Give 'em he**! We're behind you all the way on that one. (But we've been
there for years and the situation has only continued to deteriorate.)

<aboutfinsoft[at]gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1158076057.741316.183680[at]m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
- quote -

Good points. My job is to give honest assessments of personal finance
software and there is no way that they can schmooze me enough to give
stellar reviews as long as the ads persist and the updated features are
minimal. The ads will forever bug me, but based on your assessment I
doubt they will go away so I have no choice but to live with it for
work purposes.

Shelley

--- Shelley Elmblad
About Financial Software
http://financialsoft.about.com

Dick Watson wrote:
- quote -

It's not rocket science.

They "sell" the application for dirt and let Sam's Club/CircuitCity/etc.
capture half of that. They give away "free" support and "free" quotes and
Yodlee/CashEdge.

Many or maybe even most "users" are just as content stealing their copies.

Developing even the minor/cosmetic updates they call Great New Features
costs real money. Providing support costs real money. Providing quote feeds
and screen scraping services costs real money. Putting up a web site to tell
the world+dog about your Great New Features every fall costs real money.
Serving up "free" trialware costs real money. Schmoozing magazine reviewers
and financial management web site bloggers and newsgroup MVPs costs real
money.

Selling advertising, instead of developing personal financial management
software, is the only rational business model left for them. All the other
stuff is just a necessary cost burden to attract eyes to the ads so the
advertisers will be willing to buy them.

Think of Money like the "content" on MSN (or whatever "portal" site you
choose): just enough of whatever tripe trips whoever's triggers to get them
to come and be exposed to the metered ads. The point's not the tripe. It's
attracting the eyeballs.

<aboutfinsoft[at]gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1158068902.950350.311080[at]e63g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
- quote -

The advertising in Microsoft Money is really getting on my nerves. I
clicked on the Taxes tab in Money 07 the other day, and an ad for
Jessica Alba's new movie appeared in a box on the Taxes page. I click
on items that I think will be planning tools and instead, a browser
pops up with content from the MSN Money website.

I really don't understand why Microsoft would think they need to
generate income through advertising, especially with the unrelated ads
in personal finance software. This bugs me so much that I decided to
blog about it, and I don't usually use my blog to vent frustrations. I
would love to hear opinions posted in my blog post comments at
http://financialsoft.about.com/b/a/257517.htm . Let me know if you
agree, or if you think I'm over reacting.

Have a great day!
Shelley
------------------
Shelley Elmblad
About Financial Software
http://financialsoft.about.com