HelpSpot 2.4.0 Beta
Development on HelpSpot 2.4.0 is finally starting to wrap up. This release contains more than I originally intended, but I think there’s a lot of important improvements especially as I plan on hunkering down to focus on version 3 development for the rest of the year.
This is one of those releases that won’t have a lot of flash on the surface, but adds or improves on many things which are day to day pains or potential issues for certain types of installations.
So if you’re interested in participating in the beta please post on our forums and I’ll get an email to you when we’re ready to get rolling.
Expression Engine 2.0 Preview
The guys at EllisLab have released a preview of EE 2.0. It’s fantastic, I love it. The UI is really nicely done. I especially like how it’s catered to their market so well. You can tell it’s going to be really easy for non-tech folks who have to maintain websites to get around and use the system.
http://expressionengine.com/forums/viewthread/74102/
Ebook on Generating Web Traffic
Stephane yesterday released an interesting book on generating traffic to your site. It’s remarkably in depth. I’ve only read some of it so far, but what I’m most impressed with is the breadth of the coverage. It pretty much hits on everything someone starting a commercial website needs to think about.
Competitive Advantage
Great post by Rick about competitive advantage among other things. I agree with this 100%. I’ve found that fast and great service are the easiest (in a certain sense) way to outperform your competitors. This is especially true of MicroISV’s and small ISV"s. It sounds counter intuitive, but it’s not really.
As you get bigger the service gets farther away from YOU and generally service gets worse. When you’re small it’s easier to provide great service and control the service environment. That’s something Rick has done a great job with as his company has grown and it relates directly to what he mentions about controlling growth.
My #1 advice to new ISV’s when they email in is to provide great (and fast) service.