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MacUpdate Software Bundle Sale [Update]

Jimmni said:
I love MacUpdate and use it daily. I'm very keen to support the site. I've never been able to justify $20 for a membership, but I want one. This bundle seems to offer enough value, coupled with the membership, to make it worth buying.
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The wording on the MU sites isn't very clear and, in the discussion beneath the offer, no-one can work out if you actually get a free MU membership or, as seems more likely, an invite that gets activated if one of your friends buys the bundle too.

Perhaps some-one from MU could clarify this, both here and on their own site.
 
Jimmni said:
2. What are the upgrade paths offered? I'll be buying Leopard the very day it comes out, and don't fancy paying to upgrade all these apps. 3 months of usage from them doesn't seem very good value at all.

Thanks to anyone who can provide definitive answers!
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I can't answer 1. and i doubt the organisers will disclose.... as for 2 that is the risk you take. All the software you buy now should function ok, even if you are moving to leopard. Those that don't may ask for an upgrade fee who knows its a risk you take.

However if i was a dev in this promotion i would only take part near the end of a version cycle thus charging full upgrade fee to those users that want it when the next version is out. I don't remember anyone doing that from Heist I (similar promotion) though (at least not for a month or two) i do remember a couple of apps were very near their end of version points. Memory hazy... but as i say its a gamble you take.

Chances are you wont like all the apps and if you have to upgrade the one or two you do then your still quids in!
 
eenu said:
For me MR still lost a lot of its credibility for not disclosing this fact as it did with the Parallels deal, whether it has now disclosed it or not. I will always have a reservation about the reliability on news from them now wondering if its reported on fairly due to the fact they have maybe been paid to report on it.
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I think your reaction to this is particularly strong due to your personal dislike of MacHeist.

As for editorial content and "trust" -- that's just what it comes down to. I don't actually think this story was particularly deceptive - in that, with most of the stories, I simply presented the facts. Bundle available with xyz without any particular glowing adjectives. The site's never been a big endorser of products so much as an aggregator, anyhow.... endorsements (or lack thereof) are generally left for the comment thread (such as this one).

Affiliate links have been used when appropriate, even in news stories. For good or bad that's widespread practice amongst most non-corporate sites. There is a line, of course, as I acknowledged above (example: parallels discount, and this story)

Bottom line is that despite all this, whether or not you find the content on this site relevant or interesting should be self evident.

arn
 
arn said:
I think your reaction to this is particularly strong due to your personal dislike of MacHeist.
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That maybe a small factor yes I won't disagree with that, however, the bigger issue for me is you are in business with someone that you posted a news article on. No one has an issue with that at all, the issue is you did not think to disclose it at the time of posting. You have corrected all that and i for one really appreciate it. And you are correct it does come down to trust, but that trust for me (and one or two others) has been compromised. You went a long way to rectifying that issue by correcting and apologising.

I don't know you from the next guy, i don't know that other things you have reported on weren't paid for. As you say it all comes down to trust. Your right, i am also not a fan of MH in terms of what I percieve to be the deal the devs get (the concept is however excellent). That is a personal opinion and one that is subject to change when i have seen MH2.

However, at this point in time this is the unfortunate place i find myself in after this event. As such, and i am sure you are aware i will no longer be financially contributing to MR. I don't put my money where i have doubts, i am sure you can understand that as a business man. I will still however contribute here from time to time because you rectified the issue that occurred regarding disclosure and i am sure for most people that is good enough for them.

And on a final note i will reiterate again from my chat with Phil that the bundle app terms were negotiated by MacUpdate and that was done on a revenue sharing model something which i whole heartedly support.
 
Dude ... move on.

Think of all you could have achieved over the last 48hrs if you'd put your time to productive use.
 
I personally found the news post useful, and MacRumors needs to make money, so the odd news post notifying of an offer or a product that makes MacRumors a little money really isn't a big deal for me, so long as the product isn't misrepresented. As arn said, he didn't specifically endorse it, he just posted about its existence. I do think that those who have donated/subscribed (I'm not sure how it works) should have the option to disable such posts, but accusing arn of selling out, or deceptive tactics is a bit extreme. The guy provides a great site for free. I don't begrudge him a few extra pennies. I think it'll be a long time before he posts a similar piece of news without declaring any affiliation, though.

I for one appreciated the heads up!
 
