on someone else who may not fully understand why your project exists.

If you want to see a comparison- look at the open source Ruby on Rails project- FatFreeCRM site- and then compare it to Highrise a commercial product based on the same technology. Of the open source sites- Feng Office may be one of the better front ends- simple, clean - not confusing. Compare it with the  Magento site- which you’d almost not know was Open Source.

Getting paid

While Open Source software is free- there doesn’t seem to be any reason not to build a way to get paid into your model. Google makes a lot of money with a free service- there is no reason why your code expertise shouldn’t be able to support you. The current model seems to be offer a free unsupported code base and have a hosted, supported version in parallel.

While this may support a small core team- what about the rest of the contributors? Think about your project as an ecosystem that requires both user and developers and build a community support tool that will give your experts the ability to generate revenue from their work. After all- maintaining the pace of progress can have a toll.

I’ve yet to find a project that has built a system- for instance, WordPress has been through several rounds of venture capital and Automattic now owns a bunch of other properties- there should be some kind of revenue share for the most popular plugin package developers. They’ve done a good job of allowing premium theme and plugin developers into their hub- but, there are still people working for love on what has become a decent sized business.

Google and Amazon have both  built in opportunities for the small guy with affiliate systems- this model should be integrated into any open source development project.

The structure of cooperative software design sites

While the developers can talk endlessly about the advantages of codebases like SVN, GitHub, SourceForge, Google Code etc as repositories for code in development, the real problem may be that what is needed is a CMS designed for software collaborative construction and deployment.

I’ve seen software communities use all kinds of tools for their own hawking of wares - Drupal, Joomla, are the ones I notice first- yet it seems there is still room for a dedicated package to handle all parts of a successful open source software project.

Learning how to do it right

One of the things I’ve been searching unsuccessfully for over the last 2 years is an institution of higher learning that is actively teaching how to build and manage open source business models. I’ve found lots of places willing to share their courses- led by MIT opencourseware there are more and more universities offering classes you can audit classes from your home- but, I’ve not found a collegiate program focused on this growing business model.

The University of Advancing Technologies has an “Open Source Technologies” program- but it doesn’t mention the business side of the equation in the description.

For Students looking on how to get involved in Open Source Projects- see this post: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2151999/how-to-get-started-in-developing-student-opensource-projects

If anyone has any information to share- please include it in the comments.

Some resources:

Here is a link to an academic paper I found when doing some research on this subject:Defining Open Source Software Project Success PDF

Found a short list on being successful with Open Source software: http://jwage.com/2011/02/28/tips-on-being-successful-in-open-source

A post about Open Source Business models- and a case for Open Source vs. Proprietary software: http://window.punkave.com/2010/09/16/open-source-business-models/

A kinda snide “Top 10 Reasons I won’t use your open source project”

An overly corporate post from Vmware on “Open Source Governance”- http://olex.openlogic.com/wazi/2009/create-an-open-source-governance-process/ Written in 2009- it has zero comments- but, the part about the code license checkers is interesting and a part I left out.

Check into this FAQ on Governance by FOSS Bazaar https://fossbazaar.org/openSourceGovernanceFundamentals

If you find others- again, please contribute in comments.

Everybody is a customer, especially at a tradeshow

by | Feb 20, 2011 | Practical Marketing 101, Product and Service Naming

You know the old adage about a happy customer telling 3 people and an unhappy one telling one hundred. Total bunk in the internet age. One person can tell the world anything they want- and people can choose to listen.

Which is why a few experiences I had at a trade show yesterday shocked me.

It doesn’t really matter what the products were- but, I listened to a national sales manager call a marketing professional a douche bag not once-but several times on the show floor. The owner of the company, was less than 10 yards away, sitting in oblivion while this arrogant neanderthal was embarrassing his brand. The company is one of five major manufacturers in China that probably 80% of the worlds product in this category. Needless to say- the caveman wasn’t helping.

The argument- the sales manager was very proud of his move to generic Italian city names for his product styles (the Chinese have a tendency to flub marketing 101, which caveman probably got a C) as part of his great line revamp. The customer tried to suggest that no one really cares if you call your line the Milan, Rome, Venice- all they care about is the manufacturers brand. Douche bag. Of course- the example that automotive companies learned the expense of sub-brand name plates a long time ago-  Acura dumped the “Legend” and the “Integra” moving to letters and numbers- because the fact that you owned an “Acura” was most important. Same goes for BMW, Mercedes, Infiniti etc.

Spend a hundred thousand dollars on a large trade show booth- and fail to do the most important thing at a trade show- listen to them..

