One of the great things about being in an incubator is that we get to work right next door to amazing start-ups.  One of those start-ups happens to be Dumbwaiter Design, a passionate design firm with some serious talent.  They’ve made an incredible 90-second demo video for our homepage that shows off everything Digsby has to offer!

Telling your friends about Digsby is now even easier – you can just show them!  If you like the video, give it a 5-star rating and take a few moments to share it with your friends on Facebook and Twitter.

Speaking of demos…. We will be at the DEMOfall 2009 on Tuesday unveiling a brand new Twitter implementation in Digsby that is unlike any other Twitter client you’ve seen.  If you happen to be attending DEMO, stop by station #48 and say hello.  You can also watch the entire conference live tomorrow at http://www.demo.com.

We want extend a big thank you to Dumbwaiter Design for the hard work they put into this video.  We highly recommend you check them out!

Several months ago, we started testing two unique revenue models to help us keep Digsby free and ad-free for all our users.  We posted a lengthy blog post describing the changes but we want to reiterate some of that information again and share some changes that we will be making in a release later today.

Now that some time has passed since we first implemented these changes, we would also like to take this opportunity to get feedback from our community of users about these revenue models and where we should go from here.

Installer

First, we introduced a new installer that shows you several offers during the installation process for other products such as the Yahoo Toolbar and a desktop weather application.  The reason we decided to test this revenue model is because we believe it is better to show you ads once during the installation process than to plaster banner ads all over the product like other IM clients have done (ie: AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ).  We want to do our best to keep Digsby free and ad-free and this is one way we are able to do so.

All the offers shown to you during installation are 100% optional.  You don’t have to install any of the products advertised in the installer and none of them will be downloaded or installed to your computer if you choose not to install them.  For each offer, there is an “Accept” and a “Decline” button.

There is more information about the installer in the original blog post.

Research Module

The second revenue model we started testing is a Grid Computing Module.  There is a lengthy explanation of what grid computing is and how this module works in the original blog post but the basic idea is that Digsby uses some of your computer’s unused CPU power while your computer is completely idle to do computation research for large scale projects that require thousands of computers to complete.

The module turns on after your computer has been completely idle for 5 minutes (no mouse or keyboard movement).  It then turns off the instant you move your mouse or the press a key on the keyboard.  We did this so it would have absolutely no effect on your computer’s performance and only uses processing power while your computer is not being used.  It also runs as a “low priority” process so if any application on your computer asks for CPU power it will always get it before the research module gets it.  On laptops, it uses a much smaller portion of your CPUs overall processing power than it does on desktops.  It will also never turn on if your laptop is running on battery power.

Just like the installer, we have made this module 100% optional.  You can disable it in the main menu by going to “Help > Support Digsby” and disabling the “Help Digsby Conduct Research” option.

Lack of Information

While the installer is quite obvious since you use it to install Digsby, the Research Module is not obvious to new users.  An article describing these revenue models was published yesterday on LifeHacker and most of the people commenting on the article did not know about it since they don’t follow our blog and don’t read the Terms of Service shown in the installer.

We are pushing out a release later today that will include the following changes:

• We are moving the entire “Support Digsby” section out of the “Help” menu and into the preferences window so the option to enable/disable the research module is easier to find
• Digsby will show a popup notification telling you about the module with a “Learn More” button which links to a page describing it in detail including instructions for how to enable/disable it.  The popup will be “sticky” so it will not disappear until you click “Learn More” or “Close” to ensure that users don’t accidentally miss it.

We want to make it completely clear to all users so Digsby is not doing anything you don’t want it to do.  The above changes have been on our to do list but the article really opened our eyes about how few people know about this functionality.  Our goal is to create the world’s best IM client and social media tool. The only way to accomplish that goal is with transparency and communication so we can keep working with you to make a better product.

Moving Forward

We are still a young company that is trying to figure out our long term revenue models.  At the end of the day, we need to keep the lights on and pay salaries so we can keep making Digsby even better by bringing new features (and products, ie: mac/linux) to market.  The reason we decided to test these two revenue models is because they would allow us to accomplish this while keeping Digsby free and ad-free.

The more traditional path to take is to place small unintrusive ads in Digsby and offer an ad-free version for a modest price.  While we felt that experimenting with unique revenue models that keep the product ad-free was the better path to take, that might not be how all of you feel.

We would like to take this opportunity to get feedback from all of you about which you would prefer.

Option 1: Continue to show multiple offers in the installer along with the research module

Option 2: Show just one toolbar offer in the installer like other IM clients do and place small unintrusive ads in the product with an ad-free pro version available for a modest price

Option 3: Other – let the creativity flow!

After launching Digsby into public beta on March 20th of last year, one of the first great pieces of publicity we got came from Lifehacker.  They did an article on the Five Best Instant Messengers (“Hive Five”) less than two weeks after we launched and Digsby made the list!