I made a list today of the outrages in the world, and what MR did here is officially listed at number 8,356,823. Once I have dealt with everything with a lower number than that, I'll start to care about this one.
 
Eenu,

You seem to be excruciatingly unforgiving of people. arn made a small mistake (forgetting to disclose his involvement in a story), corrected it after he realized the issue, and apologized.

People are human, and they make mistakes sometimes. It's the people that are willing to admit it and fix it that are the best. People who seem infallible are generally just good liars. Not that it matters. Whatever you may think, MacRumors is reliable, and will remain reliable and successful with or without your support (of any kind). So please feel free to not renew, because I just cancelled you out last night by renewing my own membership. :p
 
Has anyone received the email from MacHeist yet? It has been almost 24 hours and I have nada from them.
 
arn said:
Hi all,

I just wanted to clarify our position.

apologies for any confusion,
arn
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Thanks Arn... I felt a little dirty seeing the bundle on page 1 as well. The Mac world doesn't need the Phil Ryus of the world to promote it. Frankly, legal as it was, it was a cheap scam.

Macrumors has scale. Macrumors has exposure. Can't Macrumors themselves promote a bundle that fairly compensates devs on a percentage basis and still turn a tidy profit to make it worthwhile for MR?

I think this would be good for everybody.
 
MacHeist

keirnna said:
Has anyone received the email from MacHeist yet? It has been almost 24 hours and I have nada from them.
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I have not had a response back either, and it has been 20 hours.

PS--I bought the bundle because even if I cannot use the software, a friend of mine will find it useful as he is new to the Mac.
 
According to my calculations, currently there are 40 bundles sold each hour. If the rate of sales persists at this level, there will be 7,700 bundles sold over the promo period.
It is a bit short of 9,999 required to unlock Tech Tool Pro.

I hope that this type of promos have a late surge.
 
Wow

Ok, so I think that MR may have stepped a little over the line, but I think it was purely an accident with no malice, they apologized for it, and I don't think it was that bad to begin with. People make mistakes, this wasn't a big one, it was pointed out, they apologized. Why are some people trying to crucify arn over this, or act like suddenly MR is this horrible group out to manipulate you into making money for them?
 
arn said:
but MacRumors participated in the first macheist promo as a promotional effort to provide MacRumors with additional exposure. This is just a continuation of that, and also a good deal on some Mac software.
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arn said:
Our relationship with MacHeist started from Heist 1 (link1, link2), which was purely cross promotional and MacRumors received no direct financial reward for participating. When I posted today's story, I simply modeled it after the original posts from the previous heist... but our relationship has changed this time, in that we do now have a financial relationship with MacHeist.
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Sorry i don't call it a mistake. The first quote is from Arn after people had been asking him if he was profiting and clearly that post indicates no he is not. Then his second admits he is. For me Arn tried to get away without disclosing it until he realised what a stink it was causing and then tried to save is ass and disclose it and probably did so very reluctantly. The failure to disclose was a big enough deal personally but one which you can attribute to human error but added with his first statement contradicting the second and that is the issue for me. But hey its just a personal opinion and i am sure most people will not see it like i do. I am however entitled to my opinion and its just the way the cookie crumbles for me.

Anyway if its not an issue for anyone else thats great.

Regarding the bundle anyway.....Intaglio looks good but for me is the only decent app that i would want.... i own some of the others already. The question is, is this worth it given i really want pixalmator? i.e should i get this bundle for Intaglio or does pixalmator whip its butt (at least on paper)?

Or do they provide two separate functions making one independent from the other?
 
Eraserhead said:
Well it probably is, because the MacUpdate ones came straight away.
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I don't know if this is correct but i have a feeling they send the applications to the devs who have to process them....obviously on such a promo this takes some time. However it is possible to do this automatically a la Macupdate so i have no idea.....

Give it 48-72hrs then contact them.
 
Val-kyrie said:
I have not had a response back either, and it has been 20 hours.

PS--I bought the bundle because even if I cannot use the software, a friend of mine will find it useful as he is new to the Mac.
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I just got my email. It was in my spam box.
 
eenu said:
For me Arn tried to get away without disclosing it until he realised what a stink it was causing and then tried to save is ass and disclose it and probably did so very reluctantly.
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eenu,

Things are not as sinister as you imply...

