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TV and the Web

The challenge for the networks, whose total prime-time audience shrank 3.6 percent last season, is that Web viewing and ad sales, while increasing, are still too small to replace traditional revenue sources.

CBS’s April 6 broadcast of the U.S. collegiate basketball championship game, for instance, attracted 17.6 million viewers, according to New York-based Nielsen. By comparison, the network’s Webcast of the championship tournament starting in March drew 7.52 million unique visitors, according a statement. (Bloomberg)

The part that fascinates me the most about the TV-Web transition, is that no network is definitively racing to make the transition and re-invent this industry. They make their changes slowly, together as 1 group.

If I were CEO of one, I would aim to destroy the industry as we know it. Only then could you get your exclusive crack at owning the new paradigm.

Sure it’s risky, but probably not as risky as sticking with the old.

2009 06 25 Mike musing Comments (0) Permalink

The problem is that convenient approaches rarely break through or generate extraordinary returns. (Seth)

2009 06 23 Mike entrepreneurship Comments (0) Permalink

Idea Value

“It’s important not to overstate the benefits of ideas,” he says. “Quite frankly, I know it’s kind of a romantic notion that you’re just going to have this one brilliant idea and then everything is going to be great. But the fact is that coming up with an idea is the least important part of creating something great. It has to be the right idea and have good taste, but the execution and delivery are what’s key.” (Sergey Brin)

Bolding mine. Ideas are worthless; for most of us, somebody has already thought of it. The secret sauce is how well you execute it.

So, when you’re pondering that idea… Just go, and go fast.

2009 06 17 Mike entrepreneurship Comments (0) Permalink

“These new businesses are very energizing. We don’t ’stick to the knitting’…I wouldn’t even know how to respond if someone said ‘Jeff, this isn’t the knitting.’ But we do make business decisions in a very deliberate way: we work backwards from customer needs, and we work forwards from our business skills.” (Jeff Bezos via O’Reilly)

Work backwards from customers needs and forward from business skills. Not bad.

2009 06 15 Mike entrepreneurship Comments (0) Permalink

At your next networking event

It was Internet Week in New York City last week. Rowdy.

Here’s 3 questions that seem to work well at networking events:

  1. What are surprising things about the business?
  2. What are the next 3 big ideas for your project?
  3. What have been your most important/key learnings so far?

Not your run of the mill schmooze lobs, but that’s the point.

2009 06 10 Mike musing Comments (0) Permalink

When in doubt…

… make a website out of YouTube. (via @ngeow)

2009 06 03 Mike marketing Comments (0) Permalink

Dos Equis ads

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the most interesting man, in marketing terms, is his ambivalence toward the advertised product. “I don’t always drink beer,” he says. Whaa? “But when I do,” he adds, almost offhandedly, “I prefer Dos Equis.” Double whaa? Generally, a brand icon will be an all-out cheerleader. Imagine Tony the Tiger admitting that he doesn’t always eat cereal for breakfast, but that when he does, he tends to eat Frosted Flakes, like, most of the time. Doesn’t have quite the same impact as “They’re Grrrrrrreat!”(Slate)

2009 05 29 Mike marketing Comments (0) Permalink

Mom always told me to listen to my mp3’s (faster)

Copywriting is won or lost in the research phase. When you listen to mp3’s for the purpose of learning, time is saved by speeding them up.

This is the premise under which I sought to listen to mp3’s at a faster rate. Here’s how I do it via Quicktime (bonus: script included for batching). Hark! Now it takes 40 minutes to listen to an hour long interview.

2009 05 26 Mike learning Comments (0) Permalink

Bite off less than you can chew

To learn what it takes to do it all meant I had to first learn what “it all” is. I suppose I was also trying to prove to myself that I could do it. I made sure to choose an idea that was small enough for me to do alone and went with it. (Peldi Guilizzoni at 37s)

2009 05 26 Mike entrepreneurship Comments (0) Permalink

Pricing Strategies

A lawyer on hotels charging extra for internet:

“As far as I am concerned it is one of the most annoying of hotel charges,” said Randall Stempler, a lawyer in Manhattan who travels often on business. The fee is “exorbitant,” he added, considering the time he usually spends logged in to check e-mail or go online. “It should just be built into the rate, like electricity.” (Emphasis mine.)

These hotels could easily include the internet fees in their prices (spreading it across all customers would make it less noticeable, too) and be done with this. Out of sight, out of mind.

How you display your pricing often has a large effect on customer perception and sales. This plays out in the online retail space as well; including shipping in your product price VS separating the 2 often produce very different results.

2009 05 09 Mike marketing Comments (0) Permalink