Is MacZOT Running Out of Ideas?

When MacZOT first launched earlier this year everyone was excited. Cheap and nice Mac software. However, it seems that recently MacZOT has run out of ideas. Over the summer they featured a number of “MyzteryZOTs”, but they seemed to always have apps that are close to useless. (The only good app I got out of a MyzteryZOT was Soulver, a nice calculator app.) Needless to say, they need to get the lastest and greatest apps up there for cheap, because I have removed them from my bookmarks bar. A few days ago they had a “ShoeZOT”. I’m sorry, but what the hell. If they need to resort to metaphors for shoes to sell products, they really need to rethink what they’re doing. For example, today they featured Quinn. If you don’t know, Quinn is a free Tetris-like app. Posting a free app on a site thats supposed to sell apps for cheap its pretty pointless. Get some good apps up, MacZOT. And for crying out loud, don’t post AppZapper again. I have about 3 licenses now.







8 Responses to “Is MacZOT Running Out of Ideas?”

The problem isn’t that they’re running out of idea, but rather that they have a limited pool of apps to pull from. There are only so many, say, sub $50 Mac applications out there and out of those the guys at MacZOT have to first make a deal with the developers of any given app to provide it at the discounted rate.

That they often feature apps of questionable use or ones that have already made an appearance really isn’t that disturbing a trend. Another similar natured site, Woot (woot.com), does the same thing with a plethora of different products.

Oh and the ShoeZOT had nothing to do with shoes.

MacZOT is opt-in, so it’s up to you to participate. If you don’t want to then you don’t have to, but it is what it is. Nothing more, nothing less.

Jesse added these pithy words on Oct 04 06 at 11:40 pm

MacZot:

1) Runs off contributions (definately not exclusively), so the more people offer, the more they’ll hopefully run.

2) cant cater to the old school users as much (i just got a mac, and cant wait until they put some older apps that they already aired, like soluver up again)

3) Quinn is a sick game, id donate if i werent a poor college student

4) the extensions of the mystery things are a little of a pain, the shoe thing, just do one one day, another, another day.

i love zot, i used to woot and midnight box, but zot is much cheaper.

n

nate added these pithy words on Oct 05 06 at 1:50 am

Well, MacZot just got some competition and MacUpdate.com has a better negotiation position then MacZot. MacUpdate.com already have some sort of contact with all developers and offer a better deal then MacZot can offer. MacUpdate.com also only do deals with devs whos apps has a high rating, and by that better apps.

Apple also offer a great deal for developers too.
http://developer.apple.com/business/hotdeals.html

So MacZot can only chose the low-rated apps, and to build value they need to sell them as bundle of some sort. And that’s hard.

Kaktus added these pithy words on Oct 05 06 at 8:43 am

I’m not sure you can knock a site built off one idea for “running out of ideas.” In fact, if anything, ZOT’s had a weakness for having too many ideas and too little follow-through.

I’m pleased with them, though. MysteryZots have gotten me KIT, rooSwitch, CastLife, Data Guardian, MailTemplate and Pzizz (plus some junk), which isn’t bad for $40 or so; and non-Mysteries have gotten me perfectly decent prices on several other applications. They’re a young site, they’re getting better, and you seem impatient :-)

They’ve featured freeware before. I think they consider that part of their reason to exist is to spread the word about Mac apps, not just sell copies.

Dan Ridley added these pithy words on Oct 05 06 at 12:09 pm

We just got spoiled by all the great software MacZOT already had.

Just recently I bought MemoryMiner, 1Passwd, and EasyBatchPhoto.

I do not think you are going to have a hit every other day but even once a month makes me a happy zotter.

Steven added these pithy words on Oct 05 06 at 4:04 pm

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EveryDigg » Blog Archive » Is MacZOT Running Out of Ideas? added these pithy words on Oct 06 06 at 8:58 am

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Is MacZOT Running Out of Ideas? | Fit Living Guide added these pithy words on Mar 10 08 at 9:11 pm

hmm interesting site. I like the way you react to my useful laboratory Wanna joke?) Why do Vampire have to brush their teeth? Because they have Bat-Breath.

DoupBlopump added these pithy words on Oct 26 08 at 10:33 am

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