The reason I made my "official response" (link) without any detailed explantion is that I didn't want to look like I was making excuses. In that, I understand the greater issue is one of perceived impropriety rather than necessarily any actual impropriety. Whether or not the story would have been posted without any finanicial incentive is irrelevant for the most part, since its impossible to separate after the fact.

The actual circumstances, however, are as follows ... MacRumors posted the original MacHeist stories as a cross promotion and had no finanicial stake or incentive. I think that's been clear. I was approached last week about participating in MacHeist II which I agreed to before any finanical offer was made. After the fact, I was offered some financial reward. This obviously complicated things down the line. Now, how can you believe me? You can't. Hence the official "no excuses" reponse before. However, I don't think it's arguable that the story was not of genuine interest for many. The reason I didn't disclose it initially? It didn't occur to me due to the sequence of events and that I was posting it without [initially] financial incentive. The reason I disclosed it later? You asked me outright if the site made any from MacHeist, and I realized that there could be issues of perceived impropriety. I think I've been pretty open about it in general.

eenu, I think you have to ask yourself is this. Let's say 6 months down the line, MacHeist III happens. I will certainly make sure to have no financial stake in it, but if I post a story about it anyway, would that bother you? If it would, then I have to reiterate that I think the bigger issue for you is that of MacHeist itself than the financial issues we've been talking about.

arn
 
arn said:
eenu,

Things are not as sinister as you imply... [cut]....
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Arn thank you for your frank response. As long as you disclose when posting any news events that have financial interest for the site then thats brilliant. It shows that you are striving to maintain an independent stance, even if paid advertising/news is never truly 'independent'.

As i have said before i will need to asses MH2 and MH3 when they occur, if they move to a revenue sharing model and your involved i have absolutely no issue whatsoever. At this point in time, because you are advertising the revenue sharing MacUpdate promo i have no issue on the thing that you are promoting the only issue now lies with the non disclosure which you have now explained in detail which i appreciate greatly.

But you are right if MH2 proceeds under similar terms to MH1 that is an issue for me, i'd like to say that this would not influence my opinions on MR (being a paid advertiser/partner) but i think it might do. If however it does operate under revenue sharing/percentage based sales you and Mac Heist would have my full support and there would be no issue for me.

And if the scenario is you have have no financial gain from it at all and you report on it Arn it does not bother me one bit.

But again, i guess this really isn't to relevant. No one else seems to care except myself and one or two others.... i just have principles and beliefs that i stick to whether that is good or bad for me its just the way i am.
 
I've said it elsewhere, I really don't appreciate this type of viral marketing. Mac Heist was the one I really didn't like, I don't want to put in work just to give someone the opportunity to advertise to me.
 
Not going well; with 5 days to go, they should be hitting Intaglio by now - this promotion is dead in the water and all because they tried to get too fancy.

MU have now updated their page to make it clear that you DO NOT receive an MU membership (worth $20) unless you use a special invite to buy the bundle. Everyone who buys the bundle (through MU, not sure about buying through MacHeist) gets 2 of these special invites to send to their friends. Again, you cannot use these invites to retroactively give yourself a free MU membership, you must have received one yourself before buying.

Obviously, no-one wants to miss out, so, people are holding off until they can get their hands on an invite. Unfortunately, the invites are not spreading, probably because most buyers are not bothering to pass them on. Someone has set up a website to automate the sharing of invites but what seems to be happening is that people are joining the waiting list and receiving the precious invites but holding off on a purchase until more items are unlocked and, so, more invites aren't being created and added to the system. My guess is that most of the people getting invites will hold out until Tech Tools is unlocked (probably not going to happen) or will simply lose interest in the whole thing.

Clearly, the unnecessary complication of invites has crippled the entire promotion and, with only 5 days left to go, it is simply not going to hit the tipping point at which the majority of potential customers will take the plunge. Snitch will be unlocked but that's about as far as we'll get...

... unless the marketing geniuses at MU spontaneously get some clue, drop this ridiculous invites thing and make the free membership a standard part of the bundle. I can see what they were trying to do, makes sense if you look at it with your eyes half-closed, but they didn't consider how it would affect the overall promotion and forgot to give buyers any incentive to actually pass on their invites.

Anyone who writes marketing off as easy should study this promotion as an example of how easy it is to mess up. Sad to see so much effort wasted, this should have been a big boost for MU.
 
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