YouTube will begin offering full-length episodes of certain television shows including like ‘Dexter’, ‘Beverly Hills, 90210′ and ‘Star Trek’.
In addition, such longer videos will also include advertising before, during and after each episode.
Finally, Google relents, and lets awful, grubby advertising on its precious YouTube. Who are they kidding? How does Google make most of its money again…? Ad-something or other?
Monster Venture Partners has acquired a controlling interest in Bitwine. Launched in late 2006, Bitwine is a service that enables people to ask experts questions in return for a fee.
Bitwine users can ask questions related to all kinds of things ranging from nutrition to computers via Skype, other VoIP services or normal phone lines. Experts can charge their clients a flat fee or by the minute. Clients pay by PayPal and the money is sent as soon as the expert has answered the relevant question. Interestingly, the service is also available as a white label product.
Nice idea, Bitwine. And it seems Monster Venture Partners agrees, especially given potential synergies with its other portfolio companies, including Questions.com, Careers.org, Patents.com, Traveler.com and Slideshow.com.
Source: Michael Arrington, “Bitwine Acquired By Monster Venture Partners”, TechCrunch, October 5, 2008
There are at least two myths circulating in the Internet marketing and search engine optimization communities that frustrate me no end. They frustrate me for two chief reasons:
The first myth is the ‘duplicate content penalty’ myth - the idea that the search engines will ‘penalize’ you e.g. remove your site from the index or lower your ranking - if you publish the same content more than once on the Internet.
This is JUST NOT TRUE.
There are sooo many examples of duplicate content being routinely indexed by the search engines. Just do a search on the title of an article syndicated by Reuters or the Associated Press. Up will come results for the same article on lots of different news sites.
Let’s face it. If the search engines de-indexed sites for publishing the same articles… there would be NO news sites listed in the search engines at all!
And that’s just one example.
But if you don’t believe me when I say the duplicate content penalty is a myth, hear it from the horse’s mouth. This is what Susan Moskwa said in a recent post to the Official Google Blog:
“There’s no such thing as a duplicate content penalty.”
Couldn’t be clearer than that.
Okay, so why do concerns about publishing duplicate content - either on your own site or on others’ sites – persist? Two reasons.
Eight little words. Words, said together, that you’ve heard many, many times before. Words that you’ve probably said yourself. That you may find yourself saying again. Without knowing how dangerous they are… how they can virtually kill your business before you even start it… how they can even a business that’s been profitable for years…
What eight little words?
These: ‘I have a great idea for a product.’
Huh? What’s wrong with saying that? Isn’t it fantastic that you’ve got a great idea for a product?
No, it’s not.
Businesses don’t make money because they ‘have a great idea for a product’. They make money because they have ‘a great product that a sufficiently large market wants’.
You see, there are essentially two approaches to product development and business.
The first is to come up with a new product, create it and then try to sell it… based on the belief – whether delusional, arrogant or both – that enough people will buy it. This is an enormously risky approach to product development and business, because you simply have no evidence that people will buy your product. As many a failed inventor and ‘entrepreneur’ can attest.
But, I hear you cry, what about 3M’s Post-it notes, and numerous technological products, not to mention books, movies, music and other artistic creations… These didn’t have any guaranteed markets before they were produced and marketed?
Okay – yes, you can create a product – without any indications of a market – that ends up being a hit. But it’s extremely risky! Are you willing to stake the future of your business – perhaps your entire financial future – on a product that may, possibly, in your wildest hopes, be successful?
Do you think 3M’s whole future rested on Post-it notes? I don’t think so.
Do you think movie studios invest everything they’ve got into one, untested, film?
Not these days, and not the big ones.
Do you think most aspiring authors abandon all other income sources (like their day jobs) in the hopes that their book will be a bestseller? Not *most*. Everyone’s got to eat, right?
Yet, for some reason, many entrepreneurs – people who are supposed to understand business – are prepared to risk their companies on products with absolutely no proof that they’ll sell.
Please don’t get me wrong. I support innovation… I admire visionaries who create solutions that no ‘focus group’ could ever dream up… But I think it’s foolhardy to be a pioneer – unless you have another secure income source that you can fall back on if your ‘great idea for a product’ bombs.
So what’s the second – less risky – approach to business? I’ll reveal all in tomorrow’s issue of Kikabink News…
Online consumer technology seller, Best Buy, has acquired online music service, Napster, for $121 million in cash. But according to TechCrunch, Best Buy just wasted its money.
