I'd be curious

What your guesses are for the monthly prices on these service levels for Inlay:

Silver: One site, one admin account.

Gold: Ten sites, five admin accounts.

Platinum: Unlimited sites, unlimited admins.

Walter


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Shot-in-the-dark-at-a-penny-1000-yards-away-with-a-potato-canon:

  • Silver: $10
  • Gold: $50
  • Platinum: $80-$100

The right price really depends on the level of support offered. For a CMS marketed toward your average FW user, there will likely be a lot of hand-holding.

Also, what is the definition of an admin? Is that the title for anyone who can edit the site, or just a subset of those - who are given additional tools?


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An admin is anyone who can edit a site. The owner (maybe the same person) has the added responsibility of putting their credit card in and getting to delete the site from the system when they want the billing to stop. The other admins can just edit the content or create new content.

You can switch between account levels, too. If you start with Silver, you can move up to Gold when you want to do more sites on the same account.

Walter

On Jul 10, 2014, at 1:20 AM, Caleb Grove wrote:

Shot-in-the-dark-at-a-penny-1000-yards-away-with-a-potato-canon:

  • Silver: $10
  • Gold: $50
  • Platinum: $80-$100

The right price really depends on the level of support offered. For a CMS marketed toward your average FW user, there will likely be a lot of hand-holding.

Also, what is the definition of an admin? Is that the title for anyone who can edit the site, or just a subset of those - who are given additional tools?


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Walter, I was thinking along the same lines as Caleb.
Maybe have a free 30 day trial option as well.
Not sure about the feature list - will it include a blog option and can it be white labeled?

Marcel


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I got notification of a similar service/product this week.

This is their pricing structure Pricing - Bluetrain.io

D


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Interesting. I wasn’t thinking about page views at all here, that’s pretty much irrelevant in my application model.

Walter

On Jul 10, 2014, at 4:15 PM, DeltaDave wrote:

I got notification of a similar service/product this week.

This is their pricing structure Pricing - Bluetrain.io

D


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Can I just ask why the subscription route, rather than a flat one-off fee to purchase.


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Short answer: the system is hosted on my server, and I want to make a living at this.

I started with a buy-this-and-install-it-on-your-server approach, and found that even with writing this as generically as I could, there were still way too many moving parts on all the various servers out there to make it a commercially successful operation. Support time would have eaten it alive, in other words.

The primary benefit of a professionally hosted system is that you (the user) don’t need to worry about installing a database, configuring the correct version of PHP, installing security patches and updates, etc. For those who can do these things, there are countless other solutions in this space that I’m not trying to replace.

For a client site, where the client wants to spend a minimal amount of time making updates and adding new information, this sort of subscription system is a pretty sweet deal. If you bought into one of the higher packages yourself, you could charge each client whatever the market would bear, and keep the markup, while they do the editing. In that case, a white-label version would allow you to brand the system to your studio. (I don’t have that in there at the moment.)

I’m working on an exit system, too, so you could discontinue the service without losing any of your content changes or virtual pages (but without the ability to make future edits).

Walter

On Jul 11, 2014, at 5:48 AM, Noel Sergeant wrote:

Can I just ask why the subscription route, rather than a flat one-off fee to purchase.


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Will there be a high bandwidth dedicated server for Inlay, Walter? I remember issues loading Freewaycounter which took ages at times …

Nevertheless I’m very interested in this new CMS service you’re providing. Any chance you’re able to supply us with a release date yet?

Richard


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More than one, I imagine. FreeCounter suffered most from database design, not server capacity. I wrote the original data model for that system when I was just a wee bairn, in Internet years. Full-table joins are not a good idea when you have millions of rows of data.

That system was hosted on a supercomputer, but it didn’t matter because I designed it badly. (Joyent does this trick with multiple Solaris machines mashed together into a virtual super-machine, then parceled out to individual subscribers in such a way that you can access up to the full capacity of the cluster as needed – for brief moments – while only paying what you would for a standard VPS.)

Inlay is considerably more evolved than FreeCounter (even in its rewrite several years ago) ever was or will be.

The editing system and live hosting is using the Ruby on Rails framework, and is hosted on VPS machines at Digital Ocean. When I finish the cache system (after initial launch), the actual page views will be served directly from your server, and only changes will be served from the Rails system. At the moment, requests for CMS pages go to your server, then are silently shunted off to the Rails application, which looks up the virtual content and streams it back to the user under the request URL. A request for example.com/virtual-page.html does not appear to be inlay.io/sites/[cryptographic signature]/pages/[another crypto hash], but gets satisfied by that URL anyway. A tiny PHP file on your server translates the URL and proxies the request to my servers and back. To your visitors, nothing is different, but the page that doesn’t exist just pops into view as they expected it to. You can mix and match virtual and completely static pages in the same site, and any request that doesn’t need to leave your server is satisfied by your local content.

