The marketing site looks great and I like the sound of the idea, however I was surprised to see this as a paid-for service.
This is not because it is data not worth paying for but rather because I usually start thinking about new tech at the start of a new project, and I only start a new project once every year or two. An ongoing fee for this type of aggregator seems hard to justify.
A possible alternative would be to open up the data for free and supply affiliate links to related books, tools etc.
Opening up the tool for free is actually one of the options that I consider. Of course, only if there's a good reason to believe that this is the right way to go.
I know of some free alternatives, like http://www.ohloh.net/ but on the other hand there are also pricey reports on technology trends, such as: http://w3techs.com/
This shows that there are companies willing to pay a lot of money for technology insights.
BTW, is there any specific kind of data/insights you would be particularly interested in?
One idea might be to charge per usage rather than on a monthly basis. So let's say I'm starting a project I pay a one-time fee to use the application for a certain amount of queries, days or weeks. Like skyhook_mockups said it's not something I'd use everyday but rather a couple of times a year when I start a new project or pivot.
I'd have to agree here. It's a cool concept, but I just couldn't justify paying for it. It's possible that if there was a free limited version that I could play with, I'd get hooked and then be willing to pay the monthly rate. But then, I am a Senior Developer... maybe this is meant more for Project Managers. The project managers that I work with though, wouldn't be nearly technical enough to understand most of what comes through on Stack Overflow: "MVC what?" :)
- IT industry analysts (What are the industry trends? What will be popular next year?)
And from the discussions with those groups, I know they would be willing to pay for this kind of tool.
Obviously, my goal is to build a critical mass of users and customers. And the dilemma is whether leave it a SaaS tool and earn from subscription or open it up for everyone and make profit in some other way...
This is not because it is data not worth paying for but rather because I usually start thinking about new tech at the start of a new project, and I only start a new project once every year or two. An ongoing fee for this type of aggregator seems hard to justify.
A possible alternative would be to open up the data for free and supply affiliate links to related books, tools etc.
Maybe it's just not aimed at a user like me.
All the best :)