Stealth Player Development

New Site and Finally Got CC'd

2005-10-25T21:16:00.000-05:00

CC Me
Ok people, I'm happy now. As you can tell from the last post, I was starting to loose my mind with payment processors and the minutia of getting things ready for launch. I've finally got good news though, I have a credit card payment processor! The best part is the discount rate, it's very reasonable and so is the monthly fee(s).

New Web Site
The basic premise for the new web site is up, but obviously has some place holder text.

As I've said in the past, I love to track everything, so here's some of the things I'll be tracking when the site is done and I'm accepting orders:

Pages to Downloads = What pages are the most often viewed that results in a download

Features to Downloads = The main page has a feature rotator that details a single feature of Stealth Player. I'll know which features are most often shown that then lead to downloads.

Bullets to Downloads = Again on the main page, there's a bulleted list of reasons to try Stealth Player. I'm going to create several versions of this list/content area and track which version leads to downloads.

Testimonials to Downloads = Again like the features and bullets above, this rotator for testimonials will be on the bottom left pane of the site. While testimonials will be anonymous (for obvious reasons) I still think they factor in to visitors decision making process.

Adwords to Downloads = Duh, tracking for my adwords campaign.

I'm on Track
I'm on track now for a Nov. 1st live date. I don't have any grand plans though, it will be done with little fan fair and I'll slowly start turning on the marketing dial on with guerilla style marketing, adwords, blogs, press releases, and affiliate partnerships.

Beta 3 and Payment Processors

2005-10-11T21:12:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted in a while and for good reason...I'm just too busy and while posting is nice, it doesn't help get things done.

I've been battling multiple fronts since the last post and to make this post have some sort of continuity, I'll write on each front separately.

Take my money damn it!
Yes, I still haven't gotten some of the images from a third party vendor because they can't figure out how to make easy money. Lesson here is have multiple ways to process payments.

Help, I've falling into a deep chasm and I can't get up!
Some how I've fallen into a void somewhere between porn and software. Porn payment processors don't seem to want me because I don't sell porn and software payment processors don't like the fact that my software is for viewing porn. So heaven doesn't want me and hell's afraid I'll take over.

My web site sucks and I know it
If you didn't notice, the old web site (that sucked) is gone and has been replaced by a new temporary web site (that also sucks). On the upside, a new site is coming from design outpost and doesn't suck.

A good website will inform your visit of exactly what your offer and give them a call to action...all without having to read one paragraph. That's not to say you can't have a paragraph full of details, but no one is going to read a paragraph just understand what you have to offer. A great ebook on this subject is offered up by Seth Godin...read "Knock Knock".

Beta 3 has arrived; Didn't you get the memo?
The new Beta (sigh) is out. I'm not happy that I have yet another Beta, but on the flip side, I don't have a payment processor, so why not continue to give it away for free (for life if you sign up before Oct. 31st).

Beta 3 is not a continuation of Beta 2. No, in fact it's an all new code base. The feedback so far has been great (positive) and even though it kicks ass, I'm still making improvements.

Losing money, but making up for it with volume
Yes, I've started paying for advertising...for free software. In fact, I'm paying as much as $2 a day for google to run a tiny add that will direct at most 20 people a day to my site.

Actually, I'm trying to test the adwords waters to see how the system works. I've heard some people have problems getting their campaigns running right. I figure I'll have 10X the problems because I'm in that porn software no man's land.

Guerrillas in the mist
Guerrilla marketing is not only cheap, but it can be fun. I've started posting on all types of internet forums (that are appropriate) with a tag line that directs people to my site. It's not spamming because I try to add to the conversation and it drives most of my traffic at this point.

Honestly, I could be doing more on this front, but for now (like adwords) I'm just testing the waters. I figure I should budget about 1 hour a night just for posting to forums.

Beta 2 Update – So Much to Say

2005-08-02T13:25:00.000-05:00

Confession:
I’m not a planner. I usually have a good idea of what’s coming next but to me making plans lead to expectations, which inevitably leads to disappointment. I like to be more flexible.

With the release of Stealth Player Beta 2, I’ve come to the realization that I must do something drastic, something that was not planned. This round of beta testing attracted far more users, activity, and issues. Feedback for the Beta 2 has been excellent (as in lots of it), but not always positive. The UI seems to be the sticking point. Not just the way it looks, but the way it flows. It’s too busy and odd.

Two things to say about the UI:
- A typical Window’s UI would seem too sterile for this app. I needed something sexy.
- I’m not a UI expert.

