MacHeist
Encyclopedia
MacHeist is a website that resells Mac OS X
shareware
. The site has become known for its marketing
tactics. These tactics include challenges (or "heists") that entitle successful customers to free software licenses and/or discounts, as well as the concept of selling software in a bundle that increases in size as more customers purchase the bundle. The site was founded by John Casasanta, Phillip Ryu, and Scott Meinzer.
The final bundle sold for US$49 and was available to the entire Mac community, regardless of participation in the heists leading up to the sale. It contained Delicious Library
, FotoMagico, ShapeShifter
, DEVONthink
, Disco
, Rapidweaver
, iClip, Newsfire
, TextMate
, and the choice of one Pangea Software
game (Bugdom 2
, Enigmo 2
, Nanosaur 2
, Pangea Arcade
). Newsfire was added to the bundle after the sale of approximately 4,000 bundles, and TextMate was added after approximately 5,600 bundles were sold. The other applications were available from the beginning of the sale. After the two later applications were unlocked, they became available for no extra charge to the initial purchasers of the bundle.
Another aspect of MacHeist I was that a large portion (US$200,000) of the proceeds were donated to charities. This amount was divided between the following charities: United Way International, Direct Relief International
, AIDS Research Alliance
, Cancer Research and Prevention Foundation, Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, Hunger Project and Save the Children
.
blogging engine. Both Media Temple and the site designer were apparently unaware that Glenn Wolsey had given control of his site to a 3rd party. However, during the ensuing investigation, they quickly discovered Malcor was a phony. E-mail requests sent to Media Temple were ignored while those sent to Glenn Wolsey suggested an ongoing investigation http://www.glennwolsey.com/2007/11/19/back-to-regular-operation/.
A few days later, the macapper.com site was defaced and the site owner, Miles Evans, wrote that the hack was due to a WordPress vulnerability http://macapper.com/2007/11/21/screw-you-malcwhore/.
It is worth noting that Glenn and Miles are both involved in the macapper.com site. http://www.glennwolsey.com/2007/02/03/macapper-launches/, http://macapper.com/author/miles-evans/.
Again, the parties involved remained silent and allowed the situation to escalate, both within the Apple and Wordpress developer community.
Finally, applematters.com and iphonematters.com were defaced. In this case, however, their hosting company (EngineHosting) immediately took the site down and began an investigation. When they discovered the prank, they notified both their clients and the public that neither their commercial product (Expression Engine) or their hosting service were vulnerable to this attack http://expressionengine.com/blog/entry/expressionengine_and_enginehosting_sites_were_not_hacked/. Subsequently, Hadley Stern apologized and admitted the hoax http://www.applematters.com/index.php/section/comments/sincere-apologies/.
Over the following 24hrs, the owners of macapper.com, macheist.com and glennwolsey.com posted explanations of their involvement http://macapper.com/2007/11/27/woops-i-did-it-again/, http://macheist.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=5884, http://www.glennwolsey.com/2007/11/28/what-really-happened-sincere-apologies/.
The final bundle contained 14 applications: 1Password, CoverSutra, Cha-Ching, iStopMotion, Tiki Magic Mini Golf, Wingnuts 2, Awaken, TaskPaper, Speed Download 4, AppZapper
, CSSEdit, Snapz Pro X
, Pixelmator
with VectorDesigner unlocked after $300,000 had been raised. There was an offer for people who refer a friend to receive LaunchBar
and NoteBook. In all, $500,000 was raised toward the various charities.
:
Decrypted:
Macheist III began on Friday, February 6, 2009 with the first nanoMission. On February 13, 2009 the first official Mission began introducing Sophia, a new secret agent played by Lisa Bettany. The member base was divided into four teams to compete.
The MacHeist III bundle's content was revealed during a scheduled live show lasting from 8:00PM EDT to 10:00PM EDT, March 24. Hosted by Veronica Belmont
, Chris Pirillo
, and Lisa Bettany, the show revealed each app one by one. The initial apps were iSale, Picturesque, SousChef, World of Goo
, Phoneview, LittleSnapper, Acorn, and Kinemac. Big Bang Board Games was also given to the first 25,000 purchasers.
