CogBlog

Coghead Announces the Gallery

by Sarah Franklin

Today the Coghead Gallery is officially open for business.  I mean this in a very literal sense as the Gallery serves as an open-market for our partners to set up shop and sell their applications.  The Gallery was designed during the charter phase of our partner program by working closely our initial 30 partners.  From their input, we designed the Gallery to support both open and protected definitions. 

• The Open Definition model allows any application creator to publish applications that anyone can freely modify, distribute, and use. This model harnesses the power of community and accelerates innovation, allowing users to collaborate to improve the applications.
• The Protected Definition model allows Coghead partners to create applications that they sell to customers. This model allows Coghead partners to leverage their unique domain expertise to create and monetize applications.

The Coghead Gallery ultimately allows a broad class of developers to become SaaS providers for long-tail applications without a significant capital investment.  For example, Delivered Innovation is offering their "Marketing Lucidity Lead Model" application to B2B marketeers.  The EffectiveIT Group is offering their "IT Asset Management" application to SMB IT professionals.  These are just a few of many examples of how the Coghead partner community is revolutionizing the software market one app at a time.

If you are interested in making money with Coghead, join the partner program and then submit your applications. 

Gallery Coverage

On April 15th, Coghead introduced the Gallery, a new, disruptive model for marketing, distributing, and selling web-based applications. The Gallery is an open-market exchange that gives application publishers a way to compete in a global marketplace without investing millions in technology and business infrastructure. The Coghead community now numbers more than 35,000 registered users, and Coghead is among the five percent most highly-trafficked websites, so application publishers can interact with a large and growing community.

A member and partner of the Coghead community, Govind Davis, CEO of MCF Technology Solutions has been an active publisher to the Gallery and contributed a variety of premium applications available to install and start using today, including a Quote Management Tool & Global Purchase Order application.

Govind Davis comments, "The Gallery is something that was really central to our desire to work with Coghead" Davis said. "We've been working on some projects over the last couple months specifically in anticipation of the Gallery launch."

As one of Coghead's Early Adopters, Christopher Shockey with Hekademia Consulting understands that reaching out to prospective students takes more than brochures left on tables. It takes the functionality of a CRM, but configured for the outreach and engagement process of the academic institution. Christopher has built a Student Recruitment Manager application so you can start recruiting for next term in a more efficient and cost effective manner.

Christopher Shockey comments, "Coghead has a sophisticated development platform that enables me to create custom, online applications, and the new Gallery gives me the marketing and subscription-management resources I need to run a successful SaaS business."

The media coverage of the Gallery was strong across several important technology websites, including CNET, Computerworld and eWeek Channel Insider. In general the theme of the articles was how the Coghead Gallery is part of a larger trend towards platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and bringing on-demand technology to suit specific business needs.

 

"Businesses looking to dip a toe into the world of business applications now have a new pool to swim in"

                                                                         Lauren McKay, Destination CRM

"It makes sense to extend such an open offering amongst Coghead users, and helps spur innovation and productivity across the board."

                                                                                      Kristen Nicole, Mashable 

 

Below is a partial list of the coverage from the Gallery announcement:

·       Destination CRM, Coghead Opens its Gallery Doors By Lauren McKay

·       Computerworld, Coghead launches exchange for developers to sell their apps By Heather Havenstein

·       eWEEK Channel Insider, Coghead Launches Application Gallery By Sharon Linsenbach,

·       Mashable, Coghead Gallery is a Marketplace to Sell Applications By Kristen Nicole

·       SDTimes, Coghead creates online exchange for publishing applications By Robert Mullins

·       ZDNet, Coghead Gallery signals new new opportunities for developers By Dennis Howlett

·       CNET, Battle of developer ecosystems heads for the cloud By Martin LaMonica

 

Read more coverage and buzz about the Coghead Gallery in our News section.

Check out the applications in the Gallery.

Cogheads Gather in San Francisco for Web 2.0 Expo

The Web 2.0 Expo last week in San Francisco was a great success for Coghead. Our booth shined even in the distance, as many flocked to the many Cogheads wearing orange t-shirts. The Coghead booth was bustling with customers, partners, and members of the press. There were times when you had to wait and take a number to see a demo. Crowds swarmed to watch and listen to our partner presentations on the big screen, but most importantly to win a t-shirt. By Thursday afternoon, the beer keg was flowing and orange t-shirts were in high demand.

Check out the live coverage short video clip of the Coghead Booth, courtesy of Garrett Godwin with News Blaze.

Thank you to everyone who stopped by the Coghead booth to talk with us and make this show so successful.

 

 

 

Branding & Buttons - Cool Customization Features

by Sarah Franklin

We have recently delivered features that allow custom buttons on forms and some basic branding of applications.  Custom buttons have been requested from many of you, and I recommend that you check them out.  The feature allows you to place a button on a form and then connect it to an action. You can connect the button to the standard actions (save, delete, etc.) or you can connect your button to any custom action you created.  I immediately added it into my project management application to display a button to send an email to the project team.  I was surprised how much more productive I am using the application from the addition of one little button! 

Basic branding has also been a popular request.  Now, you can upload a logo for your application that will display in the upper right of the application.  This feature is really cool for partners who develop apps that they want to sell, and incorporate their own branding.  Also, it is great for companies that just want to show their own logo to their employees.  As a side note -- you can also set a default application in an account, and directly reference your application via a url.  Very cool for funneling people directly into your app. 

Read up on the release notes for even more new features -- and let me know if the custom buttons and branding work for you.

Reporting & Coghead

by Greg Olsen

Ever since there have been database applications they have served two roles:

• a transaction processing system: an operational system of record that manages a central information repository and that controls additions, deletions, and modifications to the repository.
• a system for reporting and analysis: a system used to examine generated data to help people understand what it means.