Some advice to others (based on what I now know):
- Use a standard Window’s UI if possible.
- If not possible, seek HELP.
- Simplify, Simplify, Simplify.
- Buy icons stock or custom (I prefer .png format)

In my case, help is Delicious Library (beta tester’s suggestion) and iTunes. I consider both these interfaces sexy and Delicious Library has won usability awards for its UI. So instead of hiring a graphics designer at this point, I’m going to emulate these great UIs and start from scratch.

Starting Over:
It’s not as bad as it sounds. The Beta 1 was basically an over done prototype and Beta 2 was a refinement of that. There was a complete lack of coherent design and the code was starting to get sloppy. Starting over allowed me to isolate the patterns I was using and boil them down to reusable templates.

The fact that I’ve gotten a lot done in very little time is a good indication that I’m heading the right direction. The multi-threading logic is simplified greatly thanks to the fact that I finally found out how to treat events in VB.NET more like you can in C#. If you’re looking to call properties and methods of the event (like you can in C#) just add “Event” to the end of the event name and voila! Did you know that? I didn’t. I just always assumed it was a limitation of VB.NET.

Outstanding issues:
Regardless of the new development there are outstanding issues that need to be addressed. These are:
- Proxy Servers: seem to cause a problem with the Web Service connection…Still looking for a good solution that doesn’t require user intervention. There’s a new article on MSDN about this, I just need to read it.
- Getting MAC Address: I need to find a reliable way to get MAC Address. One user has an issue with the way Stealth Player is getting it now (screen scrape from nbstat). The user has nbstat on the computer and it’s on path, so I need to look into this further.
- No Video: User reports that images work fine, but video causes Stealth Player to freeze. I'll be changing the way Stealth Player plays video, so I hope that will fix the issue.

Interesting Download Stats:
Since the beginning of Beta 2 my web site and web service have been tracking many statistics. Here’s some info I’ve been collecting per visitor:
- OS
- .Net Installation
- LicenseID – Gets populated when the user downloads.
- Registered – This happens when the user registers the product key.

From these fields I can start to answer the following important question. Do users without .Net installed download but NOT install Stealth Player at a rate higher than those who already have .NET? When Stealth Player is installed it will go through a prerequisite installation. If the user doesn’t have .NET then it gets downloaded and installed…many people think this turns users away.

Here are the results so far:
- 65% of users who did not have .NET installed completed the installation of Stealth Player and registered.
- 40% of users who did have .NET installed completed the installation of Stealth Player and registered.

While the sample size is small, the size both groups are nearly the same. Here’s another interesting stat:
- 35% of users with XP have a version of .NET installed already.
- 65% (the rest of the group) don’t.

What it all means:
To me this means that .NET installation is not a deterrent and that more .NET installations are starting to reach XP users through MS auto update. Good news for .NET MicroISV’s.

The “plan” as it stands now:
The new UI should be done by the begging of next week. Unfortunately, I’m at the mercy of a graphics vendor that doesn’t seem to want my money right now. I need their icons in order to finish on time.

After this release, I plan to force the product into production quickly.

I keep telling myself, it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. Realistically, while I enjoy the challenges of the journey, I need to get to my destination soon.

Beta 2 Review

2005-07-14T08:14:00.000-05:00

I wanted to create a list of things that changed for Beta 2. And also let everyone know what's on the agenda for RC1.

Also here are basic instructions on upgrading from Beta 1 to Beta 2:
Uninstall Beta 1 by using the uninstall link provided in c:\program files\SPDownload the new installation HERE.
Run the install and start Stealth Player. The new setup wizard will have a couple questions for you, more on that below.

Beta 2 Changes
- Security –
I got a Digital Signature from COMODO and signed all my executables. It’s more professional and safer for the end user.

- Setting Wizard -
Created a settings wizard that allows you to customize what categories you want to see. There is now a setting for connection speed which will optimize downloading for your connection type. Also, as requested, Stealth Player can now operate without its stealth capabilities. This means options to put shortcuts on the desktop and programs menu. As well, you can turn off encryption which will allow you to view images and video outside of Stealth Player. Finally, you can now specify paths for the temp directory and archive directory. This is particularly helpful to those with larger volumes outside of the C drive.

