In order to maintain development of our application and increase the pace of improving we need your support.

We are working very hard to make Mindomo the best mind mapping platform and in order to do that we need the support of all our users including the ones who use our tool for free, thus we made the following changes:

a) we reduced the number of maps a Free user can create to 3 (instead of 7 private and unlimited public)

b) we introduced a new “Get Free Premium” program where any of you can earn free Premium membership if you help us spread Mindomo.

We are sure that the new changes will have benefits for all our users.

Thank you for your support!

Zoltan Lorincz
CEO – Mindomo

Update: it seems that for some users the like on Facebook doesn’t update the membership. If it happened to you, contact us by e-mail and we will fix it manually.

23 Comments

  1. wpvcleaningf.newsvine.com Reply

    We’re a bunch of volunteers and starting a brand new scheme in our community.
    Your website offered us with useful information to work
    on. You’ve performed a formidable activity and our entire neighborhood will be grateful to you.

  2. I am also a devoted free user of mindomo and promote it to my colleagues, students and even wrote an article to promote it to others. However, such a rude move (without warning your users in advance) is really disappointing. I may not be a potential premium user (as others have also admitted) and may change to other free providers, but this is to a large extent, IMHO, the result to this sudden change of policy without any warning.
    I am not saying that we deserve to have free accounts forever and really appreciate your mindmapping software but feel disappointed about the move. This act really kicks users out instead of promoting the software.

  3. Dear all,

    thank you again for your comments.
    We did not wanted to cause you trouble, especially not for the people who are our multipliers.

    As i said if you think you are our ambassador send your story by e-mail to us and we will be more than happy to work out a solution.

    Thank you,
    Zoltan Lorincz.

  4. I echo all before.
    I chose Mindomo for helping to reach students of my subject (Geography) who may not have a dedicated teacher of the subject and may want to reach an Extension level of material above their standard textbook. I now of other sites that have maintained an ability for a Moderator to use the email address of the client to verify their bonafide usage. Could you not try that scheme so that those of us using the service for community good will carry on being driven to you? I'd have thought if you combined that with our profiles from Facetwat you'd have a neat bundle of data to sell on to niche marketing-education advertisers?
    For now I'm as low as can go; thx
    Will

  5. None of your maps were deleted. You can unlock them with a simple like on facebook through “My account – Win premium”

  6. MindomoSucks Reply

    Thank you mindomo for deleting my Maps that I had saved & making me start all over.

    I'm definitely going to another Mindmapping service.

    You've lost a customer for sure.

    Way to run your company

  7. Dido, the competition is hard on the area, I also chose mindomo in spite of others and did not like the no warning policy
    Reflecting whether to move elsewhere…

  8. Not even subscribed, so I'm not effected, but I've been watching your site and waiting until you release an android app. What you did was a terrible business move. Even if your team thinks that this was an acceptable way of working, remember that the majority of your users are from different cultures and think in different ways. As said above you should apologize, unlock peoples maps and give a warning before executing such a decision.

    Handle this maturely and you might save face. As of now I'm not even sure I would want to sign-up even if an android app were released. Really had large hopes for your software, show us that you can be extraordinary.

  9. So for short, your business plan didn't work and now you try to blackmail your users. Good luck. I don't think that this will be successful.

    I was an ambassador, i showed a lot of people Mindomo and was also asked at conferences, what tool i do use. Maybe some of them are now one of your premium users (i hope not).

    The main reason for my decision to use Freemind in the future is not that i'm not willing to pay something (but i must admit that it's unlikely that i ever will pay 6 dollar/month for the private usage of a mindmap software, but e.g. i introduced Huddle in our working group, they get now 40 Dollar per month from us), but that i have learned the lesson not to make data access dependent to the goodwill of a 3rd party (= not to store data in the cloud only).

  10. Hi all,

    Thank you for your feedback. I will try to answer all of you, so you can understand better why this was a necessary decision.

    I agree with you it would have been a much more polite way to send out a newsletter, but without upgrading to premium it wouldn't help you with anything because exporting was always a premium feature.
    Instead we choose a more practical solution and made it easy to get 30 days of premium without payment. We also introduced an 1 month payment option.

    Introducing the limitation to new users would take us too long to obtain something out of the change.
    With 7 private maps and unlimited public maps we were giving away too much without getting anything in return.
    We need something for something and we created several options where you can obtain premium membership without payment with many more to come.