Users who referred friends received pop-pop and the Koingo
Utility-Package for one and two referrals. The unlockables, in order, were Wiretap Studio (set to unlock at $100,000, and did so 16 hours after the bundle was released).
, BoinxTV (set to unlock at $400,000, and did so the morning of April 5)
, and a mega-unlock, The Hit List, and Espresso (set to unlock together at $500,000, which was achieved a while before the end of the promotion).
Additional "Bonus Applications" Cro-Mag Rally
and Times were added March 31 and April 4, respectively, to boost sales.
The Bundle concluded April 7 at Midnight with a total of 88,401 copies sold and $842,648 raised for charity.
After the sale closed, one final app, AppShelf, was added along with a downloadable file containing a purchasers license info in an AppShelf plist file. Two days later, MacHeist donated $10,455 to make it an even $850,000.
After that, there were prizes for each team. 1st place (green) got 4 apps, 2nd (orange) got 3, 3rd (blue) got 2, and 4th (purple) got one (iClip).
, TinyGrab
, Hordes of Orcs, Mariner Write (unlockable when 500,000 users received the bundle). This bundle was available for one week and was free. MacHeist was also offering Virus Barrier for free if the bundle was shared on Facebook
.
, RipIt
, Clips, CoverScout, Flow, Tales of Monkey Island
(unlockable when 30,000 users received the bundle), and RapidWeaver
(unlockable but not announced how many need to purchase). MacHeist also added Tracks, Airbust Extreme and Burning Monkey Solitaire for free if the bundle was shared on Twitter. This bundle was available until March 10, 2010 and was $19.95.
On March, 7, three days before the end of the offer, the number of purchases surpassed 30,000 and Tales of Monkey Island was unlocked. A target of 50,000 purchases was announced for unlocking RapidWeaver. As a teaser, Tweetie
was briefly listed in the bundle . Later, Tweetie disappeared from the list, but its icon appeared half-occluded on MacHeist website. After the number of purchasers surpassed 50,000 and RapidWeaver got unlocked, it was announced that Tweetie would be unlocked at 56,789 bundle sales. The license for Tweetie was valid for Tweetie 2, and included pre-launch access to a beta of the software. On March 9, 2010, the number of bundle sales surpassed 56,789, and Tweetie was unlocked for all purchasers. The offer ended on March 11, 2010, and a total number of 87,854 bundles were sold.
of the Daring Fireball
blog, Paul Kafasis of Rogue Amoeba
Software, and Gus Mueller of Flying Meat
Software, who later participated in The Macheist III Bundle with Acorn. Some independent Mac software developers who chose not to participate in MacHeist felt that the proclamation from the MacHeist organisers that it was "The Week of the Independent Mac Developer" was an inappropriate form of marketing.
While exact royalty payment amounts have not been released to the public, Gruber and others questioned the value of the promotion to the participating developers, citing offers made to developers of around US$5,000 per application, whereas the MacHeist bundle grossed nearly US$800,000. Gruber's estimates indicate that the net profits for the MacHeist team likely far exceeded the total charity donation and the royalties paid to participating developers combined. Additionally, some thought that setting goals to "unlock" NewsFire and TextMate in terms of dollars raised for charity was deceptive and unethical.
However, several of the developers whose applications were featured in MacHeist I, including Wil Shipley
, author of Delicious Library, defended their decision to participate in the promotion. They cited exposure to new users, the potential for increased upgrade revenue in the future, and other factors for their participation in MacHeist I, despite the seemingly low amount of revenue generated directly from MacHeist.
There has been criticism of MacHeist II, with some customers being charged multiple times for the software bundle despite the website proclaiming that 'the order can not be processed'. In addition to this, the support services provided by John Casasanta and the rest of the MacHeist team has been ridiculed as they initially refused to respond to customer complaints about the problem, or issue refunds for overcharging. As of March 2008, this has largely been resolved.