- Navigation -
This changed significantly. Starting in the Navigation Pane, the options changed from selecting the category to selecting the view. The views are:
New - Items you've not seen and are queued up to be reviewed.
Archived - Items you liked enough to save you your hard drive (encrypted).
Favorites - Galleries you liked, but didn't want saved locally.
History - Galleries you viewed in the past.
Reviewed - Galleries for which you reviewed the thumbnail.

The idea is for this to work like newsgator online. In the New view, you review the thumbnails, double clicking the galleries you would like to open. When you’ve opened all the galleries you like on the page, you click the “Mark as Reviewed” button and Stealth Player will grab the next set of gallery thumbnails to review.

- Hot Keys –
Hot keys allow you to do most navigation function with one key press while in media player mode. Some navigation functionality is tied to more than one key, so both right and left handed users should feel equally comfortable. Here’s a list:
Show Next (image or video) “D” or “L”
Show Previous (image or video) “A” or “J”
Next Gallery “S” or “K”
Previous Gallery “W” or “I”
Restart Video “Q” or “U”
Pause or Continue Video “E” or “O”
Archive Gallery “R”
Add Gallery to Favorites “F”
Close Gallery “C” or “N”
Toggle Thumbnail Preview “T”
Remove Item from Gallery (image or video) “DEL”
Panic Button “ESC”

- Filter -
You can now filter galleries on category, media type, size, and also domain.

- Sort -
You can also sort galleries by date added, category, domain, size, and rating.

- Dynamic Help -
Dynamic Help was added to the navigation pane in case the user is not sure what to do.

Upcoming Changes for RC1
- Add Billing Support -
There will be two different subscription levels:
Free – users will be given an allowance of 10 sessions a month.
Premium – users will be given an allowance of 100 sessions a month for a nominal fee of less than $5 per month. I was going to allow monthly subscriptions, but decided against it. Instead subscriptions will be yearly. $49.95 for one year of access ($4.16 a month).

There are two reasons I decided to not bill monthly. First, risk. The more transactions, the more charge backs. At $25 bucks a pop for a charge back it would take 6 legitimate transactions to pay for just one charge back. Second, cash flow. I want to provide top notch service and support to my customers while adding additional features. If I bill monthly and 200 people sign up in the first month, then I have about $1,000 of revenue to work with. Billing yearly generates $10,000 on the same number of subscribers, which is a much better model for growth.

During RC1 Beta testers will be asked to purchase the Premium subscription using test credit card information.

Please Note: All Beta testers will receive one year of Premium Subscription for free starting on the official release date. To qualify Beta tester must participate in RC1 subscription test mentioned above.

- Account Management -
There is already a place holder for this screen in Stealth Player. It will allow users to change passwords and to view account statistics such as: # of session left, next session refresh, and billing history (if any).

- Back Office -
There are a ton of apps that I need to complete for back office management. I need to make an admin app that contains everything I need to manage the system effectively. Error report, site stats, customer mass emailer, gallery categorizer (for manual categorization), and a gallery release scheduler (for time releasing galleries). There are a couple more items too. The goal is to automate as much as possible.

We’re getting there!

Site is down.

2005-07-11T19:59:00.000-05:00

UPDATE - Stealth Player is back up. It sounds like aquesthosting did a good job considering the circumstances. Here's they're response to my inquiry:

Ian,

There was a power outage in the area of our data center that took down portions of both grids that we set on. We have been told this was due to a vehicular accident in the area and the outage was unplanned.

We apologize for the outage and all systems have been restored.

Thank you,
John Lyon
Aquest Support Team

John always gets back to my amazingly quick.

StealthPlayer.com is down due to my hosting company being down. This is an unplanned outage and is not something I've experienced with this company in over a year of hosting.

This also underscores my need for email that is not through the hosting provider, because right now I don't have a way to contact them (email is out too). Hopefully, the site will be back up soon and they'll have a good reason why it all came crashing down.

Hallucinations and Beta 2

2005-07-06T01:38:00.000-05:00

Beta 2 is ready! However, due to complications the auto update feature will not upgrade you from Beta 1 to Beta 2. So if you’re already a registered user you can download and manually install the update here. If you’re not a registered user and you’ve been waiting just for this moment to experience Stealth Player click here.

I’ve had a couple late nights (early mornings actually) trying to get Beta 2 ready and deployed. This morning I got to my clients office and couldn’t quite remember how I got there. At this point, I can’t see straight and I keep seeing things in my peripheral vision that make me jump. I think lack of sleep may cause paranoia.

After I get some sleep I’ll post more about the new functionality of Beta 2, the additions to the StealthPlayer.com website, and what’s next on the agenda.

