Jun 12 2008
Fireball dares promote MacHeist after fierce criticism. Bundle sweetened!
In an attempt to save the sadly flopping MacHeist Retail Bundle promotion, the heisters have reinvented it by added few awesome new items to the list.
If you were watching the MacRumorsLive coverage of the WWDC keynote on Monday, you may have noticed the MacHeist banner. I did. And when I clicked it I found that Vector Designer (normally USD$69.95), TextExpander (normally USD$29.95)
and Sound Studio (normally USD$79.99) had been added to the MacHeist bundle. Also, if you happened to have clicked that banner and purchased on Monday, you also would have received VoodooPad (USD$29.95) as a thank you for being a MacRumorsLive reader.
Why am I telling you this after the deal has expired? Because the deal has been re-offered in a way that I don’t quite get: now it’s being offered to readers of Daring Fireball.
Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything against Daring Fireball or its readers. It’s a smart blog and its readers show their smarts by reading it. But here’s where I’m stumped and maybe you can help me out with this. Daring Fireball has historically criticized MacHeist and scrutinized the promotion by published its earnings scorecard. These stories raised a stink that caught the attention of Slashdot and started a bit of an anti-MacHeist blog buzz. (important note: Gus Mueller, the author of the article I just linked is also the developer behind Voodoo Pad, the application being offered by MacHeist as a thank you to Daring Fireball readers)
Then, earlier this year, like all was well and good, Daring Fireball took MacHeist on as a sponsor and took a little bit of heat for it. That’s fine: a post explained that advertisements aren’t endorsements. Bills need to be paid. Understood. I don’t agree, but I understand.
But now Daring Fireball is actually part of the action. There is a specific MacHeist page for Daring Fireball readers and Daring Fireball’s own post about MacHeist mentions how its readers can get the extra app. I personally think this crosses the line into endorsement. What do you think?
Did I miss something? I have always liked both Daring Fireball and MacHeist, so I’m happy to see them working together. I just wonder how they went from bitter enemies to bosom buddies so abruptly.
Anyway, if you already bought the MacHeist Retail Bundle, you should go avail yourself of the new apps. And if you haven’t, you might want to look over the new expanded selection of software and see if the miniscule USD$49 price tag is worth it for the apps you actually anticipate using. The new bundle is on sale until 2PM EDT on June 24th, 2008.
Note: