I guess the “free ride” of blogging tools couldn’t last forever… I was checking out Windows Live Search this morning and said “oO, lets see how it does with SharpMT.” It did well: found all the sites I expected it to. Even has a Feeds search which is kinda neat… then I noticed an ad on the right and went “errr?”. Oh, not because there are ads there, but what the ad said: “Smarter than SharpMT”.
Obviously I had to click through that!
It brought me to Anconia RocketPost‘s website. I wish I could say I was impressed, but I’m more annoyed. I was expected a competitor, sure – maybe even something that I’d like better than SharpMT! – but I didn’t expect to find someone that was chargeing for a product. Why on earth would you go bashing a free hobby-based package when yours is geared to an entirely different audience? It would be like Joel’s company promoting CityDesk by bashing MT or something… apples and oranges.
I know I’ve promoted other blogging clients in the past… I still would, too, it I saw something interesting. Particularly when people are asking for features that I have no interest in adding to SharpMT and other clients do it (like WYSIWYG editing). But I can’t really do that this time… even if their software is good, I get the impression the experience would be Used Car-ish…
Pft. Lame.
A pity — it looks like an interesting product. But, as you put it — “bashing a free hobby-based package” is uncool.
Randy,
Anconia RocketPost has been doing this for a while i.e. adding the “smarter/faster than XXX app” for a while. For example, if you search for Zoundry (our app), you would see the same (our app is free, so is Qumana).
RocketPost claims (on their feature comparison) are very deceptive – for $99, afaik it does not even properly manage multiple blogs. Their ad tag line should be “buggier than XXX app”!
I remember seeing a post by Dimitry/BlogJet about thisa while back. Here are a few others:
http://www.wiredprairie.us/journal/2006/03/rocketpost_review_1.html
http://www.nevillehobson.com/2006/03/18/the-trouble-with-rocketpost/
The post wrt BlogJet was this:
http://www.terryfrazier.com/fullthread$1981
Nutty, isn’t it? Maybe obnoxious is a better word. I was just shocked by it b/c, I dunno. Just sounds like it sucks. I mean, I didn’t even look at the comparison per se: I don’t have WYSIWYG b/c I don’t like it, so why compare the two?
Ballsy move tho to say “yeah, these free things will get the job done but you should buy ours b/c it’s cool” stuff. Lame, but ballsy.
I tried Rocket Post and it’s not worth the money. Plus the service was poor regarding application bugs.
Right onthis hepeld me sort things right out.