Oh, also…I want feedback! It’s super easy to submit feedback through the Stealth Player application! Click the “Feedback” button on the top menu, enter your comments, and click “OK”. I seriously want to know what you think.

Beta 2 Release Problem

2005-07-05T04:57:00.000-05:00

Almost done with the release, but I hit a snag. The auto update is crashing on existing installations. I'll fix it soon. The Beta 2 will should be ready with the new fix by the end of Monday. Sorry for the delay! Hey, it's still beta!

Beta 2 Release Date: July 5th, 2005

2005-06-28T19:49:00.000-05:00

Beta 2 will be available starting July 5th. All existing beta testers will be automatically upgraded when Stealth Player is started after July 4th. If you experience any issues with the automatic upgrade please email support@stealthplayer.com.

Unfortunately, existing testers will loose archive and favorites information. Gallery data will be purged and replaced with a new system that will add about 100-500 hand sorted galleries a day. In the end, the hassle of loosing your archive will be worth it.

IPod Photo Giveaway!

2005-06-21T18:46:00.000-05:00

OK, OK, this is not an original idea. In fact I was reading someone else’s blog today and they were doing an IPod giveaway! I though, wow, what a great way to get people to try your app! After thinking for a little bit, I came up with a great promotion that will tie into a future feature for Stealth Player. It will go something like this:

IPod Photo Giveaway, try Stealth Player and sign up to win an IPod Photo! On the day the winner is announced a Stealth Player feature will be released that allows you to add your favorite images from Stealth Player directly to your IPod! From there the images can be displayed on your TV, on the IPod color screen, or swapped with friends!

I know what you’re thinking…why would I want to put pornographic material on my IPod? To be honest, I don’t know, but I do know there are services that send pornographic images sent to cell phones. Mobile porn seems to be the next big thing for pornography, so while I don’t understand it, I might as well embrace it.

I also like this idea because it’s repeatable. When IPod Video comes out I can do the same type of promotion/feature all over again. Anyone have any thoughts? Is this lame?

Back from Vacation…Back to Business

2005-06-21T17:55:00.000-05:00

I’m back and I think the jet lag has worn off. I was able to clear my mind of Stealth Player for 2 weeks and found it quite refreshing. I’m coming back to work with a new perspective. I think it will help to get a look at what I’m doing from a few steps back.

I’ve added a couple links on the right and wanted to make sure they get noticed. These are blogs that have linked to the Stealth Player blog and I would like to thank them for doing so. After all, this blog is about my experience starting a MicroISV, not about pornography. These bloggers realize this fact and have generously linked to this site.

First up is the NGEDIT blog (Next Generation Editor). This guy can CODE. When I read his blog I hear a whooshing sound, as most of his material fly’s way above my head, reminding me that I’m not a hard-core programmer. Keep an eye out for the availability of a Beta version; I can’t wait to see what the advanced features are going to be.

Second is the Rapid Signal blog. Dimitris is building a web based CRM system and has an informative blog on starting a MicroISV and other things software. Best of luck Dimitris.

I plan to add more MicroISV links to this blog over time, especially the ones I enjoy reading.

Time Flies When You’re Having Fun

2005-06-02T20:56:00.000-05:00

In the last month I’ve been making great improvements to Stealth Player. I initially thought I would release these changes as the first Release Candidate, but it will be a Beta 2 version instead. The primary difference is that I want the Release Candidate to include all aspects of the program. The next version will not include the paid licensing aspect of the software and will still be free for all to use.

RC1 will contain code to manage the trial and purchase of the license. The pieces are in place, but are not enforced. I’ve decided that RC1 users will have to input a fake CC# and expiration date to continue using the system after the trial time has expired. It will still be free to use, but will require a little more effort on the part of the end user and this will be a good test of the licensing component.

Unfortunately for my development efforts, I’m off on vacation for two weeks. However, I will return even more dedicated to getting my MicroISV off the ground. The current plan is to release the Beta 2 version at the end of June.

On a personal note…I must say, I’m extremely frustrated that I’ve allowed this much time between releases. When I look at the Beta 1 that is publicly available, it makes my stomach ill because I know how much better the latest version is! The saying goes “release early and often”. Well I got the early part right!

