Tag Archives: Business model

August 6, 2015 · 11:32 am

No News Isn’t Good News

I’ll let you in on a little secret.  Here at the World Headquarters, we step away from the computer screen at lunch time, usually to watch the big screen.  Generally it’s a whip around through the various news channels to make sure that it’s worth continuing to work the rest of the day.  After all, if the world is going to end, I’d rather try to sneak in one last round of golf than write a few more emails.

One thing I’ve noticed lately as I watch CNN/MSNBC/FoxNews during lunch is how little actual content I see.  Mostly I see ads.  After many years in the TV business I understand why, but when you factor in national breaks, promotional spots, and the local cable affiliate breaks, a viewer can leave the set for 5+ minutes at a time and not miss a thing.  Entertainment programming doesn’t seem much better. Then again, maybe I’m just old and cranky and wrong.

It turns out I’m not.  As Business Insider reported:

Almost every major TV network in the US is stuffing more ads into their commercial breaks in a “desperate” attempt to prop up ad revenues as ratings across the industry decline, according to a report from investment research and management company Sanford C. Bernstein. The report shows that prime-time TV audiences (as determined by Nielsen C3 measurements: TV watched both live and three days after the show was first aired on catch-up services) are down 9% year on year, yet ad loads on some networks are up as much as 10% on last year.

The chart I’ve embedded shows how commercial hours have changed in the last year across major cable network groups.  3% or 4% may not sound like a lot, but when you’re running over 10,000 seconds of commercials a day, that’s several minutes more each day.  Times 7.  Times 365.  The problem with that is that in the process of maintaining revenues you’re exacerbating the problem of viewer abandonment.  In particular, viewers are going to streaming, where commercials loads are way smaller if they exist at all.  What I find nice about the commercials on Hulu, for example, is that you know exactly how long they will last.  I have no clue as I’m taking my short lunch break if I’m ever going back to the news.  In this case, no news is very bad news since it means yet more of what I definitely did not tune in to see.

We can’t alter our products to preserve an income statement when that alteration provides a lesser experience for the consumer.  It’s a short-term fix that will have very bad long-term ramifications.  Cheaper ingredients, lesser workmanship, or ad cramming are all part of the same mindset.  It’s one we should avoid, don’t you think?

 

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June 24, 2015 · 9:33 am

What Are We Buying?

There was a piece this morning about how Samsung appears to be blocking Windows updates on its laptops. The folks over at The Next Web are reporting on a security researcher’s findings during his investigation of Samsung’s softwareupdater. That updater installs another app:

Automatic Updates 'Restart Required' in Window...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The app, conspicuously named Disable_Windowsupdate.exe, is installed automatically without the owner’s knowledge. According to a support representative, it’s there to stop the computer from automatically downloading drivers from Windows Update that could be incompatible with the system or cause features to break.

Unfortunately for Samsung it also appears to change the user’s update settings and disables Windows Update entirely. Once installed, the app even disables Windows Update after the user re-enables it.

As anyone who has ever owned a Windows computer knows, no updates means security risks and other issues.  Which raises a question – who owns the device?  When you buy a house, you’re free to make whatever changes you want – paint it, knock down a wall, or add on.  When you rent, your options are far fewer in number and you might not be allowed to make any structural changes at all.  In my mind, Samsung is behaving like a landlord – you’re a tenant, don’t change our building’s structure.

They’re not alone in this.  Think about your iPhone – your ability to make changes to the device are pretty limited.  Even Andriod phones carry bloatware from manufacturers and carriers that can’t be removed unless you void your warranty and gain root access.  As Wired reported –John Deere—the world’s largest agricultural machinery maker —told the Copyright Office that farmers don’t own their tractors. Because computer code snakes through the DNA of modern tractors, farmers receive “an implied license for the life of the vehicle to operate the vehicle.”

I’m sure you have other examples, but it raises the question of who owns what we buy?  At what point does the notion of ownership become outdated?  You might not realize it but you may not own your music, your electronic books, or even your car from a legal perspective.  So what are we buying?

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June 18, 2015 · 12:12 pm

The Freemium Come On

I had the same sort of thing happen to me twice in the last 24 hours so of course I feel compelled to rant about it. In the first case, I was searching for a better system to keep track of my business development work. I spent some time reviewing solutions and I thought I had found one that I liked. Research told me that there was a free solution that would meet my needs so I signed up. Imagine my surprise when my account said I was now using their enterprise solution for a 30-day trial.  I wrote to customer service asking about the promoted “free” option and was told that in 30 days my account would be downgraded to the free solution although some pieces of what I had access to would be lost.  No, he didn’t tell me which pieces so I’m a little wary of getting too invested in this since who knows if I’m building a database which will then be held for ransom.

In the second case, my “thing” about grammar led me to a browser extension that is supposed to improve upon the tools built in to the operating system, my word processing software,  and the browser.  It too said it was free so I installed it and registered for an account. The first document I ran through it contained a number of errors, some of which were labelled as “critical” (spelling and a comma fault) and others labelled as “advanced.”  Hovering over the critical issues allowed me to fix them immediately, choosing from several proposed solutions.  I clicked on the advanced list and was taken to a page which told me I needed to upgrade to fix the advanced writing mistakes as well as to enhance my text.

In both of these cases, I don’t begrudge the companies for charging for their services.  I think freemium is a pretty good business model and there are some free services that I’ve paid to upgrade over the years after having used them for a bit.  I have a bigger issue with companies that begin as free and then begin charging for features which had been free.  The issue I do have is a lack of clarity upfront.  If it’s a freemium service, state that and lay out the differences between free and paid.  Hopefully, your product is good enough that you’ll convert folks who use it and want a deeper involvement.  Don’t play the airlines’ game of promoting a low cost (or no cost) and then hitting a user up with charges for everything under the sun.  That’s just deceptive.  That’s my take.  Yours?

 

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