IFBIN: Good, bad or ugly?
Thursday, 10 November 2005Recently there has been some criticism of the IFBIN service for ’spamming’ the MXNA Feed Aggregator with what is essentially advertisements for their commercial service. I have to say that I agree on this point. The spamming is just about bearable while it’s just one company - simply avoid clicking on any IFBIN links if it’s not for their ‘Friday Freebie’ example unless you already subscribe. However, if more companies take this approach to marketting their services then our precious feed aggregators could become as spam-infested as usenet, a situation that benefits nobody.
That issue aside, I can’t help but wonder if IFBIN is actually good for the Flash/Flex community. One the one hand, we have a ready supply of high quality examples from some of the leading lights in our industry. The website says that all the examples go through a quality controll process, adhere to common coding standards and come complete with comments and documentation. This is much higher quality stuff than was around when I first started learning Flash and would have made the process somewhat less painfull.
On the other hand, the $500 per year subscription for the complete service is something that I wouldn’t have been able to afford back then. Maybe a developer struggling to learn Flash or Flex isn’t the target for this service, but I can tell you that I learned a lot from real-world examples that developers posted onto sites like FlashKit and were-here.com. It’s inevitable that some of the example code the authors would have posted on their blogs for all the world to learn from are instead going to be available only to IFBIN subscribers, and that makes our community a little less welcoming to new members. Having said that, there are now more Flash and Flex blogs than ever, so maybe others will step in to fill the void.
Of course, developers posting examples on IFBIN isn’t all that different from developers deciding to commit their hard-earned knowledge to a book instead of posting it all on their blog. Looking at it that way, maybe the site is more like a constantly updated book that the developers get paid to contribute to. However, you can go out and buy one high-quality book per month for the cost of this service - by the same authors, even - and you’d probably learn just as much.
At the end of the day it’s all about choice and your personal learning habits. Not good, bad or ugly. Just different.
Hi, Just to point out, it's not $500 a month,
anon | Thursday, 10 November 2005 | 10:47 pmHi, Just to point out, it’s not $500 a month, it’s $250 a year for Flash by Example, the same for Flex by Example; that’s $20 a month :). So if you subscribe and ask for a problem to be solved for something you are working on, you can then have that solved, download the source and have already made back your $250 investment in no time at all, the rest of the year is a bonus
To be fair, I'm pretty sure that's $500 a *year*.
Steve Ray | Thursday, 10 November 2005 | 10:49 pmTo be fair, I’m pretty sure that’s $500 a *year*. From what I read in some responses yesterday, it does sound like a) the developers know their stuff, and b) they’re pretty committed to providing quality content on a consistent basis. I still dislike the posts which lead to a subscribe button. I personally think they should change that.
anon & Steve: Thanks! That'll teach me for rewriting a
Steve | Thursday, 10 November 2005 | 10:58 pmanon & Steve: Thanks! That’ll teach me for rewriting a sentence 15 times late at night - it was just a typo and has now been fixed.
Ok cool, but I don't think you can get a
anon | Thursday, 10 November 2005 | 11:35 pmOk cool, but I don’t think you can get a high-quality book for $20 a month
Surely the powers that be at MM make the ifnal
Pete | Thursday, 10 November 2005 | 11:35 pmSurely the powers that be at MM make the ifnal decision on what oges into the agregator ? If it gets sawmped with overly commercial drivel then they can just turn it off.
Personaly I dont thave that much of an issue with the IFBIN stuff - what narks me more is the DEVMX stuff - no theres a rip off. They charge between $2 and $5 for re-prints of stuff you can find for free elase where. I have read a couple of their articles are they realy arent worththe papaer they are printed on.
Still got a typo. It's $250 a year for each
Keith Peters | Friday, 11 November 2005 | 1:25 amStill got a typo. It’s $250 a year for each of Flash by Example and Flex by Example. If you go to the purchase section of the site, it does say $500, but that has one of each selected - Flash and Flex.
the bottom line is that high quality education is not
coochiemongolo | Friday, 11 November 2005 | 4:07 amthe bottom line is that high quality education is not free. You can learn all this stuff for free, or the price of internet connectivity or whatever, but you will waste a lot of time, and not learn as well. dang, stop hatin. twinkle twinkle baby!
