Onsite vs. Offsite

First it’s important to understand some backup terminology. An onsite backup means that the data for the backup and the data for the production website exist in the same physical location. This might be like making a backup of your computer onto an external hard drive attached to your computer. This would protect you from a hard drive crash, but if your house burns down then both go up in flames.

Offsite means that the data for your backup and the data for your production website are in different physical locations. If one place burns up, the other will still have all the data intact.

There’s a benefit to each type of backup. An onsite backup, such as an external hard drive, can provide a much faster recovery than downloading the data from another site. Offsite backups are more resilient to acts of God (and kids).

Backup in the cloud (Amazon S3)

When it comes to your website, it turns out that the hard drive at your house qualifies as an off site backup. Even better than your hard drive is Amazon S3. There are two reasons why choosing a cloud based service is more appealing than your hard drive.

1. You can automate access to it from your website
2. They manage redundant, fault tolerant data storage for you

What to backup

I think many bloggers (those that create backups at all) use the WordPress export feature and feel confident that they have everything they need to recover their website in case of a crash.

It turns out that several things are missing. First is that even the most disciplined person can find it difficult to login regularly and take frequent backups. Since a blog is an evolving opus, constantly changing, it’s important to take frequent backups. Another problem has to do with the ‘rest’ of the information on your website.

What about all the pictures, audios and videos that you upload, along with theme and plugin files? This data needs to be included with your backups in order to restore your website. Without it, you would be able to restore little more than the text content from your site.

So, if you insist on taking manual backups then make sure you use FTP and grab the wp-content folder of your WordPress website in addition to the XML file that you export.

There’s a better way

If you don’t want to worry about all these details and risk messing them up then you’re in luck. I found a great plugin which I’ve been using on all my sites for about a half a year now. It’s called Automatic WordPress Backups. To get it up and running all I had to do was provide it with my Amazon S3 account information and it took care of the rest. It manages creating backups on a regular schedule and maintaining historical backups too.

The cost for S3 storage works out to be pennies a month, and for the peace of mind that it brings, that’s CHEAP!

How to restore

In the event that you need to restore your data, you can most likely find someone on elance.com. In fact, if you’re restoring after a hosting company crash, you could probably even give them the backup file from your S3 account and let them work through the details. It turns out to be pretty easy. Here’s the process I would follow:

1. Ensure that you have the domain configured and pointed to a directory on your host
2. Upload WordPress (you can probably use cPanel if you want to)
3. Delete the wp-content folder and upload the folder from your backup
4. Create a database and import the database file from your backup
5. Update the wp-config.php file with the connection information to your new database

Hopefully you never need to go through these steps. but if you do, you’ll be glad that you took the time to setup Automatic Wordperss Backups. Post a comment if you have any questions or need additional help.

Geeky looking actor #2: “Watch me turn this wrigley’s gum wrapper, a AAA battery and some titanium shavings from my laptop case into an instant bypass of this multi-million dollar security system”.

Don’t you love the movies? They rock. Some total stud and a complete geek get together and decide they’re going to save the world by breaking into the pentagon or CIA and getting access to top secret files. There’s actually a good reason these persona’s exist. It’s because you want them to exist.

It’s really a funny quirk about human nature that we tend to think that everyone else has a “secret” or “discovery” that we don’t. That’s why headlines like “1 Secret to a Flat Belly” pop up all over the place. It’s not because they really have a secret, other than do tons of exercise, stop eating like a garbage can and get plenty of sleep. It works because way too many people assume that the hot girl with the sexy abs is eating twinkies and sitting in front of the tube six hours a day, just like us.

Enough about twinkies. What has this got to do with internet marketing technology?

Programmers have to follow the rules

Many people really believe that somewhere in the world there’s an omniscient hacker who can break into computers at will and reads top secret files like I read my email. They really believe that if you know enough about technology then you can control any computer in a matter of minutes. Here’s a news flash for you. HE DOESN’T EXIST!

Yep. Sorry to burst your bubble. Even the guys that design the programming languages understand that there have to be rules. They define how things are ordered, loaded, protected and so on. You might even think about it like gravity. You can sometimes find ways around it (like an airplane), but as soon as the engines cut out you remember really fast that it’s there working like always.

Remember that programmer? Yeah, the one that you wanted to build your website for $300 and you’re always mad that he didn’t get it done just the way you dreamed about it and that it took more than two days time. He has to follow the rules too.