Upcoming Release for Stealth Player

2005-05-10T22:52:00.000-05:00

I’ve been making changes to Stealth Player for the duration of the beta testing. A couple recent thoughts have really caused a break through in navigation. Here are the changes going in for Release Candidate 1:

- Removed mouse shortcuts for media playback navigation. They weren’t working correctly in some cases, most users didn’t get it, and I even started to find it confusing!

- Added keyboard shortcuts to replace mouse shortcuts. Keyboard shortcuts are duplicated on each side of the keyboard for right and left handed people.

- ESC (“Panic button”) doesn’t shut down the application anymore. Instead it hides it and adds an icon to the system tray. From that point a context menu from the system tray icon will allow you to login to where you left off or simply exit.

- Added icons to Navigation tree and buttons

- Gallery navigation and management has been simplified, yet is much more powerful. Before galleries were available by category then by media type and sorted by date added. Now you can filter on category, domain, media type and rating. You can sort those results by date added, category, domain, type and rank.

- The concept of deleted galleries is gone and has been replaced by something better. I liked how Newsgator.com keeps track of RSS feeds for me. I don’t ever delete articles; I just check them as being reviewed. Actually, I have the auto review setting so that when I view the page with the links, after I navigate away, it marks all the links on the page as reviewed. The new “work” flow basically goes like this: When a user views a set of galleries, they can open the galleries they want then click the “Mark All Galleries as Reviewed” button. This will reload the page with the next page of galleries that haven’t been reviewed. With thousands of galleries, I needed a way for users to be able to keep track of what they’ve seen.

- The galleries pane will no longer have Open, Archive, Favorite, and Delete buttons. Instead these options will available through a context menu as they aren’t used often. Of course double clicking a gallery will still open the gallery, but no one was using the buttons.

- Changes to home page. I’ve removed the navigation link to the home page. There will be a button at the top of the application next to the back and forward buttons to go home. This is more like a browser’s menu.

- Home page was RTF based file that was downloaded when the application started. I thought this would allow me to create dynamic content for the application. I turned out to be just a big annoyance. Now the home page will host a browser control and connect to a special section of my web site dedicated to the application. This opens up a lot of options for dynamic content, though I have to make sure this meets Stealth Player’s high standards i.e. (no history, nothing written to the hard drive unencrypted, no security implications, etc…)

- The media player pane will no feature a collapsible panel across the top for displaying the thumbnails for all the items in the gallery. Users will be allowed to remove items they don’t like from the gallery. When the gallery is archived, only they items that haven’t been removed will be archived.

- Media player pane’s menu will change. Not sure how it will end up, but with the addition of the thumbnail view mentioned above, things need to change.
- The Open Galleries Pane will get context menus and shortcut keys…Delete and backspace will close the gallery.

- Tool tips are/will be everywhere.

- Still working on the best way to keep Stealth Player hidden, but not so hidden that the intended user forgets how to start the application. The current system seems to have that problem. I may have an option on installation that users can opt out of hidden mode.

- In the future, all galleries will be hand sorted. I’m building an application that allows me to sort through galleries quickly and will plan on delivering about 500 galleries a day…since my crawler app can find about 40,000 galleries a day, I’ll have to put it on a short leash.

- I’m in the process of adding support to bypass checks on some galleries that attempt to prevent my app and others from downloading content….Not that hard to do, but I just haven’t gotten around to it.

- Want to add support to my crawler to recognize non-conforming galleries. Basically it recognizes a gallery as a page with links directly to media. Non conforming galleries have links to a page that frames the media file. This is just matter of writing a little logic, but it not a top priority. With the crawler finding more porn than anyone can handle, I’m not sure if an enhancement to make it find more is prudent.

- Data recycling will be implemented because until Stealth Player makes some money, I really can’t afford the DB space to store information on more than 200,000 galleries. So when a limit is reached, the oldest, lowest ranked galleries will be deleted. Even if I the money was there to keep all records, taking out the trash is a good habit.

- Speaking of trash, I’ve added automatic support for getting rid of galleries that have been removed from the Internet. Basically, when a gallery fails to download for a user, it’s marked. If enough users have the same problem, the gallery is removed and marked for review.

- Oh, support for Win 2000, ME, and 98

I’m not sure if this is the complete list. I believe this will all be done by the end of this month, but because of a coming vacation I don’t plan to release it until late June.

Beta Testing Going Well

2005-05-08T11:51:00.000-05:00

Beta testing has been slow, but going well. I didn’t want to attract a lot of attention at this point and just leaving beta testing to a limited set of people. Feedback has been adequate, but less than desired. On the plus side, there has been no negative feedback (i.e. “This application sucks”). On the negative side, there hasn’t been a lot of critical feedback.

