Walt Stoneburner – Page 10

Why no average models?

New models sometimes raise the point that there aren’t that many ‘average’ models that show up in media, catalogs, and pin-ups. Are average people skipped over? Is the genetic bias a wider gap than it ought to be? And why do there seem to be so few casting calls to the average person waiting to be discovered?

The very question itself, “Why no average models?” raises an interesting conflict that marketing has been struggling with for a long time. Because an “average” person does, indeed, show how a given product would look on an average person, giving a truer representation.

However, the problem is that often doesn’t look very flattering — and people, in large sample groups, tend to go for superficial looks rather than actual reality. As such, marketing tends to go for those images which convey, whether true or not, that purchasing their product will raise your self esteem in the direction of the presented ideal. That’s often good enough. It doesn’t have to actually deliver perfection.

When it comes to looking at people for the sake of looking at people, which is more attractive: Brad Pitt or the average beer-gut guy you find the barbershop who thinks styled hair is pointless? The eye clearly has a higher level of attraction to one over the other. Biologically, we can even measure it, even if psychologically we pretend to hide it. Playing to that hard-wired response sells products.

So, this might explain why the “average” look hasn’t been splashed all over the media; everything is about optimizing profits, not representing reality.

Now this is something surprising that one might find very comforting. The people I’ve selected to show in my online profiles are actually are not models and have no prior modeling experience. I do this deliberately because what my studio focuses on is taking average people, revealing their extra hidden beauty, and capturing that — I want to be able to show my clients that they too, no matter how average looking they think they are, can look that good. And, if you’re going to make a bold claim like that, one better have the portfolio to back it up. If I just simply showed all my experienced model/actress shots, people think “well, yea, she’s a professional and I’m not that pretty” and I’ve lost a potential client. Customers rarely seem to be looking for how technically competent one’s photography skills are, but rather how good you can make them look.

Here’s where things get slightly obscured. If an “average” person is photographed to look like an above-average person, are they no longer considered average?

An employee at Kinko’s shared this astounding observation to me: numerous women customers bring in portfolios to have various images re-produced en masse. He’d look at the jaw-dropping photos and ask, “Who’s this?” only to be more surprised when the answer was “That’s me!” He reports the his customers almost always, without the added magic of the camera, were not hot but actually less attractive than the average woman. Sans makeup and pushup, quite a number of models are plain ordinary.

In fact, we know this to be true; browse any celebrity-stalker web site where someone has caught a celebrity when their publicist hasn’t been able to filter the image from public consumption. Such images range from unflattering to just someone you’d pass by in a crowd.

You have to compare your average self with their average self, or your modeling headshot to their modeling headshot. If you compare apples to oranges, it’s not just an unfair disadvantage, but an unrealistic one. Many people are far more attractive than they give themselves credit for. Does the makeup really make you that much prettier, or is it that your belief that it does actually turn on your self-confidence?

That said, I’ll point out that an experienced model is a joy to work with; it requires far less work on part of the photographer and one typically get a high quality product in far less shoot time.

I suspect it’s assumed that an experienced model (or her agent) will know where to go find placement casting calls, and thereby save the casting director a lot of time by skipping inexperienced labor. Running a photo shoot is very expensive, and if you can cut this time down, you save money.

This is different from casting calls which try to discover someone new; those usually happen in areas of high density to increase the odds, such as major cities.

Escorts at Photo Shoots

There’s a common concern often expressed by models: they prefer female photographers to male ones. While personal safety is expressed as the rationalization, almost always the sentiment is coupled with a side note about photographers not wanting escorts present.

It may surprise you that photographers don’t care if you bring an escort. Just share this with the escort first…

Several observations about this line of thinking: One, if you’re uncomfortable with a photographer, you shouldn’t be doing a shoot — period. Two, you should really be bringing an escort to your female photographers anyhow, especially if you go on location; what makes you think she isn’t the ‘front’ and there isn’t a load of thugs hiding in the back room. Three, you should always do your homework, talk with with references, and make sure the photographer can be located. A photographer that hides their contact information isn’t one you should be dealing with.

