on discovery path

WSJ the "Drug Dealer"

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 22:52:00 -0400

I’ve mentioned before that I’m quite addicted to WSJ Mobile Reader - I read their articles on my BB incessantly.

Recently, WSJ Mobile Reader started charging subscription fee for access to most of its articles.

To my surprise, I am actually considering to subscribe.

As I look back, I realized what a smooth calculated process WSJ has driven to get me to this point. About one year ago, WSJ started distributing the Mobile Reader for free. I wasn’t the first to sign up, I downloaded it sometime in the spring after a prominent VC raved about it on his blog. A couple of months ago, the Reader began showing a splash screen informing that I have until such and such date before I need to make a choice: register for WSJ and get access to the free content, or subscribe to either the print or Web version and get full access to the mobile free.

By this time of course I’ve been a user for about 1/2 year… reading WSJ on my BB has become an ingrained daily habit. WSJ’s “drug dealer” strategy here has worked.

My case also seems to validate the news publishers’ business strategy: make up for the loss in print subscribers by going online, but not solely on an advertising business model - instead, offer online and hybrid subscriptions at higher price points to offset decline in revenue… while transforming the company cost structure.

Per Dan Gross over at Moneybox:

“So in the past six months, according to ABC, the New York Times’ daily circulation fell 7.3 percent, while Sunday circulation was down 2.7 percent. Horreur! And yet, the New York Times Co. reported that in the third quarter, “circulation revenues rose 6.7 percent, mainly because of higher subscription and newsstand prices at The New York Times and The Boston Globe.” In the quarter, circulation revenues were larger than advertising revenues for the first time—$175.25 million, compared with $164.5 million.”

Now if only I could wean off the drug…

Imagine yourself… Leading.

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 14:42:14 -0400

Imagine yourself… Leading.

While we’re on the subject… why Netflix’s big...

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 16:22:43 -0400

While we’re on the subject… why Netflix’s big salary approach may be the way to go.

Amen - I never knew Netflix is such a cool company to work for. ...

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 13:24:37 -0400

Amen - I never knew Netflix is such a cool company to work for. Thanks Bob.

RSS readers modeled after email clients are fundamentally broken

Sat, 23 May 2009 08:28:06 -0400

RSS readers modeled after email clients are fundamentally broken:

Look what I’ve found…

The Core of the Blogosphere

Sat, 23 May 2009 07:29:00 -0400

I’ve been busy lately but I wanted to share a couple of changes to my reading pattern over the last few months you may find interesting…

First, I now rely heavily on WSJ Mobile Reader to keep up with latest news. This makes me officially a Crackberryhead.

Second, over the last couple of months I’ve paid less visits to Google Reader - let alone blogging - partly because of the busyness, but also because the the 1000+ unread feeds is such a turnoff. Clicking on “Mark all as read” button multiple times has not helped me feel good.

So I decided to make some changes to cut down on the number of feeds - I began limiting feeds from TechCrunch to only those from two of its many authors, unsubscribed from news sources like GigaOM and Xconomy, and eliminated entire feeds in categories like market facts and green tech.

Now I’m focused once again on the core of it all that I care about the most… the individual bloggers. Imagine that!!

Some Links to Share...

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 23:25:17 -0400

A good story about YouSendIt’s transition from ads-supported business model to subscriptions. Free to Freemium: 5 lessons learned from YouSendIt.com | Futuristic Play by @Andrew_Chen

Good advice, Joel-style. But sounds like a product owner in Agile? How to be a program manager - Joel on Software

A short historical perspective on the Internet law pendulum. Technology & Marketing Law Blog: The Third Wave of Internet Exceptionalism

The corporate escapee, now that’s a persona. Startup Marketing Isn’t Rocket Science, So Don’t Hire the Ph.D Too Soon - O’Reilly Radar

You know Friendster is near the end when...

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:49:27 -0500

… its Southeast Asian users are moving en masse to Facebook. Proof? I’ve got a lot of new friend requests from my Indonesian buddies as well as my teenage sister on FB in the last couple of weeks.

Friendster, as you know, has just moved headquarters to Bay Area and opened new offices in Singapore and Sydney last month. The management finally came to terms with the fact that their strongest user bases are located in markets where, unfortunately, online advertising isn’t as mature or large as in the USA.

The move may be too little, too late… social networks may be sticky but once users leave, they don’t often come back. I for one haven’t logged into Friendster for ages…

Internet Asperger’s Syndrome

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:14:00 -0500

Internet Asperger’s Syndrome:

A thoughtful piece by Jason Calacanis, in the wake of Arrington’s spitting incident.

