Just Say No to the Yellow Pages

By Mark Evans in Advertising/Marketing 6 Comments Tags: , , ,

For the past few years, I’ve been pounding the table about how people should be able to opt-out from getting the Yellow Pages directory. After all, who really uses the Yellow Pages when you can look things up on the Web.

Clearly, the folks at the Yellow Pages were listening as they’re finally offering a way to say “Please stop delivering the Yellow Pages to my house”. It takes less than a couple of minutes to provide some personal information and, voila, no more 10-pound paperweight showing up on your doorstep.

For the Yellow Pages to offer the ability opt-out suggests they’ve realized that some people just don’t want or need the Yellow Pages anymore. As well, it shows that the Yellow Pages is increasingly going digital – a move that will be accelerated with the recent $225-million purchase of CanPages.

“We’ll Figure it Out Later” is Not a Business Model

By Mark Evans in Twitter, Venture Capital 6 Comments Tags: , , ,

I’m in the process of reading Chris Anderson’s “Free”, which celebrates how the idea of paying little or nothing for many digital products and services is inevitable. Anderson makes a compelling argument that includes the belief that free works because it encourages other economic activity. For example, free music allows musicians to attract more fans, who then cough up money for concert tickets, merchandise and sometimes CDs.

While I like and use plenty of free services (GMail, Evernote, Skype, Firefox, Twitter), I’m also a businessman who recognizes that companies need to generate revenue to pay employees, do marketing and keep the lights on. However companies plan to make money – advertising, premium services, consulting fees – they need a plan to drive revenue to make the business viable.

The problem, however, too many start-ups have little or no idea of how they’re going to make money. Instead, the have a “business model” based on the idea that if they attract lots of users, a way to generate revenue will magically appear. After all, this “model” worked for Google, which struggled to find a business model before “borrowing” its pay-per-click business model from Overture, so why shouldn’t it work for other start-ups.

This “we’ll figure it out later” business model is flawed because while offering free services is a great way to attract users, not having an idea about how to make money from some of them is not a viable build a business.

The biggest culprit of this business model is Twitter, which still doesn’t seem to know how it’s going to make money. Sure, there’s been talk about advertising, premium business services or analytics but nothing has emerged yet. Still, it has raised $150-million in venture capital based on the fact it has become a wildly popular communications vehicle with more than 50 million users around the world.

While Twitter may eventually find a way to make revenue, it’s an exception to the “we’ll figure it out later” strategy. The vast majority (99.999%) of companies never attract enough users to figure it out. When the seed capital or venture capital is exhausted, they’re left with a modest number of users but no way to make money. Pretty soon, the pink slips are handed out, the lights turned out and the doors are closed.

So why is that so many start-ups get launched without a clue of how to make money beyond the notion that getting enough users might let them attract some advertising revenue? Why do many start-ups attract investors without even having a rough idea about how make revenue?

Make no mistake, free is wonderful for consumers, and there are clearly ways that free can be used as a powerful marketing tool to drive sales of other products and services. But for many companies, free is un-viable business model. Without an idea of how to make money, they never evolve from being interesting projects to businesses.

Instead, most up of them end up as fodder for the “free economy”, never to be heard from again as they disappear into the digital ether.

Social Media: Listen Before You Talk

By Mark Evans in Social Media 1 Comment Tags: , ,

Last night, I was among four presenters who talked at an EO Toronto event about social media. While most people at the event are using social media, many of them haven’t implemented it within their businesses.

Among the questions was how to get started with social media, and how to decide what services to use. The most basic piece of advice was to listen to where people where are talking about your company, products, services, industry and competitors. At the very least, it shows whether conversations are happening, and whether it makes sense to get involved.

At the same time, listening also offers insight into where these conversations are happening so companies can determine where their social media efforts should go.

For example, if few people are talking about a company, its products services and rivals on Facebook, then making Facebook one of your major social media priorities is probably not a good idea. On the other hand, if a lot of activity is happening on Twitter, putting together a strategic and tactical plan for Twitter makes complete sense.

Another benefit of listening before talking is it provides a pretty good roadmap. I’m a big believer in a walk-before-you-run approach, which means doing one or two things really well before expanding to other social media services.

The idea of listening before getting into the game is straightforward but for many people who haven’t embraced social media yet, the landscape can be confusing and intimidating because it can be difficult to decide how to start and where to go. Listening make the process a lot easier by providing a solid lay of the land so that if you do get into social media, some costly errors can be avoided.

Can 3D Television Overcome Multi-Tasking?

By Mark Evans in Media 1 Comment Tags: , , ,

There’s a growing amount of buzz about 3D television, which seems strange given many consumers are still enthusiastically buying large-screen LCD and plasma televisions.

In any event, 3D seems to be attracting a lot of chatter but here’s something not getting a lot of TV: If you watch 3D television, you can’t do anything else.

So, what’s the big deal about not being able to do anything else but watch TV?

Well, when most people watch TV, they’re also doing other things – reading, eating, surfing the Web on a laptop, knitting, exercising, etc. The problem is it will be difficult to do most of these other things when watching 3D television because you have to wearing special glasses that make it difficult to see anything other than the TV.

So even though many of us our couch potatoes, we’re multi-tasking couch potatoes who may be challenged to focus on doing just one thing. Unless 3D improves, the inability to multi-task may be the killer blow to 3D television. At the very least, it may keep 3D to being a niche service for special events such as sports and some movies.

For more thoughts on the challenges facing 3D TV, check out James Brumley in Investopedia.

No iPad Fever? What’s Wrong with You?

By Mark Evans in Apple/iPod 5 Comments Tags: , , ,

I’m not going to opine on the launch of the iPad; there’s more than enough news reports, commentary, tweets, opinions and bubbly bullishness to go around. And then there’s the 700,000 iPads that have been snapped up since Friday.

Instead, I’ll make a short commentary on power of the Apple Aura (the URL is still available). Perhaps more so than even the iPhone, Apple has managed to capture the imagination of just about everyone with the iPad. Even if you’re a Luddite, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to escape the shock and awe of Apple’s much-anticipated iPad launch.

There’s the oh-I-can’t-wait excitement, the media and blogger fawning, and the obligatory and oh-so-passe line-ups in front of Apple stores. Note: Who are these people who line up for hours and days? Haven’t they got anything better to do with their time? What is it about being first other than saying you were first?

Unlike any other consumer products company in the world, Apple has the power to create seismic changes in consumer markets. Whatever Apple and Steve Jobs serve up, the world gobbles up because it’s cool and hip to be seen as part of the Apple wave.

As for whether I would get an iPad, the answer is not yet. I’m not much of a first-generation product purchaser, and I’m not sure if an iPad would be over-kill given I already own a MacBook. Like any digital animal, I’m definitely curious about the iPad but far more impressed with its overwhelmingly positive reception.

For what it’s worth, Boing Boing’s Cory Doctorow is one of the few people who has declared his lack of interest in buying an iPad. Everyone else seems to have swallowed the iPad hook, line and sinker.

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