And if you want the guy that can actually perform “miracles”, keep in mind that he’s worth a lot more than $300. Yep, it’s true: you really do get what you pay for.

The “REAL” secret: Quality comes with time and iterations

Another thing that the movies have ruined is the reality of developing through iteration. Since they only have a two minute montage to show you how they break in to the Oval Office or the FBI mainframe before getting back to the story line, it’s easy to think that real programmers should be able to write a perfect program the first time.

That’s not actually true either. In reality, the best software is the result of iterations! Period! This isn’t just limited to programmers. Look at cars, buildings and architecture, plumbing and even your favorite pancake recipe. This applies equally to the creative design process and shopping at the grocery store. It’s a universal constant.

The bottom line is that if you want something to be top quality then you have to plan for iterations. The first revision product is going to be limited, clunky and might even work (with a little skill and luck). Give yourself and your programmer time and budget to get through a couple of iterations if top quality is your goal.

Did I mention the power iterations

Why are iterations on a project so important? For the same reason that a baby’s first step usually isn’t followed by an immediate second step. Even the unbelievable human nervous system requires many, many failures and falls before all the neural connections function well enough together to enable us to walk. That’s not to mention the building up of strength in the legs.

Programmers are the same way. The more iterations you go through on a theme, the easier it becomes. Even to the point that some tasks may go off just like walking. We don’t really think about walking (I mean lift leg, lean forward, place foot, ensure balance, shift weight, lift other foot, etc.). Some programming tasks can get to be that way too, just like walking, but it’s only after many iterations and failures.

Marketers call this split testing

This is actually an old concept in advertising. Direct response marketers call this split testing. Interestingly, many programmers hold a similar myth about the omniscient marketer. They really believe that there’s a sales guy somewhere that can sell anything to anyone, whether or not they have a need or desire for the thing.

There is no omniscient marketer either.

In reality there’s no direct sales guy that can magically whip out the perfect headline in a matter a minutes based purely on his genius. The best copywriters will tell you that research is the key to good copy. I would add that research must be coupled with many iterations of split tests to identify an optimal headline and offer.

Stop the cycle of first version paralysis

Rather than get hung up on why your programmer or marketer friend isn’t able to pull out the hollywood version of the website or sales offer that you need right now to become an instant millionaire, why not just take a stab in the dark and call it a first iteration. If it’s useful then pat yourself on the back and get back to work!

I promise you the next iteration will be even better than the first.

SEO

I’ve discussed these criteria in a previous post, but it’s worth going through them again here as they apply to Thesis.  First off is SEO.  SEO is tricky for a few reasons. 1) No one really knows Google’s algorithm except for Google.  Meticulous testing has revealed many of the details, but it’s a stab in the dark or a good guess in many cases.  2) SEO and design don’t always agree with each other.  Designers want to make things look good to humans and SEO experts want to make things look good to the search engines. Both are necessary and there’s a trade off involved.  3) SEO is a moving target.  Google and other search engines are constantly making adjustments to their methods and so to maintain rankings and search engine position requires continual vigilance.

In terms of SEO, Thesis has a few advantages. The core development effort is aware of SEO best practices and has made it a focus from the beginning to balance SEO with good design. The large install base for the theme and the caliber of the blogs that use Thesis provide feedback to the developers which improve the core even further.  Finally, the proper use of css and XHTML (standards compliant) ensure that automated bots (from the search engines) can find the keyword information you include in your posts easily.

Speed

One of the most significant factors in the success of WordPress as blogging software has been the theme and plugin architecture.  You don’t have to be a programmer to understand how appealing it is to be able to modify a WordPress blog without having to do a lot of programming.  One problem that comes with this flexibility is that there are a lot of poorly written themes and plugins.  Each task that you want your theme or plugin to do requires processing, which can potentially slow down your website.

Here again, Thesis does an amazing job because it was a focus from the beginning.  The core development effort is aware of how WordPress is supposed to work and they have made very deliberate choices to make the theme as fast as possible.  This has two outcomes.  First is that visitors to the site have a better experience.  Research has shown that faster sites get more clicks.  People are more willing to explore the site when each page loads quickly. The second is that you can accommodate more visitors to your site without performance degrading.  I suppose a third would be that Google has just announced that the load time of a website is now a factor in ranking, which means that a fast theme brings SEO benefit too.

