LiveCode Forums.

How would you implement this BIG PUSH?

jacque wrote: Sat Jul 24, 2021 6:04 pm How would you implement this BIG PUSH?

Well, for starters I’d pay a serious website dev to update the website, I’d provide ongoing dynamic content (blog posts, snippets, tutorials - whatever, just constant stream) and I’d mirror this on social media (at the very least Facebook, Twitter, perhaps Reddit - accepting the negativity there).

And as amazing this forum is I’d be looking to migrate this treasure trove to a more modern forum like the Discord one (see for example https://ifnotnil.com, or the XOJO forum. Searching is better, you can assign emojis to posts, replies are grouped etc, plus you can create a live discord channel for real-time chats).

Now none of this really changes the essence or functionality of what already exists, but would make it more approachable to potential new users and make some things easier/simpler).

More importantly I would really go strong on offers for new users. While the Indy licence price is reasonable, someone wanting to dabble may not want to splash out that much just to dabble and Community Plus had drawbacks (no tsNet, less good autocomplete, no way to close source), I see that as a missed opportunity to draw in new potential (paying) customers. I say this as that’s what drew me in and now I’m quite happy to keep paying for an Indy licence…

But then I have no experience marketing and no idea of cost-effectiveness, so what do I know….

stam wrote: Sat Jul 24, 2021 6:43 pm ...I’d provide ongoing dynamic content (blog posts, snippets, tutorials - whatever, just constant stream) and I’d mirror this on social media (at the very least Facebook, Twitter, perhaps Reddit...

Content strategy as you outlined is a cornerstone of all successful modern marketing.

I would add perhaps spending at least an hour each week interacting with their base in their venues.

And because the rarely happens, it's unlikely they'll read your useful suggestions posted here.

Some here argue with me when I suggest this, but really, it's very helpful to direct company-actionable ideas to the company.

FourthWorld wrote: Sat Jul 24, 2021 7:11 pm Some here argue with me when I suggest this, but really, it's very helpful to direct company-actionable ideas to the company.

Hi Richard, not sure anyone really disagrees with you, but personally i wouldn't know where to send suggestions and at that i wouldn't really want to risk offending; i mean, for all i know there is already a masterplan and the last thing the company wants is some random user insisting their opinions are heard when there is a better plan in place for example. Or it many be a non-starter for financial reasons. Or whatever...

I'm sure many readers on this forum have this type of consideration and the end result is that nothing is fed back.

On the other hand (and i mean absolutely no offence) I would have imagined people like yourself who are community liaisons may filter what messages may potentially be of value and push them to the company through an appropriate channel...

Does that make sense?
Or have i got the wrong end of the stick?

Pretty much all inquiries are best sent to support AT LiveCode DOT com. From there they will be routed to the most appropriate staff.

stam wrote: Sat Jul 24, 2021 6:43 pm Well, for starters I’d pay a serious website dev to update the website, I’d provide ongoing dynamic content (blog posts, snippets, tutorials - whatever, just constant stream) and I’d mirror this on social media (at the very least Facebook, Twitter, perhaps Reddit - accepting the negativity there).

I suspect LC website is done by a professional. And LC Ltd clearly tried the idea of blogging. https://livecode.com/blog/ I just paged through it and gave up after clicking through about 60 blog entries going back over the last 5 years. LC Ltd will know from their web analytics how many people view a blog post, how long someone stays on the site before bouncing, etc. It seems strange not to trust that a company that's tried these things for years hasn't made a rational decision concerning whether the benefit doesn't justify the cost.

IMO people seriously over-estimate the effectiveness of social media. I say this as someone who was away from LC for several years. In that time I published two books.

Book 1 a well-established publisher had responsibility for marketing, but sales were dismal. I took over the marketing and found I could generate higher sales myself. But that required a huge amount of effort by me in terms of social media (hours every day went into producing content and measuring engagement). Within 6 months I had 20,000 followers (by comparison my friend who has worked for years as PR for a coding training company has only 6,000 followers [and most of those are fake followers bought in a single day]).

