Douchebag of the week award goes to: VectorMagic
Posted March 15th, 2008 by 20after4
Tags:
Note: VectorMagic is an awesome piece of software online service that will vectorize your images to SVG or EPS format. It does a much better job than adobe illustrator or other similar "tracing" software, however, the price that they have decided to charge ($2.50 per image) is not so awesome. Uploading photos to an online service for processing is an inconvenience compared to using desktop software, however, the superior quality provided by VectorMagic outweighs the slight inconvenience. When using a free service there isn't much concern about inconveniences, however, they are now charging a very premium price for the same service. Adobe or Google should buy this company and quickly. Their business model is flawed, I can't see them making it as a start-up.
5:58 PM
Monkey: man did you see what became of our beloved vectormagic? ...boo I say!
Monkey: man did you see what became of our beloved vectormagic? ...boo I say!
6:48 PM
Trench: nope, I haven't seen vector magic since the day I showed it off
Trench: nope, I haven't seen vector magic since the day I showed it off
6:49 PM
Monkey: oh... well I used to use it all the time... now it's not free ;(
Monkey: oh... well I used to use it all the time... now it's not free ;(
Trench: I'm scared to know
wow
that's extremely lame
Monkey: yep
fucking stanford
first google, now this
Trench: maybe they are trying to pimp it to google
6:50 PM
Monkey: why would charging for it help with that cause?
Monkey: why would charging for it help with that cause?
they should have pimped it to adobe since adobe's vector algorithm sucks
6:51 PM
Trench: No no, I mean perhaps, being it is stanford, they threw the price tag on it showing that they "can't afford" to maintain it in hopes of someone at Goog going "oh, wait, this is bullshit, we need to help our Stanford peeps."
Trench: No no, I mean perhaps, being it is stanford, they threw the price tag on it showing that they "can't afford" to maintain it in hopes of someone at Goog going "oh, wait, this is bullshit, we need to help our Stanford peeps."
6:52 PM
Monkey: no it's not from stanford technically... it was some stanford students who are trying to make a business out of their school research project
Monkey: no it's not from stanford technically... it was some stanford students who are trying to make a business out of their school research project
6:53 PM
Trench: I could actually see it being a vital part of Google office apps... it could easily become clip-art++
Trench: I could actually see it being a vital part of Google office apps... it could easily become clip-art++
6:54 PM
Monkey: yeah goog needs to buy this startup ASAP
Monkey: yeah goog needs to buy this startup ASAP
but not for the sake of clipart...
it would make a nice standalone app...actually the app is fine, don't change it just make it free damn it
6:55 PM
Trench: right
Trench: right
Monkey: make me watch youtube videos with commercials while it renders
6:56 PM
Trench: I just mean it could be used in their other apps, with a new interface, for easily grabbing or creating clipart. Which douchebag business people still heart. "What, I can make my own bumble bee clipart? From an actual photo? Of an actual bee? O. M. G."
Trench: I just mean it could be used in their other apps, with a new interface, for easily grabbing or creating clipart. Which douchebag business people still heart. "What, I can make my own bumble bee clipart? From an actual photo? Of an actual bee? O. M. G."
Monkey: I could even see paying for it if they made a standalone version that I could run on my own machine but I
I'm not paying for it as a service
6:57 PM
Trench: fuck paying for it
Trench: fuck paying for it
Monkey: well I agree but I would rather pay once for it than not have it at all
and I'm not buying their "credits" so right now I'm stuck with not having it at all
6:59 PM
Trench: true, but it's not really that hardcore. It's hardcore... and I could see it bundled with another package for purchase. but just as a standalone I don't think it's worth money as desktop software or service. That's teh gay.
Trench: true, but it's not really that hardcore. It's hardcore... and I could see it bundled with another package for purchase. but just as a standalone I don't think it's worth money as desktop software or service. That's teh gay.
Very teh gay
with = worth
just woke up out of sugar induced coma
sugar
induced
SUGARCAVE
SUGARCAVE
Monkey: but it is worth something
7:00 PM I would pay $50 right now to buy it
Trench: Boo
Monkey: boo to them selling credits
Trench: Consumer! (lols)
7:02 PM I wonder how difficult the app would be to deconstruct
and then reconstruct
7:03 PM can't be too hard if it didn't take a team to do it. Even if it was a team, it wasn't a big one. /me looks
oh, here's the most recent count on the russian "incidents"
Monkey: it was a team of stanford graduate students... that means it's a hardcore program.
7:07 PM hah
they actually have the url
Monkey: ?
