Well written Mr. Davidson.

… But I do believe that if you do eat a whole leaf of mint, that your mouth sense wouldn’t appreciate it too much. So, it could be harmful in some weird f’ed up way.

I’ve worked this entire last week mostly on a project that is volunteer work. If we could all work that way it would be great but since we can’t I think Shaun can and should get whatever he wants for each copy of Mint. In fact, I think he is undercharging! The initial people buying mint would buy it no matter it the price was doubled what it is because of the hype.. as the hype wears down so does the price.

Shit, look at MetaTraffic which is a fine tool but how have they survived so long while charging as much as $1295 for a developers license or $50 per site.

Just be thankful that Shaun is a developer and not a marketing genius otherwise the price would be higher. And he would likely have the same initial number, if not only a few less, then he has had the first week.

I’ve been reflecting on that post, however empty it may have otherwise been, for bringing all the “big guns” to the defense of Mint. If anything, this is the one “truth” that struck me about the whole thing: you, and Shaun, and Jon Hicks, and Jason Santa Maria, et al may not fully realize just how much respect and authority you carry. The “little fish”, in their naivete, may not understand that you work hard, and success isn’t guaranteed. From the outside, a cursory glance may look like the powerful congratulating themselves for another easy triumph; certainly, not the case in reality. Such goes PR, I suppose.

In any event, Shaun deserves praise for his hard work and given all he’s done for the community, the benefit of the doubt (if there is doubt), if nothing else. Mint looks beautiful and useful. :)

For what you’re getting, the level of support around it and the community that’s behind this product, 30 bucks IS pocket change.

Also, even if you were hyping it just to sell product, it’s called marketing. I would love to think that everyone talked about a product because they truly love the product, but it’s just not the case, and it will be ok.

Looks like a great product, and I will definetly consider it on future products where cliants need something to look at when they wonder who is visiting.

To the beta testing and hype, I have a feeling every single person who posted about Mint would have paid the $30 outright for the program anyway. I don’t think “free” would have ever been a factor.

@Bob: Depending on the peppers you use (and your desire to monkey with mint), you can probably get it running on adodb. The pepper has a few display queries, and the Mint() object has a few mysql_connect type things that can be easily ported. Trying something crazy like that is on my list of things to do this weekend. If you’d like, I can let you know how it goes. (Mint on Postgres/Oracle would be a blessing for client bases)

The way i see at his Mint is that it’s one of very many softwares out there with the same functionality. Most of them require some skills in php/mysql/linux in order to get them working, and then you have to design your own skin for them if you want to customize them. Most of them are based on open source, which is the big thing here. Shauns MINT does not, and that’s the breaker for me.

Considering the support you state he gives, and the absolutely stunning looks of it, it’s sure worth the $30 though. But. I’d prefer it to be open source instead of closed source. Then I’d gladly pay $30 for individual support and the great theme he’s designed for it.

But it would be very nice if there was a trial version to download to get a peek at it in action. I realize there was a demo on the website, but I think that it is still (temporarily?) offline. The movie that’s replaced it just isn’t satisfying enough for someone who’d like to “kick the tires” a bit.

Here’s a general observation, and not a specific attack on you Shaun G., but…

This is web design, not politics. Just because someone happens to design well, means they all of a sudden can’t talk up something they like? They’re supposed to keep their friends at arms length, or even snub them, because it could be construed as too clique-ish?

It’s like people have decided that once you find even just the slightest shred of success, then you no longer have the luxury of free speech that everyone else gets. It’s okay to bitch about people you don’t know on a site when you don’t have traffic, but it’s not okay to say a few nice things about people you do know if you’ve got it. Figure THAT one out.

What makes this conversation especially silly is that none of the people we’re talking about have had even half the success of others even in the same industry. The paycheck to navel-gazing ratio is exceptionally low. Much as I love JSM, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have the bankroll of, say, Ev Williams. Or at least that’s what he said to get out of paying for drinks in Austin.

(For the record, I wasn’t invited to be a Mint beta tester, and I largely ignored the big newsreader-dump of hype last week.)

What Mr. Inman has done is create a statitstical viewpoint that can be comprehended by people with varying techincal competencies.

The problem with other stat programs available to businesses is that they present too much information. It then has to be analyzed, summarized, presented, and explained to marketing people, business development people, and then the boss people.

This is the true value of Mint – its reduction. If applied correctly, will save loads more than $30 in traffic analysis in one’s business.

And if some people really think that’s too much, they should write their own stats software using the time they would spend writing comments on blogs.

Oh, and I think the beta team’s co-ordinated posts were really helpful in setting expectations for the product.

Of course, it was a (relatively) tightly corrdinated hype campaign– we were just wrong in our assumptions about who’d orchestrated it.

I personally wouldn’t have minded if Shaun had directed the campaign; in fact, I had a mingled “what a pimp/what a good idea” reaction. But these days, rightly or wrongly, there is an automatic suspicion of such things. So it’s all to the better that you and the other testers have clarified how the campaign came about.

Do the same people criticize Microsoft or Apple for giving away pre-release copies of their operating systems to notable developers and journalists?

Either these people don’t agree with the concept of captalism, or they’re a tad jealous that they weren’t asked to be a beta tester too.

FWIW, Mint looks darned cool. I might play with it sometime if a client ever wants it.