During Macheist III, much criticism was aimed at the employed marketing techniques, which included encouraging customers to Tweet, through Twitter
, for additional applications. Some said it was a collective spamming of Twitter users.
began a promotion that very closely resembled the MacHeist I bundle sale, in that it sold a bundle of Mac OS X shareware applications that increased in size with a greater number of sales. The MacUpdate bundle sold nearly 2,000 copies in the first two days. MacHeist became an affiliate with this bundle, selling additional applications that MacUpdate did not along with the MacUpdate bundle. The additional apps offered by MacHeist were Exces, browseback, Linkinus and later WriteRoom. Also included was beta access to Pixelmator
and FlowFTP.
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
shareware
Shareware
The term shareware is a proprietary software that is provided to users without payment on a trial basis and is often limited by any combination of functionality, availability, or convenience. Shareware is often offered as a download from an Internet website or as a compact disc included with a...
. The site has become known for its marketing
Marketing
Marketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments...
tactics. These tactics include challenges (or "heists") that entitle successful customers to free software licenses and/or discounts, as well as the concept of selling software in a bundle that increases in size as more customers purchase the bundle. The site was founded by John Casasanta, Phillip Ryu, and Scott Meinzer.
MacHeist I
MacHeist I was a six week long event that the site ran at the end of 2006. It culminated with a week-long sale of a bundle of ten Mac OS X shareware applications for US$49. Prior to the sale, a number of challenges (or "heists") were posted on the MacHeist site. These challenges typically offered cryptic clues to Mac-related websites, where the answers could be found. Users who successfully completed the heists were rewarded a US$2 discount on the bundle for each heist completed, as well as free licensed copies of various Mac OS X shareware applications that were not included in the final bundle. This inaugural promotion proved to be quite successful, selling more than 16,000 copies in one week.The final bundle sold for US$49 and was available to the entire Mac community, regardless of participation in the heists leading up to the sale. It contained Delicious Library
Delicious Library
Delicious Library is a media cataloguing application for Mac OS X, developed by Delicious Monster to allow users to manage collections of books, movies, CDs, and video games....
, FotoMagico, ShapeShifter
ShapeShifter
ShapeShifter is an Application Enhancer plugin for Mac OS X developed by Unsanity that allows the user to make system-wide modifications to the appearance of the operating system's graphical interface by applying GUI skins through “injection” into running code and without modifying system files,...
, DEVONthink
DEVONthink
DEVONthink is a Mac OS X program for intelligent document management and associative search. It is developed by the company DEVONtechnologies located in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, USA....
, Disco
Disco (software)
Disco is an application for Apple's Mac OS X developed by Austin Sarner, Jasper Hauser and Jason Harris.The software is an optical disc authoring utility, which allows users to burn CDs and DVDs with multisession support, disc duplication, burning VIDEO_TS folders, disc spanning as well as a...
, Rapidweaver
RapidWeaver
RapidWeaver is a template-based website creation tool, from Realmac Software, available for Mac OS X.It uses user-selectable templates to define a website's complete appearance...
, iClip, Newsfire
NewsFire
NewsFire is an RSS newsreader developed by David Watanabe for Mac OS X. It supports Atom, RSS, and Podcasting. NewsFire features groups, labels, smart groups, search, and integration with iTunes, Spotlight, and weblog editors...
, TextMate
TextMate
TextMate is a general-purpose GUI text editor for Mac OS X created by Allan Odgaard. Popular with programmers, some notable features include declarative customizations, tabs for open documents, recordable macros, folding sections and snippets, shell integration, and an extensible bundle...
, and the choice of one Pangea Software
Pangea Software
Pangea Software is an Apple computer game company based in Austin, Texas that is owned and operated by Brian Greenstone. The company is a former developer of Macintosh and Apple IIGS games, the former of which they still currently sell, however have recently stated their intention to focus solely...
game (Bugdom 2
Bugdom
Bugdom is a third-person, action, platform computer game developed by Pangea Software for the Macintosh and was included with the iMac DV 2000 and later iBook models, as well as the PC by Gathering of Developers, and later Ideas From the Deep following the acquiring of Gathering via Take-Two...
, Enigmo 2
Enigmo
Enigmo and Enigmo 2 are respectively 2D and 3D arcade-style computer games for PC, Mac OS X, iOS and the PlayStation Minis developed by Pangea Software. They both involve moving certain substances into their proper containers...
