Hi,
Welcome to the July issue of Software Marketing News, an independent voice for software developers. An HTML version can be viewed at http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com/author-resource-newsletter68.html .

We would like to welcome Avangate a new sponsor! Visit Avangate at http://www.avangate.com to learn more about their marketing and sales services.

SW User Group
The Southwest User Group Conference is scheduled for August 11, 12 & 13 at the Town and Country Resort in San Diego. The 400 user groups will be primarily from AZ and CA and will represent at least 35,000 members. There are a number of sponsorship opportunities for software developers.
More information http://www.swugconf.org/

Digital River Acquisition Editorial
Digital River has recently completed the acquisition of eSellerate. What made this sale a little different than the others, Steve Kiene the owner of eSellerate went on record in 2004 emphatically saying he would never sell to Digital. As I have done in the past, I requested that Digital River answer some basic questions regarding the acquisition.

I spoke with and sent Brant Pallazza from the shareware division of Digital River, a list of questions regarding the acquisition. Unfortunately, though I was told it would take 24 hours to get the responses, it has been over two weeks and I have not received any further responses to my email inquiries.

What this says about Digital River?
Digital River is a reactionary company. DR expected there to be fallout from the acquisition of eSellerate, and really the response from software developers was quite mild. Most developers have become accustom to DR's business model and are no longer surprised when competitors are acquired.

What this does not mean?
The lack of response from developers to the acquisition does NOT mean they are not interested in the details, or the questions that were asked. I found this acquisition of particular interest, not only because of the rumors that eSellerate employees benefited from the sale, but also because eSellerate was able to build a successful affiliate program that Digital River has been struggling with. I was particularly interested in how the acquisition and technology would be integrated to benefit existing platforms.

The Software Marketing Newsletter is extremely well read in the online software community. The "interview" gave Digital River a platform and opportunity to communicate with their target audience. Sadly they have not taken advantage of the opportunity.

Digital River has never been great with communication, I thought that they had learned from the past acquisitions and were prepared to be proactive rather than reactive. The details of the acquisitions DO matter to software developers, they need to know how it will affect their businesses. They need to know what will and what won't change.

While some might assume that DR will leave eSellerate untouched only integrating back-end functionality as they have done with other acquisitions, other developers need reassurances. Perhaps DR's lack of response infers that this acquisition really is different from others, I really don't know. Order processing is critical to most developers and they will want responses, it is too bad that they need to react in order to receive communication from Digital River.

GlidePath
Microsoft's new GlidePath has arrived! Project Glidepath delivers Visual Studio 2005 add-in called GlidePath Software Factory. The Software Factory allows developers to download workflow code, content and templates to assist developers and MicroISV's with the building of a Vista application. Microsoft will officially be announcing GlidePath at this year's Shareware Industry Conference in Denver, July 13.
Additional information: http://www.projectglidepath.net

Tucows Contest!
Tucows is going to be announcing a contest on July 10th! Here is a hint, think... Oscar. Be sure to checkout the developer section of Tucows website on Monday for details!
https://author.tucows.com/

Web Based Applications and Writely
Because of a scheduled vacation I had planned to work this weekend. When I logged into Writely (Google's online word processor) I received a message that it was closed for scheduled maintenance.

1. I did not receive any notice or forewarning that indicated it would be down. If it was scheduled why were there customers/users not given notice?
2. I rely on these documents being accessible at all times to my staff for collaboration, many of whom work on weekends because of flex schedules.

This has reinforced my belief that desktop applications will always have a home in my business.

New Tools - Tech Preview
Silktide launched a new online tool called SiteScore. SiteScore is a free tool which rates how well designed, popular and accessible your website is. See how your site performs: http://www.silktide.com/tools/sitescore

Award(s)
Software Business Magazine Conference
Software-as-a-Service at the "Tipping Point" has been announced as second keynote for Software Business 2006. Nominations are now being accepted for Software Business Magazine's Software Industry Awards 2006.
Categories include:
° Industry Leadership Excellence
° Business Development Initiative
° Best Partnering Initiative
° Best Financing
° Best Acquisition
° Best Sales Strategy
° Best Product Delivery Strategy

The deadline for nominations is July 21. Please submit a 100-500 word pitch that presents why the company is leading the software industry. http://www.softwarebusinessonline.com/SIawards2006.htm

Epsilon Award
The European Conference has announced a new award. The details will be posted in July.
http://voting.euroconference.org/

Article(s) New Articles
Everything You Need to Know About Linking
Websites that are able to amass a large number of links from related websites that contain relevant content, tend to have an advantage when attempting to rank well in the large search engines. The tricky part is understanding how to build a large quantity of quality links. With the growth of the web and increased competition, search engines are weighing link relevance, and link authority as part of their ranking algorithm.
http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com/everything-about-linking.htm

RSS Feed Promotion
There is little argument from webmasters and publishers that RSS brings in traffic. So once you've made the leap and created a feed, how do you tell your visitors about the feed?
http://www.feedforall.com/publicize-your-rss-feed.htm

Selecting a News Reader
The contents of an RSS feed can be read any number of ways. A variety of tools, both fee based and free, to read RSS feeds are available on the Internet.
http://www.feedforall.com/selecting-an-rss-reader.htm

Tips for Promoting and Publicizing a Podcast
As podcasts increase in popularity, listeners have more choices. So while you might be ahead of the competition, you should still be thinking about ways that you can make your podcast unique and stand out from similarly themed podcasts.
http://www.feedforall.com/podcasting-tips.htm

Search Engines
Google Government - New Google US Government Search is a site on which you can search across a huge index of US Federal, state and local government websites via a single search box, and stay up to date through personalized content feeds from government agencies and press releases. http://www.google.com/ig/usgov

Navisso - A new Internet search engine, the actual results are prioritized in a strange order. http://www.navisso.com/

Google Launches Checkout
The service said to rival Paypal has been launched by Google.
http://checkout.google.com

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Software marketing resource is an independent voice for developers. We welcome any suggestions and feedback on our blog, articles, newsletter and website.

Thank you for your continued interest in SMR.
Sharon Housley
Software Marketing Resource - http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com
FeedForAll - http://www.feedforall.com
NotePage, Inc. - http://www.notepage.net