The template pages are just static HTML, created in Freeway and uploaded to your server, same as you ever did. When you mark any part of a page as editable in Inlay (using an Action in Freeway), the result is that you can edit that page directly in a browser, and anyone who visits will see the changes immediately. Further, any page you have marked as a template can also be used to create copies of itself at a different URL, with completely different contents. So you could have one page in your Freeway document called Product Detail, and have dozens or thousands of virtual pages based on that template in your actual site. Each one would be individually addressable by your visitors, and individually editable by you or your clients.

As for when, I’m going as fast as I can, and hoping to be ready for the world very soon. But it has been a slog lately, and I’m trying to maintain my youthful enthusiasm. I have individual parts working perfectly, it’s just a matter of composing everything into a cohesive whole, and wrapping it up in a bow.

Walter

On Jul 11, 2014, at 8:42 AM, Richard van Heukelum wrote:

Will there be a high bandwidth dedicated server for Inlay, Walter? I remember issues loading Freewaycounter which took ages at times …

Nevertheless I’m very interested in this new CMS service you’re providing. Any chance you’re able to supply us with a release date yet?

Richard


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Okay, that’s clear :slight_smile:

Are there any details available yet concerning Inlay? What it can and can’t do? Are there packages ‘available’ that have more functionality than another, like the option to send newsletters for instance? I for sure can’t wait start using Inlay.

Richard


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Inlay is going to launch with a super-minimal feature set. But it is being built so it can grow quickly. Think of the first version as the Minimum Viable Product, to use “Startup Speak”.

At the moment, you can mark any element (HTML box, or line of text, like a H1 headline) as editable in your Freeway layout, and edit it in the browser directly (when you’re signed in as an admin). Changes are synched back to the server the moment you make them, and the next visitor will see them immediately.

You can also create a completely virtual page, so if you have a page marked as editable at yoursite.com/whatever.html, you can create a new page at yoursite.com/another.html based on whatever.html, and put any new content into the editable spots in that original page that you like. The new page and the original page both work. You can have as many virtual pages as you like, no limits.

This system is designed to fit into the Freeway way that pages are developed, so it doesn’t have the Wordpress death-by-a-thousand-template-parts approach that puts so many people off their breakfast. All you need to be able to do to use this is to design your site in Freeway, and apply an Action to an HTML box or insert an Action inline within some placeholder text. That’s really it as far as the difference from making a plain static site.

You will need PHP on your server, but nothing too extreme in that area – no MySQL or other databases needed – and it should work on any version of PHP5 (which is really as low as you should limbo these days). You will also need to be able to use .htaccess files on your server, but I have yet to encounter any host that doesn’t allow that these days. It goes without saying that you should be hosting on Apache under *nix, but that’s just good advice anyway.

There’s a one-time setup on your server (FTP two files to the server, rename one of them once it’s there). After that, you do everything in your browser or Freeway, just the way you always have.

I have a lot of ideas for future features, and I am sure that once I get this into people’s hands, they will give me even more, but it is critical for me to get something out there and launched before I dig too deep a hole with additional functionality.

Walter

On Jul 12, 2014, at 4:27 PM, Richard van Heukelum wrote:

Okay, that’s clear :slight_smile:

Are there any details available yet concerning Inlay? What it can and can’t do? Are there packages ‘available’ that have more functionality than another, like the option to send newsletters for instance? I for sure can’t wait start using Inlay.

Richard


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We are the german representatives of a NZL software called “SmartBuilder (construction software for frameless shower-enclosures)”. This is a hosted solution as well - and for some people this is no issue.

But others simply decline it. They don’t like the dependance on whatever (the monthly fee or even the “they can look inside and figure out what we do”-issue).

Personally I dislike the monthly fee stuff as well, cause I don’t want to pass this (monthly or yearly) to my clients who use it. I don’t understand myself as “hosting company” - so it’s hard to sell it to me - it’s a bit like set and forget attitude. So I’d have to do a maintenance contract (or kind of).

Germany might be specific in some way. Ecommerce could be named as well here. I can’t imagine clients how have to pay a “fee by sell”.

I understand the concerns of “installation nightmares” - but prefer to bite the bullet - probably - and purchase the “core”.

So if the model would be something like:

  • Silver: The core - Single page license 25$
  • Gold: The core - 10 page license 50$
  • Platinum: The core - unlimited pages 99$

Future Features extra.

Cheers

Thomas


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Wow, this is like Aesop’s Fables time! Everybody has a different idea about the elephant!

Did you write pages but mean sites? My current thoughts about the pricing relate to sites, not pages. I doubt that a page limit would be a good idea, particularly when it is so painfully obvious that once you have a system like this running, you can have as many pages as you like within a site – there’s literally no incremental costs involved.