The critical feedback is what reassures me that I can shape Stealth player into something people want and can use easily. Positive feedback is what keeps me going. Many users have been delighted with the application and that of course motivates me to do more.

One issue that keeps popping up in my head…Revenue Model. I intended to make Stealth Player free, supported by revenue of premium content delivered from within the application. I’m starting to get the feeling that it’s not going to work that way. You see, it’s starting to look like Stealth Player may not be for everyone. For those who do use it, the value it provides is worth a small fee. Everyone else that doesn’t see the value in the privacy, safety, and viewing experience that Stealth Player provides, won’t ever download and use it, even if it were free.

So all this leads me to believe that I need to focus on providing a service to those that do see the value in the features of Stealth Player. This means users will have to pay a license fee to use the system. I’m still on the fence about this though.

Please note, that whatever I decide, beta testers will be given a free license for a year.

Stealth Player Beta for XP Ready

2005-03-25T23:22:00.000-05:00

I'm not advertising it yet, but on the Stealth Player web site you can now download the Stealth Player Beta for Windows XP. It may work on other OSs but I haven't tested them yet and I'm not in a big hurry. 78% of the web site visitors are using XP.

If you visit the StealthPlayer.com website you'll notice only the default page and download pages are working. The other pages will be available soon. What I'm really testing now is the delivery process mostly with friends and anyone interested through this site.

The actual application code has some known issues that I'm working on, but nothing too serious. The cool thing is that Stealth Player was designed to be self updating. When I publish new binaries to the website they get downloaded when Stealth Player starts. This will ensure that all users get the latest fixes. I hope to never make users uninstall and reinstall to upgrade, but I’m not sure how realistic that will be.

If you would like to give Stealth Player a try, here is a link directly to the download page.

THE NEW SITE IS UP!

2005-03-21T19:54:00.000-05:00

OK, OK...Stealth Player is not quite ready yet and the site is not yet complete, but the latest site will give you a better indication of what Stealth Player is and what its capabilities are.

Right now I'm in the process of testing Stealth Player against the on-line web service and streamlining the registration to download to install process. It needs to be seamless.

I've also made an initial decision about licensing. Stealth Player will be FREE. The goal is to generate revenue by selling premium content through the system in a Google friendly way (text links only, no banners). The idea is to build an audience that wants to use Stealth Player as their preferred interface to view adult content. I could add Amazon like shopping features with ratings and reviews to make everything transparent to customers.

If that doesn't work... I'll be forced to sell license... but I'm going to try to stay away from this model. I figure after I have a couple thousand users I can best judge what needs to be charged for licenses, so I'm not giving price points much thought now.

Wish me luck; I'm nearing the finish line!

Ill'n

2005-03-07T09:05:00.000-05:00

I woke up on Sunday feeling like crap! My wife took good care of me though. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to do the work on the new site, so it’s not up yet. I figure this puts me three days behind. I can't wait to get the new site up...the current one is rubbish.

Man, those weekend days are crucial. I can code about 14 hours straight, get in the zone and hack away. Now it will take me three (five to six hour) shifts after work to make up for the loss of Sunday.

Screenshots are up.

2005-03-05T10:25:00.000-05:00

Screenshots are up. I blurred out the naked bodies, sorry.

Screenshot 1
Screenshot 2

The Home Stretch

2005-03-04T17:55:00.000-05:00

Ok, real world work is finally slowing down. It’s hard to come home and work more when your mind is too tired.

Here’s the latest news! Screenshots will be up on this blog tomorrow. The new site will be up by Monday. And the application will be up by the end of next week!

It’s been a long journey to get this far. I’ve learned a lot about myself as a developer and about the business of software. Conquering my need to over engineer has been one of my greatest accomplishments for this project and here’s why…

In September I wanted to build an application that could be configured to spider the internet and catalog items of interest. It was going to be infinitely configurable and could create a library of searchable offline content for your area of interest. Are you interested in PDF documents about internet marketing? It could find that. Would you like to find AVI and MPG files larger than 2MBs? It could find that.

In fact, I thought of a lot of different uses. All types of internet users would find this application useful. However, the reality is, this line of thinking is completely bogus.

If I was selling you 4 wheels, and engine, a ton of metal, a welder, some foam, leather, wires, etc. and said you could build a car with it, you’d say “no way” and run to the nearest Lexus dealer. My problem… I was making the raw material for which the average person wouldn’t know what to do with.

