Friday Finds- How Free Can it Be?

Written on 6:36 PM by B

When we first embarked on this journey, one of our immediate concerns was a lack of resources. Being the typical college student, my first instinct was to see what we could get for free. That issue is still one we are examining because we want to make the best use of the resources we do have. Right now our most valuable resources are relationships and creativity. We have searched the internet to find websites that have a similar design and/or platform to the one we are looking to create for young professionals. Should it have a social networking component? Should it have some sort of dictionary database? Should it be free? These are all questions that we have asked ourselves and others. Josh connected with Jeff Shuey, Alliance Manager – Microsoft and Tech (ECM & BPM), who suggested that we could have a comprehensive website using only open source software. However I'm not sure that open source software is completely free, especially if you need help with something. I was also inspired by Markus Frind, founder of the free dating site Plenty of Fish. He learned how to build a website from Microsoft’s ASP.net and now makes 10 thousand dollars a day running a website that basically runs itself.

Venture capital seems to be a viable option, but I'm not sure how much control we would have to give up to do that and I also like the challenge of funding it ourselves. We also asked Jeff if we should learn to build the website ourselves or pay an expert to do it. He gave the analogy that if your teeth hurt you don't go to Home Depot to buy tools to fix it, you go to the expert. That kind of advice brings us back to UrbanDictionary.com, who has a database of words provided by editors and also has free membership feature. They also promote the people who actually built the website and its features. MediaBistro is also a site that we may look at to get ideas for features. I like the color contrast of the site, which we recently found out was very important (myspace and facebook are blue for a reason). The social components of the website are intriguing, but it all goes back to cost and how technology savvy we need to become to make this thing happen. Ramon Ray Editor of smallbiztechnology.com wrote on the advantages and disadvantages of free software on OpenForum blog. His notes of importance:

• Work with a technology consultant to understand the pros and benefits of each offering. If you are comparing the free product (such as Unison Technologies) to a fee based product such as Microsoft Exchange you need to first ensure the free product can meet your needs now and in the future and that at the minimum it has no (or few) bugs, a good interface and the features you need — compare all of this to the fee based product.

• Once you feel that it can meet your needs, you need to focus on support options. How will you get support for the product? Can your local consultant help? Do you need to pay support fees to the vendor providing the free product or service? Can you support the product with your own internal IT staff?

• Another thing to consider is does the product connect well with other applications you use. Sometimes you have a custom application or maybe an off-the-shelf application like Intuit QuickBooks or a sales force application. If you have a free product can it integrate with popular business applications that you or your partners are already using.

If you plan on growing a business that will last, building your business on free technology is something you should think carefully about, before doing. While free software is great for some users, such as productivity tools for your computer, it might not be the best thing to run your customers’ payroll on.

So how free can it be?

What is one magic tool you would want to use to help you communicate in the corporate environment more effectively?

-B