We were very excited to be featured and even more excited when the article made the front page of Digg the next day!  It created a tremendous amount of awareness and gave us our first big push into the spotlight.  We went from 40,000 users to 70,000 users in just 4 days!

Even though we didn’t win the poll, it was a very impressive showing for a two-week old product with just 40,000 users.  Now that we have over 1 million, let’s show them what we’re made of!

Lifehacker is holding another “Hive Five” competition and you can show your support for Digsby by voting here:

http://answers.polldaddy.com/poll/1812432/

We’re excited to announce that Digsby has passed a major milestone. Over 1 million people now use Digsby to manage over 3 million IM, email, and social network accounts!  We’ve seen tremendous growth since our launch and Digsby has quickly become a leader in the IM market.

It’s all thanks to you, our passionate users! We could not have passed this milestone without you. You’ve been our marketing team from day one and you continue to spread the word about Digsby. To thank you for all your effort and to encourage you to keep spreading the word, we are announcing the Digsby Affiliate Program.

A first in the IM industry, the program will pay you up to $1.00 for every new Digsby user you bring. Affiliates can promote Digsby by placing banners or buttons on their blog or website, or by simply inviting their friends with their affiliate link. Thank you again for all your support. We’ll keep pushing to make Digsby even better and greatly appreciate your help in spreading the word.

To learn learn more about the affiliate program and to sign up, visit:

http://www.digsby.com/affiliate/

We are having database issues that are causing some people to get an “Authentication Error” on login.  We’re working to fix the problem right now.

While we are working on the issue, Digsby may start in “Local Mode” and load your preferences from the hard drive. We will post an update here when the issue is resolved.

Update (7/7/09 9:45am): Everything is back to normal. Sorry for the temporary inconvenience.

We wanted to spread the word about the Summer of Social Good, which is a charity event that the good folks over at Mashable are organizing.

The Summer of Social Good is the first large scale online charitable campaign to raise funds strictly online through the power of Social Media and the Internet. The goal is to use the power of “Social Influence” via Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Blogs and other online media to raise an unprecedented amount for The Humane Society, LIVESTRONG, Oxfam America and WWF from June 1st until August 28th, 2009.

Here at Digsby, we’ve always been huge fans of social media and its emerging role in our day-to-day lives. By donating to the Summer of Social Good you can continue to show the positive change that social media has brought to the world.

For more information and to donate, please visit:

http://summerofsocialgood.com/

Digsby is on the front cover of the June issue of Maximum PC… and the largest icon of them all 

Update: Time Warner cancels plans for tiered Internet pricing!  WIN!  More details here.

As a Rochester company, we are in tune with a lot of what goes on in our hometown.  We don’t usually meddle in local issues but this is a topic we are all passionate about so we wanted share it with all of you.

Time Warner Cable announced that it would be switching from a  flat monthly rate for Internet access to tiered pricing that is based on consumption.  The $29.99 plan will be capped at 10GB of bandwidth and you will be charged $1/GB for any usage beyond that.  If you want your good ‘ole unlimited bandwidth Internet access you will end up paying as much as $150 per month!

So how much is 10GB anyway?  They make it sound like they are only doing this to stop all those software-pirating BitTorrent users.  Here is a legitimate use case. If you purchase the high-def version of Quantum of Solace on iTunes, that is a 3.54GB download.  Buy three movies in one month and you hit the 10GB limit.

Besides the above use case, there are innovative new products launching every day that require large amounts of bandwidth.  Services like streaming video on Netflix or Hulu, video conferencing, and gaming are all going to suffer.  Innovation in general will suffer because you are limited in the kinds of applications you are able to create.

We are not alone! New York Congressman Eric Massa announced the Massa Broadband Internet Fairness Act, which would prohibit unfair tiered price structures and countless people are voicing their opinions in various ways.

So what can you do? Share your thoughts in the comments section. Having a discussion about the issue is how you create awareness.

If you are a local Rochesterian, there will be protest this Saturday that you can attend to make your voice heard! Here are the event details:

• Facebook Event Info
  
• Date: Saturday, April 18, 2009
• Time: 11:00am – 5:00pm
• Location: Time Warner Cable Store
• Address: 71 Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY

A large chunk of the neighborhood lost power including our facility.  The backup lasted for the last 20 minutes but the electric company has not resolved the issue in time and our network is currently down.  This will be resolved as soon as possible.

On a brighter note, a release that goes live next week will include “local mode” functionality we have been working on so if this happens again, your use of Digsby will not be interrupted.  Digsby will load cached preferences and account info from your hard drive and then resynchronize when it is able to establish a connection to our servers.

Update (12:30pm EST): Two of the three power sources coming into the facility have been restored so the servers are back online.  However, until power is fully restored we may not be out of the woods yet.  We’ll keep you posted.

Update 2 (2:30pm EST): Everything is still online and all power has been restored to the building so we expect things to remain stable.  This issue actually pointed out a few issues with “local mode” since Alpha users already had the functionality.  We will patch it up and push another Alpha release with the fixes next week.  The next public release should also be sometime next week.