PictureGo!

Version 5.1/5.2 - April 2008

The lifecycle of a program.

Looking back in the Author's notes from the last couple of years, I came across a question I asked myself in August 2004, almost 4 years ago:

Will there ever be a version 7.1 (for instance)? I started this project four years ago and will I be doing this over let's say 10 years, in 2014? That is hard, if not impossible, to say. The computer world is developing so extremely fast and for an individual developer such as me, in the future it might be impossible to compete, even at a zero fee. But as long as people register PictureGo! on a daily basis, I guess I will continue.

Right now we are at version 5.2 and there will be certainly a version 5.3, but after that? When you look at the User Statistics page, there is a clear decrease in new PictureGo! users. In 2006, on average 7.5 new users every day started using PictureGo! In 2007, this figure dropped to 5.2.

Now in April 2008 the number of new users per day dropped even further to an average of 4, and in the last month the figure is down to a little over 3 new users per day.

User feedback that was very common in the past has completely vanished.

What is the reason behind this drastic decrease?

Actually, exactly what I predicted in that same paragraph I wrote in 2004. Though Google's Picasa looks great, I never was sold on it. When Vista came with the great Picture Galery features, I asked myself: why in the world would look anyone for a different solution to view their pictures.

I still say PictureGo! has its specific qualities and while this is still true (don't argue), that is of no importance to the average user.

Do I consider this to be sad? Without hesitating, I can answer this with a firm NO. This is what it is. Like I said, for an individual developer there is no way to compete with Microsoft or Google unless you are extremely talented and in that case they will probably buy you. I was never made an offer :) Today I looked at Tucows popularity rating which is still at a remarkable 93%. This tell me that PictureGo! is not the only slide show program that faces a decrease of downloads.

Like I said, there will be a 5.3 version with some nice new features. From this point it is hard to say when the new version will be released. Probably somewhere in the fall.

What is there to say about 5.1 & 5.2?

5.1 was a real useful extension of 5.0 where Multiple Slide Show was introduced. Some of the rough edges were cut off and a user friendly solution to make smaller versions of pictures was introduced.

5.2 supports the uploading of pictures, to services like Flickr.

Uploading pictures to Flickr from PictureGo!

To end these notes, I think it is safe to say that there will never be a PictureGo! 6.0. But I must say: I greatly enjoyed it and it taught me a whole lot.

Thanks to all the people who supported PictureGo! in the past and in the future!

I wish you wonderful summer holidays.

Auke Nijholt, the Netherlands , April 2008