I wonder how many RSVPs I could get for something if I put up an invitation and invited the entire Facebook community?   Especially in NYC.

The marketing implications are very intriguing.  Check it out the story.

So lets get this straight, a service that mails copies of movies to each subscriber will be larger then a service that appears on your TV with a click of a remote.

Even more telling...Netflix has done this with NO distribution partner, just marketing deals. So for $8.99 per month I can have movies delivered or streamed to my home and for $20 per month someone else picks the films. 

No cable operator to call. 

Why haven't HBO and Showtime created online services?  If they are concerned with their deals with the cable companies, why not just create a totally new service with a new name? 

Does this mean Amazon should watch out?  According to Compete.com Walmart reaches about 33 million unique visitors per month compared To Amazon’s 67 million.

I think we’re going to see lots more to come.  We’ve already seen merchants add malls to their sites but not at this level.

Lots of major websites have yet to see or implement the opportunity. How about Craigslistmall.org (55m unique), About.com (42m unique) or even Weather.com (27m unique).  Thanks to Compete.com for the data. 

So let me get this…companies need sophisticated software to obtain customer feedback?

I guess companies still don’t listen to their employees.  The article cites a story about StubHub that was grateful to the software to identify the customer complaints regarding a delayed Red Sox game and desired ticket refunds.

Are you telling me that none of these people called StubHub’s customer service number?

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that in large organizations important customer opinions and issues can be “lost in translation” between the front lines and the senior management.  However if companies actually believed in their own employees, empowered these people to make decisions and truly engaged their front line and middle management in the management decision making companies could substantially improve customer service as well as their bottom lines.

As for the second use for the software, provide search results based on opinion- that would devastating for our free country and economy.  Many people already make decisions based on public opinion…imagine if all we had was subjective and not objective information?

How many today avoid movies that get bad reviews?  I’ve seen lots of great films that were given bad reviews.  Imagine if all you knew about the film was what the reviewer said.

General news and information is available everywhere at no cost to readers so why should readers pay for the New York Times.  The Wall Street Journal is now more general than ever and I believe that News Corp has reduced its enterprise value as a result.   Supply and demand is determining the market.

In the future the most valuable information will come from the users; Crowd Sourcing from the best of the best in the crowd.

Imagine a membership only forum of the top 100 people in corporate finance.  How much would it be worth to have access to their articles, posts and comments?  Of course membership would be by application only and limited to x number of members.

How much would an apartment seeker in New York pay for access to no fee listings or to be the first to see new home listings?

This idea is not new and some companies already exist with this strategy.  However I believe this strategy will become a primary approach going forward in content creation.

The Ladders was created with this concept of exclusive access in mind although, in its effort to grow the business, has diluted some its objective of the best candidates and for an exclusive list of jobs.

To be truly successful an organization like The Ladders should strictly limit membership of both companies and subscribers.  Growth would come from creating a lot of very niche Ladders properties.

The future successes in monetization of content will come from those who offer the most exclusive and valuable information.   

The days of the general newspaper are quickly dying with the concept of the Associated Press being reborn.  A few news organizations that can survive and succeed with enormous distribution (syndicated across many web sites and devices); a low revenue per reader but enough readers to generate substantial collective revenues…they’ll make it up on volume.

This whole “free” thing is nothing that new, it has been around for a long time (sorry pundits) in the form of free sampling used to get consumers to try a product.  Lay’s Potato Chips had a slogan years ago, “…bet you can’t eat just one”.

Whatever happened to creating a valuable product or service and charging for it?

Have people been “seduced” by the low incremental cost model…just get 100,000 free members and if 10% upgrades at $20 per month…we have a business!!!

…or is this like the old saying “…we’ll make it up on volume”?

I don’t hear any online companies talking about creating a value proposition for their product.  Online companies talk about having 400,000 subscribers and 1 million visitors per month.  Who cares if no one is paying and only 10% of those subscribers have ever returned to the site.

I’m a big believer in creating strong value propositions which lead to lucrative brands like Coach, Coca-Cola and Four Seasons. 

Of course online no one seems to pay for anything.  The top 10 websites, Google, YouTube, Facebook and others are all free to the user.  The major revenue source online is advertising.

I guess I better read Chris’s book.  Here are the links for the free Scribd and audio versions.  Let me know what you think.

To me the best part of this is that purchasers still keep paying even after they have purchased the $119 scale.  Subscribers pay $19.99 every three months.  Considering that most people never seem to reach their weight loss goal this could be a perpetual revenue machine for BodyTrace.