Wow, spreadsheet has come a long way! No way I’m swapping...

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 21:48:42 -0500

Wow, spreadsheet has come a long way! No way I’m swapping my Excel for this. And while we’re at it… my co-worker calls PowerPoint slides “foils”, legacy of his old days at IBM and the golden age of transparency projectors. Kind of cool actually.

Everyone stopped Googling when Obama spoke

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 20:56:20 -0500

Everyone stopped Googling when Obama spoke:

Watch he who stops Google here.

Google App Engine's pricing: progress or throwback to pay-for-peak-usage?

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 19:07:00 -0500

Google App Engine is going to offer Adwords-style pricing -
my first question was: if an additional 1000 people want to visit your website and as a result you go over the limit, what happens?

I found Google’s answer in one of the preview screenshots:

“As this budget represents the maximum you will be charged in one day, we recommend setting it higher than expected to buffer against sudden traffic surges.”

Translation: we turn those overflow visitors away.

Google may be thinking it can make more money with the Adwords model. SEO marketers know this very well.

As in the Adwords model where you don’t pay until impressions convert into clicks, I understand that you don’t pay until the storage/bandwidth/compute is consumed.

I also understand once you use up your budget limit in Adwords, your ads won’t compete in the auction for the rest of the day, resulting in a lost opportunity to advertise. That seems fair enough.

But what I don’t understand is how Google will tell users to willingly deny visitors each time they’re over-the-limit in App Engine. That goes against one of the key tenets of cloud computing: consumption-based pricing model.

One of the main reasons cloud computing ala Amazon AWS or Microsoft Azure is so attractive is because customers only pay for what they consume, eliminating the need to plan and purchase for peak usage.

It would be interesting to see how this plays out. What’s next, an Adwords minimum bid-like requirement?

Tweeting is like joining a party line.

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 16:02:30 -0500

Tweeting is like joining a party line.:

Brilliant description of Twitter’s value by Stuart Miniman. Read up on party line here.

The French deciphers the strategy behind all of Google’s...

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 21:43:53 -0500

The French deciphers the strategy behind all of Google’s recent moves. A must read.

Twitter's Asymmetrical Follow

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 23:39:00 -0500

bmje: @timoreilly @monkchips Asymmetric follow is a hack in social software to enable ‘relationships’ to scale. It is broadcast, not conversation”
timoreilly: @bmje Not so. I follow 400; am followed by 16,000. But I respond to lots of people (like you) who I didn’t know before. Not just broadcast.”

TechCrunch’s New Search Engine: Powered by Yahoo BOSS

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 16:57:15 -0500

TechCrunch’s New Search Engine: Powered by Yahoo BOSS:

Looks impressive; however, it took two of their developers 6-8 weeks to implement it. Yahoo! probably needs to make it much faster and easier than that.

SAP's Dilemma

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 10:05:34 -0500

Recently co-CEO of SAP Leo Apotheker talked about the company’s decision to slow the rollout of BusinessByDesign (BBD), their ERP as-a-service product.

He gave valid reasons:

Changing the business model from traditional license sale to subscription sale will result in revenue drop in the short-term.
Running a SaaS business requires capex investment upfront, increasing costs and supressing margins, again in the short-term.

He is essentially saying - I paraphrase - “The revenue and margin we get from selling traditional license plus professional services is better, so we’d rather not sell BBD to customers unless we really, really have to (such as when we would otherwise lose an important enough prospect).”

Now let’s keep things in perspective: NetSuite’s comparable product costs 50% off what customers would pay just for SAP maintenance. SaaS is just cheaper and faster to deploy - and in this economic climate, that means a lot.

It is tough for SAP as a public company to focus on the long-term, but as a consequence it may find itself losing ground that’s difficult to reclaim. I mean, how often do customers replace their ERP systems? Especially knowing how challenging it can be to deploy the on-premise product - remember all those ERP project horror stories?

Time will tell if this was a good decision.

"I think what gets in the way, Sarah, is business school professors."

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 17:31:53 -0500

“I think what gets in the way, Sarah, is business school professors.”

- Clayton Christensen when asked why very few companies are able to reinvent their business models successfully.

Microsoft Store is in Business

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 21:56:07 -0500

Microsoft Store is in Business:

I wonder how much volume they are driving from this channel today…

I don’t typically promote EMC on this blog, but since...

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 09:31:00 -0500

I don’t typically promote EMC on this blog, but since Atmos is their first cloud storage product and the video is entertaining (at least by EMC standards)… check it out!