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Thanks for your thoughts! It's a really interesting observation you make regarding the paid tier and rise of data analysis. I have spent a lot of time thinking

Thanks for your thoughts! It's a really interesting observation you make regarding the paid tier and rise of data analysis. I have spent a lot of time thinking about what would be the right way to go with monetisation and I'm still refining that aspect of the idea. In many ways I won't know the right strategy until I launch and iterate, but my initial thought was to limit the software by number of contacts someone would upload or security features. However after receiving some feedback from other reporters I decided to give all that functionality by default and just restrict based on storage space, or extra search functionality etc. But I actually really like your idea of making the paid features the enterprise ones. This could very well be the direction I head in as it definitely makes a lot of sense. There's a lot of money in enterprise apps for newsrooms and it's probably easier to do this as a paid tier option rather than going B2B - that way it's more accessible to the people who make day-to-day decisions.

brudgers 11y ago
A couple of additional thoughts about storage. 1. This seems like a headache for both journalists centering around confidentiality and for a SaaS platform centering around being a target for attack and potentially breaching confidential information. In the journalism the adversaries can be state level actors and the level of expertise required to hold them off is expensive. 2. Holding data hostage isn't going to bring joy to users. Neither will security. It is always going to be taken for granted until something fails. And a company that stores a lot of data is a single point of failure. 4. Aesthetically or philosophically if you prefer, there's something to be said for a symmetry of openness to public scrutiny between the goals of journalism as the fourth estate and an open source software. 5. Maybe there is an analog in Git (store data where ever is convenient) and Github a business based on commercial service on top of a free technology. 6. The growth model of infiltrating at the level of individual choice eventually making management spend money is how Apple entered enterprise [journalism being an exception at least in the US where Apple was already common]. Anyway, having fun thinking about it. I really like the idea. There's a lot of space between Wikileaks and enterprise software.
- kristoforlawson 11y ago
  Thanks! I really appreciate your questions and insight. Definitely the biggest issue is security and confidentiality. Everything will need to be encrypted from day 1 - just in case it does become the target of an attack. I also need to include additional security measures to allow for anonymous or confidential contacts. I also love your git analogy and is definitely giving me something to think about.

brudgers 11y ago

A couple of additional thoughts about storage. 1. This seems like a headache for both journalists centering around confidentiality and for a SaaS platform centering around being a target for attack and potentially breaching confidential information. In the journalism the adversaries can be state level actors and the level of expertise required to hold them off is expensive. 2. Holding data hostage isn't going to bring joy to users. Neither will security. It is always going to be taken for granted until something fails. And a company that stores a lot of data is a single point of failure. 4. Aesthetically or philosophically if you prefer, there's something to be said for a symmetry of openness to public scrutiny between the goals of journalism as the fourth estate and an open source software. 5. Maybe there is an analog in Git (store data where ever is convenient) and Github a business based on commercial service on top of a free technology. 6. The growth model of infiltrating at the level of individual choice eventually making management spend money is how Apple entered enterprise [journalism being an exception at least in the US where Apple was already common]. Anyway, having fun thinking about it. I really like the idea. There's a lot of space between Wikileaks and enterprise software.

kristoforlawson 11y ago
Thanks! I really appreciate your questions and insight. Definitely the biggest issue is security and confidentiality. Everything will need to be encrypted from day 1 - just in case it does become the target of an attack. I also need to include additional security measures to allow for anonymous or confidential contacts. I also love your git analogy and is definitely giving me something to think about.