7:08 PM
Trench: when I went to it before it was a stanford url... damn, we should have looked to see if it was purchased. Somebody probably made bank selling it to them
Trench: when I went to it before it was a stanford url... damn, we should have looked to see if it was purchased. Somebody probably made bank selling it to them
Monkey: I'm sure they bought the domain
a long time ago
7:09 PM motherfucker!!! they want $3.50 per image
or $2 each if you buy 50 tokens
fuck them
7:10 PM
Trench: I'm looking at that shit now... this is hardcore gay
Trench: I'm looking at that shit now... this is hardcore gay
it's not going to work
Monkey: it's good but not THAT good
7:11 PM
Trench: they may be code magicians, but they certainly aren't business-model magicians.
Trench: they may be code magicians, but they certainly aren't business-model magicians.
Very few people will do this... somebody will end up making another
7:13 PM What will probably
end up happening is they will either have to completely change the
business model or... some image hosting company will try to by it and
use it for their thumbs and such. Because it would definitely free up
some server load, and wouldn't be noticeable in thumbs at all
Monkey: oh they are working on a desktop version
use it for thumbs?
7:14 PM that doesn't make much sense at all
Trench: Don't misinterpret
I mean use it to make scalable thumbs
Monkey: the server load generated in the tracing process would offset the benefits
Trench: I could see flickr having fun with this
7:15 PM Not if they are already using the server to create 6 difeferent sized duplicates of the same image
7:16 PM I'm betting the tracing is actually coded so well it's very light on teh server, else they wouldn't have been free this long
7:17 PM
Monkey: the problem with using it for thumbs is this: most browsers wouldn't support the svg format
Monkey: the problem with using it for thumbs is this: most browsers wouldn't support the svg format
so they would still have to make a jpg or png format
Trench: true
Monkey: and svg doesn't save file size on small images, it only saves file size on large ones
7:18 PM so a png thumb is less bytes than an svg
also it's gonna take more cpu to trace than it does to scale pixels
7:19 PM
Trench: You win
Trench: You win
Monkey:
motherfuckers... after reading their blog I'm no longer interested in
supporting their project. I wouldn't even pay for the desktop version
if it were available. fuck them
7:23 PM
Trench: Without even reading their blog, and totally being a graphics dude, I say it's shit. The problem is: The created a nifty little app. It's kinda like the douchebags that tried to sell filters for photoshop (don't know if they still exist), but they were idiots. If you make something cool like this you have to walk into it knowing that there are only a couple of good business models. You either do it for free (with ads if necessary) until Goog, or someone else, comes along to purchase it... or you straight-up market it to adobe. You can't do what they are doing... not with this. It's too small. Sure, it'll get a lot of use... but so does gausian blur in PS. It doesn't make it a marketable standalone.
Trench: Without even reading their blog, and totally being a graphics dude, I say it's shit. The problem is: The created a nifty little app. It's kinda like the douchebags that tried to sell filters for photoshop (don't know if they still exist), but they were idiots. If you make something cool like this you have to walk into it knowing that there are only a couple of good business models. You either do it for free (with ads if necessary) until Goog, or someone else, comes along to purchase it... or you straight-up market it to adobe. You can't do what they are doing... not with this. It's too small. Sure, it'll get a lot of use... but so does gausian blur in PS. It doesn't make it a marketable standalone.
7:24 PM
Monkey: people do still sell photoshop filters... some of them are super expensive
Monkey: people do still sell photoshop filters... some of them are super expensive
if this thing was a cheap filter for photoshop then that would be a better biz. model than what they are using
7:25 PM it's an annoyance to upload a big file for rendering, let alone paying for the service
7:26 PM
Trench: i'm actually surprised adobe just hasn't scooped it up, more I think about it. They are getting burned. By a webapp. that is doing a better job than one of the standout features in illustrator CS2
Trench: i'm actually surprised adobe just hasn't scooped it up, more I think about it. They are getting burned. By a webapp. that is doing a better job than one of the standout features in illustrator CS2
7:27 PM Half of their marketing for illustrator cs2, if not more, was the new "live trace" feature
again, by a webapp
7:28 PM
Monkey: yeah it's not just a little better, it's like several orders of magnitude better...
Monkey: yeah it's not just a little better, it's like several orders of magnitude better...
Trench: that's not good
at all
It's def wuhay better
Monkey: and that's why these guys got a big head about it and turned it into a startup...
7:29 PM adobe's trace is almost useless
Trench: prob is, they don't realize how few people really know what "live trace" is. Muchless Illustrator.
7:30 PM conversation being sent to douchebags@vectormagic.com
(kidding)
Monkey: do it
Trench: but we should
k
