Introducing Daytum Plus

53 Comments

Jump to comment form | comment rss [?] | trackback uri [?]

Don 4.4.09 / 6pm

Will be considering upgrading. The pages functionality is a big plus, but something just feels off with privacy being a paid feature.

Reply
.tiff 4.4.09 / 6pm

Amazing work! Daytum Plus is stellar, I can’t wait to build my pages out!

Reply
Katarina 4.4.09 / 6pm

$60 for a year? i’m sorry i don’t think i will be upgrading to a paid account. the features are really nice but considering i pay $25 to up grade my journal for a year.
and to think if 10 people get a paid account here (paying for 12 months each time), the total would be $600? i’m sorry, but no.

Reply
T 4.4.09 / 7pm

I’m with Don. This is a good project, a good idea and you deserve to be able to capitalise on it… Congratulations are due… But using privacy as a lever to increase your profits seems a little low.

Reply
Robin 4.4.09 / 7pm

I’m so glad to see Daytum growing and evolving! Keep up the great work. Best wishes.

Reply
Thomas Edwards 4.4.09 / 7pm

$60 a year? Fucking hell.

Reply
1. Garry 5.3.09 / 10pm
  
  I like the Daytum service and would pay $5 a month. But I am a little disappointed about the display features. I would like to see a daily/weekly/monthly average or total for each item. The charts don’t show units or date. What about having a total since… allowing the user to set the start date? I know I can download the data into Excel and do my own analysis, but that seems to defeat the point of Daytum’s nice interface and ease of use. I can’t see myself going to the bother of inputting all the data (and paying $5/month) unless the analysis tools improve. What are the plans for further improvements?
  
  Reply
  1. Nicholas 5.4.09 / 9am
    
    @Garry – You will be pleased to know that the update we are currently working on includes date filtering for all the display types you’ve mentioned… and we aim to have this release done this month. – Nicholas.
Nicholas 4.4.09 / 7pm

@don @t – While we appreciate your comments, we conceived of the site as a home for collecting and communicating your data, and wish to foster it as a site for users to publish and share and, in the future, combine their entries. Privacy is somewhat at odds with this mission, and is available for free if you create an entirely anonymous account. – best, Nicholas.

Reply
Evan Snyder 4.4.09 / 8pm

Saying it is $5 a month sure is a slick way of spinning the fact that it totals $60 a year. Make the price competitive with Flickr PER YEAR and I (and I imagine many others) would consider upgrading.

Reply
Don 4.4.09 / 10pm

@Nicholas – That is very well fine and all, I understand and I am sure your intentions come from a good place. It just feels wrong in my eyes is all.

We, as users, are trusting you with our data. We shouldn’t have to “go anonymous” just to feel sure our data is secure on your website. A user should feel safe using your website and privacy options are what gives many people that feeling of safety. Instead, you are saying it is available, but only if you pay monthly. I hope you can see it from my point of view when I say that something just feels “off” about that.

I’m a web developer myself and have been in your position with user privacy and all that fun stuff. It is great that your intentions are for users to publish and share their data, maybe even one day being able to combine their entries. I am sure many users will indeed do this and we will see great things come from it.

But also realize that not every user will want to share their data. Perhaps they want data tracking, like that of which you offer, but don’t want it to be public. Maybe the data is personal, or perhaps the user is not an adult. Whatever the reason, they should feel as though your web site and the services you offer are secure. They should want to trust you with that information.

It’s not like it is a ground-breaking feature to be able to make your data private. The Internet has grown to where people expect it to come standard. After all, the users are the reason your website exists, shouldn’t they feel safe using it?

As it is right now, you are saying privacy is only deserved to paying customers. Is that the image you want to give the world? Just something to think about. It’s nothing against you or this website, it’s just how I feel in general.

All the best. ^ ^

Reply
dusty 4.4.09 / 11pm

I <3 daytum, but i’d like to be able to contact people! email/message/website external to daytum would be fabulous!

