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November 1, 2007

updates

Twitterrific hits 3.0… and now costs $15

Posted Nov. 1, ’07, 3:21 PM PT by Thomas Gagnon-van Leeuwen
Category | Software » Updates

In what I suspect was a bittersweet announcement for many Twitterrific users, the Iconfactory just released version 3.0 of its Twitter client. I was really excited… until I found out it now costs 15 bucks. There is, of course, a free version, but ads are inserted every hour.

But putting those concerns aside, let’s look at what’s new. First off, direct messages and people’s replies to your tweets (tweets that start with @username) show up directly in the timeline. Tweets and usernames link to Twitter.com, and more detailed error reports are shown inline. If you choose to enable the dock icon, a badge with the number of unread tweets will appear there. And, of course, the obligatory Leopard compatibility. (Check out the full list of changes.)

So you’re basically left with three options: stick with Twitterrific 2.1, get 3.0 and endure the ads, or pay the $15 and get the new, ad-free version. I know it sounds really cheap, but I feel there’s always a light that goes out somewhere when a piece of great freeware becomes shareware. But I also understand developers should benefit from their pretty awesome work, so there you go. I think I’ll stick with 2.1 for now; will you?


6 Comments

Alejandro Correa said:

Obviously I'm sticking with 3.0
Is one ad per hour going to kill you?
They're unobtrusive, nice looking ads

November 1, 2007 4:50 PM
Cameron Hunt said:

Oh, c'mon. It's only 1 ad an hour, and it's from The Deck, so they're actually good ads.

November 1, 2007 4:51 PM
Christopher Bowns Author Profile Page said:

I think of it differently: much like Fraser Speirs says people tell him about FlickrExport: "without this, I wouldn't be using the service."

It's an ad an hour, and it's an app that has a unique opportunity to really deliver them in a manner that makes sense.

That being said, it's 15 bucks. Even as a college student, I can't balk at that in the least: it's a small chunk that I saved on Leopard by buying from the bookstore. 15 bucks is worth future upgrades to Twitterific.

November 1, 2007 8:57 PM
Raj said:

sorry, not all deck ads are good. i remember one ad series months ago that involved a site trying to "monetize your rss investment" by inserting stinking ads everywhere in rss feeds. it was like a merlin mann comedy skit turned into a real boy, with "capturing eyeballs" and such hooey.

thankfully, this has been the vast minority of deck ads so far, but it still stands, when you let someone else pay for an insert their content on your real estate, you get stuck with WHATEVER they decide to build there.

November 2, 2007 7:20 AM
Philip Regan said:

As someone who's just starting to get into the shareware game, I always find it interesting, even amusing, when new features, oftentimes at users' requests, are put into a piece of software, and then users complain when they get charged for it. There's someone behind that software that's taking their time and effort to create that software; someone with bills, car payments, grocery store trips, college loans, etc.

While I'm sure Twitter has made for great advertising for Iconfactory, there comes a point when every developer whose software becomes popular needs to make a business decision and reap some financial reward (and in this case possibly better support the user base), no matter how small, for their efforts.

Paying for shareware SUPPORTS shareware; complaining about the cost DISCOURAGES shareware. People probably spend more money in one work week at their local coffee house than what that software costs. This is a silly thing to complain about.

November 2, 2007 7:41 AM
James said:

I would definitely be using the shareware version. Encouraging sticking back a version is either going to tax the developers, or open up security holes. And an ad an hour is worth it for me.

November 4, 2007 6:45 PM

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