While Napster has 700,000 subscribers and its financial performance has improved in the last year… it’s still a loss-maker. In the 2008 fiscal year ending March 31, 2008 Napster made a loss of $16.5 million on revenue of $127.5 million, compared with a loss of $36.8 million the year before.
Moreover, Napster faces tough, and arguably superior, competition in the form of iTunes, MySpace’s soon-to-be-launched free, ad-supported music streaming service, and Amazon’s DRM-free MP3 store.
Source: Don Reisinger, “Best Buy Puzzles With Napster Acquisition”, TechCrunch, September 15, 2008
TubeMogul, which distributes web video to multiple sites and collects viewing data, has introduced the “TubeMogul Marketplace” - a service that aims to match advertisers with video producers.
The TubeMogul Marketplace allows advertisers to review demographic data collected by TubeMogul in order to find appropriate web video from among TubeMogul’s 200 or so web video producers. Advertisers can then contact video producers and negotiate appropriate licensing arrangements.
TubeMogul is offering the service as a value-add for its producers and doesn’t plan to make any money from any matches made or deals transacted.
I was pushed off my soapbox today. This time by a Kikabink News subscriber with a beef about marketers using – or should I say MISusing - the word “free”…
Gregg (last name withheld to protect his privacy) emailed the following to me. I have edited the message for readability and to protect the innocent/guilty (depending on how you look at it). I offer my views at the end:
“Now, how many times have you seen something offered as ‘free’ when in fact it is not. I am 61 now and I think I know the meaning of “free” versus “buy one get one free”.
A prime example of this is [Name of Marketer withheld] who usually has some free items but, for the most part, if you read the fine print, you have signed up for something at $30 a month and so on.
‘Free’ to me does not mean ‘pay shipping and handling’. That means it costs whatever the shipping and handling is. Shipping and handling (S & H) of $9 for a disc means, to me, that the thing costs $9 and is not free. If it were truly free, send it to me without any S & H costs.
‘Free’ does not mean if I buy one of someone else’s product I get their deal free. It means to me that if I buy one, I get one free.
‘Free’ for 30,60 or 90 days if you show a credit card and bam, they slam your card when you order… is not free.
There seems to be far too much bullshit in the ads going on. I have returned items that I wanted just out of spite over this crap.”
What are your thoughts? Is Gregg right… or is he being pedantic?
Well, in many countries - certainly in Australia and I believe in the U.S. and U.K. - the law is firmly on Gregg’s side: if you say something is ‘free’ without any qualification you are implying that someone needn’t pay any money to get whatever you are offering.
Obviously I can’t give legal advice within the confines of this newsletter. I can say, however, that (as an Australian qualified lawyer) I have reviewed numerous promotional offers and advised clients that unless they clearly state any applicable qualification - e.g. that there’s a shipping and handling fee, or that a customer must buy something else to get the free product or service, or that the offer only applies under other limited circumstances - they are engaging in misleading and deceptive conduct by presenting the product or service as being ‘free’.
Do some marketers get away with saying ‘free’ when they don’t mean it? Sure they do. Government regulators have limited resources and simply can’t prosecute everyone. But sometimes it only takes a few people complaining before a regulator sets their sights on a particular marketer.
And just as ‘free’ attracts the attention of consumers… it also tends to attract the attention of consumer regulators.
Gregg has subsequently contacted me about a couple of other practices he objects to. I’ll share them with you in an upcoming issue… I’m not sure I entirely agree with his objections, but I’ll let him have his say.
What about you? Want to get something off your chest? Send it to me or feel free to comment on this (or any other) article in the newsletter.
If you’ve been involved in direct response marketing for any length of time, you’ve probably heard of the concept of ‘lifetime customer value’ (LCV). Indeed, you may have heard various marketing experts extol the virtues of LCV as being the chief indicator of how much you should spend to acquire a customer.
For instance, if you know that the total or lifetime gross profit generated by an average customer is $100, you know that you can afford to spend $95 in marketing costs to acquire that customer and still make money ($5).
But there are two MAJOR problems with blindly letting LCV dictate your marketing spend. The first problem is, perhaps, not so worrying. But the second can be FATAL to your business.