I came to this realization in the shower one morning (where many of my epiphanies occur). It was then I decided to build the Lexus of porn viewing.

Step one: Focus on one group of users. I chose the largest group of users on the internet that many times PAY for services.

Step two: Take as much complexity away from the end user as possible. No configuration, no setup, just point and click. All the dirty work is done on by my servers and ugly console apps.

Step three: This is the most important step. Just do it! Start now. Don’t create some grand design because if your final version looks anything like your original vision then you’ve screwed up (or you have incredible foresight).

This line of thinking got me going in the right direction. I got feedback from some very candid friends. I found out what people would like, if there were an application dedicated to viewing porn on the internet.

I’d ask, what are the problems you’ve had looking at porn on the internet? Here are some responses:
My wife (mother in law) sees the history in the browser location window.
I hate when I get redirected to another site that doesn’t have the content I was looking for.
I hate having to close 10 browser windows when I’m done.
More importantly, I hate trying to close 10 browser windows when my wife gets home early.
I don’t like it when sites take control of my browser and won’t let me leave.
I hate not being able to save files for fear that my wife (or kids) will see them.
The short clips would be better if I could play one right after the other.
Navigating galleries can be a pain because to see the next picture I have to click back then click on the next thumb.
I don’t like to wait for things to download!
Sometime it seams like I find the same content over and over again.
Etc…

You get the idea. I’ve managed to solve all these problems. With my original idea, if a user could get past the configuration, I would have only solved a few problems.

Stay tuned…I’m very excited to see when everyone thinks.

Web Site Development

2005-02-16T22:10:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted for some time now, so here is a quick update. Real world work has been getting the better of me lately and my time spent on Stealth Player hasn’t gone as expected. I intended to complete the web site’s new look using a template I purchased. I then quickly realized the template had the elements and color scheme I needed for the application itself.

Hey, I’m not a designer. I knew that from the start, but in my haste I didn’t take the time to look for outside help. So here I am, updating the Stealth Player UI. That’s OK though, it looks sharp and I made it even easier to use.

On a technical note: NEVER waste your time on custom painting a treeview or listview in .NET. It’s a total waste of time. I’m tossing my original efforts in that area for a more home grown control. I’ve gotten better at GDI+, so I find it easier to start with a clean slate than to work with the crap that comes with the .NET framework.

I’m ever closer to launch. I’ve decided I’m going to finish the app before I market it. Not that market it now would be a bad idea, but I don’t have enough focus to efficiently do both. This coming long weekend (president’s day) should be great for getting this stuff done and out the door.

Death of the Computer?

2005-02-03T10:39:00.000-05:00

Here's an interesting article on Business 2.0 that is only interesting because it's completely wrong. Unfortunately, a writer was inspired to pontificate that computers are going to be replaced by dumb internet clients just because google can replace his calculator.

This guy is obviously a power user. I don’t think he has any idea what it takes to port desktop applications to the web. What about graphics intensive items, like games? I think he got it backwards, the PC isn’t dying – it’s being reborn in new forms. I think he’s missing the big picture, which is: My cable box. It has more memory, more hard drive space, and more processing power than my PC of four years ago. He thinks more things are replacing the PC, I say more things are becoming a PC. Sorry for the rant.

Web Site Templates

2005-01-31T06:49:00.000-05:00

After giving the StealthPlayer.com site an objective look, I decided it was weak. I wanted to keep things simple, but I think there's a thin line between simple and just down right ugly. So I finally bought a full site template for $85. I'll post a link to it when I upload the changes.

My Boostrapper's Bible After Thoughts

2005-01-27T23:18:00.000-05:00

Reading the Bootstrapper's Bible got me thinking about a couple things. First, I think I should start marketing now. Stealth Player is not done yet, but it's close. It's certainly not vapor ware. Second, I need to learn more about my market and the particular industry. So here are my plans...

Google will be central to both my endeavors. Soon as I get the Stealth Player website done, I'm going to start marketing it using google Ad Words. I can budget the ad campaign to $100 bucks a month. I don't want to be done with development and THEN spend a month figuring out how to use Ad Words. Since I should be done in a month or less, I think that's money well spent.