Professional photographers usually don’t have a problem with bringing an escort or your pet elephant for that matter. What they do dislike is the photo session being disturbed. Here are the top annoying factors, even for female photographers:

Escorts at Photo Shoots

The escort getting curious and messing with or breaking the equipment, simply getting in the way, or asking questions of the photographer during the shoot.
The escort wanting to be photographed as well. This includes “just a few at the end.”
The model being distracted by the escort, whether by talking or looking to the escort for validation.

Explain these concerns to the escort up front and they usually evaporate. With the talking and non-verbal validation, I find that male escorts tend to behave much better than “female friends who decided to come along.”

When someone brings an escort, I usually hand them a reflector which keeps them busy, fills their hands, and makes them have a vested interest in getting the job done. Babysitting an escort in this manner reduces risk of the top three issues, but the model is now getting far less attention and most likely, less photos. A good escort will stay out of the way and quietly monitor that no funny business is going on — which, after a short time, will get very boring.

One other interesting point is worth mentioning, some models get self-conscious (even professional ones) when someone they know is watching them; this can ruin a shoot, which ends up wasting everyone’s time. If the escort sits in a waiting room only a shout away, often you can get around this problem.

The best solution I’ve seen is to bring the escort, let them sit on the sidelines until both they and you feel comfortable with the arrangement, at that point let them leave with the photographer’s business card, the address they dropped the model off at, and a known pre-arranged check-in time for the model to call via her cell phone. Having the escort call to check in is even the worse than being there, it totally breaks the pace to stop and locate a purse.

If you do bring an escort, let the photographer know in advance — especially for location shoots — as if an extra person is riding in the vehicle, sometimes alternate travel arrangements are necessary (e.g., taking the van instead of the two-seater car).

Follow this simple advice and you should have no problem bringing an escort, thereby doubling the number of photographers and broadening your portfolio photo contents.

Model Compensation

This blog addresses solutions that are fair, as well as touching on factors that go into deciding amounts, why that’s the case, and what models can do to their profiles to avoid being skipped over aside from not making common photographic mistakes.

It’s understandable that models would prefer paid shoots, but it’s also important to recognize that the photographer does as well.

For a model, the photo session ends with the last shutter click, but for the photographer that’s when the real work begins. This reveals why photographers can be so expensive. Add risk, like missing an important wedding moment, at the pricing tier jumps again to astronomical levels.

In all cases, I believe a model should be fairly compensated. The debate will boil down to what that compensation is and that expectation should always be spelled out up front before anything progresses.

There are many factors that go into what value compensation should be set at. There are three big ones.

Expertise, in particular, plays a large part because an experienced model arrives on time (and sober), knows how to interact with the camera and the photographer with minimal direction, assumes appropriate poses naturally that fit the context of the scene, pauses at the right times as to minimize the number of discards, and she can make facial expressions look genuine. The higher compensation comes from making the photographer’s job easier and producing higher quality product in a shorter timeframe.

The model’s looks also play into the equation, primarily because that sets the demand for the model and in turn that affects availability. Basic economic models of supply and demand clearly state the higher the demand, the more things cost. Hence a model that isn’t in as much demand will likely be unable to command rates that one is. This is why models should to TFP deals to build their portfolios in order to raise their demand, even if just from gaining additional experience.

And the other primary factor which affects cost is how much skin the model is willing to show and what she’s willing to do in front of the camera. Unlike looks, this is one area where all models have total control. It can also be one of the bigger money makers.

The photographer has to determine a rate that factors these accordingly, and many other things (availability, short-term notice, …) as well into the compensation rate.

Just because both models are willing to stand in front of the camera for equal time does not mean they are providing equal value to the photographer. [It is also true that multiple photographers do not provide equal representation value to a model, which is why one looks at a photographer’s portfolio before accepting a trade-based assignment. Skill, equipment, and post-processing abilities are the parameters the photographer has to measure up to.]

