I've always wondered how to present and market Sider, because I sometimes have a problem defining it to myself. Is it a tool to build tools, or a platform to work with information, or both, or something else? I'm having this problem because in a way it's idea is new and unique, but I also don't have a lot of experience in software development and design. My partner, Igor, who came up with the idea, understands the project much better, but I'm the one who's doing most of the work and marketing.

Taking a fresh look at the design I see it as an engine, similar to a game engine. Instead of dealing with graphics and animation, it deals with information, logic to process it and views to show it. Through modules and packages it can support new types of information and new ways to deal with it. For example a module can allow users to manage a software project using Agile practices, or store and organize notes, and so on.

What's the difference between a platform and an engine anyway? It's the scope they deal with. A software platform is a set of technologies used for building a large variety of applications. An engine focuses on a specific type of problems and many common activities associated with it. In both cases software runs on top of the platform or an engine. A platform is just a broader and more abstract engine.

What's the best way to present this idea to the user? Without extensions Sider is useless to most people, just like game engine is useless to players without a game on top of it. Game developers usually market games to regular people and engines to other developers. Many players are not even aware of the engine and that it can run other games.

This creates a problem with Sider, especially since it's fresh and hasn't been proved yet. Many users won't care that it's a flexible engine. They're interested in concrete solutions, not in potential. At the same time I always wanted to charge for the use of the engine, not extensions (at least initially). I hope this will help Sider to stand out as new extensions will become available for free. I will need to make people aware that it is an engine and that's what they are paying for.

In addition anybody can extend it. History shows that some users (power users I call them) will be interested in customizing it and adding new features. Most people will just want to use them, but extensions created by power users are important to Sider success.

I think initially, it's best to focus on promoting extensions and scenarios they support, just mentioning that more will be available. When they are available, expand marketing to include them. In time, after several iterations and adding new extensions I can try to expand and capitalize on the fact that there will be support for a large number of things, because in the past we have added many.

I'm back to blogging. I'm gonna start by changing how I write posts, making them more un-official, like a journal. Not sure yet how that will work out.

I'm also back to working on Sider. I decided to make its development process more transparent. I want to be open and honest about what I'm working on, what mistakes I make and how I fix them.

I'm in the process of putting all project documentation in one place on the wiki where it's available to anybody. I started to review and publish Sider design documents. That shouldn't take too long, at least for the initial phase where I create an outline of all features. I'm not sure yet if I will publish everything, but I'm sure that most of it will be online. The wiki is opened for registration, so anybody can contribute. I have also opened read-only access to Sider issues.

In addition I recently learned about Scrum and want to try it as a project management methodology. I'll have more user stories (which I seem to like, unlike the use cases that are too detailed for my taste) and I'm going to estimate all remaining work using abstract points, then use velocity to approximate when the next release will be available. I will probably write here about my experience and thoughts.