I just sent this out to subscribers of the DotComIt newsletter:

Every once in a while someone says to me, "I would have bought your component if it was priced at X, but it is too expensive." Now I'm giving those people the chance to put their money where their mouth is.

In conjunction with the upcoming 360|Flex conference, we've launched a name your own price promotion. Radiohead did it to promote In Rainbows! 2D Boy did it to promote their casual game, World of Goo! Why not us? We couldn't think of a reason.

If you want to jump right to the promotion, do it. Otherwise you can read ahead about our thoughts on this.

Where Do We Start?

DotComit is not a new company, but the product business of Flextras is very different than the consulting business we've run for so long. We're still trying to figure out how to make it work, especially in this digital realm where products are just digital bits easily distributed by anyone.

It is up to us to add value to our customers above and beyond what they get by replicating digital bits. One of the items we offer is support. When you buy a Flextras component, you're buying access to us to help you solve your problems. You're buying the ability to have us tweak the API for your specific needs. You're buying peace of mind in the unlikely event that things go wrong.

Sometimes when you're dealing with random digital bits you find on the Internet they are not as polished, thought out, or bullet proof as you need them to be. Another value we can offer is our ability to continue to build and test high quality components. Your support, however you give it, helps us do that.

How do we judge success?

There are two ways we can judge this promotion as a success; one is by the number of people who participate. We'd love to reach one thousand new customers with this promotion. You can help. First, get your own set of our components. Then tell your friends. Blog about it! Post it on Twitter and Facebook. You can help us spread the word.

A second measure of success is the monetary one. I ran the numbers; and discovered that it takes $99.72 a day to keep Flextras running. That does not include non-routine marketing expenses, such as sponsorship costs of 360|Flex or Flash and The City. If we were to generate $15,000 of new revenue it would cover our conference sponsorship costs; and we'd consider it a smashing success.

Can you help us spread the word? We'd appreciate it?

I created a Flextras Page on Facebook and am experimenting with that for the Flextras Friday Lunch weekly presentations.

Take a look at the page, become a fan, and let me know how it's going. If this works, I'll probably stick with it. If not, Meetup is next on my list of ways to better handle the announcements for these things.

Thanks everybody!

Flextras is proud to be a sponsor of the 360|Flex conference in Indianapolis, starting in just one week. We're so excited we created this character that you can get your picture taken with (or taken as). I know that tickets are still available. We also have an extra special treat for all 360|Flex attendees. But you have to register to find out what it is.

The conference is real cost effective compared to others in the space. Here is my take on their reasons to go:

• Get your picture taken with the Flextras guy
• Learn from over 60 sessions of Flex, AIR and ActionScript
• Bond with the world's top Flex Developers over an open bar at their great networking events
• Go from 0 to 100 in your Flex Developer knowledge with Sunday's Flex 101 hands-on training
• Boost your Karma by helping out at the Charity Code Jam.
• Did I mention you should get your picture taken with the Flextras guy?

Hi Everyone,

I'll be giving a presentation at the Hartford Connecticut Adobe User Group entitled Your Demos are Ugly.

One of our users actually contacted me to tell me that. And he's right, our demos are relatively ugly. This presentation will focus on demoing the two existing Flextras components and we'll discuss some tips for making the demos look more flashy using effects and styles.

You can join us on-line if you want.

The presentation starts at 7:30pm EST. Convert the time to your local time zone here

The new version of Tour De Flex was just released. Along with the updates, the two demos for the Flextras DataSorter were added.

The DataSorter is an way to provide a sorting mechanism in Flex similar to YouTube playlists or NetFlix movie queues. One of our samples was built against the YouTube API, and you can view the our interactive demo and a non-iteractive one.

Here is a pretty screenshot:

There do seem to be a few problems, such as the commenting system uses the old Adobe Forums; and the comment link no longer works now that they rolled out the new system last week.

Additionally, I need to figure out how to make the links on my about page work. That would be nice. Making my text links clickable in the demos would be a nice touch too. I've pinged Greg to see if he had some insight.