The theory goes that everyone on earth can be connected to anyone else in 6 degrees or less. While I have not tested this personally it got me to thinking about this on a different level. Of the all the people I have met which have made the most impact on my life, do I admire and somehow changed me? Then it hit me, why not create a series of posts here on my blog to document this. After giving this much thought the concept of expanding this to include others who visit here could be quite interesting.
This series of posts will go something like this, subject to modification as needed and based on input from you the readers;
-At least once per week I will post an article giving the story of 5 people who have impacted my life in some way, categorized by the relationship type such as they were a teacher or someone I worked with and reported to, etc.
-In order to keep this as personal as possible all of them must be people I have had a personal relationship with at some level, i.e. business, personal, family, student of theirs, etc.
-The core requirement for each is that the impact they have must have been a positive one, either on me directly or connected to others in some way. Including both of these criteria will allow inclusion of people who I observed and while they made an impact on me personally, the impact they made was primarily beyond that by way of the impact they had on someone else's life.
After having gone over my thought process I then realized that getting outside participation by way of others posting comments with their own personal stories would be extremely interesting. With that said I would like to invite anyone and everyone to post their own stories about others who made an impact in their life or the lives of others around them. The experiences can be ones that had a deep impact or were curiously vague and brief but still changed who you are or others around you.
Stay tuned as the series expands, the first will be titled People I Admire: Relatives and Close Friends.
Monday, 18 December 2006
Friday, 15 December 2006
Necessity is the mother of all inventions?
Necessity is the mother of all inventions? Maybe, but did we really "need" a YouTube? The answer is no, the world would still be spinning if it had not been created. This then brings up a question about invention. What was the reasoning behind the creation of YouTube and many other "big things"?
A business plan? Nope
A need by the world? Nope again, plenty of video sharing services already existed
YouTube was created simply because the founders, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen had a PERSONAL desire to create something primarily for their own use. Having started PalmGear.com (originally known as PilotGear.com) quite a few years ago the similarities in the creation of YouTube and PalmGear struck a chord with me. Neither had a set business plan or for that matter any real goals at the onset for the creations to become what they did. Yes, they did beleive there was a business to be made though a primary driver was simply they wanted a way to easily upload their own videos, born of an idea they got at a dinner party where they and others had been taking digital videos and pictures.
Of course YouTube has grown to be much more. The point here is that it was not an established company that set up meetings, spent money on research, found a void in the market and then created a product to fill that need. This is sort of creativity is what has brought out many of the "Next big things" and will continue to do so. In short, if YouTube had not turned into the success it has the founders would probably still be happy. Of course the definition of the realized success in this instance boils down to success for whom? In financial terms it has been a success for very few; the founders, the initial shareholders who were/are employees and of course the VC firms that backed them and reaped the rewards of the Google $1.6 BILLION buy out. It certainly was not a success prior to that since you have to take into consideration that they were bleeding to the tune of millions of dollars per month just in bandwidth fees.
So, what does this little diatribe have to do with anything? Simply put the "next big thing" will most likely not come from a company we know today, it will come from out in left field. From another couple guys like Chad and Steve. Examples abound; Jobs & Wozniak>Apple, Jeff Hawkins & Donna Dubinski>Palm.com and on and on. This brings to the crux of my moral for this story, CEO's LISTEN UP, this is for you:
If your company is doing well enough, i.e. take care of your core business first so as to make sure you can support this sort of endeavor and history is fraught with companies going under while they wait to turn a profit and continue to try to "create", then set up an incubation lab. I use the term "incubation lab" for sake of a better term since what I really mean is that you should put some of your brightest stars, probably unknowns in the company, in a position where they can work in total isolation and comfort. Their sole job is to pursue and create ideas that energize them. Leave them alone, do not require they participate (unless absolutely necessary to put out a fire or what not) in the day to day of the business. Their goal is to brainstorm. I have been fortunate to have the honor of working with and becoming great friends with an individual who fits this sort of role to perfection. His name is Taylor Brockman and he is one of the original founders of Pinpoint Networks, now known as Motricity.com. Taylor is one of the, if not THE most intelligent individuals I have ever met. But he is much more, he has a unique personality in that in addition to his extreme intellect (I have no doubt if he took an IQ test it would be off the scale) is one of those individuals who is extremely outgoing, affable, approachable and sees the big picture.
