Dang it.  I had a whole hours worth of ideas written here, press the 'Post' button and get a 'Sorry, an error occurred'.  Hit the back button and it's *ack* gone!  Like five times.

Anyway, here were my major points, of what seem to be the issues w/source, how DNN developers sell modules, and the issue if Core Team compensation in general.  Please remember these are just one person's thoughts.

1. Would a Subscription Model be the ideal way of selling modules?  Personally, with the manner in which the core product is constantly update, I think a subscription model for add-in modules would be the best way to take care of customers.  This is from one customer of course, just me.  I've lost us a lot of money by purcasing single modules w/no source, and now it's money tossed to the wind.

2. Would a Subscription Model improve revenues, yet also improve a customer relationship?  Again, this is one of my main issues.  Customer relationships...or the LACK of them.  It's why I'm so taken w/Scott's Subscription Module and his whole site setup.  He has forums to discuss issues and potential features w/customers.  Polls to find out what they'd be interested in.  Pages that talk about what he's thinkin' of writing next.  You can PM him.  He's available.  Yet the site is automated enough that he still manages to be able to add modules, and it's easy to see the new modules.

3. How could the DNN community optimize the goal of a 'community', yet provide the best means of success to all developers, including the core team?  Well, IMO, a site that lists all modules available.  That *any* developer can register and add their Subscription information and the modules available is a start.  I know that dotnetnuke.com has something like this, but they've created a barrier to entry, and they've made it an additional piece of work *they* have to deal with, instead of allowing each developer to deal w/it.  What Macromedia, Adobe, Microsoft and other companies that provided products w/API's so developers could add plug-ins to add features to the products, is they had/have a 'catalog' that add-in developers could pay to advertise teir wares.  Well heck, the core team could just add the URL information of the custom modules site.  And make it separate from DNN.  Thus anyone that downloads the DNN code (who reads the docs of course!), would know of a central area for all Subscription DNN module sites.

4.  How to recompense the core team?  This has been an issue in my mind ever since I found DNN.  I keep thinking, all these add-in module makers are getting revenues.  Yet the folks that created the environment don't get diddly.  Doesn't seem right.  I know the Open-Source Model, and all that.  And that's good.  Keep it that way.  But say the core team decided to make a Subscription Module a sub-project, or develoopers just agreed to sign up for Scott's site and download his.  Anyway, if it was a sub-project, then they could add a feature to allow multiple paypal payments to vendors...one to the developer, and a small, reasonable percentage to the core team.  And perhaps even make the percentage recommendations based on how much someone is charging for a module.  I mean if someone is selling a module w/o source for 300 bucks, it only seems fair the core team get a larger amount.  They could divvy up the funds as they wish, of course, also.  The vendor could even stipulate what percent if they wish.  This way, the core team *is* getting recompensed for all their work, the developer ain't gonna miss 5% or whatever, and the advertising part is taken care of because the URL would be known to access all the info about these Subscription Sites right there in the 'install notes'.  And this would help resolve the next potential worry....

5.  Would adding subprojects end up hurting developers?  Well, not if Item 4 was implemented, right?  I mean, the core team could concentrate on improving and adding features to the core.  Which would be free.  Revenues would be genned from the small percentages from *all* modules using the subscription module (say this would be a requirement to get listed on the Subscription Sites and Module Available site...that the developer download and use the Subscription Module).  Then, why would the core want to start making custom modules?  They get revenues generated from the ones there already!  Now sure, perhaps one or two features of some modules, that are closely related to the core in the future might get bounced, but in general, it's a built in way to provide funds for the core team, remove worry that there'll be a mountain of sub-projects in the future, DNN users would almost *all* be familiar w/the URL to find and subscribe to get modules, and most important...it would still be a community ala Scott's thinking.

6. Related to Item 1, say some Subscription sites aren't successful.  Well, it could be because their code stinks, or there's a vertical market that isn't interested in what they have to sell, or lots of reasons.  There's nothing stopping future Subscription Providers to join forces to improve *all* their revenues.  Say one Vendor has a forum module (this is  just an example!).  And another has a Private Messaging module, and another has a Chat module.  Well, there's no reason why they couldn't join forces, create ONE subscription site, and provide all three related products.  And just charge a higher yearly subscription fee for access to all of them.  It would mean less work because three developers are maintaining ONE set of customers, and would likely lead to increased revenues to boost, because folks that might not buy a forum, but want PM would not have access to both.  And vice-versa.