, Nanosaur 2
Nanosaur
Nanosaur is a science fiction third person shooter video game developed by Pangea Software and published by Ideas From the Deep for Mac OS and Microsoft Windows...
, Pangea Arcade
Pangea Software
Pangea Software is an Apple computer game company based in Austin, Texas that is owned and operated by Brian Greenstone. The company is a former developer of Macintosh and Apple IIGS games, the former of which they still currently sell, however have recently stated their intention to focus solely...
). Newsfire was added to the bundle after the sale of approximately 4,000 bundles, and TextMate was added after approximately 5,600 bundles were sold. The other applications were available from the beginning of the sale. After the two later applications were unlocked, they became available for no extra charge to the initial purchasers of the bundle.
Another aspect of MacHeist I was that a large portion (US$200,000) of the proceeds were donated to charities. This amount was divided between the following charities: United Way International, Direct Relief International
Direct Relief International
Direct Relief International is a nonprofit organization based in Santa Barbara, California that focuses on improving the quality of life by bringing critically needed medicines and supplies to local healthcare providers worldwide...
, AIDS Research Alliance
AIDS Research Alliance
AIDS Research Alliance of America is a national community-based non-profit medical research institution that seeks to develop a cure for HIV/AIDS, medical strategies to prevent new HIV infections and better treatments for people living with HIV/AIDS...
, Cancer Research and Prevention Foundation, Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, Hunger Project and Save the Children
Save the Children
Save the Children is an internationally active non-governmental organization that enforces children's rights, provides relief and helps support children in developing countries...
.
MacHeist II
MacHeist II began in Nov. 2007 with the creation of a character named Malcor, a computer hacker with a grudge against "Apple fanbois." As a prank, the owners of a number of small Apple-related blogs were contacted by Philip Ryu and asked to participate in the MacHeist II marketing scheme. On Nov. 16, glennwolsey.com was defaced for 24hrs with the image of a rotting apple. The site was hosted by Media Temple http://www.glennwolsey.com/2007/06/09/big-props-to-jason-mcvearry-and-the-media-temple-team/ and runs the WordPressWordPress
WordPress is a free and open source blogging tool and publishing platform powered by PHP and MySQL. It is often customized into a content management system . It has many features including a plug-in architecture and a template system. WordPress is used by over 14.7% of Alexa Internet's "top 1...
blogging engine. Both Media Temple and the site designer were apparently unaware that Glenn Wolsey had given control of his site to a 3rd party. However, during the ensuing investigation, they quickly discovered Malcor was a phony. E-mail requests sent to Media Temple were ignored while those sent to Glenn Wolsey suggested an ongoing investigation http://www.glennwolsey.com/2007/11/19/back-to-regular-operation/.
A few days later, the macapper.com site was defaced and the site owner, Miles Evans, wrote that the hack was due to a WordPress vulnerability http://macapper.com/2007/11/21/screw-you-malcwhore/.
It is worth noting that Glenn and Miles are both involved in the macapper.com site. http://www.glennwolsey.com/2007/02/03/macapper-launches/, http://macapper.com/author/miles-evans/.
Again, the parties involved remained silent and allowed the situation to escalate, both within the Apple and Wordpress developer community.
Finally, applematters.com and iphonematters.com were defaced. In this case, however, their hosting company (EngineHosting) immediately took the site down and began an investigation. When they discovered the prank, they notified both their clients and the public that neither their commercial product (Expression Engine) or their hosting service were vulnerable to this attack http://expressionengine.com/blog/entry/expressionengine_and_enginehosting_sites_were_not_hacked/. Subsequently, Hadley Stern apologized and admitted the hoax http://www.applematters.com/index.php/section/comments/sincere-apologies/.
Over the following 24hrs, the owners of macapper.com, macheist.com and glennwolsey.com posted explanations of their involvement http://macapper.com/2007/11/27/woops-i-did-it-again/, http://macheist.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=5884, http://www.glennwolsey.com/2007/11/28/what-really-happened-sincere-apologies/.
The final bundle contained 14 applications: 1Password, CoverSutra, Cha-Ching, iStopMotion, Tiki Magic Mini Golf, Wingnuts 2, Awaken, TaskPaper, Speed Download 4, AppZapper
AppZapper
AppZapper is an application for Apple's Mac OS X developed by Austin Sarner and Brian Ball.The software is an uninstall utility which extends the method of uninstalling in Mac OS X, which is dragging the application one wants to uninstall to the trash...
