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Posted to users@tapestry.apache.org by Kurtis Williams <kw...@mshare.net> on 2005/03/08 08:00:38 UTC
Chasm Crossing - Marketing Tapestry
I've been thinking about the marketing required to take Tapestry into the mainstream as the defacto way to produce Web applications in Java. What would it really take?
At the start of my career the founder of the technology startup I was working for asked the entire company to read Geoffrey Moore's book "Crossing the Chasm." It's considered to be a technology marketing classic. I whole heartedly recommend it. If you want a quick overview, take a look at:
http://web.mit.edu/wdc/www/chasm.html
The chasm Moore describes is a catch-22 where the early majority will not use the recommendation of early adopers and pioneers because they view them as "fringe." Early majority users value and respect the opinion of early adopters, but do not rely on it for final decisions. They only use technology experiences from other majority members for final decisions. That catch-22 is the chasm Moore describes, and it's the point at which Tapestry finds itself today.
Tapestry has a rabidly loyal group of early adopters, a first step specified by Moore. But it's got an uphill battle to reach the early majority in the way that Struts has. And unlike Struts, it's got stiff competition in the form of JSF and even .NET. (Yes, .NET - many who are tired of the cumbersome Java development cycle may shift to .NET.)
Moore recommends a "chasm crossing" strategy. Part of the strategy is to descrie the message to users in two sentences (lifted from the above link):
For the <target customer>,
who is dissatisfied with <current alternative in the market>,
Our product is a <new product category>
that provides a <capability to solve target customer's important problem>.
Unlike <the product alternative>,
we have assembled <key features that demonstrate you have the whole product, not just a piece of a puzzle>.
What does this sentence look like for Tapestry? What can marketing-minded technologists do to help promote it? What is the chasm-crossing strategy for Tapestry?
Here's my first take:
For the "Struts User" who is tired of the difficulty and tedium of building Java Web applications, Tapestry is a component-oriented productivity library that allows rapid development of complex user interactions. Unlike JSF, tapestry ships with a set of mature components that allow developers to be instantly productive right out of the box.
Notice how easy it is to change the whole meaning of the sentence by changing "Struts User" to something else? If in fact, the Struts User were the target, then the whole set of support tools and direction of Tapestry would change. It doesn't matter who the target is, what matters is picking a sufficiently attainable target. Just targetting "Web Developers in General" is more difficult and has less chances for success.
Re: Chasm Crossing - Marketing Tapestry
Posted by "t.n.a." <tn...@sharanet.org>.
Kurtis Williams wrote:
>I've been thinking about the marketing required to take Tapestry into the mainstream as the defacto way to produce Web applications in Java. What would it really take?
>
>
A marketing machine? :) No, seriously, open-source projects are
obviously somewhat limited when it comes to conventional marketing
techniques, so I guess it's a tough nut to crack. But, the web's all
ours, so let's take advantage of it.
>For the <target customer>,
>who is dissatisfied with <current alternative in the market>,
>Our product is a <new product category>
>that provides a <capability to solve target customer's important problem>.
>Unlike <the product alternative>,
>we have assembled <key features that demonstrate you have the whole product, not just a piece of a puzzle>.
>
>What does this sentence look like for Tapestry? What can marketing-minded technologists do to help promote it? What is the chasm-crossing strategy for Tapestry?
>
>Here's my first take:
>For the "Struts User" who is tired of the difficulty and tedium of building Java Web applications, Tapestry is a component-oriented productivity library that allows rapid development of complex user interactions. Unlike JSF, tapestry ships with a set of mature components that allow developers to be instantly productive right out of the box.
>
>Notice how easy it is to change the whole meaning of the sentence by changing "Struts User" to something else? If in fact, the Struts User were the target, then the whole set of support tools and direction of Tapestry would change. It doesn't matter who the target is, what matters is picking a sufficiently attainable target. Just targetting "Web Developers in General" is more difficult and has less chances for success.
>
>
I don't agree. Targeting isn't a post festum operation: tapestry was
designed with specific goals in mind and so I suggest the following:
1.) list other products which try to solve the same problems as tapestry
2.) make a feature matrix with frameworks on one axis and features on
the other
3.) weight the features and the user base of each framework and put as
much focus as possible on the proven advantages tapestry has over one or
two of the most eligable alternatives
I'm fairly new in the Java world and I'm sure it shows from my view of
state-of-the-art, but it seems to me tapestry could attract a
significant amount of people using pure JSP or JSP and JSF. Don't know
anything about spring, though.
I myself was faced with a decision between .net and something-non-MS:
after a couple of weeks of reading and evaluating available
technologies, I decided tapestry was the way to go ("everything's a
component" is a great catcher), but inspite of my own choice, I'd
apreciate a short tapestry vs. asp.net lamentation from someone versed
in both.