Here’s a reasonable compensation paradigm that is actually fair to both parties equally:

If a model is hired by the photographer, the compensation is cash. (Pose for me.)
If there is a trade of services, her compensation is the photos and his the model’s time.
If the photographer is hired by the model, the compensation is cash. (Make me a portfolio.)

This makes sense from other business methodologies: if you were hired to do a task, such as frame a painting, you get paid, you don’t get a copy of the painting, free frames, or free framing services. An expert framer, incidentally, would be paid more too, and the resulting craftsmanship would be obvious. Quality, not time, is what’s sought.

The task a photographer is hiring for is to have someone take specific direction so they can produce a precise product. To get cash and photos would be double compensation and thereby a double hit on the photographer; most likely that would be the last time the photographer ever cast or recommended the model.

That said, there is nothing wrong with the model requesting some pictures in leu of some portion of the cash. Sometimes the photographer can do this, but quite often if the photographer has been hired on behalf of client, it’s stipulated in the contract that he can not. Hence the cash, which usually comes from a budget that the photographer may, or may not, have control over.

If a model wants photos and tear sheets, that should be negotiated up front, not after the shoot. Again, the photographer may have contractual bindings.

Some models will be fortunate enough to find photographers who will give away photos in addition to cash. Models, if you get cash, don’t expect this, but be grateful if it happens to you — the photographer has figured out a win-win situation that you both can benefit from. Don’t be mistaken, this action is somewhat self serving to the photographer, as he’s looking for extra visibility and word of mouth advertising from you to widen his client base.

Paying gigs are more likely for models when the client needs a specific look. If there’s just a generic need, photographers are going to draw more from TFP/CD deals. Knowing this, the more variety a model can pull off in her portfolio, the easier she just made it for the photographer to just to cut a check than to keep searching.

There does seem to be a subset of models that have a higher impression of their own market value than the market will actually tolerate. New models don’t seem to have this problem much, experienced models have a very good sense of worth (and a portfolio to prove it), but it’s most common among the narrow my-portfolio-is-cell-phone-pictures / I-want-a-job-pay-me modeling-wannabes. These models are usually difficult to work with and are problematic after the shoot, having shifting expectations of the deliverable. Photographers will actively try to avoid them and anyone that fits that stereotype.

Models: if your portfolio reeks of indicators that you fall into this pile (whether you really do or not), be aware that you’re hurting your chances to get a casting call, profile comments, TFP/CD deals, and valuable experience. If you want higher compensation, simply do what those did who are earning it. Their profiles are right there in the open on many modeling sites. Your chances of getting directed casting calls will increase.

Models: Getting Discovered

As a photographer, I spend a good deal of time looking a model profiles, cataloging possible candidates. There’s a pretty stark line between existing models and those that want to be models. The fidelity of the line, however, may be hard to see from the modeling side of the table.

New models can increase their chances by applying a few little secrets that will help your profile from quietly getting skipped over.

I doubt it’s too far of a stretch to assume that the primary goal of anyone with an online modeling profile is to increase their personal chances of getting approached with a modeling gig.

This blog entry is aimed at helping new comers increase their chances by passing on a few little secrets that will help your online modeling profile from quietly getting skipped over. You’ll get inside the minds of those looking at your profile photos, as to be better match yours to what they’re looking for.

We’ve all met a waitress who says she’s an actress and is waiting to be discovered. But as an non-emotionally invested third party, it evident to you know what’s wrong: she’s waiting tables, when she should be acting, in anything, if not for the exposure, then the experience.
RULE #1: Don’t wait to be discovered, get yourself out there — don’t say what you want to be, do what you want to be.

If you can’t take quality photos of yourself, find a photographer online and negotiate a TFP/CD deal (it’s free), then post those photos to your profile.

Clients and photographers have to know what you look like. That means in the modeling world, photos speaks volumes. The more, the better. A model that expresses desire (“I’ve always wanted to model my whole life”), but has no photos has given no point of reference to make a casting decision. Worse yet, this is precisely the kind of person a scammer can target by playing to emotional appeal.
RULE #2: You can’t be discovered with an empty portfolio. Post photos.

