Skip to content

Making money in internet video

It is a tough proposition.  I helped build the website GameVee that was dubbed a YouTube for gamers.  The site was geared for gamers.   The best feature was the ability to take XBox Halo 3 film from your file share and convert it to video and put it on the web.   This was a great feature because the user didn’t need a capture card nor did they need to understand the multitude of video formats and bitrates.

GameVee tried to build a business based on advertising.   Like many other “Web 2.0″ sites this is a difficult way to survive as a company.   With advertising you need volume in traffic.   Volume in traffic increases the bandwidth costs.   It is a catch-22.   The advertising revenue generated from the increase traffic never would cover the bandwidth costs.   There were other opportunities to make money for that business but never pursued such as charging a subscription for converting Halo 3 films.   GameVee was eventually sold to GotGame and the best feature of GameVee was shutdown. Indeed it looks like they plan to shutdown GameVee altogether according to one of their administrators.  No doubt the bandwidth costs are the main reason.

Other companies are subsidising the bandwidth costs.  YouTube has been regarded as a money loser for Google since purchased.   If it wasn’t subsidised by Googles ad revenues from the search engine, it too would likely go the way of the doo-doo.

Solutions to this problem are being tackled like the company I now work for Digitalsmiths.  They provide video indexing and search services that will help generate targeted advertisements.  Many of the clients are showing videos of older TV shows.   These shows have a better chance with advertising.  Long running videos can reasonably place advertisements in the middle of the show just like you are watching TV.   More targeted advertising and ad presentations increases the revenue of a video asset.   A better proprosition then short clips like those found on YouTube and GameVee.   These sites would see a rebellion if the ad was shown in the middle of the video.  Instead they rely on ad placements on the page.   That is a very limiting option as there are only a few highly visible locations on the page for an advertisement.

With internet advertisements predicted to retreat in 2009, making money on video will be even tougher.   Time Warner Cable raised their fees recently and Viacom decided to raise their fees as well.  Time Warner Cable rejected the new contract and threatened to take their channels off the line up.  What a giant failure on Time Warner Cable.  They have zero leverage in that negotiation.  They even suggested that fans of Comedy Central could just watch their favorite shows online!   What a great suggestion.  Indeed why bother to deal with a greedy company with terrible customer service.   For years people have been asking for a-la-cart subscriptions.   With the internet that is almost a reality.

Premium movie channels on cable cater to movie buffs.   The failing of these channels is they hammer the same movie over and over.   Time Warner responded with their digital service On-Demand.  Nice service.  You can select a movie when it is convienent and watch it instantly.   Well that service is limited to the 30-50 movies they offer.  Netflix has responded with 10,000 movies that can be watched on demand for their $8.99 a month service for renting DVDs.   Brilliant!  Can you imagine if NetFlix teamed up with Viacom to provide the same service for Viacom shows?   How about working a deal with the NFL and MLB?   These franchises have realized that they can create a premium service because folks will pay for it.   Imagine Netflix creating the dream of consumers, a-la-cart programming service that allows you to watch shows on demand with content you want to see.

Indeed, I did sign up for Netflix after a 8 year lapse because of the “Watch Instantly” feature.   Add in a few a-la-cart options and I will flush TWC completely.   Does that mean it is the end of cable and satellite?  Doubtful, now that most of Americans have gone out to buy their digital TVs.   High Def will ensure cable and satellite will survive.   I’m just one consumer that doesn’t care if I can count the wiskers on actor’s face.

Posted 02 January 2009 † Geoff § Business § Economy ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , , , , ,

It’s a wonderful life! The story of the famous VHS tape!

Back in early 90s, before I was married living in Atlanta and before my oldest brother Chuck was married living in Chattanooga, we heading to Mom and Dad’s for Christmas.   That year it seemed every channel was showing “It’s a Wonderful Life”.  You could literally change the channel and see 5 different scenes of the movie.   It was the brunt of many quotes and jokes as every line seemed to be drilled in our heads at the flick of the remote.