Anyway, I see this kind of reasoning as the way to form a marketing
strategy, in light of everything Kurtis said, of course.
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Re: Chasm Crossing - Marketing Tapestry
Posted by David Ezzio <de...@ysoft.com>.
Hi Kurtis,
I think you're spot on when you suggest that the optimal strategy is to
target a particular submarket. Another interesting read that describes
the technology adoption cycle is THE INNOVATOR'S DILEMMA by Clayton
Christensen. He makes it clear that the dynamics are not confined to
the fast moving world of software development.
In my view, the thing that would really make Tapestry the premium Web
application development environment is the inclusion of content
authoring. Conceptually, Web pages are composed at three distinct
times, at design time, at authoring time, and at request time. Site
designs are done on long schedules, every 3 months, every year, and
sometimes more. Authoring is done on shorter schedules, every hour,
every day, every week, or perhaps monthly. True dynamic content,
information that may change from second to second or that tracks the
user's interaction with the site, is a small but important part of most
sites. Tapestry is excellent at supporting site design, and excellent
at supporting dynamic content, but has nothing at all to offer in the
middle for content developed at authoring time.
With that piece in place, I think Tapestry would command the allegiance
of every site developer whose customers want to author their own content
within a Web site that has a custom design and tailored dynamic content.
In no way would content management detract from Tapestry's existing
capabilities, but it would definitely raise its overall attractiveness
by one or two orders of magnitude.
I am not suggesting that Tapestry reinvent this wheel. Rather what is
needed is an elegant integration with one or more existing open source
content authoring systems. In my view, the submarket here is a market
that is wholly underserved by open source Java based Web framework: a
framework that addresses the needs of these three different composition
times for the typical Web site.
With this solution available, HTML and Java gurus can build the site
with the customer's input, and the customer can evolve the authored
content on an hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly basis. The site should
perform and scale well because presumably, the request won't be looking
in the database for the monthly newsletter's content. The site would be
maintainable because Web interfaces would support the authoring and
publishing steps.
David
Kurtis Williams wrote:
> I've been thinking about the marketing required to take Tapestry into the mainstream as the defacto way to produce Web applications in Java. What would it really take?
>
> At the start of my career the founder of the technology startup I was working for asked the entire company to read Geoffrey Moore's book "Crossing the Chasm." It's considered to be a technology marketing classic. I whole heartedly recommend it. If you want a quick overview, take a look at:
>
> http://web.mit.edu/wdc/www/chasm.html
>
> The chasm Moore describes is a catch-22 where the early majority will not use the recommendation of early adopers and pioneers because they view them as "fringe." Early majority users value and respect the opinion of early adopters, but do not rely on it for final decisions. They only use technology experiences from other majority members for final decisions. That catch-22 is the chasm Moore describes, and it's the point at which Tapestry finds itself today.
>
> Tapestry has a rabidly loyal group of early adopters, a first step specified by Moore. But it's got an uphill battle to reach the early majority in the way that Struts has. And unlike Struts, it's got stiff competition in the form of JSF and even .NET. (Yes, .NET - many who are tired of the cumbersome Java development cycle may shift to .NET.)
>
> Moore recommends a "chasm crossing" strategy. Part of the strategy is to descrie the message to users in two sentences (lifted from the above link):
>
> For the <target customer>,
> who is dissatisfied with <current alternative in the market>,
> Our product is a <new product category>
> that provides a <capability to solve target customer's important problem>.
> Unlike <the product alternative>,
> we have assembled <key features that demonstrate you have the whole product, not just a piece of a puzzle>.
>
> What does this sentence look like for Tapestry? What can marketing-minded technologists do to help promote it? What is the chasm-crossing strategy for Tapestry?
>
> Here's my first take:
> For the "Struts User" who is tired of the difficulty and tedium of building Java Web applications, Tapestry is a component-oriented productivity library that allows rapid development of complex user interactions. Unlike JSF, tapestry ships with a set of mature components that allow developers to be instantly productive right out of the box.
>
> Notice how easy it is to change the whole meaning of the sentence by changing "Struts User" to something else? If in fact, the Struts User were the target, then the whole set of support tools and direction of Tapestry would change. It doesn't matter who the target is, what matters is picking a sufficiently attainable target. Just targetting "Web Developers in General" is more difficult and has less chances for success.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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Re: Chasm Crossing - Marketing Tapestry
Posted by Vince Marco <vm...@mac.com>.
Nice call. It's been a while since I read CTC. Good reminder to
reread.
