Not too long ago I was poking around the innards of my Amazon account and stumbled upon the order history section. Apparently (news to me at least) I can browse through my purchased as far back as 2000. Since there are accompanying graphics, flipping through the years is almost like reading a visual autobiography. I wish the history went back further, though. Would love to see what I was ordering the last few years of the 90′s. Amazon hit it out of the park with the Amazon Prime program. I’ve definitely ordered more since I’ve been a member. If you shop on Amazon, the membership is a must have.
There’s the annual Christmas gift purchases. My family members’ changes in taste represented by the DVDs and CD’s purchased in December. There’s the momentary desires to be a screenwriter, a novelist, & a business owner. All impulse purchases, even if the dreams are still real. Thomas Guide – San Diego is a memory of the newness of California and the excitement of living in the most beautiful spot in the Lower 48. All of these things bring up vivid memories of where I’ve been and how I got to today.
Here are a few highlights.
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Mashable let’s us know that Reddit looked a gift horse in the mouth and the experience was positive.
Many companies are faced with dire financial situations. In Reddit’s case it is a stingy corporate parent. Instead of watching their baby slowly die, the staff asked readers to donate. At first the plan was to give the micro philanthropists a profile badge, but that quickly changed once Reddit realized people were willing to pay. Enter the freemium model. Reddit’s future is still likely in doubt, but this is a great case study on consumer behavior.
Even in one of the harshest economic downturns in US history, people are still spending money. This begs the question. Are you willing to go out of business or ask your customers to pay for what they want? The answer, apparently, is ask them to pay. You may risk alienating some people of course. But the alternative is much worse. Reddit did this in the right way.
Without realizing it, they surveyed their readers and asked who might be willing to plop down the cash. The ones that said “yes” will now get added value. These readers are willing to pay. It’s not like Reddit suddenly went subscription only. The freemium model likely avoided a mass exodus that is typically accompanied by the Free>Subscription Only shift. In this instance Free>Freemium works.
Squeaky wheel normally gets the grease, no?
Via CrunchGear, we find that gaming company Ubisoft believes that every US household will have a 3D TV by 2013. Matt Burns rightfully calls for a little BS on this one.
Simply put, most households do not have an immediate need for a new HDTV as the one they bought a few years back under the guise of the digital transition probably still works fine. Of course some could justify the purchase if there was content available. But it’s a mess right now and it doesn’t look that much better in the future, either.
This couldn’t be more spot on. Let’s forget for a moment the large segment of consumers that aren’t even close to purchasing a 3D HDTV. Here’s a look at he product lifecycle.
The top of the curve represents the Early and Late Majority adopters. That’s where most consumers fit into the picture. At this point in the product life cycle, 3D TV is in the introduction phase. The all important Innovators live here (Early Adopters kick in as the curve heads uphill). The majority of consumers take their cue from this segment. In terms of technology and consumer products, I fit into the Early Adopter phase and sometimes the Innovator. As far as 3D is concerned, I’m not even remotely interested in buying another TV set. I’d wager that this sentiment is not unique amongst others like me. It’s not even about shelling out the cash. I’m simply not impressed with 3D viewing.
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I will not rehash the multitude of Cleveland sports miseries here. Yes, I’m old enough to remember most of them. They are a part of Cleveland culture that is hurtful and is a constant reminder of failure and what was never meant to be. As the cliché goes, when Cleveland finally wins a championship, it will be even sweeter.
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This kind of makes me wonder about Facebook’s ad targeting capabilities. Pretty basic algorithm. How complex can they get?
More than anything, I want to be able to consume media when I want, where I want. At the moment, I can largely do that with news, opinion, music & movies. What I can’t do is realistically watch TV shows, specifically in HD, on my own terms. Whether it’s due to availability or simplicity, it’s just not easy. I pay over $100 a month for mostly garbage television channels. And the ones I do watch have maybe three shows that are regularly recorded to my DVR. Even the DVR is weak. You have to hack the UI in order to make it pretty or add a larger hard drive to keep shows longer. The capacity issue is my biggest problem.
But, we’re heading in the right direction.
If I can stream full HD over the internet, and select when I watch, I would gladly ditch Time Warner. In a heart beat.
Looks like Facebook is gearing up to launch an Answers-type service.
We at Facebook are preparing to launch a brand new product to the world. We think it will be as exciting as Facebook Photos and Facebook Events, but we need your help to make it great.
As a beta tester, your job will be to ask great questions and provide great answers about your favorite topics. Economics? Skydiving? Relationships? Mexican Restaurants? It’s up to you. You’ll be the first person outside of Facebook to use this product. Your expert writing will be seen by tens of millions of people — including job recruiters. And we’ll bring our best beta testers out to California to tour Facebook headquarters and meet the team.
Definitely an easy way to get willing beta testers!
This could be a Yahoo Answers killer. They think it could be as big as Photos? That was a pretty big game changer for Facebook. It would be hard to duplicate that success. That said, the largest audience on the web crowd sourcing Questions and Answers seems like a logical product.
What do you think?
As a parent, I’ve obviously found it hard to see movies in a theater. Heck, it’s even hard to see them at home. Before Maeve, I’d bet that we saw maybe one movie a month in the theater and maybe three to five rentals during the same time period. Now it’s maybe two rentals a month. Maybe.
I have missed out on a lot of movies over the past couple years. Once a movie leaves the theater, the desire to see it is drastically reduced. A lot of that is due to marketing. The lead up to release and opening weekend builds up demand in my mind. Once that initial marketing period is over I move on to the next thing. The ability to see first run movies on my big screen in the basement would be excellent. And apparently that future might not be too far-fetched.
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Back in 1994 I was a pretty big Nine Inch Nails fan. An ex-girlfriend of mine had told me that NIN was going to do a secret show in Cleveland at the old Odeon. The only thing lacking in this tidbit was date/time. I was tooling around one night with a friend and heard on the radio that the show was going to happen within a couple hours. I immediately turned around the ’89 Dodge Caravan Babe Magnet and headed down to the Flats. What followed was one of the best musical nights of my life. Over the years NIN began to fade as one of my faves.
Hearing that Trent Reznor would be scoring The Social Network makes me even more interested in the upcoming Facebook movie. When you have Aaron Sorkin (West Wing) scripting and David Fincher (Fight Club) directing at the same time, you know that the movie has to be good. The Social Network is hitting theaters on October 1st.