So my brother Chuck needed to shop for my other brother Taylor and we headed to the mall.   While shopping we noticed the colorized version of “It’s a Wonderful LIfe” and decided to get that as a gag gift for Taylor.   Colorized version always makes me remember Greg, a film major, I went to school with at University of North Carolina at Greensboro.   One day at lunch when the colorized version was released he went off about how the director could have shot the film in color but did not want it color and that it was a big mistake to colorize such a classic film.  I told him he should write his thesis on “How to F-up A Wonderful Life”.   Anyway, I digress.

So we gave Taylor the colorized version of “A Wonderful Life” that year.  We all had a nice laugh.   Next month for my birthday I received a wonder present from my brother Taylor, “A Wonderful Life”.   The next month I was visting my brother Chuck and slipped the tape into his bookcase.

Several months later, after one night on the town in Atlanta, I was looking for something to eat in my freezer.  There in the freezer looked to be a steak wrapped in white paper.   I couldn’t believe my eyes that I had forgotten I had a steak in the freezer.   Just the thing I wanted to eat!  I opened the wrapper to find “A Wonderful LIfe”!

Next time I visited Chuck, I took his breakfast cereal box and buried the tape on the bottom.  Sort of a Jack-in-the-Box surpise.   Next Christmas came and we all gathered at Mom and Dad’s again.   Chuck gave me Mitchell’s book Space.   Inside was a space cut out to the perfect size to hold “It’s a Wonderful Life”.  I was ready for such an event and had a shoe box with the top wrapped seperately from the rest of the box.   I quickly disposed of the tape in the shoe box and slapped Taylor’s name on the gift.   Later as we opened more presents, Taylor was surpise how fast that gift was regifted.

At this point the history of the tape is a little fuzzy.  But eventually it got back in my possession.   This time I conspired with my mother and she baked it into a strawberry shortcake and gave it to Taylor.   They had a nice dinner and looked forward to dessert.  As they cut into the cake they discovered the tape.

End of that year I went to Europe on a bus tour with my father.   We started in London then hit Paris and many other cities and countries.  Great trip, highly recommend the tour company Trafalgar.  Anyway, when in Paris I was working my way down on the suitcase only to find that VHS tape, “It’s a Wonderful Life”.   I laughed and turned on the television only to see a French version of “It’s a Wonderful Life” dubbed in French.  Timing was everything.

The following year was busy as I got married.   My brother Chuck soon thereafter also got married.  Chuck and my sister-in-law, Rebekah had a pool in the backyard of their house.   One Thanksgiving, I wrapped the tape in a brown paper bag, then plastic and then made it waterproof with duck tape.   While enjoying the Thanksgiving at Chuck and Rebekah’s I slipped the package under the pool cover and into the pool.   The next spring, Chuck went to open up the pool to discover this rectangular package.  Thinking that some criminal dumped drugs in the pool to evade police he fished it out of the pool and opened it.  What he found was “A Wonderful Life”! I’m not sure how, but he somehow managed to return it to Taylor.

So at my 30th birthday, my wife did a fantastic job of pulling off a surprise party.   All my family and friends were there and even Uncle Bob.  Uncle Bob was the life of the party (we will leave it at that for a future article).  While my brother Taylor was there he went out backand buried “It’s a wonderful life” in my son’s sandbox.   The tape was not found for six months until it was dug up the following summer.

The tape bounced around and then disappeared for 5 years.   My sister moved from Des Moines, Iowa to Virgina.  At the house warming party we found the tape in the drawer of her dining room hutch.  This Christmas, my mother opened up a gift from my father and behold, the tape is now back in play.

Mom is a master and has been playing a similar game with a pair of socks found in a parking lot by her friend in Connecticut.  That game has been playing out since the early 80’s.  I will tell that tale another time!

