From the 'don't trip over the nickels' dept.
So CNET decided that it is not making enough money off of its venerable download.com. Given that massive download sites like the one we run also have successful developer marketing programs, this move may have made some sense to the suits that need to show bottom line dollars for CNET's investors. However, the CNET approach makes it difficult for the thousands of software developers that count on websites like download.com to reach a broad segment of potential software buyers.
While we sympathize with the need to generate a little more revenue from any content site, we wanted to try and do it in a way that was more win-win by taking a page out of the play books of Overture and Google and only charging software developers for marketing programs on a results driven basis.
The $99 (or more) that CNET charges comes out of a developers pocket regardless of whether or not the marketing is actually working. (I'm so proud of us! ;) Isn't competition great?
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