In order to CTC as an open source technology, Tapestry needs to gain
some vendor support. For those who are independent consultants and
authors, we need to push Tapestry up to the top of supported
frameworks, and perhaps work up an "elevator pitch" for the web sites
of those who want to encourage Tapestry development.
It's great to be able to pull in Howard to kick start Tapestry
development on a project (which works very well BTW), but to gain wide
adoption companies need a LOT more. Access to consultants and trainers
is essential.
That is what Struts has. I know it got there on a different path than
Tapestry is on, as it was really the first MVC framework applied to
Java web apps, and it didn't have to swim upstream against Sun's JSPs.
But in Tapestry's favor is .NET, ironically ... pushing for tool-based,
productive web app development and alternatives to JSPs. Fortunately
it seems to me that Tapestry has a distinct edge over ASP, as its roots
are similar to JSP (ie. tag extension model).
But the path is long and narrow. Most superior technologies do not
find the mainstream, as the barrier of learning curve and time to
market is pretty steep. If Tapestry is ever going to overtake a JSP
model, my bet is that it will be efforts built on Tapestry that make
the difference, such as a huge component library and more plugins (ie.
support for NetBeans, JBuilder, IDEA, etc), as well as training.
My suggestion is to encourage Howard and company to continue towards
getting T3.1 out-the-door, and start thinking and designing supporting
components, plugins, and training products.
Vince
On Mar 8, 2005, at 12:00 AM, Kurtis Williams wrote:
> I've been thinking about the marketing required to take Tapestry into
> the mainstream as the defacto way to produce Web applications in Java.
> What would it really take?
>
> At the start of my career the founder of the technology startup I was
> working for asked the entire company to read Geoffrey Moore's book
> "Crossing the Chasm." It's considered to be a technology marketing
> classic. I whole heartedly recommend it. If you want a quick
> overview, take a look at:
>
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Re: Chasm Crossing - Marketing Tapestry
Posted by Erik Hatcher <er...@ehatchersolutions.com>.
Kurtis - great stuff!
I too read Crossing the Chasm back in the .com hey-day. It's a potent
read.
Erik
On Mar 8, 2005, at 2:00 AM, Kurtis Williams wrote:
> I've been thinking about the marketing required to take Tapestry into
> the mainstream as the defacto way to produce Web applications in Java.
> What would it really take?
>
> At the start of my career the founder of the technology startup I was
> working for asked the entire company to read Geoffrey Moore's book
> "Crossing the Chasm." It's considered to be a technology marketing
> classic. I whole heartedly recommend it. If you want a quick
> overview, take a look at:
>
> http://web.mit.edu/wdc/www/chasm.html
>
> The chasm Moore describes is a catch-22 where the early majority will
> not use the recommendation of early adopers and pioneers because they
> view them as "fringe." Early majority users value and respect the
> opinion of early adopters, but do not rely on it for final decisions.
> They only use technology experiences from other majority members for
> final decisions. That catch-22 is the chasm Moore describes, and it's
> the point at which Tapestry finds itself today.
>
> Tapestry has a rabidly loyal group of early adopters, a first step
> specified by Moore. But it's got an uphill battle to reach the early
> majority in the way that Struts has. And unlike Struts, it's got
> stiff competition in the form of JSF and even .NET. (Yes, .NET - many
> who are tired of the cumbersome Java development cycle may shift to
> .NET.)
>
> Moore recommends a "chasm crossing" strategy. Part of the strategy is
> to descrie the message to users in two sentences (lifted from the
> above link):
>
> For the <target customer>,
> who is dissatisfied with <current alternative in the market>,
> Our product is a <new product category>
> that provides a <capability to solve target customer's important
> problem>.
> Unlike <the product alternative>,
> we have assembled <key features that demonstrate you have the whole
> product, not just a piece of a puzzle>.
>
> What does this sentence look like for Tapestry? What can
> marketing-minded technologists do to help promote it? What is the
> chasm-crossing strategy for Tapestry?
>
> Here's my first take:
> For the "Struts User" who is tired of the difficulty and tedium of
> building Java Web applications, Tapestry is a component-oriented
> productivity library that allows rapid development of complex user
> interactions. Unlike JSF, tapestry ships with a set of mature
> components that allow developers to be instantly productive right out
> of the box.
>
> Notice how easy it is to change the whole meaning of the sentence by
> changing "Struts User" to something else? If in fact, the Struts User
> were the target, then the whole set of support tools and direction of
> Tapestry would change. It doesn't matter who the target is, what
> matters is picking a sufficiently attainable target. Just targetting
> "Web Developers in General" is more difficult and has less chances for
> success.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: tapestry-user-unsubscribe@jakarta.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: tapestry-user-help@jakarta.apache.org
---------------------------------------------------------------------
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