I'm mentioning the service as a whole, and comparing it
Steve | Friday, 11 November 2005 | 7:37 amI’m mentioning the service as a whole, and comparing it to buying books on both subjects, so $500 per year is the right figure to quote. I’ve amended the text to make it clear that I’m talking about the whole service.
The article above is, I think, a balanced view on the IFBIN service. The conclusion is that some will benefit from it while others will be better off buying books with the money instead, depending on their personal learning habits.
Steve, I have yet to see a book that adds chapters
Theodore Patrick | Friday, 11 November 2005 | 2:19 pmSteve,
I have yet to see a book that adds chapters as you read it or need them. Flash By Example has 225 high quality examples (Soon to be 300+) that all contain consistant documentation and code formatting. All examples undergo quality control and are published in a format allowing for easy exploration of the code. Flex By Example is growing quickly as we are ramping up development. We will be at 100 examples within a months time.
IFBIN is different. We are 100% focused on high quality examples. We feel they are a very useful and consise form for learning and reuse. If you can see something working, you are very likly to reuse the concepts in your own work. It is impossible to see code executing within a book format, plus you have to retype the code a majority of the time and are exposed to all sorts of human error. IFBIN examples just work. It’s simple and easy once you try it.
Sorry that our blog publishing is bothersome to you. We only blog about examples using Flex and Flash and we do actually show the examples working. You will never see us make a OT blog post at IFBIN.
I really appreciate your article, it gives us a chance to clear up some misconceptions about the products. On the price $500 is for 2 products. Most people are either in the Flash or Flex camp so there is not allot of overlap in our customers.
Cheers,
Theodore Patrick
IFBIN Founder and CEO
Ted, Thanks for the feedback. While a book doesn't add chapters
Steve | Friday, 11 November 2005 | 2:46 pmTed,
Thanks for the feedback. While a book doesn’t add chapters as you read it, you could buy a new one every month for the cost of the full IFBIN subscription. They may not be interactive, but that’s what I was getting at when I said that it’s a matter of personal choice. Some people learn better interactively or by studying code examples, while others prefer reading lots of theory and going it alone.
With regards to the MXNA ’spamming’, it doesn’t bother me too much whilst it’s just one company doing it. However, you must admit that if more companies used MXNA to advertise their commercial service then it would degrade the experience for the rest of us. I guess we have to rely on Macromedia keeping an eye on their aggregator feeds. If this is okay with them then I guess the rest of us have no complaint.
I can see that IFBIN will benefit some members of the community, so I wish you all the best with it! Who knows, I may even end up subscribing when I start learning Flex properly.
I agree with Steve, IFBIN does look like a useful
joe | Monday, 15 May 2006 | 2:49 amI agree with Steve, IFBIN does look like a useful service. Hell, I might subscribe to it down the road. Sure it’s expensive, but if your stuff is as good as you say it is, then maybe it’s worth it. Personally what would entice people like me who are a little gun shy to plunk down half a G on a yearly subscription without being sure if they’ll get their money’s worth is to offer a trial subscription for 30 days, maybe limit the number of downloads during the trial. As a suggestion. I really think you guys are on to something, but your marketing model needs improvement.
Speaking of which, as a developer who relies heavily on the MXNA aggregator, I gotta say, stop spamming the aggregator guys. It is really really annoying.
You can’t honestly tell me that this post which appeared isn’t OT? : http://www.ifbin.com/news/2005/10/new-payment-options-for-ifbin.html
And don’t tell me about something on MXNA unless you’re showing all the goods. Put in your free fridays, whatever, great. Maybe regig your site to make paid content a little more accessible & searchable so at least people know what you have on the site to entice them to sign up. But keep the paid stuff out of the aggregator, it’s polluting the open source nature of dev blogging content and hurting the community, IMHO.
Right now I’ve decided to boycott you guys until the spamming stops. Then maybe I’ll think of signing up.