Blogs open doors for developers
By David
Becker
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
January 31, 2003, 4:00 AM PT
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-982854.html
Secrecy has long been a hallmark of the software development process:
Let too many people know too much about what you're working on too early,
and somebody might steal your ideas.
But a growing array of big-name software developers are finding they
can make better software if they leave the doors open, by sharing
information with potential customers from the start and incorporating
their feedback into development decisions. While developers of games
software have used this method for years, business software makers are now
also catching on.
Web logs (commonly known as "blogs"), message boards and
other online forums are becoming increasingly important vehicles for
developers to attract customers--and development talent--well before an
application even enters the beta stage.
Mitch Kapor, founder of software pioneer Lotus and creator of its
breakthrough 1-2-3 spreadsheet program, started a development
blog
early on in his quest
to build a smarter personal information manager. He said the blog has been
a vital conduit for him to communicate with users about the project and to
solicit their ideas.
"Some of the world's smartest software people are interested in
this project and communicating with me," Kapor said. "The more
open feedback there is, the better we can incorporate those ideas into the
product."
Kapor uses the blog to update potential users of the manager on
development progress and his ideas. Readers are invited to share their
views via e-mail, private and public chats and other means.
"It was a conscious plan of communicating to people about what
we're doing," he said. "It's part of a long-term process of
building a user community. Every process has its advantages and its
disadvantages, but if you have an open process, you can get much better
feedback, and you get stimulated by new ideas."
Blogging has also become an important part of the development process
for Dan Bricklin as he works on the SMBmeta specification, his idea
for a giant online business directory that would open the Web more to
small and medium-sized businesses. Bricklin, co-inventor of VisiCalc, the
first spreadsheet program, said his
blog
and other public communication conduits extend the possibilities for user
feedback beyond beta testing, the traditional approach in which developers
send early versions of a program to a select group of testers.
"I remember trying really hard to find beta testers by saving all
the business cards I collected," said blogging pioneer Bricklin. "We had to find people, call them and beg them to be beta
testers and mail them the software. We had to call them every week to see
how they were doing.
"A Web log is a simple, inexpensive tool to get communication
going and do it so much more efficiently," Bricklin continued.
"It's unbelievable how much wider an area you get feedback from. What
Web logs do is let there be more serendipity of ideas. I'm already finding
bugs and looking at ways to do a better job based on what people have
shared with me after reading the blog."
While business software makers are starting to pick up on the value of
early public feedback, games developers have known about it for some time.
Traditional offline games still adhere to a typical pattern of prerelease
secrecy and limited betas, but developers of multiplayer online games have
learned to court potential customers early.
It takes a community
The social nature of online games makes it essential to build a user
community early on, said Scott McDaniel, vice president of marketing for
Sony Online Entertainment, publisher of leading online game "EverQuest."
"It's hard to get a community going if you don't make that a
priority from the beginning," McDaniel said. "You want to make
sure people have the information they need to get excited and evangelize
the game...We do a lot of advertising and promotion, but we found that the
No. 1 reason people sign up for 'EverQuest' is word of mouth--a friend
told them to try it."
"Star Wars Galaxies," the upcoming online role-playing game
to be published by Sony Online Entertainment, has had a Web site full of
active user forums for almost two years--well before the earliest stages
of beta testing. Developers use the site to update fans on the progress of
the game, to conduct open chat sessions with readers and to solicit
feedback through discussion groups and other forums.
McDaniel said early feedback from fans has played a significant role in
shaping the development of "Galaxies." "We started off
asking really basic questions. The answers led us in directions we hadn't
thought of," McDaniel said.
Rade Stojsavljevic, senior development director for
Westwood
Studios, which creates games for
leading publisher Electronic Arts, said the development team for
"Earth & Beyond," the studio's new intergalactic
role-playing game, began soliciting feedback well before there was any
test software to send around.
"We spent a lot of time in there when the community was really
small, soliciting feedback from players," he said. "We hired a
full-time community manager early on--her job was to filter feedback to
the development team."
Early feedback resulted in major structural changes in the game,
Stojsavljevic said. The initial concept for the game didn't include
"avatars," or display appearances, to represent individual
characters--players instead were supposed to focus on customizing their
spaceships.
"Our idea was that you wouldn't spend any time thinking about who
was in your spaceship," he said. "The thing we didn't realize in
the beginning is that it's hard to get attached to a piece of metal. The
user groups were very clear and unanimous and made a really good point
about that. After that, we spent a lot of time developing an avatar
system."
Filtering the chat
Inviting the world into your software project includes some liabilities.
It can be a lot of work to sieve through discussion group postings, e-mail
messages and other submissions to cull worthy ideas. Westwood has five
full-time community development specialists for "Earth &
Beyond," who spend much of their time sifting through user input.
"You can easily get a mess," Stojsavljevic said. "I
think it's critical to have someone there to dig, find out which ideas the
most people are talking about and funnel those to the right people on the
development team. At the height of the development cycle on this game, we
had 150 people working on it. It's just impossible to have everybody know
what's going on overall."
Developers also need to be able to pull the plug on unproductive or
exhausted discussion threads. Otherwise, projects can bog down in a
paralysis of ideas.
"You have to be prepared to make some clear statement--we're doing
this, we're not doing that, or this issue has been settled, and here's the
reason why," Lotus founder Kapor said. "If you don't take stands
and communicate them, the discussion never ends. And you need to do that
in a way that respects the community. If its feels authoritarian, that
doesn't build a good dynamic."
It also helps if the developer has a thick skin--to withstand
correspondents who express their ideas in harsh language--and enough
self-awareness to be able to admit they might be wrong.
"Being a software developer, you need a combination of ego and
humility," Bricklin said. "There are so many bugs and dead ends,
you need the ego to keep going. But you need the humility to learn and
make changes."
With the right attitude and attention, however, public participation
can make a software project a success before it leaves the developer's
cubicle.
"If you do this right, you've got early adopters, you've got
evangelists, you've got a lot of early support," Kapor said.
"The train has left the station and is gathering steam before you do
a final release."