Experimenting With Selling App Recommendations

By
Are you looking for an app that does something you need but can’t find it, or don’t want to put in the time and effort to search for it? For a small fee, I will search the app for you and recommend one that matches your requirements.

Paid app recommendation services on a Buy Me A Coffee page
The app recommendation services I sell on my Buy Me A Coffee page.

I can search for Android apps, web apps, cloud tools, Chrome extensions, add-ons, or websites that work in Chrome. Except for games as I’m not into gaming. I’ll recommend at least one app that does what you want, summarize its key features and issues, and try it on different Android and Chrome OS devices to report how it works — if possible or practical.

If no such app exists, or I’m unable to find it, I’ll suggest one that does something similar or matches some of your requirements.

I have extensive experience with searching for Android and web apps. I love looking for and experimenting with new and interesting apps I may need someday. I showcase some of the best apps in my Practicing Google newsletter.

I set up these app recommendation services on my page on Buy Me A Coffee, the creator support and crowdfunding platform I use for onetime contributions and membership plans. The new feature my services build upon, Extras, is a versatile tool for selling digital content, experiences, commissions, or consultations.

Extras does all I need, except cancelling the buyer’s order with no charge in case I’m not sure I can provide a suitable recommendation.

If I’m unable to find a suitable app, I’d prefer to decline the buyer’s request with a brief note. Otherwise I could manually accept the request and charge.

As a workaround, Buy Me A Coffee allows refunds. But refunds make me uncomfortable because they involve costly chargebacks and may affect my status with payment providers such as PayPal, Stripe, or my bank. Luckily, Buy Me A Coffee will address the charging issue.

Update

On 17 Dec 2020 I deactivated the existing Extras and I won't add any new ones.

The main reason is Gumroad, which I'm now using for my content store and loving, is much better at selling info products. Gumroad has more features like workflow automation and customer segmentation.

I have other reasons for discontinuing Extras though. It's still not easy to decline commissions if I'm sure I can't provide good recommendations. And, unlike digital products, commission work can't be automated well and doesn't scale.

Finally, I haven't sold a single Extra. Although I still have no major audience, there's probably not much demand for the kind of commissions I was offering.

My current plan is to move all my products from Buy Me A Coffee to Gumroad, except for one-time contributions.

Popular posts from this blog

Using a Bluetooth Keyboard on Android

By
Image
Two years ago I bought a cheap Bluetooth keyboard from Amazon.it. At €14, it was mostly an impulse buy for exploring mobile typing on the go and in similar settings , such as workstations with reduced desk space. My FREALL 7INKEYBD-BK Bluetooth keyboard. I initially used the keyboard with the Android tablet and smartphone I had, a 7” Lenovo Tab E7 and a Pixel 2 XL. I later repurposed the keyboard for the devices I replaced those with, a Lenovo Tab M8 HD 8” tablet and a Pixel 4 XL smartphone. Despite the simplicity of operation, it took me some trial and error to figure out how to pair the keyboard with an Android device and what keystrokes insert the characters I need, such as accented letters when writing in Italian. Moreover, I realized I never blogged about my experience with the unit. So I’m posting these notes in case you come across the same or similar keyboards. The keyboard The keyboard is a cheap, compact, plastic chiclet unit that comes with a small foldable stand for a ta...
Read more

Lenovo Tab M8 HD Review

By
Image
I bought a Lenovo Tab M8 HD , an 8” Android tablet. It comes with a MediaTek Helio A22 SoC, an IPS panel, 2 GB of RAM, and 32 GB of storage. I ordered the device from Lenovo’s Italian online store for €134. In this post I’ll share my early impressions on the device. The packaging box of the Lenovo Tab M8 HD tablet. Motivation The Lenovo Tab M8 HD replaces the Lenovo Tab E7 7” tablet I bought almost a year and a half earlier. After enjoying the Google Nexus 7 2012 and 2013 tablets I left Android slates for several years. My return to tablets with the November 2019 purchase of the cheap Lenovo Tab E7 was a sort of impulse buy. I wanted an affordable Android slate small enough to be compact but with a large enough screen to help productivity . I also figured it would double as an ebook reading device and let me explore the Android ecosystem. The Tab E7 was nice but limited. The screen didn’t have good touch sensitivity, performance was poor, there was a lot of lag, and the screen was no...
Read more

How to Add Code Syntax Highlighting to Blogger

By
Image
On my blog I always wanted to format source code in Python and a couple more languages, but couldn’t find a convenient way. Until I read a tutorial on adding syntax highlighting to Blogger blogs like mine. The Blogger post composer actually provides the monospace Courier font that may be used for source code, but it works well only for inline text . If I apply the Courier font to a block of code, the composer renders each line as a separate paragraph. This leaves too much vertical space that makes the code look ugly. A workaround is to switch to the HTML view in the composer and wrap the block within <pre> ... </pre> tags, which insert the correct line spacing. However, the code doesn’t stand out on the page and there’s room for improving its scannability and visual impact. Fortunately, Blogger is an old dog I can teach new tricks to, like the setup the tutorial I found presents. A Python code snippet with syntax highlighting rendered by highlights.js in a post of the Moo...
Read more