I'm not one that delights in other peoples' failures nor am I usually one to pour salt in the wound, but after my series of posts from February about BlowSearch Messenger, this is more about closure than anything else. I don't know what made me think about it again, but I decided to go see what was new with BlowSearch Messenger. What I learned was that BlowSearch (not just the messenger) has pretty much fallen apart.
Not unsurprisingly, Joe Holcomb's blog was pretty high on the search results list for BlowSearch Messenger. Joe, from what I gathered, was one of the programmers/engineers for BlowSearch, and he probably worked on the Messenger. Anyway, I found two of his blog posts very helpful in understand what happened to BlowSearch: BlowSearch - I'm Telling All! and When the Sh*t Hits the Fan. These two entries chronicle what went wrong at BlowSearch, though it sounds like it had little or nothing to do with the messenger. BlowSearch was an advertising company, and the messenger was another outlet for ads.
I had many issues with BlowSearch Messenger, one of the biggest being the name. Therefore I found this excerpt particularly insightful:
Personally, I never really agreed with the name of the search engine (I was turned down countless times I mentioned re-branding) but you work with what you've been given, right? When you think about brands like Charms Blow Pops, or WANG computers a name like BlowSearch does make sense. It least it sticks with you to some extent even though it may not be with the connotation that you had hoped for.An insightful comment to be sure, yet I think it still misses the mark. Blow Pops are at least something oral, and WANG was a foreign name. Many international naming blunders have made history, my favorite being the Nova car, which means "no go" in Spanish. Oops.
My last comment before I put BlowSearch to bed once and for all is about marketing. When BlowSearch debuted back in February, it was pushed into the world by a flurry of press releases and download page submissions. Less than a year later, it looks like BlowSearch Messenger is all but dead, and without a single new version since it's original release. BitWise will begin its fourth year next year--quietly and steadily improving and growing. Which is why I was never much worried about BlowSearch Messenger, or any other new-comer. We haven't gotten where we are with flashy marketing or advertising blitzes. We are where we are because of the service that we provide, and that speaks for itself.
As a matter of fact I am not a programmer. I was the SVP of Marketing for the company. And you are correct the downfall of the company had nothing to do with the messenger but rather internal seanior management issues.
As far as your comment on Marketing goes, word of mouth is great and can never be replaced but A bit of actual attention on your company might do you wonders. Frankly i had never even heard of you and I know the net inside and out. I still don't know many people who have ever heard of your product.
With that being said BlowSearch was in the same boat when I entered the company. In business 5 years but no one outside of the search market knew who or what the company was. Good online marketing doesn't cost a damn thing for the most part and gathering attention and "hype" does more for a company than any slow moving word of mouth wave ever could.
You might want to rethink your stance on marketing and actually get your company in a position to grow quickly. The rest of the market is vastly outpacing you.
I think advice from a failed marketing executive on marketing is worth it's weight in gold, surely.