First impressions count, and you know this to be true from when you meet new people at social engagements. It’s also true for a virtual encounter. The first thing people will see is your avatar — your profile’s picture should be of you. Low-res, grainy images are unflattering.
RULE #3: Choose a good quality profile picture that makes people want to click on it.

If your profile picture is your resume, which is designed to get a larger slice of follow-on attention, then your profile photos are your interview which showcases what you’re capable of. Unfortunately this is the point where, after a quick browse, many profiles get skipped over.

The problem is not so much the model, but the presentation. If there isn’t enough detail to tell what a model looks like, it’s just about the same as not having any photos.
RULE #4: Presentation is everything.
(MUST READ: See my blog post titled Online Model Portfolios: 7 Common Problems to avoid making a bad online portfolio.)

Speaking of getting noticed, consider how most people find your portfolio: it isn’t by searches or random browsing, it’s by your activity on the system. Participate. Leave comments, join groups, start discussions, post photos. Anything you do raises the chance of someone seeing your profile picture and clicking on it.
RULE #5: Participate to be seen.

All of the rules boil down to effectively selling yourself, in particular, your image. Show the product (you) in the best possible light (your photo gallery) and market it (raise awareness by getting it seen more often).

Online Model Portfolios: 7 Common Problems

After scanning hundreds of modeling portfolios online, I’ve noticed a number of common problems which are preventing potential models from being taken seriously or that get their profiles skipped over. Here’s are seven common mistakes to avoid.

I’ve scanned hundreds of modeling portfolio profiles and have noticed common photo problems. Simply avoid these and your profile will have a much more professional look. That also means you’ll get more comments, and that translates to a higher popularity rating on the site.

Photo Mistake #1 – Face-on, arm-dangling photos.
The camera isn’t going to suck a beautiful image out of you just standing there. You’re a model, right? Pose. Not sure how? Twist your torso, tilt your head, shift your weight to one leg, bed an arm, and put your hands somewhere. Mimic a pose from a magazine.

Photo Mistake #2 – Dead facial expressions, or worse, snarling.
Avoid glaring into the camera with a pissed off look. Don’t be void of expression. Smile, look into the camera, and engage the viewer. For a sincere smile, actually think of something that makes you happy until a smile naturally comes, don’t just go through the motions; the camera will pick up the difference.

Photo Mistake #3 – Blurry and out of focus shots.
There’s a big difference between an expert’s use of depth of field, which has selective sharpness, and a photo that has no sharpness and is totally out of focus. While it might be possible to tell what you kind of look like, you won’t get a gig based on this. Post sharp, clear images of yourself.

There are too common ways a blurry picture results. One is that you have the camera too close and it can’t focus. Two, and this is the most common, is that you’re holding the camera at arms length and there isn’t enough light in the room — so the shutter stays open longer, you can’t hold perfectly still (no one can), and that results in blur.

To fix this, have someone else take the photo. And if you can’t, simply increase the amount of light, or put the camera in auto-timer mode and prop it up on something.

Photo Mistake #4 – Photo is too small.
Again, being able to see and make out detail is important to someone who’s selecting a model. If your photo is an inch or two in size, it’s too small to be of use. The bigger, the better.

Photo Mistake #5 – Digital Extremes.
If a photo is too light and washed out, too dark and covered in shadow, or too contrasty then it doesn’t have enough detail to be of use. Mind you, it might be a pretty photo, but if you can’t be seen, then there’s not enough information to make a decision about selecting you.

Photo Mistake #6 – Distracting elements in the foreground and background.
If you’re going to take a picture to sell yourself, then make it count. Use a decent background, we don’t want to see a toilet, towel racks, tile, or shampoo bottles behind you; while bathrooms have mirrors, they have other things that say “unprofessional.” If doing an overhead shot, remove the pile of laundry behind you or the clothes you just took off that are crumpled at your feet. Make sure there’s no television on or person walking in the background. Make sure there’s no junk on the table in front of you. Let nothing detract from you.

