The short answer: Because I don’t refer people to things that I don’t think are worthwhile.

Yes, I have liked some of the things that MacHeist has done before, but this seems stupid. As if they didn’t have enough to play around with from their December 2006 and January 2008 bundles, they’ve now decided that they have to throw another bundle out the window once again. I mean, how many times do they expect us to throw $49 away? I know that these are large savings on totally random I-never-even-intended-to-purchase-this-otherwise selections of shareware, but it’s not like money grows on trees.

But now, apparently, they’ve decided to step up a notch and sell this as a retail package, but not before offering the same thing for sale online first. While I personally think that one defeats the purpose of the other, who am I to think things through logically?

But what’s crazy about this bundle is that NOTHING IS NEW. A few of the applications are from the original December 2006 bundle, but the majority of these are from the January 2008 bundle that was less than three months ago. I mean, who do they think they are kidding?

Well, they’re not entirely insane, in that they’re admitting this themselves. In an e-mail that they sent out to all of us longtime MacHeist members (I’ve been there since the beginning thanks to an invite that Larry sent me back in October 2006), they acknowledged this glaring fact:

“As an already registered member, we know you may own a lot of these apps, so in an effort to keep you interested, and involved in the world of Mac software, we’ve been hard at work putting together a truly awesome referral program. It’s time to call up those old friends… because this time around, we will be unveiling multiple tiers of software prizes, each crammed with several options.”

Well first of all, for the first part of that sentence, let’s correct “own a lot of these apps” by indicating that I own all of them courtesy of these geniuses. And so what they’ve decided to do is instead turn all of us into pawns in order to annoy our friends and family and website visitors to urge them to spend $50 on software that most of them don’t need, and on stuff that the majority of the concerned internet already has anyway. I seem to recall the January bundle having sold tens of thousands of copies, enough to raise $500,000 for charities in that go-around. So what makes this bundle worth it? No, they want to make us pawns to try to urge people not only to buy this software, but to use our referral links rather than someone else’s.

Well, I’m not going to play that game. I’m not going to try to refer people to something just for the sake of getting benefited for the referral, and I’m certainly not going to try to refer people to something that I think is completely pointless myself. That’s not the way I roll. I don’t know where MacHeist thinks they’re getting this idea from, but I don’t expect to see them getting anywhere close the the amount of participation that they’ve had in their last two bundles, because I think most people (except the people greedy for those referral apps) recognize that this is a pretty lame offering. Therefore, I’m not going to post a referral link for you to go get the bundle–consider this a “deferral” for the bundle. And if you decide that you still want to purchase it, go find someone else’s referral link and use theirs.

P.S.: I do think that MacHeist’s little “trailer” for the retail bundle is pretty cool though, kudos to them on that.

Tags: bundle, MacHeist, referral, retail, sale, shareware, Software, stupid

Well, MacHeist has just sweetened their 2008 bundle for the last time. They’re trying to get $300,000 raised for charity through bundle sales within the next three days. I must say, over the last two weeks their bundle has certainly improved in its impressiveness factor, and so I’m probably planning to buy it and do my part.

However, there are three applications in the bundle which I will not be taking advantage of. I already have a license for 1Password, which is an awesome password managing tool for Mac OS X. I know that a lot of people really like Snapz Pro X, but personally I’ve never figured it out, and I have a license for iShowU, another app which does the same thing. And as for Wingnuts 2, I’m not particularly planning to play that kind of game. (However I’ll be keeping my hands on the mini golf game because it seems interesting, and even if I don’t like it, I’m sure my younger brother would.)

But anyway, I will be giving away a license each to 1Password, Snapz Pro X, and Wingnuts 2 from the bundle. MacHeist allows me to specially designate these licenses to you when I do the check out for the bundle, so these will be licenses especially for you with your name on them. If you weren’t planning to get yourself the full MacHeist bundle but are interested in one (or more) of these three apps, this is a great opportunity to get them free!

How does it work? Post a comment to this post on Webmacster87.info telling me which app(s) you would be interested in getting for free and why you want it/them. The deadline to make your comment is 7:00 AM Eastern time (4:00 AM Pacific time) on Tuesday morning, January 22nd–this essentially gives you 38 hours. I will announce the selected winners Tuesday morning, and will purchase the bundle Tuesday afternoon (the licenses for these three apps will go out to the winners at that time, and the licenses for the remaining 11 apps will come to me for my own personal use). Please be sure that when you post your comment you enter your Name and E-mail Address exactly as you want it to appear in the license for the app(s) you’re interested in. If no one is interested in a particular app, then I’ll just keep the license and file it away somewhere.

Also, do you plan to purchase the MacHeist Bundle, but haven’t yet? PLEASE use this referral link to buy the bundle! I really really would like to get a free license for LaunchBar, and if you buy the bundle through that referral link, I get LaunchBar for free! (If you use my referral link to give me LaunchBar before Tuesday afternoon, I’m willing to use your referral link as well to return the favor.)

Again, thanks to MacHeist for putting on such a great event, and doing it for a good cause. And, thanks to all the developers who are throwing their apps into the ring for this excellent cause as well!

Tags: 1Password, applications, bundle, contest, LaunchBar, licenses, MacHeist, referral, Software