Before any of you who know me, or think you do, take this out of context and assume that this post is one where I am throwing a dart at Motricity, step back. That is not the case, and quite frankly since my departing Motricity earlier this year I really do not know what role Taylor is filling right now. It may be one that fits or may not. The point is not whether Motricity is giving him the freedom to dream, it is that too many companies are missing out on the next big thing by shackling their brightest stars.
Of all the "big things" that have came out over the years here are some thoughts to take with you;
-How many failures were there before a success?
-Of the successes, how many would never have taken that first step if they had known on day one all the trials and tribulations they would have to endure? Getting funding, legal fees, hiring bizdev folks, etc., etc. Remember, many of the "big things" were not created with the end-all goal of being the huge success that they ended up achieving.
If you are not in a position to set up someone like Taylor in an incubator, then do the following:
-Find your own Taylor Brockman and learn from them, listen to them and let them be your mentor
-Understand that nobody today knows what the "next big thing" will be, keep your ears and eyes open
My hat is off to you the founders of YouTube and as well a huge YOU DA' MAN out to my friend Taylor.
PS... Taylor is getting married next spring, so if you are very young watch out since his kids will surely be inspired as well!
A business plan? Nope
A need by the world? Nope again, plenty of video sharing services already existed
YouTube was created simply because the founders, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen had a PERSONAL desire to create something primarily for their own use. Having started PalmGear.com (originally known as PilotGear.com) quite a few years ago the similarities in the creation of YouTube and PalmGear struck a chord with me. Neither had a set business plan or for that matter any real goals at the onset for the creations to become what they did. Yes, they did beleive there was a business to be made though a primary driver was simply they wanted a way to easily upload their own videos, born of an idea they got at a dinner party where they and others had been taking digital videos and pictures.
Of course YouTube has grown to be much more. The point here is that it was not an established company that set up meetings, spent money on research, found a void in the market and then created a product to fill that need. This is sort of creativity is what has brought out many of the "Next big things" and will continue to do so. In short, if YouTube had not turned into the success it has the founders would probably still be happy. Of course the definition of the realized success in this instance boils down to success for whom? In financial terms it has been a success for very few; the founders, the initial shareholders who were/are employees and of course the VC firms that backed them and reaped the rewards of the Google $1.6 BILLION buy out. It certainly was not a success prior to that since you have to take into consideration that they were bleeding to the tune of millions of dollars per month just in bandwidth fees.
So, what does this little diatribe have to do with anything? Simply put the "next big thing" will most likely not come from a company we know today, it will come from out in left field. From another couple guys like Chad and Steve. Examples abound; Jobs & Wozniak>Apple, Jeff Hawkins & Donna Dubinski>Palm.com and on and on. This brings to the crux of my moral for this story, CEO's LISTEN UP, this is for you:
If your company is doing well enough, i.e. take care of your core business first so as to make sure you can support this sort of endeavor and history is fraught with companies going under while they wait to turn a profit and continue to try to "create", then set up an incubation lab. I use the term "incubation lab" for sake of a better term since what I really mean is that you should put some of your brightest stars, probably unknowns in the company, in a position where they can work in total isolation and comfort. Their sole job is to pursue and create ideas that energize them. Leave them alone, do not require they participate (unless absolutely necessary to put out a fire or what not) in the day to day of the business. Their goal is to brainstorm. I have been fortunate to have the honor of working with and becoming great friends with an individual who fits this sort of role to perfection. His name is Taylor Brockman and he is one of the original founders of Pinpoint Networks, now known as Motricity.com. Taylor is one of the, if not THE most intelligent individuals I have ever met. But he is much more, he has a unique personality in that in addition to his extreme intellect (I have no doubt if he took an IQ test it would be off the scale) is one of those individuals who is extremely outgoing, affable, approachable and sees the big picture.
Before any of you who know me, or think you do, take this out of context and assume that this post is one where I am throwing a dart at Motricity, step back. That is not the case, and quite frankly since my departing Motricity earlier this year I really do not know what role Taylor is filling right now. It may be one that fits or may not. The point is not whether Motricity is giving him the freedom to dream, it is that too many companies are missing out on the next big thing by shackling their brightest stars.