Photo Mistake #7 – Flat and dull photos.
Pictures taken with an on-camera flash have a habit of being harsh and unflattering. If you’re able to illuminate from the side instead, and not use the flash, your picture will have light and shadow, and that means visual depth. If you must use the flash, put a white index card in front of the flash at a 45 degree angle, and “bounce” the light off the ceiling. You’ll get a much gentler and flattering image.

A good profile that has a high chance of getting a model work consists of professional quality images, represents a variety of styles, and include tear sheets if available.

Don’t know how to work your camera? That’s ok, you don’t have to! Find a photographer online, negotiate a TFP/CD deal (there’s no cost), and post the session to your portfolio. Keep adding to it, doing as many TFP deals as it takes to get noticed.

Note that if a photographer enjoys working with you and produces good product, there’s a much higher chance you’ll be sought again, and referenced to friends, for paying gigs.

Models: Getting more from a TFP/CD shoot

TFP/CD is an arrangement whereby a model and a photographer exchange professional services instead of one hiring the other. Surprisingly, though, many new models don’t know it exists, and those that do have some serious misunderstandings about it. Here are two secrets models might like to know.

Getting more from a TFP shoot TFP/CD means “Time for Print” / “Time for CD,” and it’s an arrangement whereby a model and a photographer exchange professional services instead of one hiring the other.

Surprisingly, though, many new models don’t know it exists, and those that do have some serious misunderstandings about it.

I happened to be reading a discussion forum where some photographers were discussing photo shoots and the models were wanting quick turn around times on CDs. Reasonable. But then it dawned on me, perhaps it wasn’t clear too all what caused the delay. By the time I was done, I derived two secrets models might like to know.

For photographers, setting expectations up front is really important. Failure to do lets misconceptions propagate.

For instance, an inexperienced model may do a 2 hour shoot and roughly estimate the photographer took 500 pictures based on shots-per-minute during a scene and how long the total session was. When a CD doesn’t arrive within the next few days, anxiety replaces anticipation, and when it does arrive there may be only a handful of images leaving a model to wonder why it took so long. But what’s really happening? Did the model get screwed? Was the photographer lazy?

Is there anything that could have been done to get even more images, get some them sooner, or even get even higher quality images? Actually, yes.

The photographer in a TFP/CD deal is just as concerned about his or her reputation as a model is and doesn’t want anything substandard floating in the wild. As such images rarely go from camera to CD to model without review and processing.

Here’s the same scenario from the other side of the camera:

In reality, the photographer may have taken only 200 pictures. Photos are often taken in bursts and during makeup and wardrobe changes the camera isn’t firing; this counts for a lot of down time.

Of the photos, there will always be some that didn’t turn out: eye blinks, unwanted motion blur, lens flare, a horrible facial expression, hair obstructing the face, an unflattering fold of skin, an oil shine, a harsh shadow, undesirable lint, fly away hair, hot spots, exposure alterations, etc. The bursting allows for lots of micro differences to choose from, so that the best of a given set can be selected. To the untrained eye it can simply look like a lot of the same picture. This narrows down the usable images considerably.

Also neglected is that many photographers now also do their own photo editing. And that’s where the really time-consuming part starts. A single photo might take an hour just to get right. The higher the resolution photo and the sharper it is, the more time it takes. Often a photographer inspects every pore of skin. So, even if 20% of the photos are usable, this can represents a full-time week’s worth of editing.

Think about it; that’s 40hrs of follow-up work from a mere 2hr shoot. The misconception is that pictures are ready once taken, usually they aren’t. And, in a TFP/CD shoot, there’s no cash income from this job, so it’s very likely that this post-processing time has to come from in-between other paying gigs, which pushes out the delivery further depending on other commitments and schedules.

A studio uses TFP/CD to put their best foot forward, and that’s why the model greatly benefits from this. It’s unspoken, but often TFP/CD shoots get a little more time, care, and attention; one isn’t producing product, but art.

Sometimes whole segments that looked like a good idea during the shoot just don’t have the magic when everything is seen in context. As such, the photographer will often cull down from the usable photos to just the absolute best of the best and then spend a lot of time and detail on just those.

