Monthly Archives: June 2007

Giving people what they want

Andy Lark has a nice post on The Power of Community.

This quote of his has stuck in my head:

“Marketing programs, clever PR and community activation aside, nothing really beats giving people what they want.”

Too true!

As I’ve noted before, one way to market a product or service is to build something that people love to use and happily tell their friends about.

He also maks an interesting point about how much of the iPhone story has been told in community-driven sites like Digg et al:

“Apple is launching the iPhone at a time when content aggregation sites like Digg, Techmeme, and even Google News can put a potential customer before hundreds, if not thousands, of possibly interesting stories about the product. All Apple has to do is trickle out information every now and then, as it has done in the weeks leading up to Friday’s launch, and watch the frenzy take hold.”

Here’s an interesting comparison along those lines:

The Official Nokia N95 site

A pretty standard marketing site: slick, flash-based, but doesn’t really tell me much about the product that I really believe.

The Nokia N95 page on Wikipedia

A pretty good summary of the phone and it’s features, including some of its flaws:

“Nokia N95 handsets supplied by Orange and Vodafone in the UK have had the VoIP facility removed from the phone to the annoyance of many users. Vodafone’s explanation for removing the facility was that ‘it doesn’t believe it’s a mature technology’.”

“It should be noted that the N95 does not support US based versions of UMTS/HSDPA; UMTS features in the US versions of this phone are disabled by default (but can be reactivated if needed).”

Which is more useful to somebody considering a purchase?

Sim-locked

So the iPhone hype (iHype?) is reaching fever pitch.

I’m struggling to get excited … yet.

I’m guessing it’s going to be years before they are available here in NZ.

And it doesn’t look good for those who were considering using something like Shipbuktu to get their hands on one …

“Then there is the issue of the iPhone being sim-locked. And I don’t just mean that the phone is locked, nope, the sim is locked physically into the phone! It can’t be removed. Seemingly there is a way to map your existing number to the sim in your iPhone – this will be part of the activation process. But you can’t take your sim out of the phone for any reason. What happens when you want to upgrade to a new phone? No idea. Presumably this will be straightforward if your new phone is another iPhone – but if it is not…”

From: Tom Raftery’s Social Media

Those in the US need to sign up for a two-year contract at US$60 per month.

Now that’s lock in!

UPDATE: (from this thread on GeekZone) apparently this video shows that you can actually remove the sim by poking a paper clip into this hole.  So, not easy, but possible.

Bring on the Bose!

After a bit of faffing around I finally got Parallels up and running earlier in the week.

So, with access to IE7 again for the first time in a while I decided to try again to buy the Blackbox M-14 headphones I’ve had my eye on (see my previous post for the back story).

I hit their homepage, already anticipating the enhanced quietness that was now only a few clicks away …

Install Flash 8

Sigh!

So, I installed Flash 8 and, held my breath as I tried again to get through the check-out pages.

Woo hoo, it worked.

But then, this:

System Busy

Enough!

The next day I walked into the Bose store (which is dangerously close to the Xero office!) and walked out with a pair of QC3s. It was too easy. Offline shopping just works so well.

I don’t want to completely bag the guys working on this site. I got a comment back from Leon at Oktobor to say that they were onto the problems I pointed out last time and were working to make it better. It wasn’t just words – they have re-labeled the buttons on the check-out form to make them more intuitive. And, I got an email from them later in the day to say they had been having some technical problems and I should try again, which at least shows that they are now tracking abandoned orders. But, by then it was too late.

Right now you aren’t doing what you most wish you were doing

I’m not a twitter user yet, but I know the question: What are you doing?

I spent the day working at home. I’ve had J2 on in the background. It’s a nice change from MP3s.

They just played ‘Right Now’ by Van Halen. 1992 that came out (crikey!) Not an especially memorable song, but a great video.

A couple of the quotes:

“Right now opportunity is passing you by.”

“Right now time is having its way with you.”

What are you doing?  What you wish you were doing?

P.S. While we’re reminiscing on a musical theme … tickets to the Crowded House concerts go on sale this coming Friday. The opening act? Supergroove. Now that makes me feel old!

