I’ve been engaged in a conversation with Jeff Nolan about ad-supported free software. This is interesting because my initial response is: get outta here. In a post that focuses on Spiceworks, a vendor providing IT management software for SMBs, Jeff argues:
The software suite that is expected to be delived by any company in this space is pretty well defined, in other words a company can’t compete simply on the basis of a slightly better feature set. Spiceworks is compelling because they provide the standard feature set but disrupt the competitive landscape by going out with a business model that goes to the heart of what prevents companies from buying IT mgmt software suites, cost.
The software application embeds Google AdSense in a sidebar, meaning you get ads served up while using it and advertisers gain access to a highly targeted segment that spend a lot of time in the applciation itself. We are increasingly accustomed to the notion that websites and web applications can be generating their necessary revenue through advertising, but this is an example of a downloadable application that is doing the same thing, and apparently it is working with over 120,000 customers to date.
He’s got a point but AdSense won’t do it. I don’t know about others but I instinctively tune out text ads. they don’t register with me. In an earlier discussion on Information Week, Mary Hayes Weier reports:
Jon Chorney, systems administrator at accounting and consulting firm Master, Sidlow & Associates, is a big fan of Spiceworks. It’s well-designed software, giving him a great view of the network, he says, and he occasionally finds information he needs via advertisements fromHewlett-Packard( HP), McAfee, and others. The software runs on his company’s servers; Spiceworks regularly downloads ads to the application.
So far, the ads have been unobtrusive, but Chorney’s keeping an eye on them. “The visual experience is very important,” he says. “If I see ads start to flash and blink, I’ll call Spiceworks and say, ‘Look, fellas, this is in the way.’”
I’m not a fan of ads but conversations with those who are engaged in this field suggest that advertisers are getting smarter at contextualising ad-related content. Jon’s point about information is key. If I’m in an application and I hit a problem then it is useful to have contextually available information. If it comes from a vendor then sure, I might feel more disposed to considering their product or service.
Which begs the question – could accounting software go free in this model? Winweb provides a basic service free and has hot more than 200,000 end users. Some vendors like Freshbooks provide a free, basic service but with a paid for model once you require more services. My sense is that free services or rather ad supported only really works where there are relatively simple solutions. In the world of accounting, that’s not quite so easy to see. Hence why Winweb offers live assistance. Even so and despite my reservations, it seems the world is moving more in the direction of ad-supported everything. Right now, it is crude. In the future?
Technorati Tags: advertising