Of all the "big things" that have came out over the years here are some thoughts to take with you;
-How many failures were there before a success?
-Of the successes, how many would never have taken that first step if they had known on day one all the trials and tribulations they would have to endure? Getting funding, legal fees, hiring bizdev folks, etc., etc. Remember, many of the "big things" were not created with the end-all goal of being the huge success that they ended up achieving.
If you are not in a position to set up someone like Taylor in an incubator, then do the following:
-Find your own Taylor Brockman and learn from them, listen to them and let them be your mentor
-Understand that nobody today knows what the "next big thing" will be, keep your ears and eyes open
My hat is off to you the founders of YouTube and as well a huge YOU DA' MAN out to my friend Taylor.
PS... Taylor is getting married next spring, so if you are very young watch out since his kids will surely be inspired as well!
Thursday, 14 December 2006
WOO HOO! New Cowboy Stadium coming to town....
Yes, I am a Dallas Cowboys fan, live with it!Jerry Jones unveiled pictures and a virtual tour of the new stadium being built here in Arlington yesterday. IMHO it is stunning! WAY OVER BUDGET, $1 BILLION dollars is the new total. YIKES! And... $100 for tickets? Add on parking, food and drinks and your looking at $600++ for a family of four. Hmmmmm.... note to self, go list kidney for sale on ebay to generate some cash to go see the Cowboys in the new stadium...
Click here to see the virtual tour, very cool!
Wednesday, 13 December 2006
Why mobile software sales are tanking & what to do about it...
First off, for the purpose of this post, mobile software means software for devices such as that listed at PalmGear.com, PocketGear.com, Handango.com, etc. i.e. SmartPhones, PDA's and the like. Regardless of the OS....
So, why are sales shrinking at an ever increasing rate? There are a number of reasons:
Well, to understand the shift you do not need to understand the devices (in this instance PDA -vs- SmartPhone), you need to understand who is buying the devices and their view of them has changed. The big difference is that SmartPhones (pick your flavor, be it Treo, Windows Mobile, Symbian, etc.) are at or close to becoming a commodity. What is is creating the sales of the current batch of SmartPhones is based not so much on capability (unlike the war between PDA's of the past, i.e. Palm, Dell, Handspring, etc.) but on slick marketing. A case in point, the Motorola Razr. Love it or hate it you have to admit that the marketing behind it has been extremely sexy. Think back to the first Razr commercials you saw, what was the message? Capabilities? Nope, it was the look and feel. Everyone one wanted the cool new Razr! LOOK AT IT! LOOK HOW COOL I AM, I HAVE A RAZR! I have a few friends who have one and after the newness wore off they universally said that it was not that great of a phone much less SmartPhone (which it certainly is not).
What does this have to do with sales of software for SmartPhones? Looking back to the PDA heyday, think Palm V for example, and one thing was clear; people who bought them looked at them in much the same way as the purchase of a notebook computer. They bought them based on form factor, speed and what they could do. Could meaning what software would run on them which means how could they build their own device. Whereas SmartPhone consumers expect them to do everything they need out of the box, no 3rd party software necessary. They do not care how much memory they have for installing software, unlike the PDA buyers who based a large part of their purchase decision on how much free memory a device came with. This is being reflected in declining sales of software by 3rd party developers for all the mobile OS devices and further is being compounded by the carriers.
The carriers part in this is simple, they are not promoting software via their decks. They are promoting "entertainment", i.e. games, wallpapers, ringtones, ringbacks, etc. Same old stuff that has been around for a long time, just repackaged. And the decks have extremely limited shelf space due to the screen size. Again, compounding the problem. Then to top it off, while getting on the carrier deck might be seen as the holy grail for a product the revenue shares are at best 40% to the provider of it. Not bad of course if your product sells eleveny-billion copies but beyond that where does that leave you?
Another factor affecting reduced mobile software sales, though in this instance it is specific to the Treo line, is the volume of sales that are being made by corporations. This has impacted software sales primarily due to three factors:
A couple hints, within the nag screens give them other hints and tips. In other words tell them about some hidden features along with the nag to purchase. By doing this you are feeding them more reasons to keep using the software and the more they use it the more likely they are to buy it!
