In a world dominated by app stores and cloud services, it often seems that a developer can live anywhere in the world and ply their trade. However, if you want people to actually install the software you develop, sometimes nothing beats pressing the flesh.
Kotaku editor Mark Serrels has been in Boston over the weekend for gaming extravaganza PAX East. One story of his that grabbed my attention examines a fairly simple question: why do Australian developers head to a conference that’s the better part of a day’s flight away?
The short answer: because in a competitive field, being right in front of the audience makes it easier to stand out than just hoping you’ll be near the top of the search results. “There is a noticeable increase in sales when we comes to PAX East,” Tin Man Games creative director Neil Rennison said. “It’s not a massive spike, but the awareness grows from it as well.”
The same logic applies no matter what field you’re in. Good software should always be able to find an audience, but even if you’re writing a utility that uniquely solves a pressing problem, you need to get out and tell people about it.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.