Believe it or not, the photographer also wants the model to have the images as soon as possible, because if they’re ready for the model’s portfolio, they’re also ready for the photographer’s.

I think the best advice to a photographer in this case is to under commit and over deliver. Don’t say it will take a week if it will take two. Explain that the goal is to get some small number of high quality photos, regardless of how many are taken.

And as for information to the model, the shoot isn’t over for the photographer when the last picture has been taken; that’s when the laborious and time consuming meticulous editing begins.

But here’s some secret advice that will get a model better product, sooner, and more of it:

1) If you are patient and have the extra time, offer during the TFP/CD shoot to allow the photographer to experiment with the lighting. Almost always there are a number of experimental configurations a photographer is secretly wanting to try, but he knows it’s high risk because it might not work perfectly and he doesn’t want to send you home with nothing. Conversely, it could really work out special and you’d have something new, amazing, and highly creative for your portfolio. By allowing for creative freedom, which might not work out, you actually increase your chances of getting super-spectacular shots. Photographers kill for models who let them tinker with experimental lighting.

2) If you are a tech-savvy model and are willing to accept electronic delivery instead of a CD, many photographers will happily send you email attachments or URLs where you can get your photos as they become ready. Because there is no bulk collection with a looming deadline, the photographer will often end up giving you more photos over the course of time, but you also benefit from getting those already done sooner. Plus, since you’ve set up a venue for delivery, a photographer revisiting prior shoots experimenting with new editing techniques has the means of sending you future updates for your portfolio as well.

FIX: undefined symbol: apr_ldap_ssl_init

Did an update to Ubuntu Jaunty and Apache stopped working with the message “undefined symbol: apr_ldap_ssl_init”. This post is how I fixed it.

This is a geek entry for resolving the problem:

* Restarting web server apache2
/usr/sbin/apache2: symbol lookup error: /usr/sbin/apache2: undefined symbol: apr_ldap_ssl_init [fail]

Non-geeks will want to move along…
Continue reading “FIX: undefined symbol: apr_ldap_ssl_init”

uTorrent: Software Jesus Would Use

I was very surprised to see when the last version of uTorrent was updated.

When I want to keep my software up to date on my Mac, I use Version Tracker Pro. The pay software works great and, seriously, I have no complaints.

But then a friend pointed me at this new tool called AppFresh. It does the same thing, but for free. And, honestly, it’s a lot prettier and I love the way it organizes the downloads into meaningful folder names.

Of course, it does have some small kinks, being still beta.

Check out when it thought this update for uTorrent was released.

Software so old, it predates the birth of Christ.

Expensive Pizza

It’s not often you get to walk away with a thousand dollar charge for ordering a small pizza.

The largest pizza bill I ever covered was $300 at Pizza Hutt when I decided to throw a party for a number of friends in high school. Since then, I learned you always go Dutch, even with folks that have the best of intensions, and you always order more plain cheese than anything else, because people like to mix toppings, but hardly do people consume what they create. Toppings are expensive.

But my all-time record almost got blown the other day, when I went to order a small cheese pizza and was charged over $1,000 for it.

The cashier fumbled the entry trying to enter a one dollar coupon and a fifty cent topping, only to miss the add button and pressing seven instead.

I caught the mistake, and we all had a good laugh. The date on the receipt was mere coincidence.

The story doesn’t end, as I kept this little token of amusement in my wallet for some future use.

While visiting Potbelly’s I happened to order a drink, cookie, and pickle, but no sandwich. This greatly confused the cashier who questioned me about why I didn’t order a meal.

The truth was I had just eaten and was meeting a friend, but I couldn’t help myself.

“Normally, I would, but I’m broke.” I pulled out the receipt and handed it to her. “See? I was charged a thousand dollars for a pizza topping.”

The girl looked at the real receipt with total amazement and shock on her face. “What topping did you order?” And before I could answer, she offered, “Was it mushrooms?”

So, I kindly fed into her misguided fantasy. “Yea. Those suckers are expensive,” shaking my head in sad disbelief that if only I’d known….