Sometimes these two roles overlap - e.g. simply looking at a list of sales orders sorted by date or value provides useful analytical information regarding sales activity.  Often, however, reporting and analysis needs are very different from transaction processing needs, and require separate capabilities.  The whole point of a transaction processing system is to be always 'up to date' and to support read, write, and delete access to the information.  For reporting and analysis we look at information with respect to a particular point in time or period of time, focus only on read access to the information, and often need to look at very large volumes of data all at once.

Improving and expanding the reporting and analysis capabilities of the Coghead service is a key area of focus for us over the next several months. 

Here is how people are currently using Coghead to meet their reporting and analysis needs:

• use the native form/view/collection features:  by using calculated and aggregate fields, collection linking, and customized actions people are able to merge many basic data analysis needs directly into the transactional systems they are building.  There are limits to this approach, however, as performance optimization for operational needs and reporting & analysis needs are typically at odds.
• extract data from Coghead into a desktop application:  people use the Excel and Word addins to extract data from their Coghead accounts and then use those products to display, print, or analyze the data.
• extract data from Coghead into a server-based 'business intelligence' system:  some Coghead users already use high-powered business intelligence products from vendors like Cognos or Business Objects and extract data from Coghead for use in those products.

Here is what we're planning to release in the very short term (4 to 8 weeks):

• an improved 'print from Coghead' capability: We are adding the ability to upload customized templates to Collections, and then to print reports directly from the browser.
• an improved external API:  Release of our API and the documentation will make it much easier for people to extract information from Coghead for use in various reporting solutions.

Here is what is going to start arriving in the next 2 to 4 months:

• improved query flexibility:  e.g. better ability to group and organize results.
• analysis-optimized Collections:  the ability to create separate collections specifically optimized for analysis & reporting needs
• expanded set of reporting-oriented widgets: this includes graphs and charts and other data visualization oriented widgets.
• better integration to 3rd party business intelligence products: we will be adding features to make it easier to integrate to on-premise BI products and to some of the BI services that have recently come on the market.

In summary, improving the native reporting and analysis capabilities of the Coghead platform is a very high priority on our roadmap, and many new capabilities will be arriving soon.  The general category of 'reporting and analysis' capabilities, however, is extremely large and we need your continued feedback to help us understand which features are most important to you.

Introducing Pay-As-You-Go Pricing

by Sarah Franklin

Today Coghead announced new pricing plans for do-it-yourself application developers.  The key attributes of the pricing announcement are:

• All basic accounts are free
• Premium features such as additional users, branding, and storage can be added at any time on a "Pay -As-You-Go" basis
• Bundles and volume discounts are available

The new pricing structure is designed to facilitate development of applications, and require payment when the application is deployed to other users.  In addition, the pay-as-you go model allows you to customize your plan, and only pay more as you receive more collaborative value.  We are very excited about this new pricing plan, and have already received a lot of positive feedback on the structure -- especially the $15 entry point.  Does this new pricing work for you?

Vote for Coghead in the Webware 100

by Sarah Franklin

Two years in a row, Coghead is honored to be nominated for the Webware 100 awards.  This year, the awards are divided up into some great categories -- and Coghead made the "Productivity" list.  Voting starts today, and continues until noon on March 31.  Winners will be announced on April 21st -- just in time for the Web 20 Expo.

        Cast your vote here >>>

So thanks again to our community for the nomination, and for the continued support.  Coghead wouldn't be here without you.

Employee Spotlight: Greg Olsen

by Steve Smith

As you know, Coghead 2.0 was released in January following a massive engineering project that included a move to Amazon.com's AWS hosting, and a complete re-implementation of our User Interface in Adobe Flex.  Greg Olsen, Coghead's CTO has been busy writing about the motivation for these changes, both on the CogBlog, and as a guest author on GigaOm. 

Our Spotlight reporter, Steve Smith, Marketing Maven, recently pulled Greg away from his Macbook to gain some insights into how he views the impact of Coghead 2.0.

Steve: Can you briefly describe your role at Coghead? (compared to the typical CTO maybe?)

Greg: My focus at Coghead is on product and technology strategy.  I'm basically trying to help us answer two questions that get asked and answered over and over again: "what does our product need to do?" and "what technologies do we employ to achieve our product goals?" I also spend a portion of my time helping evangelize about Coghead and service-based software in general.

Customer Spotlight: Christopher Shockey

by Steve Smith

As part of our customer interview series, Steve Smith, our resident Marketing guru recently sat down with Christopher Shockey from Hekademia to discuss the new Coghead 2.0.  Chris is an elite Coghead Partner, and has developed a specialty niche in the higher education space.  You can read more about Chris' company here.

Steve: To begin, can you update us on your business?  Also, briefly describe one of your current customer projects (or any new business you are going after)? 

Chris: Our business is helping educators innovate.  We build the web applications that college I.T. can't or won't build for their faculty and administration.  We focus on the innovative programs that aren't yet big enough to demand limited IT development.  They are usually the ones that need the applications the most.

Greg on GigaOm

Check out Greg's article "How Not to End Up as an Anachronism" on GigaOm.  A great read on SaaS infrastructure - particularly as it relates to Amazon's EC2 and S3.  Enjoy!

Coghead RIA App of the Day

We pointed out the extensive media coverage from the news heavy weights of the Coghead 2.0 launch, but we didn't want to leave out some of the other reviews.  We appreciate everyones attention and opinions -- and even awards!  Thanks to Anand Vardhan for their "RIA App of the Day" award.  Check the blog out -- especially if you are interested in topics on Flash, Flex and AIR.