------------------------------------------------------------------------ A poll associated with this post was created, to vote and see the results, please visit http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=73698 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Question: Is third party plugins/applets important for your Squeezebox purchases ? - I won't buy any more Squeezebox products unless support for third party development is prioritized - I won't buy any more Squeezebox products unless the third party plugins I rely on is supported - I use third party plugins but I would still consider buying more Squeezebox products without them - I don't use third party plugins so they aren't important to my Squeezebox purchases ------------------------------------------------------------------------
The open-source nature of the squeezebox as well as the extensive 3rd-party plugins available was a major reason I originally bought a squeezebox. My thoughts, which were verified by my subsequent experience, was that active 3rd party development meant a more responsive device. Users would write plugins to do all sorts of useful and cool things and this would get done more quickly than if left up to the main developers. Today, certain plugins -- primarily erland's suite -- are critical to using my squeezebox. I'm already frustrated at how poorly they appear to be accepted by the main developers of SqueezeCenter (or whatever it's called these days.) For example, it's simply incomprehensible to me that some sort of "smart list" creation tool hasn't been built-in to the main server. This is a basic feature of most every other music player available, and is going to be a feature that new users look for. Of course, playlist generation in general is painful, another missed opportunity in my opinion. I can't understand why Logitech would want to stand in the way of 3rd party development. Firstly, as others have pointed out, they get a lot of free help from 3rd party developers. Secondly, it seems to be the paradigm of the future; see the iPhone and the iStore. Thirdly, they might do well to consider the economic of the Long Tail. Some attribute the success of amazon.com to capturing the Long Tail. Here it means that 3rd party developers can create tools that only a few customers want, but those customers *really* want them and they'll only be customers if those tools are available. Might not make sense for the mothership engineers to do the development for a handful of customers, but if a 3rd party does it for free, then Logitech just captures some more customers. Multiply that by many similar "niche" markets and you have a sizable effect. Well, anyway, they know all that. Not clear what our effect our comments will have ... -- wnshall ------------------------------------------------------------------------ wnshall's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5886 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=73698 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