Reply
Roy 4.4.09 / 11pm

Considering that Flickr is only $25 for a year of unlimited uploads/bandwidth/use…$60 for Daytum is way too much!

Why not make it $25 a year and have the iPhone app be $4.99?

Or maybe do what Remember the Milk does. Have an iPhone app but you need the Premium account to use the iPhone app?

Reply
Roy 4.5.09 / 12am

Also, I think you should give everyone that started using Daytum in Beta a free month of Premium as a teaser.

Reply
Alex 4.5.09 / 12am

Also, I think you should give everyone a free pony.

Seriously, what the hell? I didn’t realize Daytum users were such a whiny bunch. Or is it only the people who comment here?

If you don’t feel the extra features are worth the price, then don’t pay. No one’s forcing you. I can understand complaining if they’re taking features that were previously available for free and charging for them, but they’re not. If privacy was an issue, why did you even start using this service, since it was never available to begin with?

Reply
Lianne 4.5.09 / 12am

Personally, I don’t pay for membership on any website. I’ll stick with the basic account.

Reply
Jen 4.5.09 / 1am

Dear Daytum wizards,
I don’t care as much about privacy, since the things that I track are not sensitive information. However, I agree with what some users pointed out before — which is to say that Flickr is cheaper at the rate or $25.

While they perform two different, important services, I feel like $60 a month is pretty steep — especially since you haven’t confirmed (or have you?!) whether or not an iPhone app is in the near/not too distant future. For me — that is a deal breaker.

All the best and +,
Jen

Reply
Jen 4.5.09 / 1am

Did I mention that I <3 Daytum?

Jen

Reply
Michael Montee 4.5.09 / 1am

@Don

If users would like their data to remain private, it stands to reason they would not publish it on the internet, no?

@Nicholas

I’ll be upgrading shortly, keep up the good work.

Reply
Jeremy and Eva Rees 4.5.09 / 2am

Love Daytum & use it religiously… but I agree, I can only do $25/year. Too bad, the new features seem good.

Reply
T 4.5.09 / 3am

@Alex. It’s a fair point. But people like to complain. I don’t think that you should be surprised that Daytum users are any different.

If there are any ponys going, count me in.

Reply
GAPS 4.5.09 / 4am

Hey guys, looking forward to signing up for Plus, mostly for the extra features I’m guessing are in the pipeline. From the list in the last post I was expecting a little more.
The comparisons to other services’ pricing plans were all brought up in the post where you floated the idea, but if you guys didn’t budge after that deluge you must have a reason for it.

The one thing making me feel uncomfortable is the note on the credit card input page:
“Press “Enroll” to upgrade to Daytum Plus. You will be billed $0 for the next month and each month until you cancel your subscription or delete your account.”

To me this reads like I don’t pay for the month in which I signed up and then don’t pay anything for each subsequent month either.
Since I know this not to be the case, the lack of clarity doesn’t inspire confidence.

Reply
Elizabeth 4.5.09 / 7am

Nick, I’m so excited for this update! Thanks in particular for adding the long-requested date chooser in the quick-add feature, which is going to make this web-only user’s data entry much easier.

PS @Alex: brilliant, and I think you’re on to something re the self-selecting nature of those who choose to comment: offer someone a soapbox and they’ll get on it…

Consider this folks: it’s possible that truly constructive criticisms and/or well-considered, humble requests, provided with a sense of gratitude for a service you are clearly interested in (even if it’s not perfect), might be more effective in achieving the results you’re looking for…

Reply
K 4.5.09 / 7am

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to point out that the proposed price for Daytum Plus (which is really the only Daytum that I want- with enough panels and a way to organize them) is WAY MORE than a lot of online data-storing-and-sharing services. My concern is less about privacy than about where is my student discount.

Reply
Andy Polaine 4.5.09 / 7am

There are a whole host of reasons why privacy shouldn’t be a paid-for option even if the whole idea is about sharing data.

