Update: Seed Account Re-sale, Free Users + Custom Styles

[mark]

Two things for you today!


Thing the first:

We have not been able to finish and fully test the new site functionality that enables people to purchase accounts without a PayPal account. Instead of finishing it up an hour before the first sale is scheduled and crossing our fingers that it works, we've decided to push the sale off another week.

The new time of the Seed Account re-sale is Thursday, May 14th, 9PM EDT and again at Friday, May 15th, 9AM EDT. In total 200 accounts will be available.


Thing the second:

People with free accounts have probably noticed that a few days ago we took away the Advanced Customization area of the site. (The pages that let you make a custom style.) We had never intended for it to be available unless you paid, and having it on was an oversight on our part. After we turned it off, we got to hear a lot of really good comments from people and we reevaluated the original decision.

We've turned it back on, but gave free users a pretty low limit on the number of styles you can create (1 custom style, up to 5 layers). Short story: you can once again go back to customizing and importing styles from other sites. Sorry for the trouble!

Comments

[relle]

Oh, wow, thanks!

I must admit that I wasn't really expecting free users to ever have Advanced Customization, so I'm kind of curious about the reasoning behind the change, other than the mix-up from a few days ago. Do you guys mind sharing when you get a chance? (Not that I don't appreciate it! Just curious.)

[denise]

We thought about it, took a look at the numbers, took a look at the latest poll in paidmembers, and decided to make the gamble that the people who'd be paying us just to create a style would likely also be the type who'd buy one month of paid time at $3 and then let it lapse. Looking at our numbers from the first week post-launch (which we'll be posting more about in dw_biz as soon as we get our better stats module committed), we decided that even if half of the people paying us $3/1 month were doing so only to customize (not to create an account without an invite), it wouldn't seriously impact our bottom line.

Basically, we're gambling that the benefit we'd gain from people being happy that they could completely customize their journal here (thus making them more likely to want to fiscally support us down the line) would outweigh the potential loss of revenue.

[matgb]

I like this logic. And it does make sense. I was seriously considering putting $3 down just to do it before 'Fey gifted me 6 months, and I really want to start paying eventually.

Happy users make for better customers, and one off payments are probably more hassle than they're worth.

It also means I can post hacked layers to Layout comms without Liz growling at me because free users can't make use of my code, which is good. Now all I need to do is figure out how to use multiple sheets instead of putting it all in one big set of code.

[bulma]

the awesome thing is that this decision actually makes me WANT to buy a paid account over here :D