Usability

When a user comes to your site, they want to find the information that’s most relevant to what they’re looking for.  The Thesis team has found a great balance between design and SEO that gives the user a very clear path to the information that’s of greatest interest to them.  In addition to good design, they fully support the customizable widgets that are built in to WordPress.  This gives you ultimate flexibility when tweaking your site to increase conversions.

Productivity

Finally, the breadth and quality of the customization options available in Thesis means that you don’t have to fight with your blog or know how to code to get the results you want.  You’re productive from the first moment using nothing more than your web browser to configure your site.  This may be the most immediate benefit to using Thesis.  You get to stop thinking about how to do this or that and instead focus on your content.  Thesis gets out of your way and helps you do what you do best.

My sites run Thesis

I’m a big fan of Thesis and use it for my own websites.  In fact, my first blog ever runs Thesis.  Have a look at these links for a couple of examples:

• Exercise Log Blog
• Choice Software Zone

To see even more examples of how to use Thesis and see some great videos about how to use it, head over to the official site:

Atahualpa

The Atahualpa theme is a mature theme (meaning it’s been under development for a long time) and provides a lot of user configurable options.  Perhaps best of all for non-tech folks is that there are a lot of template type items so that you don’t have to provide your own information.  For example, there are a collection of favicons to choose from without having to create and upload one.  Favicons are the little icon that shows up in your browser tab and they can add some polish to a website.

My first thirty day challenge website used this theme and as I went through the motions I was easily able to take top page listing in Google for a competitive keyword in  just a few weeks, so at least there wasn’t anything glaringly wrong with the theme from Google’s perspective.  I doubt it’s as optimized as something like the Thesis theme, but it can get you down the road quite nicely if you’re on a short budget.

UPDATE: I’ve recently had some trouble with this theme in Internet Explorer.  That’s a pretty bad thing since Microsoft still holds a significant lead over the competition in user base.  If you plan to use this one make sure your finished site looks OK in IE.

Arjuna X

The Arjuna X theme has also been around for a while and has a very polished look.  In fact, it may be the most attractive of the three themes I’m featuring here and would be a great choice for a personal blog.  Customization includes headers, sidebar placement and well defined widgets.  It’s easy to use and gives your blog a clean, authoritative look.

Arthemia

The Arthemia theme is a free theme, but it’s a sibling of a more robust premium theme by the same name.  That means that in some ways you benefit from the commercial development on the premium theme, even if you don’t get all the bells and whistles.  This theme is also the only one of the three that fits in the category of a magazine theme.

Out of the box this theme offers several well defined areas for widgets that look great, but it has no user options on the backend.  That means that any customization will have to be done in the editor and so it’s not a good choice for a non-tech person.

Caution: you get what you pay for

I know that the free themes are appealing because they don’t cost a thing.  If you’re starting out with very little (or no) budget then these three themes give you options that are probably just right.  On the other hand, the SEO characteristics of these themes and customization for branding or conversion may not be as good as the premium themes.

In my experience, I found that I wasted a lot of hours trying to tweak the free themes to meet my needs.  In the end I wasn’t ever quite satisfied, since they don’t have the same polish and purpose that the premium themes do.  If I have to spend two hours getting a free theme to do what I want it to, then I’m probably better off just paying for a premium theme that does it out of the box (like Thesis).

If you have a favorite free WordPress theme, post a link to it in the comments below.

Well, it’s not hosting in the traditional sense, but it’s a fantastic resource, especially if what you’re developing needs to accommodate very large spikes in traffic. It’s called Google App Engine.

If you’re interested in knowing more about it and seeing a sample app I made (with video) then head on over to freesourcing.org and have a look. If you have questions you can post them as comments here and I’ll do my best to answer them.

What is the point?

The people that are looking for a tutorial about FTP often don’t know the ‘basics’. When you tell them to type the ‘host’ in here, and ‘navigate’ to this folder, and ‘set permissions’ there… Well, it just doesn’t mean anything. The first video that I watched used at least a half a dozen words in the first 30 seconds that most regular users just don’t get.

So I decided to change my approach. Rather than teach you about FTP, I’d rather tell you why you shouldn’t ever use FTP again.  Huh?

Let’s start out with a simple question. At the moment you decided to learn how to FTP something up to your server, what were you trying to accomplish? I think it’s very unlikely that you were sitting down to figure out how FTP works and how to use it to get stuff up to your website.

