An interesting proposition was brought up to me; someone e-mailed me out of the blue offering to buy Tabulas. Obviously that's not happening, but I did counteroffer by saying that I'd be willing to sell on perpetual license of the Tabulas platform. A long conversation came from that one e-mail, and we started chatting on AIM.

Things are looking pretty good ... I'll be able to: (1) be paid off for my work in Tabulas (2) let someone else run a competitor so I can learn some strategies on how to improve Tabulas (3) and not lose any control over Tabulas!

The thought of licensing the Tabulas platform never crossed my mind; the guy has a cool domain name (admittedly) and he's been researching multi-user blog platforms for a few months now ... and he says he likes mine the best because it's "less technical." It's true. The other (big) multi-blog platform is LiveJournal, and the thing is *so* technical that it takes almost an expert to run and maintain ... plus the whole system isn't really geared for the "technically dumb" people.

I sent off a range for licensing the software and he seemed quite receptive. With some stuff that's happening around my personal life, I could definitely use this money.

If this licensing thing comes through, I may partner with someone to start licensing this stuff while I focus on the set-up part; there has to be more marketing experts out there who want to quickly drop a few grand and get a full-fledged blogging platform and try their hand at running these sites. Blogging sites are the new "hosting" companies ... except these blogging platforms give users easier management while making server management much easier. I never thought one could make so much money from simply licensing! And there have got to be some organizations that want to set this stuff up... come ON... SOMEONE! If there's a market for NINJA BOOKs, there's a market for this.

Posted by roy on November 30, 2004 at 02:06 AM in Tabulas | 14 Comments

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Comment posted on December 1st, 2004 at 09:26 PM
by the way, I'm flattered that The Creator added me as a friend. I'm from Chapel Hill, too.
Comment posted on December 2nd, 2004 at 06:02 AM
Oh, i didn't know you were from chapel hill, too!
Comment posted on December 1st, 2004 at 09:25 PM
here's an idea: in addition to "current mood," "current book," and "current music," how about "current food," and "amount of sleep I got last night?"
Comment posted on December 1st, 2004 at 06:27 PM
Are you saying the ninja book was a bad idea?! Come on - EVERYONE loves ninjas!
Comment posted on December 2nd, 2004 at 06:02 AM
not at all! there's always a market for ninja-related stuff!

MacDaddyTatsu (guest)

Comment posted on December 1st, 2004 at 01:53 PM
I think that Tabulas is so nice because it falls into the niche of being a mid-difficulty blogging platform. For the casual user it is daunting at first, but only in a very minor way. Selecting the "Basic" instead of "Advance" control pannel options really helps these users.

Now the old hat net users, with some expertise, will love Tabulas because it is so diverse in function. Its a really robust product with really good modularity, customization options, post options and other functions. So many that the expert user will have enough to tool about with that they wont get bored, but not too many to make the BLOG overshadow the process of BLOGGING.

The really green users will feel the pain though. I have recently talked extensively with some <a href="http://www.myspace.com">MySpace</a> users and they like that service because it is utterly braindead. There is little to no thinking envolved and it forces a sort of artifical community on you so you are sucked in immediately. Tabulas has no such measures. I personally like that. Not being forced into groups is nice. Forging your own network of friends and groups makes more sense to me. That is something that some (albiet the least experienced) users cannot do without a service like MySpace.

Whatever you do, Roy, I back it 110%!
Comment posted on December 1st, 2004 at 10:04 AM
I think you should ask him how much he would purchase everything for. User base and all. I would like to think in teh 5 digit range. perhaps more. Established user base in PREMIER age group. It is and should be enviable. I'll talk to you later online.
Comment posted on December 1st, 2004 at 05:50 AM
Hey...
I definitely think this could be interesting for you to sell Tabulas. I know you go to UNC, and they have a freaking good business program so you might not have problems with bargaining, eheh. But since I'm also in a great Business school, I might advise you to study that case, see if the price is right and then you may accept. Dont get carried away and sign anything.
Btw, I think that you analysis of the situation (in the entry) was really really professional. So I bet you'll prolly go pretty far with it. Indeed, there may be a new market for weblogs. Tabulas is just perfect. There are many things you can and it's easy to use it. Anywayz, make the good decisions, and we are bunch of folks behind you ! Bring it on !
L8erz.

PS : In case you’d ever feel like being generous, you could lemme put up some videos on my site. It’d be awesome. Jaykay, don’t listen to me…
Comment posted on December 1st, 2004 at 05:35 AM
go for it! but do some homework first before finalizing the price :) you might actually be able to get more than what you've agreed upon as of now.

tabulas is really the best online journal for starters. thanks to you!
Comment posted on December 1st, 2004 at 01:34 AM
i think licencing and subscription based business models are the future of software...
Comment posted on December 1st, 2004 at 07:26 AM
Free Software™ is the future. ;P
Comment posted on December 1st, 2004 at 12:46 PM
who would front the cost of developing the software?

are you talking 100% open source?

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Comment posted on December 1st, 2004 at 09:08 PM
Open Source != Free Software. ( <a href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html">http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html</a> )

The truth is, you _can_ sell free software ( example: <a href="http://www.oooff.com/">http://www.oooff.com/</a> ), therefore big companies ( <a href="http://patron.fsf.org/current-patrons.html">http://patron.fsf.org/current-patrons.html</a> ) inject large monies into free software organisations (GNU, Mozilla, etc) so they can get 'x' software fast/cheap which they resell onto customers packaged with 'y' hardware (IBM probably) or 'z' other software.

Or in other circumstances, there are free software corporations [sort of] like Redhat which do the selling and packaging and administration themselves. Mainly the money comes off support costs which can be pretty large c/o money-grabbing Microsoft-like companies already charging too much.

greenpill (guest)

Comment posted on November 30th, 2004 at 11:23 PM
You got my support.