In my own practice, I often use hosted services for my clients. I will have them sign up for hosting, S3 storage, secure certificates, whatever else their project may need – video transcoding or similar – on their own credit card. They forward the “welcome” letter to me with the credentials, and I get to work building the final system for them. They understand that there’s no (practical) way to duplicate what these services do, and that they need the service.

In this case, you could pitch this to your clients as follows:

  • I could build you a site, and when you want changes, you can come back to me and pay me monthly/as needed to make those changes.
  • I could build you a site, and design the template for a blog (Wordpress) and give you the keys to the blog. You could write blog articles, but you would need to come back to me for any changes to the rest of the site.
  • I could build you a site, and when you want to make changes, you could go to this page, log in, and make them yourself. As many changes as you want, whenever you want, for one low monthly fee (along with your hosting).

If you had a bunch of clients that all needed variations on that third option, then you could sign up for the Gold or Platinum version yourself, and then charge each of your clients the full rate of the Silver plan. You would make beaucoup markup every month, and I bet you’d sleep like a baby.

Anyway, back to the idea of the download-and-install Inlay: I pretty much abandoned that approach when I started to see the results of my testing program. 1 in 4 people who tried it could not make it run on their server under any circumstances. Either a PHP or MySQL mismatch, or an Apache configuration nightmare. Those are not the sort of odds that inspire confidence, especially since my tester pool was selected by me for their relative geekiness. I was more interested in testing the optimal user rather than the average. The code I wrote is still on GitHub, and if I find the time, I may release it for community study and use as open source. The idea is sound, but the cost of supporting this execution would have outstripped any income I could have made from it, particularly if you consider it to be a one-time purchase.

Inlay as it stands now (current feature branch) is a Rails application, and it’s so far outside of the realm for someone to just “download and install it” that I wouldn’t ever consider selling it in that form. Already, it does things that the PHP version never did, and couldn’t be made to do without serious re-engineering. The Rails ecosystem is so far evolved beyond what exists in PHP that it means I could add features for years without having to write any of them from scratch.

Subscription software is the future, and brings with it a number of interesting power dynamics. I am painfully aware of this, as Adobe have “converted” me from the old world to the new. I am still hopeful that another application may come along to replace Illustrator for me (no, Sketch isn’t it, not yet). When you subscribe to a service like this, you pay monthly, and can cancel any time. That puts an onus on the provider to keep delivering value, not to stagnate and die. It also spreads the risk of new versions around, rather than concentrating it on the author. Think about what Adobe had to do prior to the CC versions. They would work for years on some new package of features, hope that they were enticing enough to the public, spend millions promoting them to the world, and hope that enough users bought upgrades to justify that expense. And worry that people wouldn’t take the upgrade, and have to support the older version(s) for a very long time.

Software as a Service means that everyone gets the latest version as soon as it’s ready. The developer has a steady stream of income to offset their investment going forward (and to pay the carrying costs of the infrastructure to support hose users). It’s a decent trade-off, once you get your head around that.

Finally, because this is a month-to-month (not long-term) relationship, I am making steps early (now) to make the exit as painless as possible. My goal is for a user to be able to subscribe to the service, use it, decide they’re done making changes to their site, and be able to exit the service without any pain (except that they will lose the ability to edit those changes they have made so far). The site will not stop working, and their content will not be held hostage.

My wife’s practice management software works in the diametrically opposed mode – if she ever stops paying the annual “support” fee, her entire patient database and all electronic medical records become read-only and insanely difficult to export in any usable format. To my mind, this is just one step away from those gentlemen who come around to your shop and say, “Nice place you got here. Be a real pity if it were to burn down…”

Walter

On Jul 15, 2014, at 6:42 AM, Thomas Kimmich wrote:

  • Silver: The core - Single page license 25$
  • Gold: The core - 10 page license 50$
  • Platinum: The core - unlimited pages 99$

Future Features extra.

Cheers

Thomas


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Did you write pages but mean sites?

Apologize - indeed I meant projects!

In my own practice, I often use hosted services for my clients.

Yep - I do as well. But please consider, that an average german client won’t ship any money further than Frankfurt (preferably by his bank assistant and money order form). So Germans usually eat German grown bananas.

If you had a bunch of clients that all needed variations on that third option, then you could sign up for the Gold or Platinum version yourself, and then charge each of your clients the full rate of the Silver plan. You would make beaucoup markup every month, and I bet you’d sleep like a baby.

Well - indeed, an option, and a thing to consider. Strangely enough, it’s often not my choice. I’m usually working somewhere hidden in the background of a - let’s call him art-director. The pages are usually done by me - but the clients are on his pay-roll. This makes things sometimes a bit crazy for me.