Understand that sometimes you will need to step away and detach yourself emotionally from a product. Analyze if the hours you are putting into it are worth it or could be better used by enhancing another product or creating a new one. Sometimes it is better to end-of-life a product than it is to add to your frustration by continuing to feed a dying legacy.
Reinvent your products, yourself and/or your company. Think back to the year the Ford Taurus was released, for many years thereafter it was the number one selling vehicle in the United States. Is that still the case today? Of course not. Why? Simple, Ford rested on it's laurels while the competition had the market in their sights. People do not buy the product that was hot last year, they buy the product that is hot TODAY.
Penny wise and pound foolish? I hear over and over about how the ESD's are evil. While I am not going to argue the validity or invalidity of any of the bullet points many use to base that claim, nor the reduced market share they represent, suffice it to say they do provide value. While you can get a credit card processor with rates in the 3% or so range, thus less than the 10% to 20% the ESD's charge for their ecommerce solutions, what else do you get in return? It is beyond the context of this post to go into a comparison of the ESD's, so for this example I will use Mobihand.com. Mobihand retains 12.5% for developers to use their ecommerce solution. Not bad when you consider all the pieces it comes with;
-They manage the ecommerce servers, bandwidth, coding, etc.
-Sales at your site count towards the best sellers lists at their site and we all know how valuable getting onto a best sellers list can be
-On device order processing
-Preferential treatment for email and other marketing promotions
-Ability to list other developers products in your store with a revenue share going to you
-They deal with the CC processor on chargebacks, etc.
Now then, saving you all the hours creating the above would take and not even mentioning the hours you will not be spending on maintenance it might be a pretty good deal. Especially if you do not have the resources to dedicate someone to those items.
Shift focus by getting into "Business Development/Sales" mode and more...
So, why are sales shrinking at an ever increasing rate? There are a number of reasons:
- PDA's are dead
- SmartPhones are hot
Well, to understand the shift you do not need to understand the devices (in this instance PDA -vs- SmartPhone), you need to understand who is buying the devices and their view of them has changed. The big difference is that SmartPhones (pick your flavor, be it Treo, Windows Mobile, Symbian, etc.) are at or close to becoming a commodity. What is is creating the sales of the current batch of SmartPhones is based not so much on capability (unlike the war between PDA's of the past, i.e. Palm, Dell, Handspring, etc.) but on slick marketing. A case in point, the Motorola Razr. Love it or hate it you have to admit that the marketing behind it has been extremely sexy. Think back to the first Razr commercials you saw, what was the message? Capabilities? Nope, it was the look and feel. Everyone one wanted the cool new Razr! LOOK AT IT! LOOK HOW COOL I AM, I HAVE A RAZR! I have a few friends who have one and after the newness wore off they universally said that it was not that great of a phone much less SmartPhone (which it certainly is not).
What does this have to do with sales of software for SmartPhones? Looking back to the PDA heyday, think Palm V for example, and one thing was clear; people who bought them looked at them in much the same way as the purchase of a notebook computer. They bought them based on form factor, speed and what they could do. Could meaning what software would run on them which means how could they build their own device. Whereas SmartPhone consumers expect them to do everything they need out of the box, no 3rd party software necessary. They do not care how much memory they have for installing software, unlike the PDA buyers who based a large part of their purchase decision on how much free memory a device came with. This is being reflected in declining sales of software by 3rd party developers for all the mobile OS devices and further is being compounded by the carriers.
The carriers part in this is simple, they are not promoting software via their decks. They are promoting "entertainment", i.e. games, wallpapers, ringtones, ringbacks, etc. Same old stuff that has been around for a long time, just repackaged. And the decks have extremely limited shelf space due to the screen size. Again, compounding the problem. Then to top it off, while getting on the carrier deck might be seen as the holy grail for a product the revenue shares are at best 40% to the provider of it. Not bad of course if your product sells eleveny-billion copies but beyond that where does that leave you?
Another factor affecting reduced mobile software sales, though in this instance it is specific to the Treo line, is the volume of sales that are being made by corporations. This has impacted software sales primarily due to three factors:
- The purchasing companies IT departments are instructing the employees to not install anything on their Treo
- Adoption of the Treo's bundled with Good Technologies Good Link means that synching via the desktop/notebook PC is not a requirement to keep contact management data up to date. No cradle means no way to install software other than directly via the install tool that Good Link comes with.