, CSSEdit, Snapz Pro X
Snapz Pro X
Snapz Pro X is a utility program for Mac OS X developed by Ambrosia Software. It is designed to record movie-like screenshots of a computer monitor doing various actions, such as a user moving their mouse across the screen, clicking on desktop icons, typing text, et cetera...
, Pixelmator
Pixelmator
Pixelmator is a graphic editor developed for Mac OS X, by Pixelmator Team Ltd built upon a combination of open source and Mac OS X technologies...
with VectorDesigner unlocked after $300,000 had been raised. There was an offer for people who refer a friend to receive LaunchBar
LaunchBar
LaunchBar is a launch application for Mac OS X. It provides access to user's applications and files, by entering short abbreviations of the searched item's name. It uses an adaptive algorithm that 'learns' a user's preferred abbreviations for a particular application...
and NoteBook. In all, $500,000 was raised toward the various charities.
MacHeist III
In early 2009, enciphered ads started to appear on RSS feeds for Mac related blogs. They were encrypted with rot15, similar to rot13ROT13
ROT13 is a simple substitution cipher used in online forums as a means of hiding spoilers, punchlines, puzzle solutions, and offensive materials from the casual glance. ROT13 has been described as the "Usenet equivalent of a magazine printing the answer to a quiz upside down"...
:
Ztte pc tnt dc BprWtxhi iwxh lttz. Hdbtiwxcv’h vdxcv sdlc…
wiie://lll.bprwtxhi.rdb
Decrypted:
Keep an eye on MacHeist this week. Something's going down...
http://www.macheist.com
Macheist III began on Friday, February 6, 2009 with the first nanoMission. On February 13, 2009 the first official Mission began introducing Sophia, a new secret agent played by Lisa Bettany. The member base was divided into four teams to compete.
The MacHeist III bundle's content was revealed during a scheduled live show lasting from 8:00PM EDT to 10:00PM EDT, March 24. Hosted by Veronica Belmont
Veronica Belmont
Veronica Ann Belmont is the co-host of the Revision3 show Tekzilla alongside Patrick Norton, and the former host of the monthly PlayStation 3-based video on demand program Qore. Formerly she was the host for the Mahalo Daily podcast and a producer and associate editor for CNET Networks, Inc...
, Chris Pirillo
Chris Pirillo
Christopher Joseph Pirillo is the founder and maintainer of Lockergnome, which is a network of blogs, web forums, mailing lists, and online communities. He spent two years hosting the TechTV television program Call for Help, where he also hosted the first annual Call-for-Help-a-Thon...
, and Lisa Bettany, the show revealed each app one by one. The initial apps were iSale, Picturesque, SousChef, World of Goo
World of Goo
World of Goo is a physics-based puzzle game by 2D Boy, an independent game developer consisting of Kyle Gabler and Ron Carmel, both former Electronic Arts employees, released for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, iOS, Android and WiiWare...
, Phoneview, LittleSnapper, Acorn, and Kinemac. Big Bang Board Games was also given to the first 25,000 purchasers.
Users who referred friends received pop-pop and the Koingo
Koingo Software
Koingo Software, established in 1994, is a Canadian corporation that designs and distributes software for both Macintosh and Windows. Presently, the business develops a mix of seventeen shareware and freeware applications, all of which are available for the Macintosh, and nine for Windows.With the...
Utility-Package for one and two referrals. The unlockables, in order, were Wiretap Studio (set to unlock at $100,000, and did so 16 hours after the bundle was released).
, BoinxTV (set to unlock at $400,000, and did so the morning of April 5)
, and a mega-unlock, The Hit List, and Espresso (set to unlock together at $500,000, which was achieved a while before the end of the promotion).
Additional "Bonus Applications" Cro-Mag Rally
Cro-Mag Rally
Cro-Mag Rally is a third-person racing/arcade game made by Pangea Software, which takes place in caveman times. It is available for Mac OS Classic, Mac OS X, iOS, and Windows Phone 7 . According to the developer's Twitter account, a new version is set to be released in the Fall of 2011, which will...
and Times were added March 31 and April 4, respectively, to boost sales.
