XYplorer Beta Club

I bought 2 lifetime licenses from Don and want to give them away for free. here is the catch, one has to earn those licences by playing a game or answering some questions or i dont know what.
I want ideas, suggestion or anything to help me set up some sort of game which can be advertised on various webpages, blogs etc so that enough people can participate and that will give XY some promotion. And remember they are lifetime licences, they are a lot of worth considering what XY's potential is.

IDEAS please!!

Questions related to XYplorer in such a way that newbies have to use XYplorer to answer.

People will try and buy even if they don't get lifetime license.

As a reward for trying XY and demonstrating how they would use it to do a time saving task that no other file manager can do as easily as XY. The suggestions received be published and the best two receive the free licenses.

This way, hopefully a number of people will try XY and see how others have used it to solve their needs in clever ways. It could, given enough publicity, encourage testers to try these ideas and buy a copy.

Forgetting the free bit, the concept of 'showing off' XY's special powers to a wider audience is a real winner. Thus if you have the outlets to do this then it could catch on to a much wider audience especially as some of the 'clever' new users love a challenge and come up with a wealth of diverse applications.

graham wrote:As a reward for trying XY and demonstrating how they would use it to do a time saving task that no other file manager can do as easily as XY. The suggestions received be published and the best two receive the free licenses.

This way, hopefully a number of people will try XY and see how others have used it to solve their needs in clever ways. It could, given enough publicity, encourage testers to try these ideas and buy a copy.

Forgetting the free bit, the concept of 'showing off' XY's special powers to a wider audience is a real winner. Thus if you have the outlets to do this then it could catch on to a much wider audience especially as some of the 'clever' new users love a challenge and come up with a wealth of diverse applications.

Oh yeah, I like serendipity's general contest idea and this idea for a contest.

I surely would open a new section for this on the XY homepage. How should that section be called? XYperience? Using XY? Best practice? Usage of the week?

I like graham's idea best so far, but consider that a newbie probably doesn't dig that far into XY in order to come up with a stunning new way to do things he/she spent considerably longer to do with other programs.

Maybe I just don't appreciate the thrill of the challenge enough yet, meaning I'm not sure I'd go for it.
But hey, surprise me...

Just hoping, it's not gonna be a competition within the "home team" only.
(the current active community on this forum)

The thought that just occurred to me was related to publicity: If via the work of a user, (but not themselves as authors), that a review gets published in a non-web-only media outlet or a extremely well known web one, then reward them!

We still need to get XY mentioned in a print magazine, I believe, or a widely read newspaper, which may be almost as good...in addition, there are some PC related magazines published in the U.K. that are also available here in U.S. in bookstores and which could possibly be easier to get into than the domestic ones...

j_c_hallgren wrote:The thought that just occurred to me was related to publicity: If via the work of a user, (but not themselves as authors), that a review gets published in a non-web-only media outlet or a extremely well known web one, then reward them!

No problem here. But there's a danger in it: *paid reviews*... ... corruption...

admin wrote:No problem here. But there's a danger in it: *paid reviews*... ... corruption...

That's why I stated that user could not be author, but rather that user made the effort to cause a review, such as I did with TWIT...by using/making contacts, writing emails, calling via phone, etc...

j_c_hallgren wrote:

admin wrote:No problem here. But there's a danger in it: *paid reviews*... ... corruption...

That's why I stated that user could not be author, but rather that user made the effort to cause a review, such as I did with TWIT...by using/making contacts, writing emails, calling via phone, etc...

I thought about it again.

(1) I don't know what you mean by "reward". It is common practice to give free licenses to reviewers (real review, of course, not just "Cool file manager!"). This would be no problem for me.

(2) I work on XYplorer/TrackerV3 since many years countless hours every day. Believe me, I dream of it. I think if a user likes the app so much that he talks about it to friends, collegues, or media, then he/she is using an opportunity to give something back to me. This is absolutely great, but I don't think I owe that user anything but further development of XYplorer.

While it may be true that the actual reviewer may get a copy, my intent was that the reward would go to whomever caused the review to occur, but this was only intended for a review in a major print magazine, such as PC World, PC Magazine, Smart Computing, Computer Shopper, etc., or another such similar publication, like a major daily newspaper.

Since, to my recall, there hasn't been one in one of those yet, and breaking through that barrier hasn't been easy, as some of us have tried with no luck...plus that would/should lead to "notability" (WikiPedia), and added sales...so a small reward could be appropriate, IMHO.

I am still wondering how to get all this started. since, I have just started my job i dont see myself spending a lot of time planning and designing a game or whatever one plans. ofcourse, any of you guys can talk to Don or me over mail or forum messaging (for obvious reasons) to discuss ideas about this. Once we have ideas we should advertise it on blogs and websites to make the point clear.
Please contact Don or me if you have ideas.