- Treo's are being provided to employees and are thus seen as something they are "required" to have. Contrast this with the PDA purchase of years ago which was paid for by the employee because they wanted it, not because it was required.
- Does the software you created have a demo available? If so how long is the demo period for? Give yourself 2 points if a demo is offered, 1 point if the demo is for 14 days, 5 points if it is for 30
- After the demo period expires, can it still be used (even with limited functionality)?
10 points if it will no longer work, subtract 10 if it continues to function. - During the demo time period, how often does the software nag to purchase?
Every time they use it, 1 point. Once per day, 2 points. Once per week for the first two weeks and then once per day and finally every time it used after that with a display letting them know how many days of use they have left, 10 points. - Within the nag screens, how are you instructing them to pay for it?
To go to your website, 1 point. Presented with option to pay via the device wirelessly, 10 points. Instructs them to read the documentation for details, no instructions, etc. Seriously? Subtract 10 points.
A couple hints, within the nag screens give them other hints and tips. In other words tell them about some hidden features along with the nag to purchase. By doing this you are feeding them more reasons to keep using the software and the more they use it the more likely they are to buy it!
Understand that sometimes you will need to step away and detach yourself emotionally from a product. Analyze if the hours you are putting into it are worth it or could be better used by enhancing another product or creating a new one. Sometimes it is better to end-of-life a product than it is to add to your frustration by continuing to feed a dying legacy.
Reinvent your products, yourself and/or your company. Think back to the year the Ford Taurus was released, for many years thereafter it was the number one selling vehicle in the United States. Is that still the case today? Of course not. Why? Simple, Ford rested on it's laurels while the competition had the market in their sights. People do not buy the product that was hot last year, they buy the product that is hot TODAY.
Penny wise and pound foolish? I hear over and over about how the ESD's are evil. While I am not going to argue the validity or invalidity of any of the bullet points many use to base that claim, nor the reduced market share they represent, suffice it to say they do provide value. While you can get a credit card processor with rates in the 3% or so range, thus less than the 10% to 20% the ESD's charge for their ecommerce solutions, what else do you get in return? It is beyond the context of this post to go into a comparison of the ESD's, so for this example I will use Mobihand.com. Mobihand retains 12.5% for developers to use their ecommerce solution. Not bad when you consider all the pieces it comes with;
-They manage the ecommerce servers, bandwidth, coding, etc.
-Sales at your site count towards the best sellers lists at their site and we all know how valuable getting onto a best sellers list can be
-On device order processing
-Preferential treatment for email and other marketing promotions
-Ability to list other developers products in your store with a revenue share going to you
-They deal with the CC processor on chargebacks, etc.
Now then, saving you all the hours creating the above would take and not even mentioning the hours you will not be spending on maintenance it might be a pretty good deal. Especially if you do not have the resources to dedicate someone to those items.
Shift focus by getting into "Business Development/Sales" mode and more...
- contact the drivers now. For example, reach out to Good and find out what opportunities there might be for your products to be included in their bundles.
- look through your customer list and see how many have company email addresses where multiple people from the same company have made a purchase. Shoot off an email/get on the phone and call them, find out if there might be an opportunity for a volume purchase by the company.
- get another set of eyeballs on your product and website, to give you a professional review. Yes, this cost money though is very cheap in relation to what the return can be. Shameless plug, contact Compeau/Fawkes to get a marketing review done.
- diversify, get your top selling products ported to the other mobile OS's.
- get back to basics, seriously, when is the last time you analyzed traffic to your site, did SEO, checked ranking at Google, bought Google ad words, etc.?
Perception is reality or is it the other way around? A lesson for CEO's
You have heard it before: "Perception is Reality", is that still true today? or... is reality driving perception?
Lets look at both...
Perception is Reality
Quite simply put this is the process where the first impression of something is what is reality to the beholder. That "something" can be, amongst many things:
Reality is Perception
This is not in my minds eye like the opposite, i.e. perceptions are not necessarily real even though they create that reality. This though is the most dangerous since in the opinion of the person who has this mindset it is not a perception, it is FACT!
