Malware, badware, adware, spyware… These labels are used constructively at times but frequently as a stereotype given to software that does not live up to a user’s expectations.

The risk in using these as stereotypes is that by our very nature we all have different expectations of software.

A user can prefer:

Sophistication or simplicity

Casual use or heavy use

Ad-supported or fee-based

Pre-roll ad or embedded ad

W3i is committed to uncovering the facts about a software publisher’s ability to satisfy the user.  Our hope is that the facts will allow users to make better decisions on whether a software is worth downloading and give software developers ideas on how they can improve their software.  The facts will help software providers determine what the optimal business model is while maintaining a focus on user satisfaction.

To understand software marketing best practices, it took input from top Internet leaders like Yahoo!, Google, and AOL; trade groups like the IAB, and TRUSTe; and security players like McAfee SiteAdvisor and StopBadWare. Along the way, we became somewhat of an expert; for example, a member of the IAB committee, that was drafting their Lead Generation Best Practices, asked W3i’s General Counsel, Hayden Creque, to write the section on software marketing. Nearly all software marketers I talk to don’t even know that IAB has any such best practices on software marketing. With the knowledge of all of these competing best practices, we are able to ensure that our software marketing solutions comply with all of these standards to help our clients avoid any reputational pitfalls.  Read an overview of our policies here. 

In these difficult economic times, business models will require innovation for user’s to continue to get high quality service while supporting the software publisher’s funding needs.  I think this was well documented by one of my favorite authors, Chris Anderson (author of “The Long Tail”), in his article published in the Wall Street Journal called “The Economic’s Of Giving It Away” (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123335678420235003.html?mod=dist_smartbrief).  

Contact us if you would like to explore W3i’s services for improving your visibility of user’s satisfaction and their reception to advertising as a part of your software offering.  Get the facts so you can make your own decision as to whether this business model is right for you.

Ryan Weber, Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Co-Founder, W3i Holdings, LLC
Entrepreneur and pioneer of Internet marketing focusing on increasing revenue and distribution for digital downloads.

In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal entitled, “The Economics of Giving It Away,” Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired magazine, states that “Free may be the best price, but it can’t be the only one.” 

Twitter, Pandora, Pogo, Facebook, and YouTube have all built an enormous user base using the free or freemium model.  Now they are all working on the problem of how to raise enough cash to cover their overhead.

South Park even had a show about this issue.  Have you ever heard of the Underpants Gnomes? Their business plan is – Phase 1:  Collect Underpants; Phase 2:  ???; Phase 3:  PROFIT!  In other words, collect a lot of users and hope to make a profit, but having no idea where the profit is going to come from. 

W3i can fill in the Phase 2 of the Underpants Gnomes business model.  Give your downloads away for free by joining W3i’s Download Network.  Since 2000, W3i has installed over 200 million downloads for free, supported by its Download Network, generating cash for software companies.  Several companies with free software models have partnered with W3i to increase their revenue—Digsby, Anchor Free, and startup, Bewiki.

This is how it works.  Companies join W3i’s Download Network for two reasons:  to increase revenue or to increase distribution.  Companies with demand for their downloads use W3i’s proprietary Windows Installer, Install IQ, to offer their users valued-added software from companies like Yahoo!, AWS Convergence Technologies (WeatherBug), and Winferno, who have revenue-generating business models and are looking for distribution.  The user downloads your software, as well as the value-added software that they select, creating revenue to support your acquisition or operational costs. 

So go ahead and give away your free software, but be smart about it and join W3i’s Download Network.  To learn more, contact W3i.

Rob Weber, Vice President of Business Development and Co-Founder, W3i
Rob is an Internet marketing pioneer with over nine, profitable years building proven business models that increase revenue and distribution for downloads. 

Most software marketers know that they can see big results in their advertising campaigns by focusing on the continuous innovation surrounding the various components of their user’s initial experience with their application. Specifically, by focusing on how their users are progressing through the various steps of their user experience (often referred to as a “funnel”), software marketers are able to identify key obstacles preventing the success of a user’s initial experience. Once obstacles are identified, the marketer can then focus on eliminating these bottlenecks in the funnel to maximize the return of their advertising dollars. Most often, these steps consist of a landing page, a download, an install, and the actual first use of their software application.

At W3i, we focus on creating a marketplace through our Download Network to help software marketers and publishers maximize the effectiveness of working together. As we end 2008, and look ahead to 2009, we promise to leverage our network’s growing scale to provide even more robust tools than ever before, in order to enable the successful mass distribution of digital consumer desktop software through strategic bundling alliances.

“Big things are accomplished only through the perfection of minor details.” –John Wooden

Happy New Year!

Rob Weber, Vice President of Business Development and Co-Founder, W3i, LLC
Rob is an Internet marketing pioneer with over eight, profitable years evolving W3i (owner of Freeze.com) in the Integrated Interactive Media industry.

