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November 2005, Week 4 Marketing Archives

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Google's Nadir Premature

The follow up to the recent flurry of "Google is evil for growing prosperous so fast" articles is a piece from Slate imaging Google's eventual collapse. The fantasy has Rupert Murdoch gobbling up newspapers and outfoxing Google in online services.

The Achilles' heel of this argument is that while Rupe has done a truly exceptionally job in working with satellite TV and cable news, it is extremely difficult for old and new media companies to have profitable marriages. For example, America Online bought younger Internet services company Netscape, but that mediocre marriage was great compared to the debacle of AOL buying Time Warner, which has since gone back to its maiden name.

Likewise telecom and publishing giant Terra Networks bought Lycos a few years back, and then dumped it at a huge loss. Fox News may be the king of cable news, but as an online news destination, it is far from the top of the charts.

Also, for those envious of Google's success who are imagining its reckoning day, remember that the company splits some of its billions in ad revenue with countless publishers, who would be similarly affected if it falls. It's highly unlikely that Google will continue its incredible growth rate, but old media isn't likely to steal its thunder.

Posted By John Gartner at 09:08 PM
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Podcasting and Satellite Rocking Radio

Broadcast radio execs concerned about the future of their industry should closely watch the tumult in the newspaper industry. Newspapers continue to report declining subscriptions as readers turn to free online news and blogs. Newspapers lost 2.6 percent of their paying customers in six months this year, and have responded by offering RSS feeds, blogs, and online subscription services to boost revenues.

Radio is seeing its audience turn to satellite radio and podcasts, especially for rock music. According to the Washington Post "radio executives are increasingly ceding the rock audience to iPods and satellite radio."

The two primary reasons that mainstream print and radio are losing millions of people are the same: convenience and selection. Just as Internet news can be accessed at any minute and blogs provide a wider variety of viewpoints, podcasts provide most-favored music on demand while satellite offers genres specific to individual tastes.

However, podcasting is still in the "needing to be fed hourly" stage of its infancy and XM and Sirius are quickly growing toddlers, so there is time for radio to react. The medium needs to come up with ad-supported alternatives now to make up for the revenue that will erode quickly over the next 18 months.

Clear Channel, Zenith Radio, and even NPR are now delivering podcasts of programs, and local radio stations such as Kink in Portland are offering online-only channels focusing on specific genres. A percentage of listeners, just like news readers, want access to the content that suits their taste on demand.

Posted By John Gartner at 03:32 PM
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Monday, November 28, 2005

Declassified Craigslist Info

Data from the latest Pew Internet Project survey shows that Craigslist is proving that classifieds just want to be free. The Pew Internet Projectsurvey show that the number of people visiting classified sites went up by 80 percent during the past year while Craigslist's reach grew at nearly double that rate, to 8.7 million unique users in September.

While the growth of free sites is great news for anyone looking for a temporary sublet or trying to sell a guitar, it's not so good news for the non-free Yahoo Classifieds, whose reach dropped by 42 percent. (Even Puppydogweb.com now gets more unique users!)

Craigslist's continued growth by word of mouth is impressive as online classifieds use has increased to now include 32 million Americans. Companies looking to charge for classifieds are going to find it nearly impossible to compete unless they can find a value-add such as a much better interface or greater granularity in searching lists.

But being free could become overwhelming for Craigslist one day if it continues to grow so rapidly. If hundreds or thousands of people start posting to a single category each day, the listing could become so lengthy as to be unusable.

Posted By Jason Dowdell at 05:16 PM
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Another Manic Monday

Now that the turkey eating and Black Friday are behind us, most of us are back at the office and ready to get down to some serious shopping? According to a Shop.org survey, "Cyber Monday" is a big shopping day, with 77 percent of retailers reporting increased sales on the post T-day Monday.

That got me thinking, why aren't more e-tailers aggressively promoting one-day sales that enable shopping without having to get up at 4 a.m. and risk being "Walmarted" into unconsciousness? The folks at Buy.com are having a holiday sale that ends today, but a 10 percent sale on stuff at Amazon.com isn't worth hyping.

According to the survey, 43 percent of online retailers planned to offer sales specific to Cyber Monday, but the sales advertised on Amazon.com (some refurbished TiVo units) and Overstock.com ($1 shipping) are nothing compared to the Black Friday sales that rouse people from their beds.

The big e-tailers could use RSS to promote and move a bulk of stale merchandise by having daily specials that are truly special. As an example, Amazon could have Mechanical Monday, Ruby (jewelry) Tuesday, and Wardrobe Wednesday where they have deeply discounted 24-hour sales on selected items, which would likely increase sales of other products and get people to more regularly visit. Consumers and affiliates would subscribe to these feeds to automatically find the best bargains.

I am able to set my purchase price for buying stocks, so why not stockings? Sites like Froogle and Coolsavings should take a page from Oodle.com and Priceline and send e-mail or SMS alerts when that wood chipper you've been considering finally sells for under $400.

Just think how much data e-tailers could get from collecting "reverse auction" data, such as people saying that while $35 is too much for that dolphin lamp, 700 people would pay $20. I realize that the inventory pressures aren't the same for virtual stores, but the goal of getting people in the door is.

Posted By John Gartner at 01:43 PM
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