The major purpose of this exercise is to figure out who's interested in the product (if anyone). Visitors can sign up to be notified when Stealth Player is ready. If I don't get $100 worth of traffic, then I'll be learning ahead of time to adjust my campagn. If I do get $100 dollars worth of traffic and not one person signs up, I'll know ahead of time that I have issues, business model issues. Knowing this ahead of time will allow me to adjust my business model...ahh...ahead of time.

This leads me to my second thought. I need to know more about the industry I'm venturing into. I originally thought I was in the software industry and just happened to make software for porn. Now, I'm starting to wonder if I'm actually in the porn industry using software as a competitive advantage. The difference between the two realities is the business model. Am I selling software or porn? I'd rather think software.

I'm not a sleazy guy. Really I'm not...I'm out going, I surf (I'm not talking about the web), I love to hang out with my wife and friends...

There's a certain shame in pornography, it makes me uncomfortable. However, I think that aspect makes this market attractive. The barrier to entry is shame.

I wrestle with this because, after doing some research, it seems I have two potential business models. The first, which I prefer, is to sell access to the data my system aggregates through a value added interface. Doesn't that sound nice and sterile?

The second model is to give away the software for free with access to my data as a draw, then sell premium content to the users through the same application. After looking into it, purchasing distribution licenses from adult content providers is easy; easier and less expensive than I ever thought. This is inline with the Bootstrapper's Bible, which uses a Nike sneaker as an example. The manufacture in China gets $1 a shoe, Nike gets $10 a shoe, the distributor gets $25 a shoe, and the retailer gets $80 a shoe. Anyway -- If you don't know what I'm talking about GO READ IT! The point is I'm surprised at the margins that can be achieved.

To sum it up, here are my options:
Model 1: MicroISV - (Preferred)
Model 2: Porno Peddler - (I wouldn't go telling everyone about this one)

My first attempt at marketing will determine which direction this heads...I sure hope I can make Model 1 work.

Not to drag this on, but I just thought of something terrible. I've mentioned the work "Bible" in the post a couple times, I hope no one comes here from a search engine looking for religion...Oh, the nasty emails I'll be getting

Seth Godin's Bootstrappers Bible

2005-01-26T19:38:00.000-05:00

This is a free download from MicroISV Reality. I read it...no...devoured it during lunch today. It was reassuring to read because I feel I'm on target as a bootstrapper. However, it has inspired me to do things sooner. I'll explain what those things are in my next post. For now, if you’re a MicroISV, go read this e-book now!

More on Licensing

2005-01-25T23:25:00.000-05:00

I'm giving licensing some real thought. I stated before that I would offer three levels of service, one free and two other levels for a fee. Now I'm thinking that I should offer this service and software for free and make money on the back end. Here's what I see as the two alternatives:

I was planning on offering premium content thought this software, but it would take some integration with content providers. I don't thing that should be very difficult technically.

If I give the software away free, I could get a larger user base faster. However I would then have to wait to get content providers on-line before any revenue came my way.

On the flip side, if I charge people for up-level service, then I could have the best of both worlds.

I guess I'm drawn to the free model because some of the competitors out there are free and work off of commisions. However their products don't seem that well thought out and kinda gimmicky. I'll keep mulling this over.

Moving to Production Pains

2005-01-25T18:32:00.000-05:00

Most developers know that you can expect problems moving from a development environment to the production environment. Well, Stealth Player has been no different. I’ve been moving from my all in one development machine to the truly distributed production machines, and it’s been a pain!
I’ve successfully put half of the equation into place. I currently have my “media finder” application running and posting the results through a web service to my site. However, getting the client (Stealth Player) to work in with my hosted account is creating the biggest headache.

The problem has to do with dynamically downloaded assemblies. I thought I had figured out all the intricacies, but it just won’t work, and I’ve wasted enough time on it. So, because I get a FileNotFound (IT SHOULD BE F*CKING FOUND!!!) error when loading the assembly from my hosted web account, I’ve decided to move on. I’m going to spend tonight integrating the Updater Application Block from MSDN. I’m concerned this might raise the OS requirements for the client app. At first I really wanted Stealth Player to work down to Win95, but at this point I don’t want to deal with the hassle of supporting older OS’s. Besides, StatCounter.com has shown that 80% of my site visitors are using WinXP.

Because I’m starting a MicroISV, I have a LOT to do. I think it’s important that I move on. I can’t try to conquer the world, I can’t serve every OS, and I can’t spend 10 hours solving a technical problem when I could just use a less elegant work around in 4 hours.. I have to keep telling myself – “End users don’t care how it works, they just care that it works”. Got to keep on moving forward.