    The problem with giving away too much for nothing is that people get used to it and as the comments on this blog shows, they will never convert to premium no matter what you do. Instead they will go for other free alternatives. So we need to find those people who are valuing our tool and they are willing to give us something in return.
    Do you consider yourself our ambassador and you can help us spread Mindomo? Then let's discuss. Write us an e-mail describe your case and we will work out something, but you need to bring value in return for the usage of our tool.

    As you probably know this is not a side project which we do in our spare time, this is what we do for a living. The last 4 years we had the chance to see the potential on giving a large part of our tool for free and it turns out that to take the tool to the level where we want, needs more from you.

    Thanks again for your feedback even if it is a negative one.
    Zoltan

  11. Great company, great product with fantastic ideas & innovation (and potential to be one of those huge internet successes) …

    … limitting new free users is fine, but it's probably not the best idea to alienate a large section of your extant user-base (potential premium customers).

    Please consider reversing this decision (as soon as possible, to limit the potential damage here) and have a re-think.

    Carrots work far better than sticks 🙂

    – a fan of mindomo (& a premium user)

  12. I had always a bad feeling about storing data only in the cloud without the possibility to create a backup (that could be also used locally), and now i know that this fear is totally legitimate. I will switch now to Freemind in combination with Dropbox, although it will be a lot of work to recreate the maps and i will miss some of your features.

  13. I am a paying member and even I am disgusted about your tactic. You can fix this.

    First thing you should do is send out an apology to all users for the inconvenience you have caused. Secondly you should reinstate the 7 free maps. Thirdly provide a two to three month warning saying you will be cutting back to 3 and provide a clear road map for the options people have.

    Not doing anything about the frustration would be truly stupid. Do the right thing. Show that you care.

  14. Great! No advance warning, and one fine day you decide to lock our maps. Why no warning? Because we don't read our emails?!? Now you force us to “LIKE” you in Facebook, and hold our files hostage? Unbelievable! And you have the guts to ask almost admin permission to my FB account – “create events on my behalf? create posts on my wall? ..are you kidding me?!

    Great way to put off your existing users, who are most likely your brand ambassadors, who have a MUCH better chance of Upgrading to premium, than a “new” unknown user who hasn't used the platform.

    A much more elegant way would have to grandfather your existing users, and give limit3 maps to NEW users. Or at least give ample warning, with an option to export files out – Now, no way I am going to be arm twisted to export my files out – and no way I am going to recommend anyone in my school to try it out.

    I do realize you dont run a charity and need to make a buck – but there is a right way & wrong way to approach it.

  15. Tell me WHY Mindomo is requesting SO WIDE permission?

    I want just to “Like” in Facebook, BUT Mindomo is going to use this whole long list of:

    Access my basic information
    Includes name, profile picture, gender, networks, user ID, list of friends, and any other information I've shared with everyone.

    Send me email
    Mindomo may email me directly at ***@***.com ·
    Post to my Wall
    Mindomo may post status messages, notes, photos, and videos to my Wall

    Access my data any time
    Mindomo may access my data when I'm not using the application

    Manage my events
    Mindomo may create events on my behalf
    Access my profile information
    About Me, Birthday and Website

    Not too much?

  16. Hi,

    i will discuss with my colleagues on Monday, if we really need such a wide permission.

    I will post the results of our discussions here.

    Best,
    Zoltan.

  17. Thank you!! You have just wrecked 3 weeks of work of my 26 students instantly with no warning. After having used your program for years I am now out! How about an offering and a warning before you make changes?

    sbloom

  18. We wanted to send e-mails to warn you but we realized that many users don't read the e-mails from which they signed up, and the effect would have been the same.

    Instead we made it very easy to unlock your maps. You just have to like us on facebook. You get 30 days free premium.

    But please send us an e-mail at info@mindomo.com we would like to discuss with you.

    Thank you,
    Zoltan.

  19. I'm in shock. Without warning to reduce the number of free cards, without the possibility of import in the offline format… I'll look for other online mindmapping service.

  20. We are sure that the new changes will have benefits for all our users.

    ??????

    You reduce number of maps instead of increasing them for free users….

    I'm amazing about your politics.

  21. Dear Baloo,

    even if you will have fewer maps you will be able to do much more with the new features we are preparing.

    Dear Anonymous,
    please look at our brand new “Get Free Premium” program, you will find it under “My Account” and you will see that you can easily get 30 days premium, and you don't have any limitation then.

    Best,
    Zoltan.

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