That It feels wrong is just one of them (and that’s a big one). It’s also a pain in the arse if you’re trying to test out some data and don’t want it public just yet.

The idea of paying for more powerful tools and more panels, etc. makes perfect sense. The price is whatever the market will bear, I’m sure. I probably wouldn’t pay for it unless I could make the money back on a project in some way, but others might. Set it at what you like and see what happens.

But privacy is something that is a pre-requisite, not a bought option. I might want to share data, I might not, but I certainly want to be in control of that option without having to pay for it. You’re going to end up with a load of dud and dummy accounts as a result, which will foul up your pool of useful data and panels and make it the equivalent of a spam jammed e-mail account.

Reply
Kyle 4.5.09 / 10am

$5 a month is just about a latte + tip from your friendly neighborhood coffee chain. Just saying. I’ll venture a guess and say there is some serious code behind Daytum, and I’d gladly show my support by chipping in five bucks a month.

Reply
brad 4.5.09 / 10am

seems quite a lot of money to spend, also privacy only for paid users?!

Reply
Don 4.5.09 / 12pm

@Michael Montee – Everything is going on the Internet these days. It is becoming somewhat of a standard. That’s why security and privacy is such a big industry.

Reply
eucinpyos 4.5.09 / 3pm

Flickr can charge $25 because they target a wider market, where charging $25 is probably profitable considering the amount of users they can get.

Daytum is currently only really interesting to a very niche number of individuals, and a price point has yet to be discovered. So $60 a year seems like a reasonable asking price, at this time. But all of that may change. No one knows. No need to compare. Get it or don’t.

Reply
Daytum I love you but please join the web « Derivadow.com 4.5.09 / 6pm

[…] now you too can record and visualise whatever you want because this weekend the service came out of beta. Now here’s the thing, as much as I love the service I wish it were more, well born of the […]

Reply
Tim Graham 4.5.09 / 7pm

$60 a year is cheaper than buying Microsoft Excel and taking every upgrade. Plus the chart on daytum look better.

Think about it.

Reply
Geoff Wilson 4.5.09 / 10pm

I’m surprised about the amount of negative comments. The simple matter is if you don’t like the subscription option, don’t pay. If you don’t like the service, don’t use it.

For what I use daytum for, $5/mth does not represent the value I get from it. However, I do like using it and will continue to. Simple.

I hope that there are enough people who do find $5/mth value from the premium service to provide funding for the free accounts. I wish the team all the best of luck!

Reply
Scott Sullivan 4.6.09 / 1am

cant believe you decided to charge $5 a month after all of the feedback you got in the beta phayse.. come on guys..

Reply
Darren 4.6.09 / 1am

Pretty cool update. Love what you guys are about. How about a group Daytum feature? Where a group of individuals can have access to edit and add data? Or compare data to others that have similar stat categories (tagging)? Community Search? Global/Community Stats? Favourites?

Just a few cents on some possible future features. Great work Daytum!

Reply
Tully 4.6.09 / 7am

If you are new to Datum (ie. non-tester), then $5/mo doesn’t break the bank and it’s a simple choice as to whether or not to pay for this particular service or not.. If you’ve been a tester now for months, logging data, promoting the site, finding bugs, and offering suggestions for improvement, then the $5/mo for new features (which were likely your suggestion) is a bit of a slap in the face.

Essentially, Datum has said to it’s testers that your reward for helping us out WAS us allowing you to test out our site, and find the bugs so that we can now go and turn a profit. Was? Yup – you already used up your reward over the last few months…

Ok, so say there are 5000 testers on the site (arbitrary number) – to give all the testers a free year as a thank you, they currently see it as throwing away $300,000. The challenge here is that a lot of the 5000 won’t have an active account, a lot of them will become dormant over the next couple years, and most of what is left over won’t be spending the $60/yr. So really, how much theoretical</em income is Datum truly giving away? Yet, how much could be gained (quickly) by appropriately thanking their testers and making them the biggest promoters of the site?