I now wish I could be the fly on the wall the next time someone tries to order a pizza with mushrooms with her. You know she’s going to intervene. Or, at least, go Dutch.

MacHeist 3: A Look At Group Purchasing Behavior

Have MacHeist sales stagnated? He’s my take on why, and what can be done to fix it, and how it has to play out… for the better!

As a glossed over quick introduction, MacHeist is a short-run sale of software packages for the Mac that has a twist. You pay $39 for a bundle of software, and some of that software is “locked.” A portion of your purchase price goes to charity, and the more money raised for charity, the more items in the bundle that get “unlocked.” Thus the more people buy, the more you continue to get. It’s a great scheme, only it isn’t working.

MacHeist, at the time of this writing, is conducting their third “heist” and after some amazing fluster of activity, new sales appear to have stagnated at an alarming rate.

Alarming to bundle purchasers, because if not enough sales happen, bundle purchasers won’t get all the amazing high-cost software at the extreme end of the bundle. What’s important about that statement is that it’s never happened before, and the problem isn’t the recession.

In informal polling, there appear to be two kinds of purchasers: early adopters and frugal purchasers.

The early adopter purchases the bundle early, knowing a good value when they see it, spurred on by the fact that there are additional incentives for doing so.

The frugal purchasers have their eye on either the final packages in the bundle, or are looking at the bundle as a whole. They don’t want to purchase the bundle until they know everything in it is unlocked.

And that’s the interesting part. If no one buys it, nothing gets unlocked. If everyone takes a risk, everyone gets handsomely rewarded, guaranteed. Thus each potential purchaser is waiting on the action of everyone else — it’s crowd mentality, only the driven behavior is idleness.

The secret ingredient is momentum. By carefully crafting a set of software incentives, under ideal circumstances the early adopter crowd overlaps with the late takers. This manifests itself as a steady stream of purchases.

It might be argued that The Directorate which runs MacHeist became victims of their own success and actually caused the problem by marketing the sale too well. Based on all the pre-sale puzzles, rumors, and incentives, there was a flurry of purchases in the early hours of the sale and projections seemed rather high.

However, one of the primary packages in the bundle required what looked like a high goal to unlock, the perception was that momentum was slowing. And perception drove reality. “Hmm, that doesn’t look like it’ll get unlocked, I think I’ll wait to see if it does before I buy,” is all it took to slow the influx of unlocking purchasers.

This was ill-timed, as it also happened to coincide with the reward for the first 25,000 buyers being removed from the table as the 25,000th bundle was sold. Days later, a only mere 5,000 more have sold and questions are being raised if the final packages will be unlocked.

The up-front fast burn created enough of a gap that people who were on the fence at different points became more segregated than usual. This didn’t happen in the last two sales.

So here’s my prediction: they have to fix this. Meaning, new incentives will re-emerge, the goals will have to be re-addressed, and it’s in the best interest of MacHeist to unlock the bundles anyhow at the end of it.

Turns out before I could finish this post, a new bonus was added, and that did stir a little traffic. But the real objective here is to convey there’s movement, specifically enough that the goal could be reached. That will inspire sales again, and in turn actually unlock the software. By re-calibrating the goal levels, this would solve the problem. In fact, the easy solution is to put all the last packages into one final, achievable goal.

The truth of the matter, however, is whatever happens will be remembered, if not chronicled in Wikipedia forever. If MacHeist goes down in flames for not unlocking all it’s bundled packages, people will be ever the more skeptical, and that means early adopters turning into late purchasers. That only exacerbates the problem, killing future sales opportunities.

By contrast, if the packages do get unlocked, whether by purchasers or by The Directorate making its own donation from the profits it receives, then MacHeist will be seen as more of a sure thing in the future, sliding more of the late comers and risk adverse customers into the early adopter side. This would actually increase future sales, because more gets unlocked sooner, enticing the skeptical buyers.

As such, “betting” on MacHeist with a purchase at this point still seems like a safe move. And, even if none of my predictions happen to come true, enough is unlocked already that the $39 price tag is still an awesome buy for the collection of software provided.