By the way, people are obviously confusing what you purchase when you pay $1,500 for Gold or $15,000 for the source to the Engine. Those customers who paid that knew that their money wasn't going toward already written source code. It was going towards support and maintenance over time. For example the company who paid $15,000 has it in the contract that TZ will add multi-symbol support. They made it clear they're paying that much to have a major influence in the direction of the development going forward. They were turned off by other platforms used during the earlier days of building the hedge fund because those companies "turned a deaf ear" to their needs in terms of features in spite of their offers of money to pay for them. So they wanted to have a system with a say in how the software development goes. In fact, all the members who joined at Gold level say the same things about past experiences and why they joined TickZOOM. Also, noone ever signed up for Pro or Silver versions--only Gold. So THAT is the reason for the change in the business model. It's because that's what paying members are demanding. They want a member (customer) centric business model rather than a recruiting type business model. This model is common among professional, commercial software like Rational Rose, Oracle, and the like. With those, companies pay upfront fees for at least 5 or 6 figures and then annual maintenance fees. This may be shocking and confusing to individuals and non-professionals since it's so different from all the other retail platforms. So, over time, it may be ineffective to market on ET. That remains to be determined. Again TZ is in a different (not necessarily better) class than other retail type platforms. That's only because TZ's early adopters were all serious professionals who already profit from trading as well as one institution. TZ business model may continue to change based on votes by current paying members. For that reason, they are and will continue to be happy. Sincerely, Wayne
Folks are free to see for themselves my contributions to your first formative threads. It became apparent early on that your primary objective was revenue not community building and I told you as much, that open source was probably not the best route for you to take given your goals. Like byteme, I don't have a problem with someone doing something for personal gain. What I do have a problem with is someone continuing to misrepresent themselves by abusing the term "open source" for their personal gain. The term "open source" is a widely adopted phrase that refers to something that is much more than a method of access to and distribution of source code. It is an approach to the design and development of software that invites public involvement with no discrimination or strings attached. Just because the OSI was unable to trademark due to it failing the legal test for non-specificity does not invalidate it's meaning. To say that TickZOOM is partly open source is as nonsensical as a girl saying she's partly pregnant. The fact that you were made aware of this months ago, yet still use it is nothing more than the intent to mislead others. You have two choices, make your project open source as defined by the community or pick a new term for your use that accurately describes your closed, fee-based and privileged access project. Until then you can be assured that I will be here to make these facts known in any conversation you start or join here on ET. Right. Like I'm the one who's spending hours off-line to draft a two message, long-winded diatribe.
guys you may want to look at http://www.marketcetera.com/site/ They seem to be having a better understanding about what open source means. I just came across it and therefore cannot comment further. Just an idea. I also found Right Edge very interesting although its still in its infancy.
The words "Open Source" seem to set off religious wars.. I saw comments in the Opentick forums from upset people because it wasn't Open Source... Get over it, yeah you with the magical thinking going on.. I'm lookin' at you for a damn good reason..... you need to go get tested or something and don't waste my time between now and then, ok?
Thanks. Someone contacted me today who gave some good advice. He points out, accurately, that I'm clearly not a marketing or business development expert. We have meetings scheduled around setting up an arrangement where I only focus on the code and managing developers and customer service which are my areas of expertise and let others handle the marketing and business development. That's fine by me. We just have to work out the details. For now, the plan is still to have another release to a limited number of users in a week or two. My guess is that the consultants will advise dropping the term "open source" while keeping the source open to paying members. That's also fine with me. Wayne
Wayne, Your plan to focus on the product development and to leave marketing to someone else sounds like a good idea all things considered. I hope that TickZoom lives up to its expectations and succeeds. Best of luck, Lou
Your comments are kind, Lou. Thanks. It appears you accept my apology for the situation. For which I'm also grateful. FYI, the consultants have already today worked out the target market for people who most need TickZOOM. It's most interesting that the business consultant contacted me because he's running a small fund and needs TickZOOM himself but has led into more. He has the advantage of having been referred by current paying member so he knows it's no scam. But he found the ET threads like this one and others about TZ and said my marketing was "poor". LOL Is that the understatement of the year, or what? Anyway, I'm not offended. I don't much care about the marketing except that I wish to avoid offending people or giving any appearance of dishonesty. Already enough members joined that I now work full time on TZ as of this week. And more are already waiting for the chance to apply when we announce that in a week or two. Would anyone like to know the target market? The target market is: Traders who already use other platforms (TS in particular or Trading Blox) who are sophisticated enough to know that they need portfolio trading and also realize that full automation is critical to make that a reality. In general, that will mean traders who actually found a working strategy already and are making money from trading but wish to automate so as to trade multiple strategies on a single market and also multiple markets simultaneously. At the same time they need to balance the capital among strategies in the portfolio. TZ does all that except the loading and synchronization of ticks from multiple symbols which is in progress now and will complete in a week or two. In the mean time, the expert will plan with me how to roll out and promote the next opening for people get access to the demo and videos. Hopefully, others more skilled than myself will handle that entirely. One fundamental problem with TickZOOM marketing is that it's like giving a machine gun to a competitor who only had a handgun previously. That's because it allows easily trading many more markets at the same time. If you (the reader) were already a paying member of TickZOOM, ask yourself, "How many of your trading competitors do you want to gain access to a machine gun to trade against you with"? Wouldn't you prefer to be the only one of few who have a machine gun to trade against all the competitors with only handguns? So you see, we must severely restrict the number of new members to protect the already paying members' competitive edge. As you can see, this is a very unique challenge in marketing and totally different than any of the retail type platforms. Sincerely, Wayne
Just curious.. When you say 11.000.000 ticks in 40 seconds... What disks and cpu is this based on? Regards
LOL right... Also, how much disk space needs a million ticks (average) ? How is the data organized - single files or a complete database (backup issues ?)
Whats up with you? In my head.... 11.000.000 would fill about 450-500mb. Regarding single files or backup, What is the purpose of this question?