The Bundle concluded April 7 at Midnight with a total of 88,401 copies sold and $842,648 raised for charity.
After the sale closed, one final app, AppShelf, was added along with a downloadable file containing a purchasers license info in an AppShelf plist file. Two days later, MacHeist donated $10,455 to make it an even $850,000.
After that, there were prizes for each team. 1st place (green) got 4 apps, 2nd (orange) got 3, 3rd (blue) got 2, and 4th (purple) got one (iClip).
MacHeist nanoBundle
On November 6, 2009, MacHeist's first nanoBundle was presented on a live stream. The bundle consisted of six applications: ShoveBox, WriteRoom, TwitterrificTwitterrific
Twitterrific is a Mac OS X and iOS client for the social networking site Twitter. The client, created by The Iconfactory, lets users view in real time "tweets" or micro-blog posts on the Twitter website as well as publish their own.-Added value:...
, TinyGrab
TinyGrab
TinyGrab is a simple screenshot sharing tool for both Windows and Mac. The tool allows the user to take a screenshot and automatically upload it to their servers. The URL is passed directly to the user's clipboard allowing them to paste the link in an email, blog post, on Twitter, or any instant...
, Hordes of Orcs, Mariner Write (unlockable when 500,000 users received the bundle). This bundle was available for one week and was free. MacHeist was also offering Virus Barrier for free if the bundle was shared on Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
.
MacHeist nanoBundle II
On March 1, 2010, MacHeist's second nanoBundle was announced via an email to begin sales on March 3, 2010. In the time between the announcement and the sale, MacHeist offered Latenitesoft's Squeeze (Now known as Clusters) as a free download. The bundle consisted of seven applications: MacJournalMacJournal
MacJournal is journaling and blogging software originally developed for OS X. It is published by Mariner Software. MacJournal offers only basic text formatting and limited page layout features. MacJournal's audience includes diarists, bloggers and podcasters....
, RipIt
RipIt
RipIt is a Mac OS X DVD ripper developed by The Little App Factory. It enables users to create a playable copy of the contents of a Video DVD on their hard disk...
, Clips, CoverScout, Flow, Tales of Monkey Island
Tales of Monkey Island
Tales of Monkey Island is a 2009 graphic adventure video game developed by Telltale Games and LucasArts. It is the fifth game in the Monkey Island series, released nearly a decade after the previous installment, Escape from Monkey Island. Developed for Windows and the Wii console, the game was...
(unlockable when 30,000 users received the bundle), and RapidWeaver
RapidWeaver
RapidWeaver is a template-based website creation tool, from Realmac Software, available for Mac OS X.It uses user-selectable templates to define a website's complete appearance...
(unlockable but not announced how many need to purchase). MacHeist also added Tracks, Airbust Extreme and Burning Monkey Solitaire for free if the bundle was shared on Twitter. This bundle was available until March 10, 2010 and was $19.95.
On March, 7, three days before the end of the offer, the number of purchases surpassed 30,000 and Tales of Monkey Island was unlocked. A target of 50,000 purchases was announced for unlocking RapidWeaver. As a teaser, Tweetie
Tweetie
Twitter is a client for Twitter, the social networking website. There is a mobile version that runs on iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, and a desktop version runs on Mac OS X Leopard and Snow Leopard ....
was briefly listed in the bundle . Later, Tweetie disappeared from the list, but its icon appeared half-occluded on MacHeist website. After the number of purchasers surpassed 50,000 and RapidWeaver got unlocked, it was announced that Tweetie would be unlocked at 56,789 bundle sales. The license for Tweetie was valid for Tweetie 2, and included pre-launch access to a beta of the software. On March 9, 2010, the number of bundle sales surpassed 56,789, and Tweetie was unlocked for all purchasers. The offer ended on March 11, 2010, and a total number of 87,854 bundles were sold.
