I have to admit that I got a certain rush out of seeing the new version of my forum app, still a work in progress, get used out in the wild by real humans. Looking past traffic and revenue and whatever, it's neat to see it working, looking for ways to tweak the performance and constructing something that others might use some day.
When I think back to 2000, when I first started to sell it, that was an interesting time. I was a total hack then, and yet people were forking over $150 per license to use it.
I don't really know if people would pay for it these days, but I look at how popular vBulletin continues to be, and I still think there's a market for it. That app is so ridiculously fast too, despite being one of the most over-featured forum apps ever made.
Thinking about those glory days and the reality today, I wonder if that app is what I should be focusing on again. I have a very clear vision of where I could see it going in terms of design, with the potential to really break some new ground. This class of application has gone relatively unchanged in ten years. It's time to think differently about it.
Of course, shifting focus would mean that other things, like the extreme aging CoasterBuzz, would be again put on the back burner, and I'm not sure if I want that. It's just that I desperately want to do something... new.
No comments yet.