Book 2 I did it everything (including graphic design, marketing, sales) with no publisher. It was a best-seller (not a bad result for a self-published non-fiction book).

I can say from years of being an intensive user of multiple forms of social media that most posts people make are viewed by very few people. I would estimate over the last 10 years that I've put out in excess of 30,000 social media posts (I used LC to automate 1000s of those). It's rare to get even a dozen engagements with a post. And I was talking about things of far more general interest than programming computers.

If LC users created themselves some Twitter accounts and tried tweeting out their admiration for coding with LC they might agree with me. Until they try and can contradict me and say "hey, it works, I get tons of engagement, you were doing it wrong" then people are just asking LC to direct time and resources at something with no idea if it works. For example, in my 1000s of hours on social media in the last 10 years, I have not once seen someone discussing Real Basic - and I'm precisely the kind of person who would find that material interesting.

Major considerations in adopting a new technology:

1. longevity and activity - what's the timeline of history in advances in this technology?
2. supportability - how difficult/expensive is it to get support?

Since I've seen a number of users commenting on how this forum is one of the best (most helpful) places on the internet, perhaps something LC could do is to include "live" statistics about the forum on the LC Ltd homepage.

WHO IS ONLINE
In total there are 209 users online :: 3 registered, 0 hidden and 206 guests ...
Most users ever online was 2285 on Sun Mar 15, 2020 6:24 pm

STATISTICS
Total posts 192506 • Total topics 29520 • Total members 123700

Having this information on the home page should at least show any prospective users where they can go to ask for more information, to see what kind of problems users have, how they are solved, etc.

Assuming this forum software has an API to obtain the above stats, then a simple modification to the footer of the LC Ltd site would mean that this resource would be obvious rather than hidden away. No-one could see those stats and wonder "does anyone use Livecode"?

I've no idea if LC Ltd have any interest in making item 1) available.

@Bernard You keep posting stuff implying that LC is doing a bang up job and they have been, to not only still be around all these years but also continue to develop the platform.

However, things may not be as rosy as you want to believe. Read this post
I didn't want to repost that here verbatim as I don't think it's appropriate, but the information is corroborated online here

Keeping the info in these links in mind, do you really think things are optimal right now and can't do with improving?

Bernard wrote: Sat Jul 24, 2021 11:31 pm I suspect LC website is done by a professional. And LC Ltd clearly tried the idea of blogging. https://livecode.com/blog/ I just paged through it and gave up after clicking through about 60 blog entries going back over the last 5 years.

No doubt it was created by a professional team... years ago. 60 blog entries over 5 years is the bare minimum - 1 post a month on average, but actually in recent moths/years it's more like 1 post every 3-6 months, which will never be enough to maintain any level of interest. And arguably the posts are not of the right tone to pull in developers from other languages, which is the segment of users that are most likely to become paying customers.

These efforts are not mirrored on social media; i mean it's clear you don't value social media, but I do and i'm sure many others do as well. There is an official facebook group, but he last 2 posts were March 2020 and January 2021. A developer looking at this would conclude the company just lost interest...

My personal experience: I tried the community version of LC years ago; i just couldn't get into it as the language was too different from other languages I was accustomed to, and without proper autocomplete it was a waste of my time. I tried again a year later and even tried community plus; but again the product just didn't do it for me.
Then, on a different forum, someone posted the lockdown offer LC was making last year, and I decided to invest in Indy. This time around i was able to actually get into it and am glad i did; and I'm happy to keep paying the full value of an indy licence now.
Basically to get me in from a competing platform, there was a combination of posts on non-LC forums + a good discount on initial licence purchase - while probably not intentional on LC's front, the sum of these things was good marketing. And i can't be the only one...

I'd like to suggest there is room for improvement, if nothing else then to promote more organised marketing as above.

stam wrote: Sun Jul 25, 2021 4:37 pm
Keeping the info in these links in mind, do you really think things are optimal right now and can't do with improving?

