Comments on: Why Do Plugins Die?

By: admin

admin — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 22:08:31 +0000

Again, that’s why I really think that there should be some paid support/credit system with free plugins it might encourage users to post in the right spot for one! I’m glad that you are spending the extra time with people that don’t have english as a first language because it must be incredibly frustrating for them at times.

Rather than the contribute button have you tried adding your Amazon wish list or a button to collect funds for future development. It’s just an idea but it may be worth considering saying something like when donations hit $X I’ll start adding new features at least it would encourage people to login to PayPal and slip a few bucks your way.

By: twincascos

twincascos — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 14:09:49 +0000

Great observations!
I also develop plugins, I have a forum set up for users, yet every week I receive support requests in the site comments and via email directly. I try to answer their question and request that they take any further questions to the forums. They seldom get the message. After looking at the ip of said users I have seen that they are often from eastern europe or the philippines (and other non english countries), so I realize that english probably isn’t their language. If I detect that to be the case, I try harder to help them out. They may be making a great effort to spit out those few words in english. It’s not easy to communicate or understand in a language which you don’t know.

As for my “contribute money” button, I removed it after 12 months of zero contributions. The few pennies it may have brought in (eventually) didn’t seam to justify the disappointment of there only being a few pennies.

By: admin

admin — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 20:11:53 +0000

Hey Namith, thanks for dropping by. I hope you seen the post that I did a while ago on WP insert here: http://www.wpqueen.com/wordpress-plugins/why-i-like-this-adsense-plugin/. One thing I would mention is that I for one didn’t know there was a beta version for WP Insert. I love beta testing plugins and always have a selection on the go testing. Perhaps, if you start a mailing list you can mail out when there is a new version for beta testing? This means that you will be asking existing users rather than people just wandering by your site.

There does need to be a change in plugin development and perhaps this can be a topic that is added to WordPress Camp for discussion.

By: Namith J

Namith J — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:28:45 +0000

That’s a perfectly valid point you made about the frustration with developing plug-ins.
I am the author of a couple of plugins including wp-Insert”. Very few people show appreciation toward the work we are doing for the community.
I am trying to believe that people cant afford to spent even a $ on plugins which earn them substantial income. Even if that’s the case they still can show support to the plugin developer by helping in beta testing etc. Currently Wp-Insert is in version 1.5 and from Version 1.2 till 1.4.2 I had place beta version of the plugin on my site and requested people to participate in testing it via the plugin page and via the plugin settings page in wordpress. The number of downloads I have received for beta version till date is a big huge ZERO!!!

Now comes the donation part. My plugin till date has accumulated donations worth $30.
Click throughs from the plugin settings page linger around .2% of the total impressions so thats not a viable source to support development costs.

Despite no apparent revenue source we are still spending time on the development but very few people recognize this effort and I seldom receive a thanks or compliment message. As you said when something breaks there will be a flood of messages and forum posts but wen everything works fine no one cares.

People ask Why do you continue development if this is the case. I always respond by saying “It feels nice when something you made is being used by thousands of people”. But the feel good factor is not paying my hosting bills, My Job is!!

Its high time for Automattic to come up with a plugin and theme maket place like the I-Phone market place.