Instead, I bet you were trying to communicate with your audience/clients/visitors. That’s a really important distinction. You don’t want to know how to FTP. You want to communicate with people. So how can you ditch the FTP and start communicating with your clients?

Use a blog

The absolute best way I can think of is to use a blog.  With most modern hosting accounts you can install a blog without FTP, without database setup and without needing to use any tool other than your web browser (I recommend Google Chrome, by the way). You literally just click a few buttons and you’re done!  Once it’s done then you use a web browser, from anywhere in the world, to communicate with people.

If you’re thinking that a blog would be great except that you still need to upload pictures and videos and so you can’t get around FTP, then you’re wrong. WordPress has little “easy buttons” that let you find the file on your computer and it puts it right in where it belongs. As far as video, you can now just paste a link to a youtube video and WordPress will take care of the rest.

Special cases

There are special cases when you need to FTP something up to your server, but those are more rare. When that moment comes along, do yourself a favor and hire your kids to figure it out for you. If you don’t have kids at home, find a neighbor that’s in high school and have them give you a hand. The $10 you pay them will be a huge prize and you can keep your hands clean of all the dirty work.

Keep your eye on the real prize

Don’t forget the real purpose of your website is to communicate with your target audience. Do yourself (and your site visitors) a favor.  Stop trying to figure out how to FTP stuff up to your server and instead figure out how to use WordPress.  Then go on to provide the content that they want. That’s the real gem!

(photo by Gabriella Fabbri)

• Logic
• Design
• Content

A theme has very little (ideally nothing) to do with the logic or programming of your blog. A theme serves to frame the content that you put on your website, but it is not the content.

Design is the sole focus of theme development and WordPress has made if very easy for non-technical designers to create a new theme quickly. That can be both good and bad. The bad comes in the form of poorly written themes that don’t perform well in SEO and website load time.

The HTML bummer

You only have to look back on the first websites ever built to begin to appreciate the power of themes for websites. Creating websites out of HTML, JavaScript and CSS was a major bummer. Why?

Imagine you have a website with hundreds or thousands of pages and you wanted to change how the header looked, but the content would remain the same.  This shouldn’t seem too far fetched. It would be like painting your house or putting a new sign up in the window of your business. Everything stays the same inside, but the ‘theme’ changed. With the original HTML approach to creating websites, you would have to hand modify every single page and try to keep them consistent with one another.

WordPress makes this type of change easy and very fast. To help it all make a little more sense I made this video for you.

Cell phone faceplates

Blogs aren’t the first place to use the idea of a theme. For example, cell phone manufacturers have been doing the same thing with their phones for years. Just like this Superman Cell Phone Faceplate. It doesn’t change which contacts are in your phone or your caller ID history. It just changes the way it looks to everyone. It’s the same story with a WordPress theme.

Other considerations

As you think about what theme to choose for your blog, you want to look deeper than just how it looks. The fact is that the theme can have a very significant impact on where the search engines place you in search results. It can also affect how visitors interact with your site.

SEO Friendly

One big factor in choosing the right theme in WordPress comes back to Search Engine Optimization. While the content may not change, the theme can make it easier or harder for the search engines to find the content on the finished page. That means the your theme can have a big impact on your search engine ranking. This tends to be a big differentiator between free and premium WordPress themes.

Easy to customize and tweak

Since most people aren’t programmers (and don’t really care to be), the best themes offer a range of customizations and tweaks that the blog owner can do without needing to write any ‘code’. These are browser based tools that you can use from your WordPress dashboard. The more control you have without needing to modify the theme code the better.

Visitor experience

The experience a visitor has when he arrives at your site is influenced by two theme related characteristics. The first is speed, or load time. The second is ease of navigation.

In the first place, if the pages take too long to load, then the user is very likely to bounce off your site. To ‘bounce’ means that they clicked through to your site and then immediately left. You want to make sure you choose a theme that will load quickly.

Ease of navigation is very relative. It’s relative to the content, your conversion goals, the visitor expectations and even the visitor state of mind. There aren’t really any general rules here, but there are some guidelines, like this post about one page, one job. As you choose a theme, think about what your visitors are expecting, where they’re coming from and what your end game goal is. This will help you choose the right theme.

Now you can see that themes make it easy to change the way your website looks. In my next few posts on WordPress themes I’ll tell you which free and premium themes I like best and why.