Please don't act as if I am Dr. Pangloss. If things were optimal the bug database would be empty and we'd ask for new features and they'd be delivered within 24 hours. But the real world is slightly different. A friend of mine has lived in penury for decades, because he was sued for libel and lost. My solicitor did such a bad job that I would only pay half his fee. He didn't cash the cheque, but sued me for the entire amount. He got the lawsuit so wrong, the judge threw it out. I ended up paying nothing for his legal services. On a grander scale --

Apple,1997 - on the verge of bankruptcy
https://www.celebritynetworth.com/artic ... nvestment/

Apple, 2020 - the richest company in the world.
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/busine ... y-n1237287

Do you know what I did in 1997? I bought a Mac even though I was entirely working with PCs. I did it because I wanted there to be some competition to Microsoft. I had no need and no use for a Mac.

stam wrote: Sun Jul 25, 2021 4:37 pm

Bernard wrote: Sat Jul 24, 2021 11:31 pm I suspect LC website is done by a professional. And LC Ltd clearly tried the idea of blogging. https://livecode.com/blog/ I just paged through it and gave up after clicking through about 60 blog entries going back over the last 5 years.

No doubt it was created by a professional team... years ago. 60 blog entries over 5 years is the bare minimum - 1 post a month on average, but actually in recent months/years it's more like 1 post every 3-6 months, which will never be enough to maintain any level of interest. And arguably the posts are not of the right tone to pull in developers from other languages, which is the segment of users that are most likely to become paying customers.

Why should LC Ltd waste time and money on a website re-design/blog posts if there is no evidence that this effort would be profitable?

stam wrote: Sun Jul 25, 2021 4:37 pm These efforts are not mirrored on social media; i mean it's clear you don't value social media, but I do and i'm sure many others do as well. There is an official facebook group, but he last 2 posts were March 2020 and January 2021. A developer looking at this would conclude the company just lost interest...

I argued, on extensive experience (and some success) that social media is more of a time sink than anything else. If you're an author and you want to have an author's page on Facebook, they make you pay to do so. Facebook and Twitter are all about retaining eyeball-minutes of billions of people so that the company can make money from selling those eyeball-minutes to advertisers. I know some people who swear that Facebook advertising allows them to target individuals unlike no other advertising ever invented. Those advertisers love it.

Since you are a fan of social media, can you share with us what kind of user engagement you get from your posts about how great programming in LC is?

stam wrote: Sun Jul 25, 2021 4:37 pm My personal experience: I tried the community version of LC years ago; i just couldn't get into it as the language was too different from other languages I was accustomed to, and without proper autocomplete it was a waste of my time. I tried again a year later and even tried community plus; but again the product just didn't do it for me.

And yet you think that it's programmers of other languages who are likely to become fee-paying customers of LC Ltd? I've never had any success in getting such people interested. Your own case suggests that programmers having become accustomed to the bondage, discipline and pain of other languages, they've developed a liking for pain.

stam wrote: Sun Jul 25, 2021 4:37 pm Basically to get me in from a competing platform, there was a combination of posts on non-LC forums + a good discount on initial licence purchase - while probably not intentional on LC's front, the sum of these things was good marketing. And i can't be the only one...

And perhaps that's what LC marketing does. Just because we don't see it doesn't mean they're not doing it. I hardly think they'd have a marketing manager on payroll if he didn't do any work.

stam wrote: Sun Jul 25, 2021 4:37 pm I'd like to suggest there is room for improvement, if nothing else then to promote more organised marketing as above.

There is room for improvement. Some features have been missing for 7 - 10 years.

I noticed in one of those links you provided someone mentioned b4x. Well, the 1 guy behind b4x could go out of business at any moment. He could fall under a bus. In that mention they said "b4x now has 100,000 users". That's just hot air. They have 100k member accounts on their forum. Does anyone go around saying "LC has 123700 users [because that's how many accounts there are on the forum]".

I've been a paying customer of LC for 20 years. Having seen them achieve great things (when all the competing tools I looked at 20 years ago have gone under), I have to have some trust that they know what they are doing.