Posted 02 January 2009 † Geoff § Enjoying Life § Funny ‡ Comments (0) °

A time to laugh

Over the years there just stories and jokes that keep me laughing.  I finally just had to put them all together so I can go back to them when I need a laugh.  I hope you enjoy them as well.

World of Warcraft is a massive multiplayer online game.  You basic fantasy game of wizards and swords.  What makes the game great is that teamwork and careful planning on raids in order to survive and have a successful outcome.   Funniest video of all time is the infamous, Leroy Jenkins.

This next clip is Topgun according to Tarantino (Director of Pulp Fiction).  Subversion on a massive scale!  You’ll never watch Topgun the same way again.

How about a little horse race?  This is a hilarous clip for you married folks!  3rd Race at the Honeymoon is Over Downs

And finally, my most favorite of all favorites.  This one makes me laugh so much I’m crying.  The Texas Chilli Cookoff just in time for Fall.

Notes From A Novice Chili Cook-off Judge
The notes are from an inexperienced chili taster named Frank, who was visiting San Antonio, Texas. from Springfield, IL. Says Frank, “Recently, I was honored to be selected as a judge at a chili cook-off. The original person called in sick at the last moment and I happened to be standing there at the judge’s table asking for directions to the Coors Light beer truck, when the call came in. I was assured by the other two judges (native Texans) that the chili wouldn’t be all that spicy and, besides, they told me I could have free beer during the tasting, so I accepted.”

Here are the scorecards from the event: Frank is Judge #3.

Chili # 1 - Eddie’s Maniac Monster Chili…

Judge # 1 — A little too heavy on the tomato. Amusing kick.
Judge # 2 — Nice, smooth tomato flavor. Very mild.
Judge # 3 — (Frank) Holy sh*t! What the hell is this stuff?! You could remove dried paint from your driveway. Took me two beers to put out the flames. I hope that’s the worst one. These Texans are crazy.

Chili # 2 - Austin’s Afterburner Chili…

Judge # 1 — Smoky, with a hint of pork. Slight jalapeno tang.
Judge # 2 — Exciting BBQ flavor; needs more peppers to be taken seriously.
Judge # 3 — Keep this out of the reach of children. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to taste besides pain. I had to wave off two people who wanted to give me the Heimlich maneuver. They had to rush in more beer when they saw the look on my face.

Chili # 3 - Ronny’s Famous Burn Down the Barn Chili…

Judge # 1 — Excellent firehouse chili. Great kick. Needs more beans.
Judge # 2 — A beanless chili, a bit salty, good use of peppers.
Judge # 3 — Call the EPA. I’ve located a uranium spill… My nose feels like I have been snorting Drano. Everyone knows the routine by now. Get me more beer before I ignite. Barmaid pounded me on the back, now my backbone is in the front part of my chest. I’m getting sh*t- faced from all of the beer…

Chili # 4 - Dave’s Black Magic..

Judge # 1 — Black bean chili with almost no spice. Disappointing.
Judge # 2 — Hint of lime in the black beans. Good side dish for fish, or other mild foods; not much of a chili.
Judge # 3 — I felt something scraping across my tongue, but was unable to taste it. Is it possible to burn out taste buds? Sally, the barmaid, was standing behind me with fresh refills. That 300-lb. woman is starting to look HOT…just like this nuclear waste I’m eating! Is chili an aphrodisiac?

Chili # 5 - Lisa’s Legal Lip Remover…

Judge # 1 — Meaty, strong chili. Cayenne peppers freshly ground, adding considerable kick. Very impressive.
Judge # 2 — Chili using shredded beef, could use more tomato. Must admit the cayenne peppers make a strong statement.
Judge # 3 — My ears are ringing, sweat is pouring off my forehead, and I can no longer focus my eyes. I farted and four people behind me needed paramedics. The contestant seemed offended when I told her that her chili had given me brain damage. Sally saved my tongue from bleeding by pouring beer directly on it from the pitcher. I wonder if I’m burning my lips off. It really ticked me off that the other judges asked me to stop screaming. Screw those rednecks.