Anyway, back to the idea of the download-and-install Inlay: I pretty much abandoned that approach when I started to see the results of my testing program. 1 in 4 people who tried it could not make it run on their server under any circumstances. Either a PHP or MySQL mismatch, or an Apache configuration nightmare.

Yeahh - I know cause you wrote it in one small “beta test” I took part. This is your choice and if you decide it like you did, there are for sure more reasons pro, rather than arguments against.

Subscription software is the future, and brings with it a number of interesting power dynamics.

Yep - but that’s what I meant above with “Frankfurt”. The exactly same service, hosted in Timbuktu, will be accepted if the money-receiver is juridical reachable. Simple example is ECWID, a LIMITED in London, sitting somewhere in Ukraine close to the black sea coast - this is simply too much for them :slight_smile:

Software as a Service means that everyone gets the latest version as soon as it’s ready. The developer has a steady stream of income to offset their investment going forward (and to pay the carrying costs of the infrastructure to support hose users). It’s a decent trade-off, once you get your head around that.

… which is the best argument pro our SmartBuilder Software and we use that argument daily.

Finally, because this is a month-to-month (not long-term) relationship, I am making steps early (now) to make the exit as painless as possible. My goal is for a user to be able to subscribe to the service, use it, decide they’re done making changes to their site, and be able to exit the service without any pain (except that they will lose the ability to edit those changes they have made so far). The site will not stop working, and their content will not be held hostage.

… which is the second best argument on our daily list.

My wife’s practice management software works in the diametrically opposed mode – if she ever stops paying the annual “support” fee, her entire patient database and all electronic medical records become read-only and insanely difficult to export in any usable format. To my mind, this is just one step away from those gentlemen who come around to your shop and say, “Nice place you got here. Be a real pity if it were to burn down…”

… exactly, but indeed the fear of our clients as well:

What if we can’t step back just because we get so familiar with it? And herby the first argument against the second - gosh.

Walter - I might fail with my german impressions and I’ll swallow all of your arguments. I’ll all keep in mind. I’m probably in a happier situation than others - cause I can do offer some things already.

All I can do pro Inlay I will - this is a promise (not a threat :slight_smile:

Cheers

Thomas


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Whether it’s a hosted CMS or creative software I realize in practice subscription pricing is, well, a subscription, regardless of what it’s applied to. Knowing this I still struggle with renting creative tools like Illustrator etc. because as someone who hand-draws it’s like renting pencils and paper. That may seem an odd and inaccurate comparison but to me it’s spot-on. Yet, for some reason I don’t feel as strongly about hosted services such as a CMS or MailChimp etc. because they (again, to me) have a more utilitarian function and I don’t spend 10 hours a day staring at a CMS like I do when I’m drawing. Get in, get out. For whatever reason I have a more personal attachment to creative tools and therefore want (expect) to own, not rent them.

I can certainly see the practical and financial benefits of a hosted CMS, even if I’m not the target audience.

Todd

Subscription software is the future, and brings with it a number of interesting power dynamics. I am painfully aware of this, as Adobe have “converted” me from the old world to the new. I am still hopeful that another application may come along to replace Illustrator for me (no, Sketch isn’t it, not yet). When you subscribe to a service like this, you pay monthly, and can cancel any time. That puts an onus on the provider to keep delivering value, not to stagnate and die. It also spreads the risk of new versions around, rather than concentrating it on the author. Think about what Adobe had to do prior to the CC versions. They would work for years on some new package of features, hope that they were enticing enough to the public, spend millions promoting them to the world, and hope that enough users bought upgrades to justify that expense. And worry that people wouldn’t take the upgrade, and have to support the older version(s) for a very long time.


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One other comment regarding a hosted CMS.

The finest hosted CMS setup I’ve yet seen is MODX Cloud https://modxcloud.com/. I use it for dev testing, though their pricing includes production-ready servers. The entire experience is well-designed and -executed. A beautiful example of a robust and painless service that takes the technical stuff out of the equation and makes a great case for a hosted CMS.

Todd

Subscription software is the future, and brings with it a number of interesting power dynamics.


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I’ve been reading this topic with interest. I’m really looking forward to what Walter has to offer, but unfortunately I don’t think it would be for me if it was subscription based.

I do a few sites for small set up companies and although they want to be able to change copy, add pictures and suchlike, I really can’t see them wanting to pay a monthly or annual subscription. They’re more than happy to lump it in with the initial bill, but nothing ongoing.

I see where you’re coming from Walter, and I can see it being a great service for those out there with the skills to furnish the ‘larger’ client, but I can’t see it working for us minnows.

Maybe a cut down LE version, bought outright with the option to upgrade should we ever get the big clients?

Still, looking forward to the unveiling though!

Trev


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