The MicroISV Digest for the week ending September 22nd, 2008.

(If you’re announcing the public debut of a microISV, startup or have other news to share, please email me at bob.walsh@47hats.com with the word digest in the subject.)

News and Announcements

• Benjamin Curtis announced the release of a free app startups/microISVs looking for office space will fine useful: OfficeMapper It’s a Rails-based mashup between Craigslist and Google Maps, showing officespace for rent in a given American city Craigslist covers and not coincidently showing off Ben’s new Rails Kit for sale. (via email)
• Keith Alperin released the 2.0 version of MercuryMover, a Mac productivity utility. (via email)
• Dennis Crane released a new version of his software help-authoring tool, Dr. Explain.
• Steve Cholerton released ScreenAudit 1.1.5, a Mac usage auditing utility. (via email)
• TN asked for opinions on a new logo he’s commissioned at 99designs. The way 99designs works is you pay $39 USD to start a design contest for a particular graphic with a set prize amount. Some of 99designs 18,000+ graphic artist members submit designs and you pick the winner, paying them directly. Here’s TN’s contest if you want to have a look. Another BOSer, Edwin Yip, gave this a try back in August.

Relevant Blog Posts, Videos and Articles

• Neil Davidson (Business of Software Conference) has some excellent advice for would-be microISVs holding back: Throw yourself out of the plane door. And Andrew Duffy agrees and riffs on the theme.
• A good report on the iPhone developer gold rush: iPhone Developers Go From Rags to Riches. It’s about Steve Demeter, developer of the vastly popular $5 iPhone game Trism and how he made $250,000 in profit in just two months.
• My first post for Avangate went up today: Your secret weapon: Great Customer Support and I point out there’s more than fear to be had with the changing economic times in this post here.

Further (mostly relevant) Reading

• More on the free web tool Firebug: Supercharge Firebug, at the linux.com site. This is a very cool article if you either have a web app or a web site.