:-)

Constant improvement

Are you taking advantage of the web platform and constantly making small improvements to your software?

Or have you got an excuse for why this is too hard (your application is too complex, you can’t easily deploy changes without interrupting users, you can’t afford the testing costs associated with each release, you prefer to focus on the bigger headline stuff, etc, etc)?

Here’s what Google achieves …

“… half a dozen major or minor changes are introduced in Google’s search engine every week, and each change can affect the ranking of many sites — although most are barely noticed by the average user.”

That’s the benchmark.

Forever young

Here’s a nice reminder about the power of not knowing any better …

“You tend to lose important resources when you get older – your friends and your naivete. You no longer get the benefit of having all of your friends do the homework for you. You no longer get the benefit of trying new stuff because you don’t know any better.”

From: The most important assets you lose when you’re over 30

This should give pause to anybody who doesn’t understand the attraction of facebook and struggles to get excited about registering for another social networking site (me).

Or, those who insist that they have no reason to upgrade to Windows Vista, and that Windows XP is good enough, without even bothering to spend some time playing with it (you know who you are).

Perhaps those under 30 just spend less time reminiscing?

Maserati Smaserati

Rod has taken it on himself to “corrupt” me (his words) and try to convince me to buy a better car.

So, in the last couple of weeks I’ve been driving Porche and Maserati rather than Ford.

They look and sound great, but flash cars are pretty much wasted on me.

I had to laugh when I found this Jeremy Clarkson review of the Maserati Quattroporte:

“In a list of the five most rubbish things in the world, I’d have America’s foreign policy at five. Aids at four. Iran’s nuclear programme at three. Gordon Brown at two and Maserati’s gearbox at number one. It is that bad.”

Maybe I’ll stick with the Ford!

:-)

Wiki Groaning

This courtesy of Helen Baxter from Mowhawk Media on National Radio’s “Virtual World” segment this week …Wiki Groaning is a Wikipedia game in the spirit of Google Whacking.

To find a Wiki Groan pick a useful general interest Wikipedia article. Then, find a related article that is longer, but at the same time, completely trivial.

Some examples:

:-)

The show is half and hour and this piece is near the end. But, listen to the whole thing as they also cover Ponoko and PlanHQ, two exciting Wellington-based web businesses.

All the cliches in the world

Here is a fun game to play next time you’re watching a rugby game on Sky…

Count how many times the commentators say: “All the [blah] in the world”.

There are lots of variants:

  • All the time in the world
  • All the space in the world
  • All the pace in the world
  • All the skills in the world

You get the idea.

Grant Nisbett is especially fond of this phrase.

Score a bonus point each time Jerry Collins is prefixed “All Black Hardman”.

Or, if you just can’t take it anymore, you can switch to The Alternative Rugby Commentary, broadcast direct to your living room via Skype.

I was put onto this by Kristin Savage, whose new blog is another I’m following.

Kristin is the guy behind Availabuild, a new competitor in the very popular “RateMyPlumber.com” category. They have a slightly different approach, focusing on solving the problem of availability: you don’t want to have to call a hundred tradesman just to find one who is available when you need them, and they really don’t want to be constantly interrupted by your call. It’s an interesting idea. I’m sure they’d be keen to hear what you think of their implementation.

smellybanana.co.nz

Lance points at DiscountDomains, who list all of the .co.nz domains which are about to expire and allow you to bid on them.

Prices start from $59.95 + GST.

Among those expiring in the last 48 hours I found this one:

smellybanana.co.nz (I won’t bother with a link, it doesn’t work).

I’d love to know what the owner of that domain had in mind when they got it.

:-)

Do business with New Zealand

How is the 100% Pure NZ site promoting NZ businesses?

http://www.newzealand.com/

Look at the two links:

Travel: Funky font. Exciting colour. Wicked.

Business: Grey! Times New Roman! Yawn. :-(

It looks to me like this splash page, where visitors are forced to choose between travel and business, is a recent addition.

I wonder what the bulk of the visitors to this site are after?

My guess would be travel. So, why not get rid of this choice altogether? Just default to the much nicer travel site landing page and have an obvious link in the navigation to segue those people who are interested into the business section.