Chili # 6 - Pam’s Very Vegetarian Variety…

Judge # 1 — Thin, yet bold vegetarian variety chili. Good balance of spices and peppers.
Judge # 2 — The best yet. Aggressive use of peppers, onions, and garlic. Superb.
Judge # 3 — My intestines are now a straight pipe filled with gaseous, sulphuric flames. I sh*t on myself when I farted and I’m worried it will eat through the chair. No one seems inclined to stand behind me except that Sally. Can’t feel my lips anymore. I need to wipe my butt with a snow cone.

Chili # 7 - Carla’s Screaming Sensation Chili…

Judge # 1 — A mediocre chili with too much reliance on canned peppers.
Judge # 2 — Ho-hum; tastes as if the chef literally threw in a can of chili peppers at the last moment. **I should take note that I am worried about Judge # 3. He appears to be in a bit of distress, as he is cursing uncontrollably.
Judge # 3 — You could put a grenade in my mouth, pull the pin, and I wouldn’t feel a thing. I’ve lost sight in one eye, and the world sounds like it is made of rushing water. My shirt is covered with chili, which slid unnoticed out of my mouth. My pants are full of lava to match my shirt. At least during the autopsy, they’ll know what killed me I’ve decided to stop breathing; it’s too painful. Screw it; I’m not getting any oxygen anyway. If I need air, I’ll just suck it in through the 4-inch hole in my stomach.

Chili # 8 - Karen’s Toenail-Curling Chili…

Judge # 1 — The perfect ending, this is a nice blend chili. Not too bold, but spicy enough to declare its existence.
Judge # 2 — This final entry is a good, balanced chili. Neither mild, nor hot. Sorry to see that most of it was lost when Judge # 3 farted, passed out, fell over, and pulled the chili pot down on top of himself. Not sure if he’s going to make it. Poor fella, wonder how he’d have reacted to really hot chili?

Posted 26 October 2008 † Geoff § Enjoying Life ‡ Comments (0) °

Want to start a business? Great!

First thing you do is write a business plan.   Learn more. Then the second thing you do is write a business plan.  Yes it is painful but you have to write a business plan.   You cannot get a loan, venture capital financing or know where you are going or if you are getting there without a plan.

Starting a business takes a lot of work.   You need to understand what you are providing, how you going to measure you success, what is the financial return, what is the break-even point.   The business plan provides a lot of these answers.  If you don’t like the answers, then you probably ought to stop and come up with some other idea.

Ernest Young had an outline that I like to use when I evaluate ideas and potential businesses.   There is a PDF located here.

The first thing to tackle is the financials.  Lets face it, the purpose of the business is make money and you need to know how long it will take to break even.   If you cannot live on water and bread until that point then maybe you should find investors, but I get ahead of myself.

Financials need to be there and they need to be realistic.  You can look up online for key ratios for the industry.  This is important to double check that your numbers are real world.   If profit margins are high or cost of doing business is too low, it is likely you didn’t do your homework or you are not being realistic in your financial statements.

Products.  What is your product?  What business are you in?  More importantly what business are you not in?   Figure out who your customers are and how are they are grouped.  Each group may have a different need for your product.   Each group will likely have a different marketing message.   Which group are you going after?  Don’t say all of them, that is not realistic.

Who is your competition?  Why are you different?  Why would someone switch from your competitor and use you?   You may want to read Purple Cow by Seth Godin.   It is good book for differentiating yourself from everyone else.

Still want to go into business?  Still viable?  Great!  How is your company going to be run?  What is the operational plan?   How are you going to run the business?  Who is doing what?   What are they responsible for?  I recommend reading E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber.  Excellent book to help you define your organization so you can work on the business instead working in the business.

Need help with the business plan?   There are plenty of professional services likely in your area that can help.  The Small Business Association can point you to SCORE that helps entrepreneurs put a plan together.