7. Finally, folks could still advertise specific modules and stuff on sc.  No one is stopping anyone from doing this.  In sc's defense, they saw a hole in the marketplace, and like any entrepreneur, took advantage of the opportunity.  But IMO, selling module by module, with umpteen upgrades, is a death knell.  Impossible for us customers to keep track of, and IMO, DNN is *crying* for a Subscription based model.  Right now it's a veritable monopoly however.

And there's no standard on providing source and such.  And the closer the community stays, the easier it is to know if someone's stealing (shame on them) PA's and using them w/o payin' for them.  That hurts EVERYBODY.  Us customers, because it means that vendor might not be around, obviously the vendor, and also the core team, because they wouldn't get their donation percentage.  Anyway, that's my two cents.  I hope no one takes this as an attack, because it's not meant to be.  I just *like* this community, and want it to have recommended policies in place so it stays one, no matter how big we are.  I remember a couple of days ago some PHPNuke dide coming over here and asking how the heck can people be charging for add-in modules when they're free w/PHPnuke.  Well, all I can say, with my many years experience in marketing and a consumer is, 'ya get what ya pay for'.  I used to use PHPNuke, and don't anymore.  I won't get  into the reasons.  Let them argue about it.

aaava,
I would gladly set up a subscription site for the modules I do want to sell - i knod of agree it seems you spend a lot of time traking down module upgrades sometimes.

How would you suggest a site be structured?  Like Scotts? other ways - at this point I will try anything because I am not in the market deep enough to be locked into anything

Great post with well though out ideas. Unfortunately, I don't know what the best solution is either. I do know that I have a lot of money in modules though, and the upgrade processes and endless patches can get quite frustrating.

One thing I would like to see is groups of developers getting together and having "Teams" you could subscribe to. I would gladly pay $25 a month to get all the commercial modules from a "hot team".

Right now I subscibe to the "Smart - Thinker" site but it's really because you get all his stuff for $35 for 6 months and just one of his modules is worth that. So in his case it's just a "no brainer".

A "hot team" of developers could get $15-$25 a month. They would have dozens of modules and once they got a really "hot" one you would join just to get it.

These "mega-teams" could make enough money that the developers on the team could devote more time to creating more content. They could have the best modules hands-down.

I think people can only do so much when they can't make a profit. I think it will take "mega-teams" to get people to pony up $20 a month to make it profitable.

I have been thinking about this as well.

I am in progress of setting up a site like this as well, not for modules but more like a pimpyournuke kinda site. So skinobjects skins containers and other graphic enhancement for a portal. Start the site up with enough content to make for the subscriptionprice alone. so a few skins and about 150 pixelcntainers and a image menu skinobject to start with will make up for the yearly payment.

And then try to update teh sit about once a week with new items

At least thats my idea to do it.

This team sugestion is a very interesting idea, although how do you determine a fair split of the profits? I guess you would have to put counters on all modules and compensate equal splits aligned with the percentage of downloads your modules bring to the site. This still may be untrue because many subscribers would subscribe and then download all modules before their subscription runs out. Who is to tell which module caused them to subscribe?

Any thoughts on this aspect? Don't get me wrong I would myself be interested in joining a "module team" or even starting one if someone could devise a fair way to split the proceeds...

Michael,
  That sounds good but sometimes teams fight about how to do something more than they work together (not all just my experience when money is involved its worse) .  I think that my problem is I dont really have a lot of modules to entice people to subscribe to my site even if I wanted to run it that way.  What about a community of developers?  You subscribe to the site and three or four developers all have sections on the site?  Seperate but within the same Domain the cross talk alone might be worth it. Not really a team because they can develop the way they like but they share a common goal of helping customers out and share resources (web space)

Just for those of you who joined this discussion bourne from another thread - you can follow the beginnings of it here
http://forums.asp.net/914532/ShowPost.aspx

Hmm.  Yeah, I think Scott's got it down pretty well.  I don't know everything you'd need from a DNN module vendor, but in general as a customer, this is what I'd like to see:

A front page that:
1. Announcements of all the modules available. 
2. Perhaps also announcements of the ones' coming.  No dates needed. 
3. A poll or two, just once a month, let's say, asking which module(s) more customers are interested in, and/or enhancements
4. A login module in there
5. A list of benefits for subscribing.
6. A description of the various Subscription Fees and lengths, linkable to Purchase w/paypal
7. *Perhaps* a PM(Private Message) ability.  This shows the vendor is interested in what his/her customers have to say.

