If you haven’t heard, the URL shortening service Tr.im is closing down. It’s a shame because it was my favorites, and I wasn’t alone. In a busy space, the tr.im product wasn’t particularly unique, but it was easy, clean and offered a couple features that no else did. And it was free.

But all of the url shortening services are free. Some have freemuim models, some, like tr.im, are meant to drive traffic to the company’s other products. Free is a big topic of discussion right now, and a lot of people building web apps struggle with it. What do we give away, and what do we charge for? What will people pay for? How do we make money off of free?

The comments about tr.im closing are an interesting cross section of what the web looks like right now. Many are now offering to pay for it, a few are suggesting it get open-sourced, and a few have posted rediculously low offers to buy. There are two things that I take away from this.

The first point is that people put a very low value on web services. Suggesting that it get open-sourced misses the point that even tho bandwidth and disk space are very cheap now, they do still cost money. It’s not about the software, it’s what the software does. The same goes for the offensively low offers. When thousands are spent on developing a product, selling for a few thousand, which often will be a drop in the bucket, is worse than not selling at all - on morale, on one’s sense of worth, on the reputation of the company. I would also say it hurts the next web application that tries to sell. Like law, it’s setting a bad precedent.

The second point is the chicken or the egg of pricing on the web. Now that people have tried tr.im and love it, are invested in it and sometimes committed to it, they’re offering to pay for it to not go away. What if tr.im had not been free from the beginning? Even if it had been far superior to the competition and only cost $1.99, I wager that most people would’ve gone anywhere else that was “good enough” and free. What if tr.im had started out free, or offered most of their services for free, but charged for stats or something? Again, I bet most people would’ve gone elsewhere. Finally had they suddenly started charging, as people are asking them to do now, there would’ve been a public outcry. People would’ve been furious. But because it’s now all or nothing, people are offering. It’s a catch-22.

Don’t get me wrong, I love free services on the web, but people need to realize that time and thinking and software and bandwidth and CPU cycles are not free. We’re paying for most “free” services one way or another anyway - ads, promotion, whatever. Let’s get rid of the taboo about charging outright for a decent service, and let’s be willing to pay a few bucks for someone’s hard work and thought. I look forward to the “free” web being over.

Anyway, upon getting the book, I jumped straight to chapter 6 on Social Media. It’s what I’m dealing with at the moment with DubFiler. Part SEO, part community (or ‘tribe‘) building, part vanity - using social media and blogging are the next step for me, now that the site is up and running.

I’d been debating for a while on how to use the blog and the FaceBook page. Bob outlines some rules to follow for blogging, and provides a few examples of people doing it right. THe underlying message? Add Value. Not to you, but to your users’ lives.

I use twitter personally but how should I use it for DubFiler? Chapter 6 gave me some ideas. First Bob lists a bunch of tools to help you manage everything. I’d seen tweetgrid but I thought it was just noise. The twitter version of Googling yourself, and ugly to boot. Chapter 6 helps explain how to to use  it to understand what’s going on in your niche.

And there’s lots more great information.  If that’s just chapter 6, I look forward to the whole read.

And then I realized a great measurement would be clicks. Imagine if you had to pay for clicks? Or there was an odometer on yr mouse? How efficient would you be! I’ve tried to think about how to do things in fewer steps, fewer movements, fewer mistakes. I’ve gotten better about focusing, and def am more efficient. Give it a try and let me know what yr results are!

The wildcard that makes this scenario really hard is other people. In the above example it’s just me against the web. The more common scenario is when a boss or client hands you a project. They have expectations, and that’s a scary word. They may do a great job laying out the requirements (a.k.a. the problem) and your knowledge and experience may perfectly fit (a.k.a. the solution), but, man, if they leave out one little thing, or you happen to be checking Twitter when they explain one small detail, it can be disaster.

Here’s my short list that I use when taking on someone else’s problem: Pay attention. Ask lots of questions. Ask them again. Take notes. Do planning, wire-framing and iterations. And over communicate while yre working.  At times it feels unprofessional, but better safe than sorry.

If it’s not fun, stop. Delegate it. Yre not going to do your best work.

If your time is better spent doing something else, delegate. Sometimes it is the fun things, but it’s not your strongest suit.

If you don’t have the time, or shouldn’t take the time, but you really want to see it get done, delegate it. This is where someone else’s bit of extra time comes in handy.

If it’s important that someone besides you knows something about what yre working on, delegate it. It’s hard to give up total control, but it’s good for the sake of the project, company or idea.

I’m currently on a Bob Walsh kick. Between the Micro-ISV book and his marketing e-book, I’m going to master everything micro-ISV and take over the world. Anyway, a question I’ve been pondering lately is about running DubFiler and whether it’s wise to try to run it all alone. (Can you take over the world by yourself?) Since I’m looking to Bob for all the answers right now, I thought I’d send him an email. His answer is the resulting blog post on his blog.

To Partner or not to Partner, that is the question.

This is one of those questions that feels huge when I think about it, but then I stop thinking about it. What I mean is that the amount of attention it’s paid in writing makes it feel big. The reason I asked is because in most books they tell you in bold letters, “Don’t go it alone!” But it still doesn’t feel right to me. I do most things on my own. So when I stop thinking about the question, things feel right again and I go on my merry way.

Once again there’s no clear answers.

Dammit.

I’m looking forward to his subsequent posts about finding the right person. Perhaps understanding the ying to my yang will make me search for someone to spoon with, business-wise.

It took me ages to make changes in my life without feeling like I was making sacrifices, but I still see a benefit in getting enough sleep. Also, by making it a priority every once in a while, I’m reminded of just how good it is for me.

I know it sounds like a self-help shtick, and since we’ve nearly got the same last name you think I’m promoting my cousin. his book can come across as a bit self-help, especially the title, but it’s an easy read and is based on science. Worst case, you feel more rested and wasted $10.

So I get excited about friend invites on myspace. Here’s an opportunity to hear someone new (again, realize that I’m using myspace for music promotion) and to connect with someone relevant. I actually check out the page of everyone who friends me. Again - any friend invite could be a bot, but I can tell immediately by going to their page. I’ve found a lot of great music this way, and have used it well for networking. I don’t accept everyone. It’s to my benefit to keep my the noise-level of my account low.

I find myself using twitter the same way. Right now, I check out the feed of everyone who starts following me. Above the fold is a good snapshot of who/what the follower is - their description, their link, and what they’re saying. People who follow everyone, are noisy, or are not saying anything don’t get followed back. The simple layout lets me get the info I want quickly.

So here’s what you get when you follow me on Twitter. You get one chance to capture my interest. The openness of Twitter is great, but you need to think about it. Are you keeping things relevant - be it about you, your brand your company, whatever? Or are you posting and replying to noise? I’m not talking in black and white here, but general rules apply. Are using Twitter like Facebook or like Myspace, and are you making the impression you want to?