Friday, March 23, 2007

444,100

The first version of HeroMachine, version 1.0, has been downloaded a total of 444,100 times, making it the 25th most-downloaded file in history on all of Simtel.

In celebration of that feat, I have redesigned heromachine.com to be a little cleaner, meaner, and up-to-date, including an FAQ, a link to my heroic illustration portfolio, and some spiffy new graphic elements.

I never imagined when I laid out the first concepts in Visual Basic in 1998 that so many people would find it a useful and fun little gizmo. That they're still willing to put up with the truly embarrassing artwork in version 1 is a testament to the power of the concept -- give people a way to express their creativity and they'll run with it.

Now if only I'd used that insight to found YouTube instead of HeroMachine ...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congratulations Jeff! I know everyone I've sent to the site loved it and are amazed at how long their kids can sit at the computer and play.

I was looking at your hero illustrations and I don't see my favorite.. Tag. I finally replaced him last month as my wallpaper with the only other picture that made me think of pure fun - Landon!

Jeff Hebert said...

Thanks! Landon definitely beats out Tag for fun factor.

The Tag illustration is actually a .GIF file, which for some reason Picasa won't let you upload. I should just convert it to a .JPG but ... well, I don't actually have a good excuse beyond "I'm too lazy to click three buttons." That sounds even lamer written down than it did in my head, oy.

Anonymous said...

Gee, if only each of those downloads actually paid something in dollars eh Jeff :D

Agree with the above, everyone I show my registered copy of HM2 loves it.

By the way, just curious, any numbers on HM2?