Yahoo Ultimate Connection Contest Outcome

[Geert Bevin]

Hi,

it's now been almost a year I think since AlphaGrip won in the Yahoo
Ultimate Connection Contest. However, I haven't seen many changes in
the website, the messaging or the product offerings?

I'm curious, what is going on? What are the plans? Is there a better
marketing campaign going to start soon?

I'm a big fan of the AlphaGrip and would like it become much more
popular to ensure that they coolest input device even becomes better.

Thanks for any info on this.

Take care,

Geert

[Michael Willner]

Hi Geert,

 

The company that was building our new website continually missed their deadlines.  At first we didn't mind too much because we didn't want to start a marketing campaign until our manufacturer finished modifying the AlphaGrip's firmware to speed up its trackball with a nonlinear gain algorithm.  That was completed about 3 months ago.  Last week we asked the website design company to give us all the files so that we could complete the project ourselves.  We have not heard back from them and assume the project is dead.  In the meantime, we have begun modifying our existing website and expect to put up an updated version in a couple of weeks.  We are hoping the updates will improve our search rankings.  Additionally, now that the trackball is faster, the website will put more emphasis on the AlphaGrip as a gaming device.  We think this will enhance sales because the learning curve for gaming with an AlphaGrip is much shorter than that for typing.  Once we put up the modified version of our website we will begin the search marketing campaign that we won in the Yahoo! contest.  Hopefully this will boost our revenues, thus providing us the resources we need to begin marketing more aggressively.  We also plan to contact some larger companies to see if any would be interested in working with us to produce a next-generation AlphaGrip.

 

Thanks for your encouragement and support.

 

Mike

[Geert Bevin]

Hi Michael,

thanks a lot for this information. Any other changes that were done to
the AlphaGrip device itself? I'm actually considering to get myself a
new one if the trackball performs more acceptably by default, but it
feels like just a tad too little to justify the acquisition ;-)

Take care,

Geert

--
Geert Bevin
Terracotta - http://www.terracotta.org
Uwyn "Use what you need" - http://uwyn.com
RIFE Java application framework - http://rifers.org
Music and words - http://gbevin.com

[Mike Willner]

Sorry, no other changes to the AlphaGrip. Here's some more information
about the trackball.

The AlphaGrip's new firmware speeds up the trackball by using a non-linear
gain algorithm, which allows it to move the pointer slowly and accurately
when you move the trackball slowly, but moves the pointer much faster when
you move the trackball quickly. There are 10 different speed settings which
can be set by generating a number (red shift + corresponding back key) while
also pressing the capital shift key as follows:

Shift + 0: 166-166 DPI (unaccelerated)
Shift + 1: 415-1000 DPI
Shift + 2: 332-1000 DPI
Shift + 3: 249-1000 DPI
Shift + 4: 166-1000 DPI
Shift + 5: 332-660 DPI
Shift + 6: 249-660 DPI
Shift + 7: 166-660 DPI
Shift + 8: 249-415 DPI
Shift + 9: 166-415 DPI

The default setting is Shift + 5 (332-660 DPI).

Mike