Special Announcement for Aeir Talk and it's Future
Hi Everyone! Well I had this nice long video announcement all queued up and ready to post but for some reason the upload is going extremely slow. So I figured, I can write this out and the video will go up later. Thanks for everyone who stayed tuned to their Facebook and Twitter feed to find out what's going on with us.
First, a quick update. Aeir Talk has been downloaded in over 20 countries so far and our downloads continue to grow. Last week, we were downloaded in Brazil, Australia, Indonesia, the UK, Poland, and the US. We are super pumped that our little app has gone across the world so far and it is helping so many people. We are very pleased, but we know that we can do better. Which brings us to our big three announcements.
Announcement #1: We are officially going to change our name from "Aeir Talk" to "Snap and Say." Why are you doing that? you might say. Well, we really like Aeir Talk. It's kind of a creative name, but we are finding that people are having a hard time either finding us on the app store with that name, or just don't know how to pronounce our name or just have a hard time spelling our name, which can spell disaster when searching for the app in Google or Bing. This, in our point of view, is an unnecessary hurdle for our potential users to overcome, and we want to make finding us as easy as possible. Secondly, we know that with a name change comes the ability to start with a new design of logo, app icon and website change. Snap and Say will have a fresh look, a more vibrant icon and a better looking, and more concise webpage. We are excited about this change, and feel that we can have the necessary changes ready to submit and launch by the end of August, or the first half of September 2012.
Announcement #2: We are launching an Indie GoGo campaign on July 23, 2012 to help us raise capital to make new features happen for Snap and Say. As you might imagine, changes like these and the addition of new features in the near future can cost quite a bit of capital. While we have downloads, we don't have the necessary capital to take us to the next level in design and in marketing. We feel that with your help, we can not only raise capital to add new features (such as downloadable "card packs" to make adding new words easier for time strapped individuals like teachers and parents) but also be able to present Snap and Say to conferences around the country and world. We have been invited already to a special needs application conference in St. Louis, MO, and we are very happy to go. However, we have had to turn down or overlook conferences we have been invited to in San Diego, CA, Australia, and Spain because of the high cost of travel and time needed to make these trips happen. These are great opportunities to reach out to those who don't know about our app, and can let others know about it as well, but unfortunately have to miss them due to funds.
Our goal with this Indie GoGo project is going to raise $10,000 USD. This is both attainable and ambitious at the same time. It would help us with development and design costs, and would help us tremendously in our marketing efforts. We are so thankful for the offers from so many people to help us, and we wanted to let you all know about this a few weeks ahead of time so that it is not sprung upon you with no notice, but also to give you some idea as to why we are raising these funds in the first place. If you could give $1 or $5 or even $10, it would go a long way on our goal. So we want to thank you ahead of time for your support, and your reposts and retweets to help our cause. Also if we go above our $10K goal, we can begin to explore even bigger design and feature changes (perhaps iPhone and Android development) to make our app even more accessible.
Announcement #3: To celebrate the Fourth of July, and the birthday of our founders, oldest boy Deacon, we are going to put Aeir Talk on the App Store for free for the next three days. Because of all that we are going to be asking of you, we want to give back in a small way to those who are a bit strapped for cash or even on the fence of purchasing Aeir Talk. So from midnite, July 3 to midnite, July 6 (that gives you July 3, 4, and 5 to purchase for free) we are going to put our app on sale for free. You can save the two dollars it normally costs and put it toward the Indie GoGo project :), or you can buy you and your child some ice cream. We just wanted to say thank you to everyone and this is our little way of doing that. Hopefully some more individuals will enjoy our app because of this three day sale.
So I know that this is a longer post, but I want to thank you for your time, if you want the Cliffs Notes version, a video of these announcements will be going up soon, and please spread the word about our upcoming Indie GoGo project. We need your help during this time, and we thank you so much for your wonderful support you have given so far.
Have a great day, and keep on creating.
Joe Hill, Founder
July 2, 2012