St. Cloud, Minnesota, December 16, 2008 – It is imperative to keep up with the constant changes in the marketplace to be successful in your marketing of online software; but who has the time to monitor everything published? I’ve utilized my nine plus years experience creating solutions to increase revenue and distribution to identify ten key trends in software marketing:

1. Hybrid Business Models – Ad-supported software continues to grow either as a full replacement, or an alternative, for users to choose when consuming software. Yahoo Games, the leading online game site, signed a deal with NeoEdge (http://www.neoedge.com) and Double Fusion (http://doublefusion.com) to offer 400 ad-supported downloadable games. This is a real change as typically these downloadable games were offered for free play for 60 minutes. W3i is helping many desktop software publishers improve their revenues by offering an ad-supported Windows installer. Click here to learn more.
2. Location Based Applications – Yahoo (http://fireeagle.yahoo.net/), Google, Apple, and a magnitude of other mobile players are creating platforms for leveraging a user’s location to provide an exciting new twist on software. There are plenty of mobile devices leveraging GPS capabilities, but that’s not all. Wi-Fi triangulation is also being supported by Google and Firefox platforms so that laptop applications are also location aware (http://venturebeat.com/2008/10/21/google-gears-uses-wifi-to-geolocate-your-laptop/). 
3. Browser Extensions Putting Users In Charge – No longer do you have to view what a website operator wants you to view. Many companies are creating browser extensions allowing you to embed relevant content while you browse the web. Some of my favorites are: Tynt.com, Upromise TurboSaver, eBay’s Browser Highlighter (http://www.browserhighlighter.com), and BuySafe’s Shopping Advisor. Often these browser extensions do not require a toolbar. With such limited space on the browser chrome, it’s great to have the convenience of these services without having to accept the toolbar interface from each provider. 
4. Mobile Apps Taking Hold – It was only July when Apple unveiled its App Store. Now over 200M apps have been downloaded, and the iPhone is being touted as a real force in the portable gaming space, which contributed to 25% of these downloads. 
5. Desktop Software Through Web Development – Adobe AIR, Google Gears, and other technologies are supporting the development of web applications that can be deployed cross-platform as desktop software. This reduces complexity which, in turn, creates faster and reduced cost development of desktop software. Another advantage is that this software can be leveraged through the web, creating maximum distribution. Adobe AIR is said to be in collaboration with Verizon Wireless, Motorola, and Nokia to extend support to mobile next year. 
6. Funding Application Development - Google Android, Nokia, Apple for iPhone, Blackberry, and others are offering investments, prizes, and marketing geared at attracting developers to use their APIs to develop applications. This is viewed as an effective strategy for gaining distribution and at a lower cost than creating the applications. 
7. Browser Innovation Heating Up - Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome are engaged in an aggressive competition to win your favor as the world’s superior browser. The pace has really picked up and so keeping up with the latest capabilities, and retain market share, is important if you are creating browser extensions. 
8. Software As A Service - To maximize distribution, many traditional software providers are extending their desktop software to the web. Microsoft, for example, is expected to have Office available for the web in 2009 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_14) and (http:/venturebeat.com/2008/10/28/the-cloud-gets-better-with-microsoft-office-and-google-labs/). 
9. Software Analytics - Nielsen and comScore are measuring the use of popular software applications along with typical demographic data to support a deeper understanding of market trends. Kampyle (http://www.kampyle.com/owner_public/?page=services&p=2) is offering a subscription service to help with the collection and organization of user feedback for your software application. 
10. The Widget Grows Up - Lightweight software applications are becoming commonplace as social networks battle for opening their platform and as other platforms emerge to improve widget accessibility, value, and relevancy to consumers.

Author:
Ryan Weber, Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Co-Founder, W3i, LLC – Entrepreneur and pioneer of Internet marketing.

About W3i:
W3i, owner of Freeze.com, delivers proven, integrated desktop and browser marketing solutions.  With solutions tested and optimized on over 200 million installs–currently 4.5 million installs monthly, W3i can increase revenue and traffic for downloadable software, applications and digital content or provide a receptive consumer base for customized, targeted distribution programs.  W3i’s solutions utilize Install IQ, a proprietary installation system and download manager. Install IQ is the first installation system to be certified in the TRUSTe Trusted Download Program.  To learn more about W3i, visit www.W3i.com.

Contact:
Deborah Manthei
Director of Marketing Communications
320-257-7571
deborah.manthei@W3i.com

Software bundling is a way to increase money from your downloads-software, games, widgets-or any other popular application that has a sizable number of installations.  By bundling relevant software you offer the user a bonus while increasing your revenue.  Software bundling, done right, is a benefit to the user. 

Bundling is a marketing tactic whereby several products are combined in one installation or sale increasing distribution and maximizing profit.

Back in the early PC days, most new users first heard about new software because it was pre-installed with their PC. Overtime, users started complaining because the software became less relevant to them. Today users can learn about new software through digital software bundles offered with their favorite downloads. Unlike the early PC days, digital software bundling has the opportunity to create much greater relevancy for the user by taking advantage of more sophisticated targeting techniques.