Then in general for each module page:

1. A version history.
2. List of features.
3. Forum to discuss.
4. A FAQ that is updated once a month, so the vendor isn't repeating him/herself.
5. Online documentation that can be even updated by a customer (has to be approved by the vendor of course, but this would sure help, and I think customers would help w/this)
6. A wishlist module (could use like a 'review' module that allows the wishlist items to be listed.  Each one could be rated by customers. 
7. A bug list and fixed history.  I've never understood why vendors try to hide this stuff.  I've had this experience w/a couple of DNN custom module vendors.  Doesn't make sense.  Advertise the bug, and a work around, and/or if it's fixed, or if it's not a bug.  This removes a LOT OF EMAILS from having to be answered.  Notice that *nowhere* in here is a need for a vendor to respond to umpteen questions a day.  In fact, the features make it so a customer can *find* the answer easily enough.  Except for the forums.  Prolly once a day or two a vendor should make themself known there, or offer a free module to some customer and give them mod priviledges.


Also, I'd think a vendor would want a

1. Here are the modules downloaded page, you will only see this if you are a Gold, Silver whatever customer.
2. Here are the modules I'm working on, each has it's own page, which would also show a wishlist module per above.

I'm sure I'm missing stuff.  I mean there could be optin emails to announce new products.  In general, I think a customer feels better if they get an email once a month or so, reminding them of you, and your stuff.  It also helps YOU, the vendor, because you're reminding the customer the *value* of your services and site.  I'm sure I could come up w/a general design given enough time, but heck, Scott's got it down pretty well IMO.  Hope that helps.  And you could also charge two prices for subscriptions.  One for PA's and one for Source.  I don't see an issue for that.  Either they want the source, or they don't.  I think most people are willing to pay a reasonable amount of money for source. 

Heck I don't even think copyright code in the HTML is that much of an issue, ya know?  Say I write a custom module, k?  (Yeah, not bloody likely consider it takes me two days to compile a stupid 50 line module, and now I can't even Add a Module Definition in 3.0.13!) *ack*.  Oops, back to the subject.  I create a custom module, and sell a subscription.  The customer takes out the copyright code, because perhaps he doesn't want his competitors to *know* he's using DNN or my module for that matter.  Ok, I have a number of variables I've named.  The odds of others having HTML output that looks EXACTLY like mine is almost nil.  They'd have to rewrite the whole dang module right?  So I go to google and do a search on some specific piece of output code.  I find 10000 responses.  In one day, I could find every single loser who has copied my PA w/o paying for it.  Just add a field to the registration form or something for each Subscriber that has them list all the websites they use the PA on.  Ok.  If you're not on the list, and you're using my PA, I send a nice email informing you you're under violation of license.  Heck someone could come up w/a module that scrapes google and compares it to the list of valid urls.  IMO, just the *knoweldge* of this would scare off most losers who steal PA's.  But that's another subject I guess.

Hope this rant helps...

Out of curiosity, just how many places are there displaying lists of modules, skins, containers, etc..?  I know there are quite a few... Where, for example, should I post some of the new modules I have available for everyone to see? Would be too frustrating to have to post them on all of those sites and then update them when there are new releases to my modules.

yes, I am now in the habbit of Ctrl-C'ing my answers before clicking on Post!