Hard cover vs. paperback

One physical world corollary to this is the difference in price between a hard back and a paperback book.  They both contain identical information and both will provide you with the same benefit (if you read them).  Still, publishers make hard back books and consumers pay more for them than their paperback equivalents.  They effectively increased the perceived value of the book without changing any of the content.

By now you should be wondering: What can I do to increase the perceived value of my eBook? In this article I’ll show you how to do just that by improving the formatting of your book.

Exampe: Financial product bonus ebook

I put together an example to illustrate the process.  In this case I think I’ve found a niche in international stock markets and I want a product to test the niche.  Note that the same process here could just as easily be used to create a bonus for an existing product. A quick search on project gutenberg brings up this book:

International Finance by Hartley Withers

Microsoft Word Version

The easiest way to turn this into an ebook that can sell as a product or serve as a bonus is to condition the text a little bit and paste it into Microsoft Word or other word processor and then use a PDF print driver to turn it into a downloadable PDF.  Some software, like OpenOffice will let you export to PDF in one shot.  Let’s take a look at what I did:

• Download file from project gutenberg
• Use TextPad text editor to remove unnecessary line breaks and other text conditioning (search and replace)
• Copy and paste into Microsoft Word and start adjusting page breaks and formatting
• Go to http://www.sxc.hu and find an image that suggest international finance
• Create a cover for my ebook.
• Print to PDF using the free Primo software.

When I printed to PDF using Primo I got the following dialogue and I just chose the ebook option, assuming that they’re the experts at PDF creation and they know best.

Here’s the finished product:

International Finance by Hartley Withers (Word Version)

That’s not bad.  All things considered it took me about 40 minutes to create that eBook.  That includes the search time on gutenberg and formatting and creating the cover.  In my opinion, the ebook doesn’t look very good and it’s value is questionable.  Even if it convinces someone to buy the product in the first place, does it actually add enough value to prevent returns?

There’s a better (looking) way

Now let me show you how to do a much better job than that Word Document version above. The learning curve is a bit steeper than using Word, but the outcome is much better.  After you see the end result I think you’ll be ready to invest the time to master this process.  You’ll also notice that in the long run, this will not only increase the value of your offering, but it will reduce your time per project. For example, in order to make the Word version above look as good as what I’m about to show you it would easily triple the time required.

This next PDF that I’ll show you was created using LaTeX.  What in the devil is LaTeX?  It’s not that rubbery stuff they make gloves out of, it that’s what you’re wondering.  TeX, and it’s offspring LaTeX were one of the first professional publishing platforms designed originally to work on Unix systems and is used widely in academic circles.  If all that sounds boring it’s because you haven’t seen what it can do yet.  Here’s what I did (note the duplicate steps in blue):

• Download file from project gutenberg
• Use TextPad text editor to remove unnecessary line breaks and other text conditioning (search and replace)
• Copy and paste into WinShell using a template and identify chapter markers (no formatting necessary)
• Go to http://www.sxc.hu and find an image that suggest international finance
• Create a cover for my ebook.
• Click a button to produce my PDF output

International Finance by Hartley Withers (LaTeX Version)

My time to create this eBook was about 45 min.  That’s a few minutes longer than the Word version, but have a look at the difference in output.  What do you think?  Does this version give a higher perceived value?

Some of the great things about LaTeX include the fact that I don’t have to do any formatting, tweaking or adjusting.  It automatically applies page numbers, builds a table of contents (including linking withing the PDF), manages line/page breaks, images and alternating pages.  It even manages the chapter heading style.  All I do is provide text.  Here are the text files for that book that I used in WinShell.

Here are the rest of the files for you to open and look at. First is the original download from project gutenberg with the conditioned version of the text file. I’ve also included the Word document and the LaTeX files use to compile the PDF.

Original and conditioned text versions of book from gutenberg
International Finance by Hartley Withers (Microsoft Word .doc file)
International Finance eBook – PDF of Word Version
International Finance by Hartley Withers (LaTeX source files and images)
International Finance eBook – PDF of LaTeX Version

Add value with minimal effort

For roughly the same amount of time investment, I was able to take the same source content and convert it into a beautifully formatted ebook that has a much higher perceived value. It didn’t require significantly more work either.

Another BIG benefit to the method that I’ve outline here is that the end product will feed right into create space and be ready to purchase on Amazon.com in no time. Just imagine, if the formatting increases perceived value, how much more would the value increase if there was a physical product on amazon.com? Remember that people often equate value to duplication cost.