Software bundling was used as a marketing tool since the late 1800’s when Herman Hollerith, the father of automatic computation, used it to sell his punch-card tabulating machine.  It has continued to be used by Internet leaders, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, Apple and nearly every major software brand in their quest for users promoting their toolbars, instant messenger applications, and other product du jour. 

When done right, software bundling has some great advantages:

• Increases revenue from your download
• Rapidly increases the distribution of your product
• Reduces the cost of directly marketing to the consumer
• Becomes a value-add for your user

 There are also some obstacles:

• Difficult to find companies that will pay you for bundling their software
• Time-consuming to negotiate contracts
• Testing and monitoring to determine the quality of the bundled software
• Complexity of ensuring that you are following industry best practices, including Disclosure, Consent, User Choice and User Control
• Development time finding the best installer featuring the flexibility needed during the installation process and setting up the installations properly

If bundling downloads in house, here are a few pointers:

• Find relevant bundle partners
• Negotiate terms
• Review the terms of the agreement, tracking and payment
• Prepare and optimize creative images
• Optimize the file size
• Review the download to ensure that it is compliant and trustworthy and only performs functions disclosed and acceptable to the user
• Be sure the download is easy to uninstall, using the Windows Add/Remove program functionality. The uninstall process should be complete and not leave behind components that affect the functionality of the user’s computer.
• Review it from the end-user’s perspective. Is this an acceptable user experience?

Sound complicated? You can also find an out-sourced solution available through W3i.  W3i has installed over 200 million installs since it started in 2000, and is now installing over 4.5 million downloads each month bringing companies and products together with a turnkey solution, the W3i Download Network (WDN).  WDN utilizes proprietary Install IQ technology, which makes software bundling a whiz.  Install IQ is the first installer to be certified in the TRUSTe Trusted Download Program.  W3i has built a network of partners and an expertise in software bundling. 

Join the respected Internet leaders, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo! and Apple -increase the distribution and revenue from your downloads by using software bundling.

About W3i

W3i, owner of Freeze.com, delivers proven, integrated desktop marketing solutions.  With solutions tested and optimized on over 200 million installs–currently 4.5 million installs monthly, W3i can increase revenue and traffic for downloadable software, applications and digital content or provide a receptive consumer base for customized, targeted distribution programs.  W3i’s solutions utilize Install IQ, a proprietary download manager and installation system developed by W3i.  Install IQ is the first installation system to be certified in the TRUSTe Trusted Download Program.  To learn more about W3i, visit www.W3i.com.

The Web has caused the adoption of software plug-ins to proliferate like never before. Millions of users have installed plug-ins and are now getting an experience different than the one contemplated by the original authoring software company. The following are a few examples of popular plug-ins that are leading this change:  

Browser Toolbars: Since coming into the scene, toolbars have taken the Internet world by storm. It was recently reported that over 50% of the web surfing world now has a browser toolbar installed. And boy, are toolbars impactful! According to ComScore, 11% of US searches are generated via toolbar searches. Everyone in the search business understands the impact of the browser toolbar; with Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, and Ask all having meaningful entries into the market. The most popular toolbars are the general interest toolbars provided by these companies, which makes sense given the limited amount of real estate on the browser chrome itself.

Layer Applications: This is a newer phenomenon that your average interactive marketing professional hasn’t yet heard of, but this technology solves a real current user problem. Users are running out of space on their browser chrome due to the heavy marketing by the aforementioned browser toolbar players. A layer application is a browser add-on that creates virtual layers that can be edited to create the appearance of having made changes to the underlying website. The functionality is dependent on the website you visited and the layer application that you installed, and therefore doesn’t have to be present on each and every website a user visits. One good example of such an application comes from StumbleUpon, which modifies Google search results page with StumbleUpon’s discover shortcut, user ratings, etc. The key with StumbleUpon’s application is that it provides these additional features in addition to those available to all users who might be running web search with Google that didn’t have the plug-in installed. Another layer application, from a widely recognized communication player, was cited as generating over 5% of this company’s sales, from a credible source I recently spoke with. Based on the size of this communication company, the impact based on my estimate of the layer app, was in the multiple millions annually. These types of applications are no doubt going to have a very high impact for the software and internet media firms who take advantage of their capabilities.

Media Player Plug-ins: Lastly, I wanted to touch on some interesting other plug-ins, as plug-ins don’t simply have to be for the web browser. Several innovative firms have adapted plug-ins for the most common media players. Among my favorites are Soundcrank, which features hi-res album artwork, lyrics, and sharing features for its users. Another favorite is SoundSpectrum, which provides its users with advanced music visuals for iTunes and other popular music software. And the last media player plug-in I wanted to point out is iLike, which has more of a social networking flair. iLike provides concert information, music, and videos from your favorite artists.

If you haven’t considered how software plug-ins can support your software or interactive media strategy, please contact someone at W3i via info@W3i.com and we’d be happy to consult with you.Rob Weber, Vice President of Business Development and Co-Founder, W3i, LLC
Rob is an Internet marketing pioneer with over eight, profitable years evolving W3i (owner of Freeze.com) in the Integrated Interactive Media industry.