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Bob Zumbrunnen

06/18/02 10:10 AM

#32 RE: gotmilk #30

Do you mean like a separate view of a board that'll show only your Kept messages on that board? In addition to the separate category for Kept messages when you go to the MailBox page?

We're in agreement about quotes. I don't see any purpose in providing charts, etc, as there are many excellent companies in that line of work already (StockCharts, founded by a fellow SI'er, is my favorite) and anyone to whom charts are important likely already has a good source for them. I'm with you on the delayed quotes, though. I'd really like to offer them. And if I offer them, it's only a matter of a little more programming work (well, a lot) to make portfolios a reality. But at the bare minimum I'd very much like to have delayed quotes with the board headers and messages.

I've been working on this off and on, and think I've finally identified the lowest-priced provider of delayed quotes who serves them up via an XML feed, but subscription revenue still isn't high enough to justify the cost of them.

It's kind of a catch 22. If I make the delayed quotes available only to subscribers, more people might become subscribers, enabling me to pay the cost of the quotes. But on the other hand, it might not result in an increase in subscriptions. I'm a risk-taker by nature, having been an entrepreneur most of my adult life, but when it comes to finances and just ensuring long-term survival, I'm ultra conservative. That is, I'll risk money I have, but I won't commit money I don't have, in the hopes I'll eventually have it.

I'm working on a better way to let people know about some of our features. It's definitely a problem. One really neat one I added about a month or so ago has only been used by about 100 people. I'm sure it's because so few people even know it exists.