So you still like the plan but you need financing?  Well the Small Business Association is a good place to start.   There is also likely an “Angel” investment group that meets monthly that listen to people with business plans to attract early investors.   Understand this group of early investors wants to make 5 - 10X their money.   If your plan realistically is not going to generate that type of return, then don’t waste your time.   Same goes with Venture Capitalists.   They finance 1 in 1000 buiness plans and they are looking of a high rate of return on their money.

Other options is go the slow and steady route if that is possible.   Instead of starting out with a large organization or retail space or server farm, can you do it cheap?   Start small and validate the market?  Can you do it without quitting your day job?  This is usually the best and safest way to enter a market. Some of the biggest companies started small and cheap. Home Depot is a perfect example.   Know why the sign is orange?   Because they couldn’t afford a lighted sign so they made one out of plywood and used florescent orange paint to attract attention.

A business plan is a living document.  During initial development of plan you may rewrite or refine the plan a dozen times.   Once the business has started you will likely need to update or change the plan often.  Any changes in business plan must be communicated to the employees so that everyone in the company is moving in the same direction.  It does no good to make a plan and not communicate it to the employees.  Nothing will happen in that scenario.  Management by wishful thinking is not a viable business planning.

One thing I cannot stress enough is please do not go into business without a business plan.  Too many good companies fell apart because they failed to plan who they are and where they are going.   Too many company have failed because nobody knew how much money was needed to get to the break even point.   These questions cannot be answerd without a business plan.

Posted 05 September 2008 † Geoff § Business ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , ,

Purple Cow for RC Cola

Took the kids to see Maw-Maw (grandmom) in rural North Carolina.   Driving there I was thinking of my own childhood on Signal Mountain, Tennesee.   We use to go up to the corner gas station and Junior was there with his overalls and we would pick up a case of soda in bottles and return the empty case of bottles.   Now I doubt anyone would argue that ice cold soda from a bottle is one of the best experiences.

Now that the big cola providers have all given up glass except around Christmas time for Coke, I was thinking it would be great to return back to those grand days.   RC Cola is a Carolina product as much as moonshine and tobacco.   They have always fought for shelf space at the grocery store even when they are cheaper better tasting product IMHO.

Maybe Royal Crown should pull a purple cow right out of Seth Godin’s playbook.   If they can setup distribution with local businesses in rural North Carolina and start packaging their product with glass they may see growth against the big companies.  It would be some time before they hit the cities with this strategy because the cities and suburbs are full of transitional people from other lands that just wouldn’t understand and honestly wouldn’t slow down to notice.   But in rural North Carolina it could make a resurgance.  Who knows, maybe we will be seeing more RC Colas, Moonpies and checkers.

Posted 25 August 2008 † Geoff § Business § Marketing ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , ,

Social websites and their vision statements

So what do you think the goal of these websites are: Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, Pownce, YouTube, etc?   Wouldn’t you love to read the original business plan vision, mission and strategy statments?   I bet it is full of B.S. and what they stated in there business plans was very specific and they became something else.    Facebook prolly had something like, “To recreate the high school/college yearbook online”.    Total crap, they became a lot more then that.

Why are some of these sites so successful and others not so successful?   Look at Twitter ridiculous growth curve.   Do you think they had some vision of becoming a tool for other companies/applications backbone?

I have been reading one my favorite authors, Seth Godin’s latest book.   And it hit me that all these websites basically should have the same vision and mission statement.   Why some are successfull and others are not is really a case of how close their statements are to the following or just dumb luck.

Vision - Create online community

Mission - To enable users to tell there story, connect with others, and promote discussion

Now you look at that and say, how do you get from that to Facebook?   Well, that is a long story but you can look at your Facebook account and the applications you use and look at the ones you passed on.   My bet is the ones you passed on add no value to your interaction with others or are just stupid marketing applications.

