Chasing after the customers… Is this the right approach?
I feel constantly chased. Every single day of my life I feel chased by thousands of companies that are trying to invade my privacy using every different mean. I have reached a point that I try to remember the names of the companies that disturb my peace to never buy anything from them again. They target you (that could be ok), but they end up flooding you with thousands of references of different products and services in which you might have no interest at all… and this drives me mad. I’m having a hard time in understanding how all these...
read moreCreation or Curation?
It’s a big web out there. Original content can set companies apart. But increasingly, people are relying on trusted sources – friends, family, brands, experts – to help keep informed and entertained. With so much data available at your fingertips, are content creators being eclipsed by content curators? There appears to be a big and growing role for curation as a value-added service. To be clear, curation is not merely the aggregation of select information. Curation is the mixing and re-packaging of content to create things that...
read moreConnecting to Customers in the Social Era
It has become fairly popular that we hear of companies executing “Social Media Strategies” in order to attract new users and connect to their existing customers. In this article I discuss the foundations of this approach and attempt to figure out what’s next to come. In a recent Digital Marketing conference, Yossi Hebert, President of Oxford Hills Partners suggested a three-step framework for building relationships with users through Social Media – Engagement, Participation and Advocating. As a first step, it’s important to create...
read moreThe other half of the population: Why don’t you write online reviews?
An interesting statistic – about 50% of people in the US have written online reviews at least once in their life. Yes, that’s right. Over the half of population has generated reviews on whatever products/service they experienced (or not), which I find amazing. But wait a minute…. what about the other half? – People who have never written any reviews? Why do only half write something online about whether they liked the products? Why not 70, 80% or even 100%? Of course, we have to exclude some people who don’t have much access on...
read moreMonetising Heroes of Newerth
As a self-proclaimed addicted gamer, I recently received a notification from S2Games, an independent game developer (started by a serial entrepreneur) that developed Heroes of Newerth (HoN). HoN is a team-based hit and slash game that took the popular Warcraft 3 custom map concept Defense of the Ancients (DoTA) to a new and enhanced level. The company has turned the $30 per copy game into a free-to-play model. This got me thinking, how profitable has this game been for the founder? Frankly, I would love to see more independent game...
read moreOnline Quality Assurance
What strikes me about online restaurant reviews is the broader theme of quality assurance (QA), and figuring out what types of businesses transactions are suited for online review. A couple questions come to mind which hopefully will spur some interesting discussion. I don’t have any answers but highlight a few tradeoffs. How risky is the transaction being reviewed, and does that matter? The QA topic reminds me of a company I once looked at: The Courtland Company manufactures engineered ropes used in mission critical areas of mining...
read moreGroup-Purchasing Challenges in China
During a recent conversation with my aunt who lives in China, she praised about a group-buying website for beauty products called Jumei.com. She said she was able to buy premium brands like Shiseido or Lancôme products at almost 50% discount. Curious, I did a quick search for the company, which also resulted in dozens of similar websites focusing on beauty products. This should come as no surprise as countless copycats replicated the group-purchasing business model even in the US. Although this model was pioneered in the US, it has grown much...
read moreDistributed Citizen Science: The Next Leap in Scientific Discovery?
In his famous 1962 “We choose to go to the moon” speech American President John F. Kennedy remarked “Despite the striking fact that most of the scientists that the world has ever known are alive and working today….the unfinished still far outstrip our collective comprehension”. Although the unknown still far outstrip our collective understanding by a wide margin, the first part of President Kennedy’s statement is more true today than ever before and not only because of the “organic” growth in the...
read moreThe Changing of the Guard
It seems like the online world is saturated, but as a new generation of tech kids come of age, a group that have never known anything but computers, is there room for new online innovation? The Eon case taught us that babyboomers only wanted the internet for a few very specific purposes. Our generation, the initial adopters of the internet, have embraced it much more. The mid-20 to mid-30-somethings use the internet for almost everything these day, BUT almost is the operative word. I still prefer books for studying, paper and pen for taking...
read moreBuilding trust in multi-sided platforms
Over the past few years, we have seen an emergence of peer to peer “rental” sites that allow people to rent out their belongings to others looking for short term use of that asset. Users can log on to relayrides.com to share their car, airbnb.com to share their house, or zilok.com to rent just about anything else. Additionally, we have seen an exponential increase in the success of multi-sided e-commerce websites that connect sellers and buyers from around the world to facilitate global commerce. Alibaba.com, Tradekey.com, and...
read more