Ok, the title is a bit ridiculous. But 37Signals has been urging developers for years now to charge for their software, and attacking anyone who suggests a business can be made from giving that software away for free instead. Their model works for their own products, at least so far. But I believe they are responsible for influencing a number of startups to charge for products that were already commoditized by the time they launched. Which is suicide. Feedlounge, a subscription-based online RSS reader, is the most recent casualty. They launched in 2005 and offered a web based feed RSS feed reader for a monthly subscription fee. There were a number of free competitors at the time, including Bloglines and NewsGator, which had dominant market share. FeedLounge planned to carve a niche for itself by offering speedier and slightly better service. The reader was good but not great, and came out in the middle of the pack when we reviewed the competition in mid 2006. But the company defended its business model until the end – hear our podcast interview at TalkCrunch with founder Alex King where he defended his business model. They shut down over two months ago, canceled everyone’s subscriptions, and no one seemed to notice until now. FeedLounge is now in the deadpool, although they may re-emerge as a free service at some point. If you are in a position to charge for your software and you aren’t that concerned with dominating your category, by all means go for it. But to blindly follow the idea that software must not be free because, damnit, people put a lot of time and effort into it, means you probably shouldn’t be making the business decisions for your company. And if you are entering what is already a commoditized business (online feed readers in this case) that has a price point of zero, you are absolutely crazy to try to charge for that product. Offering your product for free isn’t always the right choice, either. Often, the right choice is to never have entered the market to begin with. But just because 37Signals tell you you are dumb to go the free route doesn’t mean you have to be a lemming and walk over the cliff. Thanks Smaran for the tip. → Read More
Company: FeedLounge What is it? The FeedLounge web-based RSS reader alpha was announced on June 9, 2005. Feedlounge is the newest entrant into the increasingly crowded RSS Reader space. Feedlounge is web-based, like Bloglines, Pluck, Kinja and Rojo, and has tagging (both feeds and posts), saving items indefinitely, and flagging items. Scott Sanders, one of the founders, writes in his blog that he created FeedLounge as a web-based application because he works from many different machines. Their goal was to create a thin-client-like experience, and the early alpha testers are coming back with very positive reviews: FeedLounge often feels much more like a desktop application than a web page. Clever combinations of Ajax and CSS add a ton of “hey wow” moments when using the system. As with Alex’s other works, the user interface is clean and easy to navigate.” Key Features: – choice of layouts – useful keyboard shortcuts – OPML import support (export support later) – Tagging (both of feeds and posts) – Works only with Firefox, by design (a plus in TechCrunch’s view) Screen Shots: Management: Alex King Scott Sanders Relevant Links: About FeedLounge FeedLounge Blog Dougal Campbell Review of FeedLounge TechBlog Post on FeedLounge Alex King Blog Scott Sanders Blog List of web-based RSS Readers → Read More