Speaking of marketing, look how bad companies are implementing it on social networks.   I get at least an invite a day to some twitter user that is following 55,000 users.   Like anyone is going to follow them and listen to their marketing BS.   Definately old school and pretty much completely worthless today.   I’m afaid Seth Godin is correct, old school marketing is dead.   Move on and use the social web as it is intended.   To tell a story, interact with others and garner discussion.

Posted 02 August 2008 † Geoff § Business § Marketing § social web ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,

Death of the social community. Long live the social community!

Many of my peer call me an old fart.   Yeah, I’m the oldest at the office.   I remember in my youth the community that existed on Signal Mountain, TN.   It was great to be a kid, plenty of woods and caves to explore.  But the community was there.  People knew there neighbors and small business owners.   They new everything that was going on in town.   If something bad happened, or there as an escaped convict from the chain gang that worked the roads, the word went out and went out quickly.    Now remember, this is a time before internet, before cell phones, before cable and there was only 3 channels on TV: CBS,  NBC, and ABC.   Everyone took a sense of pride in there town and community.

Since then I have seen many town have a complete breakdown of community.  No body cares about small business, where is the Walmart?   Neighborhoods are full of people that do not talk to each other.   My wife and I moved out of town to the county.   No yard nazi’s telling people they didn’t edge there yard and did you get approval for that bush?   Yet in our neighborhood people talk to each other and watch out for each other.   Maybe we are the last few folks that hold on to geographical community, but for the most part, geographical community is dead.

Long live the social community!  Community is a group of people with shared beliefs.   This still exists in churches in these small towns but instead of the one or two churches in the community, there seems to be one on every block.   Online communities are far and wide, banding together every conceivalbe interest imagine.   But again, these online communities are very fragmented.   This is a coffee community, this is a gaming community, this is a cycling community.   All these disjointed communities are not connected directly.

Facebook, Myspace created their groups to have members associate communal ideas.   The exchange of information on these communities seems to be light and more a “I vote this is cool” then actually participate in the community.   FriendFeed came out as an aggragator of “lifestream”.    A person can setup a FriendFeed account and pull in al the activity he is doing elsewhere on the internet.    So if I want to see what Geoff Corey is doing, I go to his lifestream feed at FriendFeed.com/geoffcorey.   FriendFeed has gone further and created Rooms.   Rooms are kind of like a topic centric.   So if I do a post about coffee, I may repost the link in the “Coffee Lovers” room.   The beauty of these rooms is the article is a  cross-link to my lifestream.   So if someone posts a commet or simply likes the article that shows up in my lifestream.   I can even have the comments linked into my own blog (see below the article!).

FriendFeed also allows you to subscribe to other people.    Here is beginnings of friendship.   So I join a topic of interest room on Social Media and see some posts of a like minded individual.   By subscribing to the individual, I see other things they are doing on the net.   This may or may not be something I’m interested in, but  I have now been exposed to new things to do, read or try.   In effect, I have made my own personalized community that I interact with on a broad set of topics without any geographical connection.

Posted 02 August 2008 † Geoff § social web ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , ,

Coffeeshops in the suburbs

Despite great demographics in the Cary/Apex NC area, many independent coffee shops are failing.   In the last year in a 4 mile radius, Leaping Lizards, Pheasant Creek Coffee, Daily Perk, and Blue Rain Cafe have all closed.  Certainly the higher gas prices are taking a toll on Americans pocketbooks.   Specialty coffee is usually one of the first things people cut back on to save a few dollars.

As a previous owner of Pheasant Creek Coffee, now defunct, and seeing numerous other shops in the same area to fail, I believe there is more then just gas prices at play here causing the decline of excellent coffee in the suburbs.   For gas prices rising and people cutting back to close a shop it clearly the last straw.   That means many of these shops were already struggling with times were good.   Let me hit on several factors that make it hard to survive in the suburbs.

