MktgChelsea.com - Online Marketing for the New Age

When I hear the phrase “web 2.0,” I envision jelly bean buttons that look so good you want to lick them and bubbly widgets that interact with social media or other web apps. I think that’s result of hearing the jargon passed around so much.

That aside, I think the new breed of web 2.0 concepts are very sexy. When typical business models are flipped upside down, the Internet takes on a whole new dimension. It’s exciting to see companies giving ordinary people so much choice. One day, you’ll be able to order the exact Honda you want with every feature custom to your taste (we’re not just talking about the paint and the trim — you’ll literally be able to choose the engine, seats, door panels, stereo, etc.).

In the meantime, I’ve listed several web 2.0 business concepts that are too good to keep to myself.

Kiva.org
Thanks to Seth Godin, I discovered this jewel. In just 2 years, Kiva raised over $11 million and funded nearly 17,000 loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries, utilizing individual contributions as little as $25 each. Upon agreement to the loan repayment terms and interests rates, you too can start making a difference.

NotchUp.com
You’ve probably received a pesky email from a friend inviting you to NotchUp.com, the new invitation only resume bank. It’s another reverse model; employers pay for your attention. You set the price you’ll accept to go on an interview (the built-in calculator recommended that I charge $240 per interview). The reason you get so many invitations? NotchUp.com gives the referring party 10% commission on any interviews you setup through the site.

Moo.com
Standing in line at Slide in San Francisco, I met a Babak Nivi, a self proclaimed venture capitalist. He handed me his slick business card (half size with thick high quality paper and photo printing on one side). I learned that I could order my very own set of 100 business cards with 100 of my own photos printed on one side and contact information on the other for just $19.95. Hell, these are a fun conversation piece if nothing else. I ordered mine.

Jott.com
Sign up, register your phone, and then call (866) JOTT-123 (someone will type as you talk) and it can be posted directly your blog, text messaged somewhere or even used as a reminder, but that’s just the beginning. You can also Jott directly to Twitter, send specific Amazon.com listings to your email, and create a Google Calendar events on-the-go. It’s free to join and Jott 30 second messages.

WooMe.com
You may have seen the ads for WooMe.com plastered all over facebook.com. This is where speed dating meets iGen. Well, not quite. With a microphone and webcam, you’re in business to meet 5 people in 5 minutes, and you can setup a profile complete with your photo, the ability to add favorites, and meet an unlimited amount of Wooer’s. You get the other persons email address as long as you both Woo one another at the end of the 5 minute session. In all reality, this turns into a lot of pointing and laughing.

Through the hype and all of the white noise, tech articles made the promise of the iPhone seem dismal.  Less than a week after its debut, I used the device. And now I know why it will change the way wireless industry as we know it. Wireless Internet technology has been around for more than a decade, but it was not until the iPhone that the crossover of browsing from computers to truly handheld media devices made it to market.  Just think, the total content industry on mobile was $31 billion dollars in 2006. The marketing and community ecosystem that Apple is famous for will port this technology to the everyday user. The iPhone is a symbol of an underlying movement that will touch all of us.

With their innovation, timing, and user base of die hard fans, this phone will gain solid

traction, fast.  And who will buy it?  The upwardly mobile, tech geeks, artsy folks, fashion guru’s, kids, college students,  parents, avid Mac users, anyone that owns an iPod, etc.   

What this changes: 

- Instant Internet browsing anywhere, anytime
One could argue that Internet browsing has been available forever on wireless phones, yet nothing seems to compare to the browsing experience on the iPhone.  The difference is, you can really use it, and it shows full browser windows. 

Steve Jobs at MacWorld in January 2007:

“Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything.” He recalled the introduction of the Mac in 1984, the iPod in 2001, which “changed everything about music, and we’re gong to do it again with the iPhone in 2007.” 

- No more disposable freebie phones
Consumers are adept to receiving a phone that’s under $100 when they sign up for a contract.  Networks like Verizon and Cingular have used this ploy for years, thinking it would detract from the major $2,000+ investment customers make when they agree to a 2-year contract.  With the iPhone, the manufacturer of the phone is selling direct to the consumer.    