Even when Apple was back in the black and profitable, doing all their "I'm a Mac - and I'm a PC" ads, Apple went ahead and discontinued WebObjects. The profitability of a company has nothing to do with whether or not they keep a particular technology going.

I see the warts in Livecode. But I've used it for 20 years and I hope to use it for another 20 years. But I have no control over the company. And I see little point in worrying about something over which I have no control. That's an exercise in futility.

Bernard wrote: Sun Jul 25, 2021 6:38 pm I argued, on extensive experience (and some success) that social media is more of a time sink than anything else.

What marketing methods did you find contributed most to your books' success?

@Bernard:
Clearly you have your views you will not engage in any discussion. I congratulate you on purchasing a mac in 1997; i got my first mac in 1985.
But as i am not posting here to argue with you or to win some kind of contest, i'll stop responding to this type of post now.

I will make these parting points/questions for contemplation:

• A marketing manager who does marketing that no one can see is not doing a great job
• Do you really think that a high enough proportion of potential new customers are even aware of the existence of LiveCode?
• Stereotypes are stereotypes for as reason; Advertising your product is a basic marketing stereotype. In the current era this involves social media.
• Do you anticipate that any advertising effort is pointless and that increasing the user base purely a function of addressing missing features and bugs?
• Or perhaps you don't think increasing the user base is required?
• Once a user has been converted to LC, you are suggesting it's only the amateurs dabbling in LC that will pay for licences of indy/pro, and that people consider themselves coders and get into LiveCode will just stick to the community/free offering? Really?
• In case i wasn't clear - when i say 'social media marketing' I mean two things, neither of which is limited to social media:
  - increasing awareness that the product exists
  - Make periodic offers to draw people in
  I take it you think both of the above are done to a satisfactory level?

I'll remind you the OP title is Why is LiveCode not recognized more as an app developer language?
This is a direct function of the size of the user base
The size of the user base is directly linked to the success/longevity of the company.
Or to reverse your argument on B4X - if there is only 1 user and they die, then you have no users.


Thanks for the discourse, but i'll leave this here now.

jacque wrote: Sat Jul 24, 2021 6:04 pm How would you implement this BIG PUSH?

All I ask for is that, when a person is using a search engine to decide which programming language to learn in order to be able to develop mobile apps, that LiveCode would appear in search results. From there, a link could highlight the advantages of LiveCode and it's awesome support forum.

PS
The benefit of more LC users is that it would ensure the sustainability and development of LC in the future.

FourthWorld wrote: Sun Jul 25, 2021 7:10 pm

Bernard wrote: Sun Jul 25, 2021 6:38 pm I argued, on extensive experience (and some success) that social media is more of a time sink than anything else.

What marketing methods did you find contributed most to your books' success?

Getting someone with over 1 million followers to promote the book.

Bernard wrote: Mon Jul 26, 2021 12:08 am

FourthWorld wrote: Sun Jul 25, 2021 7:10 pm

Bernard wrote: Sun Jul 25, 2021 6:38 pm I argued, on extensive experience (and some success) that social media is more of a time sink than anything else.

What marketing methods did you find contributed most to your books' success?

Getting someone with over 1 million followers to promote the book.

Would you characterize that as a teachable marketing skill, or a lucky roll of the dice?

FourthWorld wrote: Mon Jul 26, 2021 12:40 am

Bernard wrote: Mon Jul 26, 2021 12:08 am

FourthWorld wrote: Sun Jul 25, 2021 7:10 pm
What marketing methods did you find contributed most to your books' success?

Getting someone with over 1 million followers to promote the book.

Would you characterize that as a teachable marketing skill, or a lucky roll of the dice?

I guess it was a bit of both. The quantity of engaging information I was putting out put me on his radar. But that campaign of mine was basically a full time job.

A friend has recently written a 3 volume sci fi series of novels. He approached a publisher who went to university with him. The publisher friend said "we will publish any rubbish from someone with a huge following. If someone doesn't already have a big social media presence we won't publish them no matter how good the book is". My friend isn't prepared to spend his days churning out content to try and get noticed. I can't say I blame him. I at least could approach it as a programmer an automate large parts of it.