Location, location, location.  Yeah, it is always #1.   Location has to have high traffic volume and visibility.  At Pheasant Creek Coffee we were on the path for one of the busiest roads in Apex.   On the right side of the road for commuters.   Same for Blue Rain Cafe!   They were located just before you get on the highway to city.   Daily Perk was also on a busy commuter route and Leaping Lizards was right across the street from us.   So what happened?   Well, Daily Perk was high inaccessable shopping center on the wrong side of the road for commuters.   Leaping Lizards shared a space with Bruggers Bagels and they sell their own coffee.   Pheasant Creek Coffee and Leaping Lizards both had visibility problems.   The town of Apex does not allow index signs for shopping centers, so the 24,000 commuters passing through town from Fuquay Varina and Holly Springs never new we existed.   Apex also requires the shopping centers to be landscaped.  By the 3rd year the trees in the parking lot completely hide all signage on the buildings for passing moterists.   Blue Rain?  Not entirely sure what happened there.   It all looked good on paper.  They were visible to road, had a drive thru window.   Possibly motorists passing through thought it was a lunch place based on the name.

Apex has another problem, 70% residential.   That means all the office workers are somewhere else and the town is essentially depopulated during the day.   So if you don’t get the commuter crowd you have a hard time making it up during the day.   The demographics also point to a lot of young families.   As the father of twins + 1, I can remember the days when they were young and I seriously thought twice about going anywhere.   Too much effort.   So many of the stay at home moms rarely ventured.   Plus these moms are trying to save money as well.   Raising youngings is expensive.

What about the nightlife?  Out in the suburbs, people have built their own entertainment in the house.   From pools, home theater, pool tables, video games.   Heck, do you know that in 2007 video game industry revenues exceeeded Hollywood films?   Plus, being young families with children, many would eat out early and be home by 8pm.   Not exactly the happening town for singles, so if your single you hit the city where the action is all night.

If I ever did it again, I would do it only in the city.   In the city there is population density and that lasts all day long.   Many live in apartments and I know when I was single in an apartment I’d go stir crazy.   A coffeeshop is a great getaway to read a book or work on a laptop.   Location and visibility is still key as well as quality but if the population isn’t there you won’t have a chance in hell to make it.   Right now the only two suburban shops that are surviving are doing so off of wholesale accounts.   If they are not selling out the backdoor, I doubt they will survive more then 2 - 3 years.

Posted 19 July 2008 † Geoff § Business § Coffee § Economy ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , , , , ,

Online Social Communication: Good or Bad?

With ways of communicating increasing does this help or hurt us?   We can communicate with our computers, mobile phones in more ways then we have ever been able to before.   With social sites such as MySpace, Facebook and personal blogs we have opened up rapid communication with friends and the world.   With the advent of Twitter, micro-blogging we have seen secondary tools created to monitor the noise level of keywords.   A boon for marketing and advertisers.   With QIK, folks can capture video and audio in real time and broadcast it live on the net or save it for later viewing.  Just a matter of time before we see a QIK user scoop CNN, Fox News and MSNBC.   Now with Seesmic, random people are having video conversations.

Clearly, teens and tweens using MySpace we have seen the good, bad and ugly.  Often mirroring the clicks of adolescents school behavior.  You see some kids get carried away with popularity, crushes with everyone asking who everyone likes, plotting and scheming.   Some of the good things is it allows kids to talk about problems without tying up the family phone all night.   That constant communication can also be bad with drama generation and online bullying.   Often heads do not get a chance to cool off before someone says something they cannot take back.

For adults what does this rapid communication do for you or society?   In general, people want to be social including introverts.   This growth of communication vehicles have allowed old friends to hook up and continue their friendships regardless of geographical location.   More voices can lend more experience to problems being solved.   Easier methods of communication allow the quick alerts of breaking news.  Twitter was able to broadcast the news of the China earthquake minutes before the USGS broke the news.

