Did Google create a better Facebook?

 Marketing, Technology  No Responses »
Sep 292011
 

Facebook has been rolling out change after change in the last few months, coincidentally all of these changes seem to be spawned by the release of Google Plus. Is that odd timing or did Facebook realize that having a major motion picture about your founder is not enough to keep people happy.

When Google Plus launched, they had a feature set that blew Facebook out of the water, most notably was the video chat function that users had been begging for for years. The only problem was that Facebook had and still has the audience. Its not easy to move your social habits from one platform to the other when all your friends are still using the platform you left.

Facebook seems to have realized that they were falling behind when it came to features. To try and keep their audience happy they went into a spree of new updates with Facebook places, photos and their team-up with Skype for video chat. They also included a redesign of their site that left most users with an awful taste in their mouth. This UI mistake and the recent opening of Google + to everyone (with or without an invite) could lead to more users jumping ship to G+, or at least trying it out. That only bodes well for Google.

Facebook hasn’t stopped though. They’ve already started working on a new feature called, ‘gestures’ where users can instead of ‘liking’ something, click a ‘watched’, ‘read’ or ‘listened’ button to help increase user interaction and reduce the anxiety of promoting something with a ‘like’. Odds are that Facebook won’t go the route of MySpace and more than likely will correct their mistake and launch a UI fix and even more features to solidify their stronghold in the social media market. Regardless of how they end up, Google needs to start promoting their product if they want to stay in the race. In the meantime, I think we can all thank Google for a better Facebook.

 Posted by at 6:23 AM  Tagged with: , ,

Netflix Forgot Convenience!

 Marketing, Technology  No Responses »
Sep 222011
 

Qwikster

As of late, Netflix has been dealing with quite a bit of customer backlash. When they raised their prices, nearly doubling the price for their service, a rash of customers dropped the service and the stock price has crashed. To try and cushion themselves from this negative press the Netflix CEO sent out an email to all of the customers and posted the email on their blog explaining their rationale and some new changes. What they may have overlooked however is what made them so appealing in the first place…Convenience!

In the interest of full disclosure, I use Netflix. Even after the price increase, I’m still using Netflix and probably will not be switching anytime soon. When they decided to increase their pricing structure, I was angry, of course. Who wants to pay more for the same product? Definitely not me, but I also understood, it was an incredibly cheap service and still is even after the price increase. It’s still only $18 a month!

Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, sent out an email trying to better explain why they had to increase the prices.

So we realized that streaming and DVD by mail are becoming two quite different businesses, with very different cost structures, different benefits that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently.

Hastings also went on to explain that they are splitting the existing Netflix business into two separate entities. Quikster for DVD’s by mail and Netflix for the online streaming movies. Customers will now be billed separately for each service and most importantly, the two services will no longer be integrated through the same website! Everything up to this line seemed ok. Obviously the backlash from customers and stockholders has pushed Netflix to try and salvage their reputation but why would you take away what really made Netflix great? The convenience!

People loved Netflix because Netflix did all the work. They mailed you the DVD and allowed you to stream movies without leaving your house and all on the same website. It was easy to use! Now I’ll be billed by two seperate companies and I’m going to have to log into two different sites to setup my queue? So what happens when a movie in my DVD queue comes out in streaming format? Instead of selecting to move it to my online queue do I have to remove it from my DVD queue, log out, log into Netflix and search for the movie in Netflix and add it to my stereaming queue? That’s too many steps for a modern web user, it’s not convenient! It’s taking Netflix back a few years and removing what made them so appealing. It’s all about convenience!

 Posted by at 6:54 AM  Tagged with: , ,

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle | A Book Review

 Books  No Responses »
Sep 222011
 

The Story of Edgar SawtelleThe Story of Edgar Sawtelle is a dog book. I end up reading one of these every-so-often and at one point while reading this I was pretty angry.

Oddly enough I was reading that section in a dog book (come on, you know exactly what I’m talking about) late one night when I couldn’t sleep. So I’m the only one up past midnight reading this part in my living room under a single lamp, my dog laying on the couch across from me. I keep reading, knowing that its coming eventually. Before I picked up the book I knew it was coming, but the way it happened just wasn’t fair. I actually said that to myself as I was reading it…”no…don’t do it.” “no no no, come on that can’t happen, that’s not fair!”. I felt like the kid in The Never Ending Story reading about Atreyu riding his horse through the quicksand…where is Falkor? Why doesn’t he stop and turn around? That’s not fair! ATREEEEYYYUUUUU!

Back to the book…One of the more interesting parts of the book is the wild twist it takes, Wroblewski takes the reader down one path, something very unexpected, and before you know it your reading THAT scene…Wroblewski does a great job slipping it in and before you know it, it hits you. Its the same point when your laughing at Marley and Me having a good time and then your hiding your eyes from your dogs glances muttering to yourself, its not real its just a movie….what did I get in my eye!?

I did hit a point reading this story that I just couldn’t figure it out. Especially toward the ending and the actual ending, I was confused and a little angry at the way the story came to an end, it just didn’t seem right. But after thinking about the ending for a while, I’ve finally decided that was the only ending worth writing and it was the right way to end the story.

It’s the same reflection that everyone gets when they think back to the classics like Where the Red Fern Grows. When you first think back to those classics, you remember how great the story was and how much fun it was…then you remember why you never read it again. For me, this book falls under that category. The more I think about it the more I loved it, but I’ll never read it again.

 Posted by at 6:17 AM  Tagged with: ,

Lessons in Community from The Roasterie

 Marketing  1 Response »
Sep 152011
 

The RoasterieWow. I just received an email from Danny O’Niel, ‘Bean Baron’ at The Roasterie, a local coffee company here in Kansas City. It was a long letter giving customers some insight into the company and what they’ve been up to. Not just what kind of coffee they drink and where they get their beans and store hours. This was actual information about what The Roasterie was doing as a company, What initiatives they take as they strive to be a greener company, what charity works they are involved in and even what books they’ve been reading.

This is an awesome newsletter and a great look at how a company can create a bond with customers through digital media. After reading the newsletter I felt a connection with The Roasterie and I WANT to go buy their coffee because of how great I think what they are doing is. You can see that they actually do care about what is going on in Kansas City and they give you a glimpse into what makes them different.

Keep in mind, its not necessarily what they are doing that makes this great, but how they communicated to ME what they are doing. I would be just as happy receiving this newsletter hearing about their thoughts on public transportation and how their entire company participated in the Green Commute Challenge. But they took it a step further letting us on how seriously they take being green as a company and what their future expansion plans look like, Neat stuff!

The personal stories, what books they read and future plans for their business are all great touches that made this newsletter stand out among the thousands that I get in my inbox. Great job Roasterie!

One suggestions I would make if I felt so inclined, would be to shorten it down a bit. Break it down into multiple issues and schedule them to go out once a week or even once a month. At the current length, there is potential for a lot of people to get overwhelmed and put it on the back burner, especially in the era of 120 characters or less. Either way, The Roasterie has a great community.

To read the full newsletter click here
To sign up to receive The Roasteries newsletter or to view their website click here.

 Posted by at 6:25 AM  Tagged with: , , ,

Zarrella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness | A Book Review

 Books, Marketing  No Responses »
Sep 082011
 

Zarrella's Hierarchy of ContagiousnessThis isn’t a book that jumps out at you and screams “You need to read this!” In fact, when The Domino Project released this, I was less than excited…I mean come on, does Zarrella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness:The Science, Design and Engineering of Contagious Ideas scream anything but highschool text book to you? well, it’s not and fortunatly for me, I found myself in the right place with time to kill and I started reading. The interesting part of this book is that once you do start reading, its fascinating. Almost…Contagious!

I say that jokingly but this is really a book that could appeal, even in a small way to almost anyone. Why you ask? Have you ever wondered why no one is liking your Facebook posts? What about your tweets, are they getting retweeted? Are you going to +1 this article (please do so at the bottom if you don’t mind). And what about the times dozens of people are commenting on your posts…why did that happen but not the link that you thought was most interesting?

All of those questions are explained, with scientific data to back it up, in this book. There is even a list of words that will almost guarantee that you don’t get liked or retweeted if you include them in your post. There is also a list of keywords that will help you to get liked or retweeted and things you can do to improve the likelyhood of getting your message shared with your peers (don’t forget to share this at the bottom)

Zarrella’s studies provide an interesting and quick look at the science behind social media’s sharability. It’s also a quick enough read that you won’t get bogged down in stats and equations.

 Posted by at 6:10 AM  Tagged with: , , , ,
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