With regards to the question of how much time I spend on Customer Support:
At the moment (being a fairly new player) I don't need to spend too much time as there haven't been any real issues (what can I say about my coding ;)
But I will be dedicating as much as needs be - it's definitely in my favour in the subscriber model because there is more the sense that I am selling a subscription to a site and the indiviual products combine to increase that value - there's is less concept of "ownership" for the subscriber. But this doesn't mean they have any less say if there is a bug or problem - I think it is crucial that a subscription site is an interactive, live community (Scotts is very active, and mine is getting there) - it's great when other subscribers end up helping other subscribers - and this is all part of the reverse benefits for the host (comon, the customer is paying $50 a year for the whole suite and support ;)

I think it boils down to how much time you have spare to dedicate to a site - you have to spend a little more time building the community spirit and moderating Forums, which is possibly slightly reduced in the SC sales model (they even do helptesk calls, although I would rather do them in my own Forums to help other subscribers as a KB)

Vicenç: No problem on the DNN Core Team offer - it makes me feel less guilty about charging for my time in the open-source community where others give selflessly (sorry, just got back from Star Wars 3) - of course, some people make a LOT of money with DNN ;)

I'm actually going to start a Testomials section on Smart-Thinker to increase customer confidence - that may help reduce the stigma around the subscription model.

codegalaxy wrote:

Michael,   That sounds good but sometimes teams fight about how to do something more than they work together (not all just my experience when money is involved its worse) .  I think that my problem is I dont really have a lot of modules to entice people to subscribe to my site even if I wanted to run it that way.  What about a community of developers?  You subscribe to the site and three or four developers all have sections on the site?  Seperate but within the same Domain the cross talk alone might be worth it. Not really a team because they can develop the way they like but they share a common goal of helping customers out and share resources (web space)

Amen brother.  Money makes people do scary things.  I've worked in Fidelity Retail Marketing when I lived in Boston years ago, and where I met my current partners, and done a number of startups, and of the four startups, the only partners I'm still friends w/are from my first startup back in the early '80s (best friend in college), and my current ones.  Age helps.  So does experience, and the knowledge that everyone's gonna have a bad day.  Being able to apologize when you're wrong, and being able to look in the mirror and see how other people react to *you* is also not a quality enough folks have. Ain't none of us perfect, for sure.  But money kills partnerships.  That's why I think the Subscriber Model should have the capability to pay multiple vendors, but it doesn't have to be implemented that way (well, I'd still suggest a small pct go to a donation to the core team).

About ten years ago, a friend of mine wanted to start a software consulting business, since he was a Director of Software Development at Fidelity, and had prolly interviewed about half the programmers in that town.  He had a list of about 50 developers he'd hired as consultants at various times who were nice folks, and darned good.  He wanted me to be head of marketing.  I thought about it, but told him these people might be great people to work with, but you have no idea how they'll react to money.  You don't find that out *until* you're in startup environment w/them.  You can see hints about this stuff, like who offers to pay the dinner check ;--), or the rounds of drinks or whatever.  But you don't truly know a person until you're ina startup already.

So perhaps instead of a cemented relationship Mike, there could be a 'ring' kind of thing.  Where a bunch of vendors (call em Subscriber Vendors) decide they'll share a module and advertise each other's Subscriptions.  And they get a certain agreed upon percentage if someone clicks and buys from that vendor's site.  That would sort of accomplish what you want also.  You could then proceed from there to decide if you want to merge forces.

alexdresko wrote:

Out of curiosity, just how many places are there displaying lists of modules, skins, containers, etc..?  I know there are quite a few... Where, for example, should I post some of the new modules I have available for everyone to see? Would be too frustrating to have to post them on all of those sites and then update them when there are new releases to my modules.

Then please back me up on this thread ;)
http://forums.asp.net/932081/ShowPost.aspx

I'm proposing a user-submittable, moderated (slightly ;) News Annoucments on the main DNN site - so developers could announce new products (slightly different from the resource directory on there) and people could hook into an RSS feed!

codegalaxy wrote:

What about a community of developers?  You subscribe to the site and three or four developers all have sections on the site?

If you could figure out a way to reward the developers who do the most then I think it will work. Perhaps they get points based on the number of times their module has been downloaded and that is the percentage the subscriptions are divided by?

The team that would be the most successful is the one that gets that "Hot" module. Face it, "Star Wars" is what brings everyone in to buy popcorn. If the people with the hottest modules got together they could control the market and perhaps actually turn a profit.

looks like there is a good amount of interest in this team subscription approach. If we can outline the process/payments/guidelines I would be more than happy to participate and even donate server space on my dedicated DNN server and even a domain as well (I own a few dnn related domains that I'm not currently utilizing anyway and I had this idea in mind now for quite some time just never really formalized it!)