I am the founder/CEO of TrialPay so thought I'd chime in here;) I started writing Mac shareware back in 1991, co-founded a security company (SiteAdvisor), and started using this concept back in 2004 to get more people to pay.
Good example: Valentine's Day is on Sunday. 1/3 of Americans buy flowers. ProFlowers, 1800Flowers, FTD, Serenata (in EU) -- every company will pay for customers and has an affiliate program. You can tell your consumers "Hey, buy flowers for Valentine's Day, and you get my product for free [or at a discount]." Good example #2: You pay not $600 for an iPhone but $200. That's because you get part of the phone for free if you sign up for AT&T. Replace iPhone with "your product" and AT&T with "high-value brand like Nordstrom, FTD, Gap, Wine.com, etc" and it's the exact same concept. This really works very well but only if developers promote it effectively. We had one company only show us to 200 people that pirated their product in hopes that we'd get those people to pay -- it goes without saying that this is not effective! We've had 50 million (yes, million) customers go through our site, and our clients include Skype, Zagat, WSJ, Papa John's, McAfee, JibJab, American Diabetes Association (buy X and $Y will be donated to the ADA), Skype, etc. Some good background here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/18/technology/18ecom.html We do some other cool stuff too around sending customers to developers -- the same person who won't pay Papa John's might be a great customer for a shareware developer like Collectorz.com. Anyway, this is not meant to be an advertisement for TrialPay but hopefully some background on how/when/why this works. I wrote Mac shareware for a long, long time and designed this for my own use, and somehow it mushroomed into an 85 person company now! Alex ([email protected]) --- In [email protected], Mark Boszko <m...@...> wrote: > > I've not used it for selling, but I will say from a user's perspective, it > seems kind of scammy. It may very well be perfectly legit, but they don't > present themselves very well. > > MB > > On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 03:28, Paul <paulcla...@...> wrote: > > > > > > > TrialPay has contact me to partnering with them about my software iMusic > > Valet. I'll be interested to hear how TrialPay works out for you. I had > > heard of them but didn't see the appeal. > > > > I have some doubt: > > > > 1. It can "significantly increase sales", as they claim? > > 2. Any cons? Payments? Delays? Other? > > 3. I have read around that software piracy is in some way interested in > > TrialPay work. It's true? > > > > Cheers > > > > Paul > > > > > > > > > > -- > Mark N. Boszko > Creator & Preditor, HowTube.com > > Steamer Media, LLC > > Email: m...@... > Mobile: 415/448-6622 > Fax: 319/856-8324 > iChat/AIM/Skype: steamermedia > Web: www.steamermedia.com > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] >
