The wake-up call to app developers should be that that only 37 per cent of consumers are comfortable sharing information. 33 per cent are not at all comfortable. That means either 33 per cent of all consumers are avoiding apps because they don’t trust them, or they are happily downloading and using apps unaware that they are sharing their personal information.
A new kind of app company is going to win the marketplace, one that tells the user exactly what it costs them to use its app. Two possibilities:
I know it is “old fashioned” but at the end of the day nothing beats providing concrete utility to your customer and charging them directly for that. Popular wisdom was that this was a quick route to profitability but inhibited explosive growth and scaling.
Now it is clear that this business model is not just attractive from a revenue point of view but also the best way to take care of the customer. There is _no_ such thing as free food (it should be treated akin to laws of physics).
A free product or service is always being funded by one of two things; either a foundation or corporation that is paying for everything (because of alignment with mission) or there is economic value being extracted from user behavior or user attributes way down the line.
Most of the “free” apps fall into the second category. Customers are biologically impeded. We are wired to favor convenience and short term wins over long term costs. But we are learning and growing as the research shows.
If you truly care about the customer - provide utility by solving a problem and identify a route to profitability at the price point the market chooses.
Complete transparency on what it costs a customer to use your product/service is a big win for them! :) which over time will translate to invaluable goodwill for you.
[1] http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/03/16/flashlight-apps-location-and-why-consumers-till-dont-understand-privacy/
(Source: thenextweb.com)
[video]
Teach kids to farm, not code. -
Not sure I fully agree, but I do appreciate the truth about varying valuations of skill sets. This credo might be a little too idealistic. For now I will settle for the goal of rapidly equalizing the availability of teaching programming to all young minds.
[video]
Fun with machine learning. Yes, Federer besting Jaziri is best represented by a giant turtle being lifted up.
If taking money and then trapping customers and their kids for 5+ days in a barge of sewage does not destroy a corporation, I don’t know what will.
Carnival’sstock price[1] barely took a hit from the Triumph disaster[2] of the coast of Texas. This is not a rare occurrence either.
The cruise industry says cruise ship fires are rare, but they are not rare. They happen with alarming frequency. In the two years between the Splendor and the Triumph fires, more than 10 cruise ship fires were reported in the media. Several cruise ships were completely disabled, including the Costa Allegra, the Bahamas Celebration and the Ocean Star.
src: cnn report[3] - expect some bias.
This is clearly a broken industry. But more importantly it shows us all up for the hypocrites we are. We all talk a good game about quality, integrity, customer service and blah blah blah but at the end of the day all we want is a good deal and everything else goes out the window. How else can we explain why cruises companies like Carnival continue to stay in business and operate as usual. Sadly enough it looks like carnival will continue to do business as usual. Seriously WTF!?!
As an entrepreneur this is why it is very, very, hard to build a quality product or service especially when most of us/consumers seem to favor a “good deal” over quality product or service.
But it is worth it! The alternative is depressing. Living in a world dominated by mass mediocrity goods and services is a sad end game for the human race. This is not just restricted to cruise lines. It is the same fight to ensure Mcmeat and cheetos do not become the global food and snack in spite of massive evidence of the health cost.
… hopefully Carnival grows a conscience but I don’t have high hopes. Any CEO who can make a statement like this without a tinge of shame or irony is incapable of any authentic change.
“I appreciate the patience of our guests and their ability to cope with the situation. And I’d like to reiterate the apology I made earlier. I know the conditions on board were very poor,” he said. “We pride ourselves on providing our guests with a great vacation experience, and clearly we failed in this particular case.”
Yes, Gerry the best way to summarize[4] this epic shit storm Carnival created is to categorize it as failing to deliver a great vacation experience. For the love…. is there a CEO college that trains these people in complete bull shit statements?
Links
[2] http://www.sfgate.com/news/houston-texas/slideshow/Carnival-Triumph-cruise-disaster-56826.php
[3] http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/13/opinion/walker-cruise-ships/index.html
Begich said the Postal Service should have allowed Congress more time to find a legislative solution. The Senate passed a postal reform bill last year that would have prevented the elimination of Saturday delivery for at least two years, but the effort stalled in the House
(Source: USA Today, via theramas)
“Steve Davis and Till von Wachter (2011) have shown that the present value of lifetime income of new entrants to the labour market can differ substantially depending on whether their first job occurs in a boom or a recession. In our model, the lifetime income of the young can differ by as much as 20% across booms and slumps.” — Why financial markets are inefficient « naked capitalism
(Translated from this blog: Alex Aka JJ LJ. Originally, this story was published by Alex in Russian. The translation is mine, sorry for any inaccuracies. Suggestions for improvements are very appreciated.)
Smith attended the meeting on Tuesday. There, he himself and his brain both died a slow and painful death, brought onto them by the other attendees, with Smith’s manager Lehare as leading murderer.
“Gentlemen,” said mrs. Redroot, “Our organization is facing a major challenge. We’re dealing with a project, for which we must depict several red lines. Are you willing to take on this assignment?”
“Of course”, Lehare said. As the company’s CEO he was always willing to take on problems that would be solved by someone else of the team. However, he instantly clarified: “We can do that, can’t we?”
The manager of the drawing department, Greyskin, quickly nodded: “Yes, definitely. This is Smith, our best specialist on the drawing of red lines. We’ve invited him to this meeting for exactly this reason, to hear his competent opinion on the subject.”
“Nice to meet you,” mrs. Redroot threw him a smile. “Well, you all know me. And this is Lily, our company’s specialist in the area of design.” Lily blushed and smiled self-consciously. She just obtained her economics degree and knew about as much of design as a platypus knows of the design of airships.
“In short,” Mrs. Redroot continued, “we must draw seven straight red lines. They must all be strictly perpendicular. Furthermore, some of them must be green and some transparent. What do you think, would that be realistic?”
“The older you get, the simple(r) you present your food”….”because you are confident, when you are confident then you can do something very simple, when you are confident then you can generate a product which is exceptional and doesn’t need anything else…”
— Chef Laurent Gras[1] around 18:40 into the episode
I think this is a theme that is easily misunderstood in the software community. There is a increasing emphasis on ux and design in software products. This is a good thing. The problem is when young software engineers enter into a causation/correlation confusion.
Tall players seem to dominate basketball, therefore if I play basketball I will become tall. I was struggling to put what I was sensing in words until I heard the above quote from Chef Laurent Gras. Confident (mature, experienced, passionate) product designers and developers seem to create simple, elegant and insanely functional products [2][3][4]. If I create a pretty product, I will become a confident product designer… No…. sorry there are no short cuts to confidence.
Links:
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurent_Gras_(chef)