The first problem is this: while LCV may be used to indicate how much you CAN afford to spend to acquire a customer, it shouldn’t be used to indicate how much you SHOULD spend.
Sure, you can spend $95 to buy an average customer and be comfortable in knowing that you’ll still derive $5 in real profit from that customer. But do you want to generate $5 in real profit… or $10… or $50?
Perhaps there is a better use of your money that can generate much more in real profits for your business. It might be investing in an alternative form or marketing… or it might be focusing on an entirely different target market altogether.
Now, if you understand that LCV is a benchmark rather than an indicator of how much you should spend on marketing, this may not be an issue.
But here’s where blindly relying on LCV can be a HUGE problem… and one which could literally SEND YOU BROKE.
Let’s consider an example to show you the FATAL FLAW in relying on LCV to determine your upfront marketing spend:
Nothing wrong with this picture, right? You can afford to spend $50 on customer acquisition because you’ll realize $50 in average profit net of marketing expenses per customer you acquire.
But what if your CASH FLOW is such that you can’t afford to wait until your average customer generates that overall $100 in gross profit?
In other words, let’s say you spend $50 on customer acquisition in Year 1, while your customer generates an average gross profit of $30 in Year 1 and an average gross profit of $70 in Year 2.
Now, because your marketing expense exceeds your average customer profit in Year 1, you experience a loss of $20 per customer.
That’s fine… assuming you have $20 in spare cash per customer lying around. Because if you don’t… your business is in trouble!
Which means you can’t simply rely on LCV to determine how much to spend on customer acquisition. You also need to bear in mind how much you can afford given your cash flow situation.
In this example, assuming you don’t have any sources of cash apart from sales, you can really only afford to spend $30 up front. Spend any more and you’ll go broke.
Of course, if you DO have cash flow from other sources, you can s pend more. It all depends on how much spare cash per customer you have when it comes to outlaying your customer acquisition dollars. If, for example, you have an average of $10 in spare cash per customer, you can afford to spend $40, rather than $30.
In fact, since you’ll make so much more gross profit per customer in the second year ($70), then after the second year and an ongoing basis, you should theoretically have this money available as spare cash to enable you to spend an average of $50 per customer. Well, that’s the theory… but it assumes you retain all profits for future marketing expenses.
Realistically, you probably won’t reinvest ALL the money you make into marketing - and that’s why it’s important to keep track of CASH FLOW - not just LCV - when determining how much you spend on customer acquisition.
Amazing isn’t it?
You’re the one building an Internet business… you’re the one who’s taken the risk and invested your time, effort and money into making your business successful… you’re the one who continues to overcome challenges and setbacks… you’re the one who’s steadily achieving better results, more sales, more profits…
And yet everyone else has an opinion about what you should and should not do in your business!
Now, there’s nothing wrong - and plenty right - with considering different ideas, insights, observations and suggestions… FROM PEOPLE WHO ARE QUALIFIED to give you those ideas, insights, observations and suggestions.
But those people probably make up about 10 percent of all the people freely giving you advice on how to run your business. The vast majority of advice givers are probably the LEAST QUALIFIED.
You may love ‘em, but your friends, family, in-laws, old work mates and neighbors are probably not in the best position to judge whether selling widgets online is a good idea or not.
The fact is…
Most advice comes from most people… most people are not doing what you’re doing… and, consequently, most people’s advice doesn’t count!
Here’s my simple rule of thumb: before you listen, let alone follow, someone else’s advice about something - ask yourself: has this person achieved or are they achieving what they’re giving me advice about?
If not, you’re probably better off ignoring what they say (as harsh as that sounds) and finding someone who really is qualified to give you advice.
Of course, that’s just my opinion… 
Google.org, Google’s philanthropic branch, has invested just over $10 million into organizations developing enhanced geothermal systems (EGS).
Unlike traditional geothermal systems, which extract heat from a few hundred feet deep into the ground, EGS extracts heat by going several kilometers deep into the hot rock under the Earth. TechCrunch reports that tapping just 2 percent of that heat under the continental United States would supply more than 2500 times our energy needs.
However, as with many alternative energy sources, it’s all about being able to do so cost-effectively. That’s where Google.org’s money comes in - in the development of systems to make that energy extraction cost-effective.
Google.org has devoted $6.25 million of the total sum to AltaRock Energy, $4 million to Potter Drilling, and a $500,000 grant to a geothermal lab at Southern Methodist University.
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