- B2C technology that’s continually updated to keep subscribers hooked 

As quoted from RoughlyDrafted.com 

Apple has turned the mobile industry into a consumer facing market, where consumers will buy the phone, get updates, and buy software from Apple. That makes Apple responsible for their security, their demanded features, and their support. That’s not how things work today in the mobile world.” 

Apple being tied to the profit in the service agreement will keep the software updated to protect consumers from new vulnerabilities, and be able to provide new functionality.  This changes the game. In the past, handheld manufacturers had pressure to continually take their products through the lifecycle so that new units could be offered when a contract expires. 

Manufacturers built cheap phones because that’s what the market demanded.  The tides have changed, and even though Apple’s Steve Jobs does not want you to think of the iPhone as a computer, Apple will be allowing others to develop applications for the interface.  Jobs just doesn’t want you to download random software that could muck up your phone and make it unusable for phone service. That, and he wants to keep selling you more stuff.  

- New consumer expectations regarding the form and function of handsets
The Razr simply isn’t good enough anymore.  New functionality and software will attempt to keep pace with the iPhone and beyond. There are already several look-a-likes including the LG KE850.

- The battle of GSM vs. CDMA Technology
The iPhone is on the AT&T GSM network, and Verizon uses CDMA technology.  The US is one of the only developed countries to employ competing technologies, which limits the service capabilities of each provider.  Worldwide, GSM wins hands down as it is a portable SIM-card based technology.  Will we see more adoption of AT&T and other GSM networks like Sprint? 

 - Potential to build your own phone with the features that you want (B2C)
With the iPhone, I hear nonstop logistical clatter.“The EDGE network is too slow”
“It doesn’t even do xyz.”
“It costs too much.”

You can build you own computer, whether it’s a Mac or a PC.  So, why won’t you be able to build a custom iPhone with all of the features that you desire?  Apple made the choice of which features to include, but the real trick was to know what to leave out.  In the world of personalization, let the consumer decide. Since the iPhone is consumer facing, this is a very real possibility.

- Higher Mac sales as market moves toward Apple products
With the popularity of the iPod, Apple’s stock has nearly doubled in the last year.  The iPhone, with it’s tight integration with Mac products will increase PC and notebook sales, there’s no question.

You Need to Feed  Your Own RSS

FeedBurner monetizes publisher’s feeds by embedding targeted ads in the syndicated content.  They host well over 880,000 feeds and so many subscribers that it’s impossible to count.  FeedBurner StandardStats will tell you what your approximate circulation is, feed readers used, and click throughs (must redirect links through FeedBurner to do this).  To do all of this, your feed has to come from FeedBurner, and not your own URL. They offer all sorts of tools to analyze, optimize, publicize, and monetize your content, but does it come at an SEO cost?

The drawback to using a 3^rd party solution like FeedBurner, which serves and tracks your RSS feeds is that you’ll forfeit the link popularity created by syndicating your feeds.  Instead of the feed coming directly from your URL, it originates from yourfeedprovider.com and you won’t ever be able deeply segment your readership. In fact, they recommend you redirect your pre-existing feed using a 302 redirect to your new FeedBurner account. 

They provide colorful stats and pretty pie charts, but how accurate are the FeedBurner subscriber counts?

By their own admission:  FeedBurner calculates subscribers by matching IP address and feed reader combinations and then [uses a detailed] understanding of the polling behavior of a multitude of readers, aggregators, browsers and bots on the market to make additional inferences.

More…

FeedBurner’s subscriber count is based on an approximation of how many times your feed has been requested in a 24-hour period. Subscribers is inferred from an analysis of the many different feed readers and aggregators that retrieve this feed daily. Subscribers is not computed for browsers and bots that access your feed.

Did you catch that?  This means they are collecting all sorts of information about your RSS feeds from many different sources - and then estimating the number of subscribers you have on a daily basis!  One day you could have 11,000 subscribers and be down to 6,000 the next. This is like using Alexa.com as an accurate statistic for measuring your web site traffic.  It’s an estimate generated by a number of variables, not a reliable stat for internal measurement that can be used for decision making.