Like my other blogs, before and after this one, what is the moral of this story? First it is amazing to me how so many companies and CEO's/C-Level folks are able to utter the words and thoughts and process of "walk the walk" yet all their most public actions are that they are simply very good at "talking the talk". Take for an example how the CEO of company XXXXXX continually touts having an "open door policy", etc., blah, blah, blah. By attempting to endear himself to the employees he created the perception that he will work with them, experience their wins and failures, pain and joy. Of course the employees eat this up. Where this reverses is when things are not so good and the REAL reality comes to light; the CEO is better than the employees. Did he take a pay cut when employees were laid off? Nope. The cascade has started and stopping it will be extremely difficult, maybe impossible. As employees become disgruntled and worried about their jobs they realize it is not a team effort and thus begin actively looking for new jobs in anticipation of being laid off and/or not being fulfilled on top of disillusionment in upper management. Keep it up and another round of layoffs will not be necessary, they will have already moved on to another employer and in the process will spread the "reality" of company XXXXX with others. Competing companies love this and it tells them very clearly what NOT to do in order to have happy employees!
The moral is: If you cannot "walk the walk" then DO NOT "talk the talk". Doing so is a self fulfilling prophecy waiting to happen, and the prophecy is not a rosy one. Remember, people are more upset about not knowing the truth than they are being lied to. Kind of hard to ask employees to make a sacrifice when they see upper management living it up...
What else should managers do or not do?
Lets look at both...
Perception is Reality
Quite simply put this is the process where the first impression of something is what is reality to the beholder. That "something" can be, amongst many things:
- an employer
- a company
- a product
- a person
Reality is Perception
This is not in my minds eye like the opposite, i.e. perceptions are not necessarily real even though they create that reality. This though is the most dangerous since in the opinion of the person who has this mindset it is not a perception, it is FACT!
Like my other blogs, before and after this one, what is the moral of this story? First it is amazing to me how so many companies and CEO's/C-Level folks are able to utter the words and thoughts and process of "walk the walk" yet all their most public actions are that they are simply very good at "talking the talk". Take for an example how the CEO of company XXXXXX continually touts having an "open door policy", etc., blah, blah, blah. By attempting to endear himself to the employees he created the perception that he will work with them, experience their wins and failures, pain and joy. Of course the employees eat this up. Where this reverses is when things are not so good and the REAL reality comes to light; the CEO is better than the employees. Did he take a pay cut when employees were laid off? Nope. The cascade has started and stopping it will be extremely difficult, maybe impossible. As employees become disgruntled and worried about their jobs they realize it is not a team effort and thus begin actively looking for new jobs in anticipation of being laid off and/or not being fulfilled on top of disillusionment in upper management. Keep it up and another round of layoffs will not be necessary, they will have already moved on to another employer and in the process will spread the "reality" of company XXXXX with others. Competing companies love this and it tells them very clearly what NOT to do in order to have happy employees!
The moral is: If you cannot "walk the walk" then DO NOT "talk the talk". Doing so is a self fulfilling prophecy waiting to happen, and the prophecy is not a rosy one. Remember, people are more upset about not knowing the truth than they are being lied to. Kind of hard to ask employees to make a sacrifice when they see upper management living it up...
What else should managers do or not do?
- Be gracious and sincere to all employees. They can see through insincerity in a heartbeat. If they do not think you care then why should they?
- Show gratitude; Remember the old Texas saying - "Remember who brung you to the dance"
- Listen to everyone and take no negative action against those who disagree with you. Caveats apply in some instances of course.
- Don't be self serving, if you created something fine, take credit for it. Otherwise spread the credit to the team, you will lift the company as a whole by taking care of those below in the management chain and in the process will find that creativity will blossom since employees will know that their efforts will be recognized.
- Crap does flow uphill! While some things are not within your control the buck ends with the CEO and regardless of the cause of a problem it is the top that must manage the course correction.
- Remember your place; employees are not your children
- VC funded? Have outside shareholders? Simple, remember it is not YOUR money! Keep balance and remember they want a return
- Listen to the professional research organizations such as IDC and Gartner but do not take their predictions as the rule
Tuesday, 12 December 2006
Common sense more accurate than research data?