For your next eBook, take a little extra time an learn the ropes of LaTeX so that you end up with a polished, high value product? As always, leave your comments below.

Just because computers can do so much, doesn’t mean they should.  In fact, this is one of the most common problems I come across as a consultant.  My clients will often come up with an idea for a “feature” for their website and without much thought about the value that feature adds they’re ready to go gangbusters to get it done.

The types of features I’m talking about include integrating weather and time, or building a social network or creating an iPhone app.  All of these features can be great, if they are a fit.  When they aren’t a fit then you can end up with big distraction on your website that consumes your resources and potentially distracts users from the goal you have for your site.

Web developers (the “web guy”) also typically love this type of chatter (or they start it themselves).  They get so excited about what technology can do that they’re desperate to find a problem to try their new solution against, rather than letting real business problems drive their search for appropriate solutions.

How to decide if a feature is worthwhile

If you or your web developer think you have a good idea for a new feature, there are some questions you can ask yourself.  They all center around the guideline that each page should have a single job. You also want to make sure that new features fit properly in with your established priorities.  Here are some questions to ask about a new feature:

• Does it reduce the number of steps for a visitor to accomplish a specific task
• Does it reduce the guess work for a visitor to complete a specific task
• Does it add value for the visitor that completes a specific task
• Does it increase the visitor’s engagement with your site or brand

Poor uses of features often include those that seem cool or that you see somewhere else but they don’t really move your site visitors any closer to completing an action or they even drain resources unnecessarily.  A feature may fall into this category if it:

• Distracts visitors from completing a task
• Has the primary purpose of entertaining (an exception might be youtube)
• Adds marginal value or value not directly related to the purpose of the site or task
• ANY feature that isn’t split tested to verify that it improves conversions

New feature triggers

There are two triggers that usually start someone down the road of adding a new (potentially useless) feature to their website.  The first impetus is from the ‘web guy’.  I discussed that earlier.  Remember to always ask yourself what the specific task is for the feature and where it fits in with your priorities.  The second is much more dangerous.

Many new feature ideas arise because you see a feature on your competitors website and assume that they tested it and it’s making them more money.  I would say that in most cases it’s safer to assume that they haven’t tested it.  Before you go to the trouble and expense of adding a feature to your website that you see on a competitors website, do one or more of the following things.

• Ask your competitor how well that’s working for them.  Don’t laugh.  If you don’t have an open dialogue with your competition, maybe it’s time you did.
• Send the link of your competitor’s site to some of your trusted clients and ask them if they would like a feature like that on your site.  You might be surprised when they say “no, but I would love XYZ”.  Take their lead.  After all, they pay you.
• Run a split test and measure whether or not it actually increases the number of visitors that take a specific action before you roll it out permanently.

Keep your eye on the prize

In short, stop trying to win the feature race.  You don’t have to keep up with crazy ideas that you see on competitor’s websites and you don’t have to make your site cool or entertaining.  The more you give your visitors what they want  and the less that you get in their way when they try to do it, the better.  Features for features sake will almost always cost you money, time and even reduce conversions.

While that’s true, there are some pretty great things that we seem to get for free, especially here in America.  For example, we have a magnificent freeway system that allows me to travel from one state to another, uninterrupted and at very high speeds.  What a marvel!  The best part is that I’ve never pulled a dollar out of my pocket to pay for those roads.

Now someone will be sure to come back and say: “Hey Buddy, didn’t you know that your taxes paid for those roads?”  Well, you’re right.  Tax money does pay for the roads, but the meager existence I survive on made a meager contribution to those wonderful roads.  Let me ask you something: have you heard of the 80/20 rule?  If not you can find plenty of books about it, like this one.  The substance is that a small portion of the population makes the biggest contribution while the rest of the population makes the remaining small contribution.

That’s how it is with taxes and roads.  A small percentage of the tax paying base contributes the large majority of the taxes while the rest of us pick up the peanuts and popcorn.  I could extend this analogy and discuss private roads and other niche modes of travel, but I think you get the point so far.  Right?

Yeah, but what’s that got to do with open source software?

I’m glad you were wondering, and (not surprisingly) I think they go together quite well.  You see, the best open source software typically wasn’t made by an altruistic genius living off his parents unending generosity.  Nope, there really isn’t some guy whose sole interest in life is to make the world a better place by providing his expertise for free.  Sorry if that bursts a few bubbles (both developers and consumers).  The fact is that those guys that write open source software in their basement might be coding geniuses, but that doesn’t mean they have deep understanding of the problems they’re trying to solve.