Datum can still make a good choice here, except they need to make it pretty quick before the next site comes along, offers all the features we ever wanted to see here, and doesn’t charge us a dime.

My $0.02 worth.

Reply
Patrick Danger 4.6.09 / 8am

waiting for more on this API

Reply
Bryan Buchs 4.6.09 / 9am

Why do people expect that a free service MUST include X, Y, and Z? And that a paid upgrade isn’t worth the asking price?Here’s an idea… if Daytum doesn’t fit your needs, feel free to run out and build your own data tracking and visualization system. Side note – good recent post at Less Everything

“Hey Guys, love your apps, they’re so simple and feature rich at the same time. I’d love to be able to use them except I need to be able to do _________.”

In regards to the “privacy” issue… it was already pointed out, but you’re using a webapp that was built around sharing data!

Reply
Zamf 4.6.09 / 2pm

I think that the price is absurd, but you don’t need me to tell you that. I think you’ll see it in your balance sheets.

Note to the comments saying “don’t whine, if you don’t like it, don’t pay for it”: That’s fair enough, but are we not beta testers? And do the creators of this site not want any constructive criticism? When no one signs up, will they know that it was because the price was too high, or because they did not offer enough features? I can’t imagine that the creators would prefer not to hear our opinions.

So, along those lines, not only do I believe that the price is too high, but also that the current set of “premium” features only serves to remind people how limited their current features are. 24 panels? That should be standard. It’s not like each panel is more than a few more bytes of information. Imagine how far Facebook would have gotten if they told people they could only have 24 apps. Or 24 wall postings.

All the data in all my data sets (and I’ve been here for several months) is less than one single photo I can put up on Facebook/Flickr for free. Setting these tiny limits just indicates that you’re severely crippling the current version to try and get more people to pay.

And privacy? Regardless of the comments above, privacy is indeed an expectation on the web. On Facebook (free) I can make private postings, viewable only to me, or to the people I let see them. On Flickr, ditto, even for the free account. Both of those are “social” applications, even while allowing data to remain private.

I must say, I’m a little disappointed. But if it ends up working for you, I’ll be happy that it worked, even though I’ll probably end up using a different service.

Reply
Bryan Buchs 4.6.09 / 2pm

I must have missed the part in the beta signup form where it said “free account if/when we go to a paid service”. I don’t beta test webapps because I expect something in return, I do it because I’m genuinely interested in helping the creators produce a better product.

Reply
Scott Sullivan 4.6.09 / 4pm

look, I’m all down for paying for a pro account, but $60 a year is just insane.. make it $2 a month MAX and I’ll do it.

Reply
André Mora 4.6.09 / 5pm

Bryan, I think the thrust of most complaints is that Plus isn’t really a better or new product (yet) — it’s just an expanded product. I agree, beta testers deserve nothing. But people that are contemplating a relatively high fee, would rightfully have expectations. Like a release of an iPhone app simultaneously. Or a search engine. Or grouping and collating functions. After all, why launch Plus now and not in 3-6 months time? Granted, these developments should be beta tested as well — so the real question is, What evolutionary step did Daytum actually take?

Since it feels more a horizontal than vertical expansion, it seems like everyone would be more at ease if there was an official statement, like:

“The new Plus account is the first step of many that Daytum will take. If you are a Plus subscriber you will be entitled to all of the site’s future enhancements. You will also have the chance to test new developments, like XYZ that we are now refining. We recognize that the current Plus account is far from our end goal, but with your help we can get there.”

The more specific mission statement, the better. It would feel more like an investment, than something over-priced. Because so many things are free on the web, there could be something very smart about ennobling subscribers. Our last election proved the power of small donations and the collective will.

Reply
Zamf 4.7.09 / 3pm

Bryan: You missed the point of my post. I didn’t say “We’re beta testers, so we should get things for free.” I said “We’re beta testers, so providing feedback is what we’re supposed to do.”