Criticism
MacHeist I was criticized by several members of the Mac community, most notably John GruberJohn Gruber
John Gruber is a writer from the greater Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area of the USA. Gruber received his Bachelor of Science in computer science from Drexel University. He worked for Bare Bones Software from 2000 to 2002 and Joyent from 2005 to 2006...
of the Daring Fireball
Daring Fireball
Daring Fireball is the web site of John Gruber, an Apple enthusiast and writer. Daring Fireball hosts Gruber's opinions in the form of a blog, and also some of Gruber's software...
blog, Paul Kafasis of Rogue Amoeba
Rogue Amoeba
Rogue Amoeba Software, LLC is a Macintosh software company that produces audio software, specializing in applications for audio capture. Rogue Amoeba's best-known products are Audio Hijack and Audio Hijack Pro. The Audio Hijack programs allow for users to capture and record audio from any program...
Software, and Gus Mueller of Flying Meat
Flying Meat
Flying Meat is a Seattle-based American software company that specializes in applications for Mac OS. Flying Meat was founded by Gus Mueller in 2003 and later joined by Kirstin Mueller. Their first application, FlySketch for screen capture and markup, debuted in February 2005 and is currently...
Software, who later participated in The Macheist III Bundle with Acorn. Some independent Mac software developers who chose not to participate in MacHeist felt that the proclamation from the MacHeist organisers that it was "The Week of the Independent Mac Developer" was an inappropriate form of marketing.
While exact royalty payment amounts have not been released to the public, Gruber and others questioned the value of the promotion to the participating developers, citing offers made to developers of around US$5,000 per application, whereas the MacHeist bundle grossed nearly US$800,000. Gruber's estimates indicate that the net profits for the MacHeist team likely far exceeded the total charity donation and the royalties paid to participating developers combined. Additionally, some thought that setting goals to "unlock" NewsFire and TextMate in terms of dollars raised for charity was deceptive and unethical.
However, several of the developers whose applications were featured in MacHeist I, including Wil Shipley
Wil Shipley
William "Wil" Jon Shipley is a Macintosh software developer, best known for co-founding and heading The Omni Group in 1991, where he did consulting work and developed software for the NeXTSTEP operating system, Rhapsody and later Mac OS X...
, author of Delicious Library, defended their decision to participate in the promotion. They cited exposure to new users, the potential for increased upgrade revenue in the future, and other factors for their participation in MacHeist I, despite the seemingly low amount of revenue generated directly from MacHeist.
There has been criticism of MacHeist II, with some customers being charged multiple times for the software bundle despite the website proclaiming that 'the order can not be processed'. In addition to this, the support services provided by John Casasanta and the rest of the MacHeist team has been ridiculed as they initially refused to respond to customer complaints about the problem, or issue refunds for overcharging. As of March 2008, this has largely been resolved.
During Macheist III, much criticism was aimed at the employed marketing techniques, which included encouraging customers to Tweet, through Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
, for additional applications. Some said it was a collective spamming of Twitter users.
Community
One of MacHeist's advantages over its competitors is its active forum community. During missions, members actively chat, post and talk about the presented puzzles and possible methods of approach. The Staff and Directorate (head staff) often participate in discussions. Developers also discuss their applications with the community and usually update their applications based on MacHeist member feedback and bug-reports.Clones
After the initial MacHeist I promotion, several users of the site created imitation sites. Most of these sites proved to be much less successful than the original. However, on 9 July 2007, MacUpdateMacUpdate
MacUpdate is an Apple Macintosh and iPhone software download website, started in the late-1990s. As of summer 2009, it is the 114th fastest growing privately owned company in the USA, according to Inc. Magazine, which lists MacUpdate as the #1 fastest growing company in Michigan, and the 5th...
began a promotion that very closely resembled the MacHeist I bundle sale, in that it sold a bundle of Mac OS X shareware applications that increased in size with a greater number of sales. The MacUpdate bundle sold nearly 2,000 copies in the first two days. MacHeist became an affiliate with this bundle, selling additional applications that MacUpdate did not along with the MacUpdate bundle. The additional apps offered by MacHeist were Exces, browseback, Linkinus and later WriteRoom. Also included was beta access to Pixelmator
Pixelmator
Pixelmator is a graphic editor developed for Mac OS X, by Pixelmator Team Ltd built upon a combination of open source and Mac OS X technologies...
and FlowFTP.