That last sentence is really important to understand.  Software is meant to solve problems, but it can only create worthwhile solutions to the extent that the developer understands the true problem.  The scope of its usefulness will be determined in part by how many other people have that same problem.

The most useful open source software

So you probably still don’t believe that I’m talking about open source software.  Let me get to the point.

The most useful open source software projects are the result of a collaboration.  Usually this collaboration occurs between two very different but complimentary skill sets.  The first of these in importance has to be someone that understands a problem very well.  Notice that you generally don’t start with a programmer!  That’s really important.  The crucial element in coming up with a good piece of software is a thorough understanding of the problem you’re trying to solve.

After you have a good understanding of what you want to accomplish, then you need a good programmer.  But before I tell you about the programmer, you tell me how many really good doctors or lawyers (or any other professional for that matter) you know that work for FREE.  Go ahead, I’m waiting….  What?  You can’t think of any?  In fact, if they’re really good, do they generally make more or less than their counterparts?  I can already see the comments coming in with this exception or that, but keep in mind what were after here is the rule, not the exception.

So, if you have a really good understanding of the problem, then you need a really good developer to be able to translate that into a worthwhile solution. Let’s go back to our analogy for a minute. Imagine having a really good understanding of the problem of interstate commerce.  You know that large trucks weighing many tons are going to be speeding from one place to another and that the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the medicine we need and on and on will all depend on the solution.  Just imagine what would happen if you chose a crappy company, a “basement programmer” of sorts to build those roads.

If you don’t have a high quality contribution from both the problem expert and the developer then you aren’t likely to end up with a quality solution to your problem.

The 80/20 rule of open source software

Remember the 80/20 rule?  It’s not that far off to say that 80% of open source software is either too narrowly focused to be useful to anyone or it’s garbage.  Another unsurprising outcome is that the best open source software usually resulted from a funded project, paid for by a company or consortium that had a very good understanding of a general problem.  Some of the best open source software started it’s life as a closed source product and had almost strictly commercial aspirations.  Somewhere along the line the project either lost funding or it was discovered that it didn’t have a commercial base that justified further development and so it was released to the public.

Another common occurrence is found in academia.  Many wonderful contributions to the current open source buffet were the product of research which was funded by grants from companies or agencies interested in a specific problem that the software would solve.  Again you see that the project is funded and involves collaboration between  a problem expert and an expert programmer.

A third model is what has come to be called professional (or commercial) open source.  In this model, companies offer a tiered set of service plans that accompany the open source software and accommodate different business needs.  The initial tier is open source and free to use.  Elevated tiers address risk, guaranteed service levels and advanced business functions.  Elevated levels come with a cost.

Shouldn’t all software be FREE?

There may be some purists out there that will suggest professional open source isn’t true open source.  There area  lot of people that think all software should be free and communal.  I’m not just talking about patents (that’s another can of worms).  I’m talking about the people who think that since there’s no reproduction cost for the download (no discs or manuals) that they shouldn’t have to pay for it, or at most they should have to pay only for bandwidth to download it.

News Flash.  If you’re a business owner and your livelihood depends on the solutions that software provides, then you might want to consider the ‘source’ of your open source software.

When I said at the beginning that you get what you pay for, it’s very true.  I’ve found time and time again that often the real cost of open source software must be measured in a number of parameters.  Here’s what I think you really need to ask:

• How well does this software address my specific problem?
• How mature is the software and what are the nature of it’s recent changes?
• Is there commercial support available?
• Is there an upgrade path (either commercial or open source)?
• How many of my own hours am I going to spend trying to make it work?
• How many hours will I spend evaluating the alternatives?
• What was the motivation of the developer in producing the software for free?

What are my hours worth?

I’ve contributed to open source software on many occasions.  I’ve even released some of my own software developments to the open source community.  It might sound strange that as I get more serious about my business, I tend to look for paid, commercial solutions to meet my needs.  Even though I’m a programmer and could conceivably make any changes/fixes that I wanted, I find that the value of an hour of my time and the number of hours required to make the contribution back to the “community” is often more than if I just paid someone else to use their service.

I’ll be following up with a series on specific problems that open source software solves and how the open source offerings stack up against the commercial offerings.  Take a minute right now and leave a comment telling me what problems you’re trying to solve right now so I can build a list of possible solutions.