Reply
Bryan Buchs 4.7.09 / 3pm

@Zamf: I guess my definition of beta-testing is limited in scope to the nuts and bolts of the app, and would not include anything related to the business model.

Reply
jarowdowsky 4.11.09 / 5am

That does seem like a huge price for what you’ve decided to add.

I assume you’ve got a pressing need to try and generate income, which is understandable in the light of the current economic climate, but $60 to have privacy rights and functionality that expands a very basic product just isn’t worth it at all.

I’d agree that $1 or maybe $2 a month is almost worth considering, this really doesn’t seem to be.

Still if times are so hard you can’t see the benefits of improving a service for all users then fair enough, just don’t expect to grow the way you might have if you’d just expanded what I guess is now little more than a free demo.

Reply
Bryn 4.12.09 / 3am

Yeah! It’s out of beta! I absolutely love your service, and will consider upgrading my free account to the premium version, but to be honest it is more than I would like to pay for such a luxury service.

@Nicholas Do you have a roadmap for some of the future features that have been hinted at in your speaking engagements as well as in the blog? Now that you will have some income from the site will the development schedule speed up? This would really help me justify the sticker price if I knew I would be seeing a ramped up development schedule and consistent shiny new features.

I am sorry that you are getting so much flack on this post for your pricing and privacy. You and Ryan have obviously put a ton of work into this project, and I admire your commitment to creating a great product, and do believe it is a service worth paying for. However, the fact that so many people are upset should be no surprise as you had a similar outpour of feedback when you announced the pricing on 3/1/09. I think that users are just upset that you did not listen to our advice that the price was too high. For your sake, I hope you were right.

Thanks again and congrats on launching the site!
It is a job well done.

Reply
Nicholas 4.13.09 / 3pm

@Bryn – thanks! We are absolutely committing more time to the site now, and currently working on the top 3 most requested features for the site, the API, iphone app and panel embedding. More to come on the progress of these items in the coming weeks. – Nicholas.

Reply
1. Bryn 4.25.09 / 4pm
  
  @Nicholas – The feature I am most curious about is the Mapping Module that you showed a sneak peek of at Carsonified. Any idea when that will drop? Also interested in the Timers and ways of handling lists. It seems to me that these things will also need to be considered in the the API and iPhone App. Will these being postponed for version 2.0? Or is this still being developed as well?
  
  Reply
Nicholas 4.25.09 / 4pm

@Bryn – While we thought that mapping was going to be the next thing we tackled, after considering the feature requests, we realized that the API and native iPhone app were the priority.

We are now working on an update that will restructure the data in a way that creates more flexibility and display options and will give the API the robustness we are all expecting. So yes, maps + timers are coming, but not in the next update. – Nicholas.

Reply
Nach 7.19.09 / 4pm

Hey great news that the cost per month is 4 dollars instead of 5, I hope you will be able to drop it to 3 and then paying 36 dollars a year I think is fair enough. So waiting to that change and I’ll become subscribed.

(sorry for my english)

Reply
JuryDuty 7.19.09 / 10pm

I LOVE Daytum–just discovered it–and REALLY want to subscribe, but I have to agree, somehow even $4 is just a hair too much for a web app of this type right now. $2.50 or $3 would be more like it. I really like the $25/year suggestion.

Reply
1. Nicholas 7.20.09 / 8am
  
  Glad you are enjoying it… and I think we’ll get the pricing into a range you’ll like. An annual discounted subscription is looking very likely. – Nicholas.
  
  Reply
Nacho 1.6.10 / 5pm

What happened with the annual discounted subscription? I was expecting it already… or if it was $3 instead of 4$, ether ways it would do the magic!

Reply
matt 1.20.10 / 5am

I’m not a beta tester, but a bit of a grandfather clause would probably have been a nice gesture.

To be honest I thought $5 was a reasonable monthly amount. I’d happily pay $5 for a magazine I wanted to read each month, and would happily read a free one, though I may well stop if it stopped being free.

Software is a product aswell and the people who commit themselves to making it deserve to be paid.

Reply