Another company- an importer that calls itself “America’s smallest __________ company” was in attendance as well. The fact that they import all their re-branded product from Taiwan isn’t much of a secret- so you begin with a brand tagline that’s a lie. They were a supplier to our client- and I was there to share a few stories of why our client didn’t move as many of their premium priced products. The owner, an un-jolly fat man, told me right off that my client didn’t listen very well- and dropped the adage “That god gave you two ears and a mouth for good reason”- and then proceeded to call me an ass for trying to tell him some things that could have helped my client sell more of his product. The suggestions were simple- in this industry where the products run from $700 to $5000- his is one of the few brands that is eligible for financing (a financial industry racket)- my client hadn’t been either instructed or forced to register with the financing company.

Secondly- despite their grand proclamation of being “America’s…” the manual that I got with their product was in Chinglish. It surprised me. Instead of gracefully acknowledging their error- he blamed it on the Taiwanese. As I continued that trying to find where the battery was located on his vehicle- since it wasn’t covered in the manual I received- or on his website- or easily found on the web- he showed me… “it’s no secret where my battery is” and showed me- then shoved me off. Your website, your manual, your customer aren’t things to ignore or treat with disrespect in a highly competitive down market. Taking responsibility for your mistakes is the first step in not making them worse.

Great brands are built on trust. People still do business with people they know- and the impressions you make are lasting. I left “America’s smallest ________ Company” booth wishing I’d not bought their product. I left a major manufacturers booth- feeling less confident in their ability to build a brand that garners respect in the industry due to one reckless caveman working the floor. No amount of advertising changes the personal interactions and reputation that is set on a trade show floor.

Ad industry leaders have even written books on it: The Power of Nice: How to Conquer the Business World With Kindness at a trade show it’s extra important- because if you are smart: everybody is a customer.

The Wankel marketing engine

by | Feb 13, 2011 | Secrets of Great Advertising, The Craft Of Advertising

There is a secret in advertising that everybody knows, but few will admit to: there is never a quick fix.

In fact there is a cycle that works like clockwork in this business, it looks like this:

Sales are declining, flat or not rising as fast as someone wants.

A decision is made to shake up marketing. Someone wants a grand slam home run- without bothering to plan how to get the bases loaded first.

A new CMO, agency, or plan is put into play. They may or may not come up with some deep new understanding of the marketplace. The plan is wildly cheered and latched on to. Yet, after too short a time- the results don’t match the enthusiasm when the new journey was plotted. A course correction is ordered.

This is the proverbial fork in the road. Do we deeply, truly believe this is the right strategy? Or, are we scared- and reach for reassurance? So often, the reassurance comes with the line “this has worked before” or this is “tried and true.” The safe option is on the table. Probably 90% of the time- it’s implemented.

The original strategy is either abandoned, or diluted. The course is reset. All the metrics are thrown off and no lesson is learned. before long, the process begins again. It’s a circle- a rotary engine- it goes round and round.

The funny thing is- despite witnessing this over and over with marketers- the place where it became painfully obvious was made clearly watching network TV dramas- good shows, that didn’t get the early ratings they deserved. An “expert” was called in- adjustments are made, and new characters are introduced. The good show- just became a mediocre one- because the initial creative brief- the storyline- wasn’t being given time to grow.

Everyone wants a grand slam- they want a viral video like “I’m on a horse”- or Subservient Chicken- but, aren’t willing to understand that these are the few and far between. They are also not true engines of marketing- just a one time spark. Sometimes the spark is all that’s needed. Altoids got a jump start with a small successful revamped campaign- focusing on mints so strong they come in a metal box and some nice visual puns “Nice Altoids.” Instant hit- for a sleepy old brand- but then, brand extension nearly killed the initial success.

“Just do it” has been a strategy that Nike hasn’t been able to leave. They’ve tried- several times to move away from what is probably the strongest marketing positioning ever- only to realize that those three words are more valuable than the swoosh. The thing for marketers to remember is that it took years before Wieden + Kennedy came up with those three words. There is never a quick fix.

The Wankel engine is different from all other engines in that it is a rotary design- with a three sided rotor. The three faces are much like the three phases of marketing- they can change phases- but the amount of power derived just depends on the amount of pressure (interest) put on on the three faces. Which brings us to your goals as a marketer-

First is to make sure the motor is spinning and generating enough power to make your company run.

The next question is are you aiming to make what you have go faster, more efficiently or stronger?

Or, do you want to trade in the whole motor for a new one- bigger, better different? You may believe this is what you want- but, most of the time you only make en effort to do the faster, more efficient stronger. And that’s why you are in a rut.

Switching engines, despite one being a better design, doesn’t happen quickly, and requires lots of adaptive learning.

Most companies fail to realize that switching engines is a complete transformation- not an adaptive one and that’s why the new plans almost always fail- or the agency gets blamed.

In order to hit the grand slam home run, you must realize that loading the bases is a series of singles- and that Grand Slams might not be the goal at all- runs are.

So despite all these mixed metaphors and stories in this post- if you are looking for a new marketing mechanic- first figure out what you want to fix- then make sure you are ready to fix what’s broken.

It may not be the engine at all.