With the holidays come all sorts of predictions for the future; sales will be dominated by X next year and Y will die a quick death, etc., etc. Yet how many times are they so off base? Seems more often than not. Yet even though this has been the case year after year large companies still drive their businesses based on the research firms who put out the predictions. A quick example; as far back as 7+ years ago it was predicted that the Palm OS would die at the hands of Windows Mobile/Pocket PC's. While the Palm OS has certainly seen better days, saved in great part by the Treo line of SmartPhones, the predictions were still totally off base. The underlying principles and design that made the first Palm PDA's leaders are the same ones that have propelled the Treo's to dominance in the SmartPhone market. Even Consumer Reports in it's December 2006 issue recommends the Treo 650, specifically mentioning how much easier the Palm OS is to use than it's competitors! What has changed is it is now a converged device: Phone and PDA.
What does all this have to do with anything? From my point of view a number of things:
What does all this have to do with anything? From my point of view a number of things:
- The research companies making the predictions (Gartner, etc.) are basing their predictions off of (from what I can tell though it seems reasonably accurate at least as far as the predictions they are making) A. what the companies who make devices are telling them which they are basing off of current sales trends, B. info from so called industry "visionaries" and C. bad data, trending is easy, where the bad data comes in is the data they are using. For example, what one carrier defines as a SmartPhone and includes in it's sales data within that definition is totally different than another carrier. Garbage-in = Garbage-out.
- Convergence is here, in fact it has been for a long, long time. Albeit not successfully until the first Treo was launched by Handspring (now part of Palm, Inc.)
- Content, schmontent... The aggregators, from the D2C ones like Handango, PalmGear, Mobihand, etc. all the way up to the big boys such as Verisign, Motricity, etc. are doing what they have been for years; REACTING to the market instead of DRIVING IT, i.e. being PROACTIVE.
- Long tail? At what cost? Much has been said about this and worse there are even college courses dedicated to this "phenomenon". They would have you to beleive that by carrying everything under the sun your bussiness will be a success, "hey, everybody wants something different, right? So sell it all!". The flaws in this are in the management of thousands of titles and that subscribing to the Long Tail as a have-all-be-all is a contradiction to capitalism and survival of the fittest. My suggestion to the aggregators?
a. CULL THE HERD! If you have a product that has not sold a single product in say the prior 6 months DISABLE IT! Why continue to muddy the waters. Does not matter if it was a best seller a year ago, all it is doing now is keeping your customers from finding what they WILL PAY FOR! At the very least these has been and in many cases never beens should be relegated to a section of your sites/catalogs called maybe "old stuff", blah, blah, blah. Fix this and your abandoned shopping cart rates will improve greatly.
b. Limit your product mixes to no more than 5 of the same thing, seriously, DO YOU REALLY NEED ELEVENTY-BILLION versions of Sodoku? Carrier decks should have been a clue: Customers will buy what they are presented........
c. It is self depricating. Think about it, Ecommerce company XYZ has 100,000 products of which 25,000 sell at least one unit a month. XZY company is happy! BUT.. what about the vendors? ERK.. They must continually come up with new products to make a living, now that 100,000 product number is 125,000 then 150,000, etc., etc. And the customer? They have to sift through more and more to find what they want and with the quantity exists a greater chance that the quality is not there. SOLUTION: CULL THE HERD!
While the Long Tail theory is more than just a theory, what about the other side of the coin? Sure, if you are Amazon the Long Tail represents a ton of revenue, but what about the products and companies who create that revenue? Sadly very few, if any, of them are making much more than the equivalent of dinner at McDonald's. Great, a couple thousand vendors getting their monthly heart attack fat quota met.
Should you ignore the Long Tail? Of course not, but there is I am confident more revenue and customer satisfaction AND vendor as well to be found in the middle area. One of the advantages of ecommerce is unlimited shelf space, but think about it; that is what makes traditional brick and mortar successful. Shelf space is very valuable. Take the middle ground and treat your "virtual shelf space" as if it was a valuable commodity, just like they are at WalMart but with the added twist that you can sell products that a brick-and-mortar retailer cannot. If it does not sell do you think that WalMart keeps it on the shelf? NOPE! And neither should the content aggregators, or at least they should relegate it to another area of the site, in the process making it easier to find what they will buy. Seriously, when is the last time you went shopping on the net and considered it an "EXPERIENCE" like you do in the real world? Uh, never? That is why it is even more important to make sure that finding products quickly, with as little fuss as possible, is PARAMOUNT!
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