Seesmic offers another level of face to face communication.   Good or bad?  Know body really knows, but it is an interesting level of detached communication.   Users can record their thoughts and people can post their video replies.  I’m sure some topics will become flame fests, while others will be interesting conversations of thoughts and ideas.   It would be interesting to monitor if this site grows to the level where people solve real world problems.

At this point there are now multiple levels of communication and vehicles to deliver:

Quick thoughts/events to the world:  Twitter, QIK, Plurk

Quick thoughts to a friend: Instant Messenger, Facebook, MySpace, etc.

Quick blurbs: FriendFeed, Pownce, Seesmic

Long talks:  Blogs, Webzines

Each of these sites target certain audiences or overlap each other in many areas.   For those that like a lot of action should checkout FriendFeed and their rooms.   Pretty good site to monitor your friends feeds from all sorts of social networks but they also support “Rooms” to talk about specific topics.   They do a nice job of making the user feel welcome to jump in the conversation or simply give a nod of approval or disapproval without comment.

The barrage of communication now available is like drinking from a fire hose.  Sifting through the information to get or add value too can be overwhelming for some and fun for others.   I myself now monitor 35 blogs with Google Reader and discover new blogs that interest me from my friends in the social network.  If a particular article is interesting and I want to take note of it, I will put a star on it in Google Reader so I can go back to it.  Many times I will bookmark it using Del.ico.us.   If I think others should take a gander at the article I can share the article on Google Reader and it will show up on my Blog and FriendFeed accounts.  And the cycle continues!

I can say that I have enjoyed hooking up with like-minded peers on these social networks and reading what they have to say.   I feel my knowledge of certain areas and trends has grown as a result.  What are your experiences?

Posted 13 June 2008 † Geoff § Cool Tech § Enjoying Life § Uncategorized § social web ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , , , , , , , ,

Business and technology planning - do it now before it is too late!

I was having a discussion over the Friend Feed Social-Media room if people thought there were any parallels to the Dot-Com (Bomb) days with Social Web companies.   Some great points were made that there is a much larger audience now versus then and one comment that software platforms are more accommodating and the barrier to market is a lot less.   Both excellent points and the last one dovetailed into one of my other questions stuck in my head, “Why would anyone develop on the Google Application Engine knowing that they could change pricing within 90 days?”  Why?  Low cost entry and instant scalability.

Now developing on GAE does not mean success for a business.  Let us suppose the favorite application architecture discussion going these days: Twitter.   Twitter has had quite a few outages in the last month.  Clearly as a result of hockey-stick growth they are enjoying.   So the argument and test applications on GAE have been developed, why don’t they just use GAE?   Well there is one problem: Money.  Twitter is a great application with no revenue stream.   So if they developed on GAE and they hit the hockey stick, how are they going to pay for all the bandwidth, CPU and disk?   The infrastructure is no longer a fixed cost but a variable one if you want to scale that number of users.   I assume Google will place some sort of limitations on billing and application usage.   But the problem all comes down to money.   Let’s assume  Google does limit resources your application can consume.  If you app is Twitter, then do you turn off the application when those limits are reached for the month?  Surely that will not work for the business, however you can not spend more then your cash reserves allow you to spend!

Once again money becomes the single problem to crack.  More importantly, cash flow.   If the business model does not a have a revenue model built into the business plan, your dead already.   If the business model is spend money and be popular and sell, you best go play poker in Vegas.   The business has to have a revenue model that works.   If you develop on GAE, the barrier to entry is small but you have to have a scalable revenue model such that you know the cost of each user addition.   So when your business does hit the hockey curve, you can increase the resources available without worries of running out of cash.

Writing a business plan is key to the success of the business, the underlying idea for the business does not ensure success.   In that regard, there are a lot of social web companies that look very similar to the dot-com days with VC money pouring in and very little revenue coming out.  Revenue must be around the corner according to this article on Information Week

Posted 07 June 2008 † Geoff § Business § Software Development § social web ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , , , , ,