And yes, we need to spend more on marketing! Our marketing budget as a percentage of revenue is probably lower than it should be. Our sales cycle is long, which makes it hard to connect a marketing expenditure to a sale, which leads to us holding back on spending. It’s that old adage, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. Trouble is, I don’t know which half.” We will be working on improving our marketing in 2010, starting with the launch of version 3.6 in January.

As far as the Council goes, we are definitely interested in some sort of marketing. Send me a note offline about what you had in mind.

I will say… two of our best case study Council members: Ephraim (Oxfam) and Bev (Penn State) have provided some of the smartest contributions on how to get 2.0 done right. I was just reading Ephraim’s post this morning on tagging and have already changed how I tag in Delicious. ThoughtFarmer is the engine that is driving this great content and experience, so I applaud you for that.

Also– you need to spend more on marketing. This is where you’re getting killed by bigger players with duller offerings. I know that really is a drag because it’s always a catch-22 with a startup. If you spend on marketing, you lose that development talent you need, etc. I’m very happy to work with you on something affordable for ThoughtFarmer with the Council. (AND this is not a veiled sales pitch: I’ve been flattering you for a long while for no good reason/motivation.) Plus, I’m more interested in helping get your word out, but alas, I’m a startup too.

Here’s to a great 2010; you guys/gals deserve it in many ways.

Anyway, best of luck with 4.0 and I hope 2010 goes as well as you are forecasting.

So I think whether you use ThoughtFarmer or SharePoint or Chatter for internal collaboration will largely come down to this question: Do I have the time, money and people to embark on a development project? If no, ThoughtFarmer will always be your best choice.

Any comments?