Advertising doesn’t work, content does
March 10, 2008
If you look at the right hand side of the site you’ll maybe notice a Sponsored Feeds block. This is me eating my own lunch while finding a way to pay the bills. This is how it works:
I’m using Newsgator’s widget creation tool (you need a premium account for this) to build a set of aggregated feeds. The feed shows the latest inbound story. Next to the feed, there is an image which the sponsor can have point anywhere they like. Those who are interested can lift the widget and place it on their website - for free.
Clever bit part 1
The exact position each sponsor occupies doesn’t depend on them paying a premium or haggling over sizes of ad block etc. They all pay the same so they all know what I am taking from the site. That’s transparency in action. It depends entirely on when they create content. That of itself should encourage more content production. But it doesn’t end there. Readers like good headlines. Therefore, sponsors need to be at the top of their game when thinking about what that content is going to look like. It means that rather than pushing messages at readers, they can now think about telling stories.
Clever bit part 2
I want content to reach the widest possible audience. Therefore, anyone can lift the widget and put it on their own site, entirely free of charge. Click the Get This thingy and you’re off to the races. It takes about a minute.
No questions, no crazy terms of service, no copyright, no ah-but etc. It’s free as in zero. “Hey, wont’ that drive traffic away?” Nah - they’ve got to come here to get the code for a start and maybe people will hang around and look at other stuff. Oh heck - that means I’ve got to be at the top of my game as well.
Clever bit part 3
All this means that readers are not being assaulted by adverts but presented with more content and links to other content. For me as a content producer, it doesn’t get much better than that.
Future stuff
So the next question is how can I get even more content into the sponsored feed block but without it all disappearing under the fold? For this, I have an evil plan. It will take a bit of working out but I’m confident I can code it. If not then I know a lot of folk who can help out.
Developer note
CODA’s feed is not one but three brought together through a simple Yahoo! Pipe. If you particularly like CODA content, the pipe is free as well.
Endnote
I don’t like using the ‘d’ word too often but I think this is seriously disruptive. It marries content to brand recognition in a way that was previously unimaginable and in a way where everyone wins. I’m happy because I’ve got content and a contribution towards paying the bills. Content producers are happy because they get branded distribution. Readers are happy because they get to consume more content on the things that (hopefully) interest them. Newsgator is happy because it demonstrates a fresh use of their tools and might even encourage a few people to get their desktop tools (which are also free) and maybe try this for themselves (which isn’t.)
Traditional media can attempt to emulate this if they want, but they wont. Why? Because I am making this available at ‘cab fare pricing.’ Most of all, it gets away from the horrific world of banner ads that even the current crop of tech writer super stars haven’t avoided. This kind of thinking is not in their DNA but it is in mine. That’s cool because there is room for both models.
One more thing
Finally, I’d like to publicly express my thanks to the Newsgator people and especially my friend Jeff Nolan for making it happen and Dan Borrego for helping me iron out the wrinkles. To my sponsors - what can I say? You’re taking the financial risk but I hope it encourages you to up your communications game. And to all the folk who have wandered past this site over the last few years, helped me shape content and got me to this point - I couldn’t have done it without you. As Hugh MacLeod might say: rock on.
Google Talk chatback - worth a punt
February 26, 2008
Courtesy of Garrett Rogers, I see Google has got into the chat box game but with a wee twist. Instead of requiring the respondent to sign over their digital soul to Google, they can start by simply typing away. This according to GoogleTalkAbout:
To use chatback, you must have a Google Talk account … but your visitors don’t have to! They don’t even need to have an email address, or to have ever used instant messaging.
When they visit your site, they’ll see a badge like the one on the right showing your online status (available, busy, offline) and, if you’re available, they can just click and start chatting. Chatback uses the web-based Google Talk Gadget so your visitors don’t need to download anything. It opens in a new window so they can keep chatting with you even if they browse to other pages.
I’ve popped it onto my sidebar - let’s see if anyone turns up. More important, let’s see if I can remember to turn it off! Now just think about how your clients might use this?
UPDATE: Any chat is private as between the participants. I found that out this morning when a reader in Silicon Valley popped in for a chat. Nice.
Mobile World Congress - a wrap up
February 17, 2008
Last week I spent three foot slogging days in Barcelona at the Mobile World Congress. It was disappointing. Part of the attraction was the appearance of Robert Redford talking about the convergence between business and entertainment through the mobile web. Except nobody cared. In typical Hollywood fashion, they positioned Redford’s appearance as a ‘rare event’ but what they also did was locate the entertainment ’section’ of the congress at the top of the hill above the main event at the Barcelona Palace. The only way to get there was via (I lost count) the number of stairways and even then, no=one turned up. When we reached the event, a room capable of holding 300 was pretty much empty. What a let down. But that was indicative of much of the show where the emphasis was on shiny new toys and not, as I had hoped, business applications of merit.
There were a few interesting examples but even the innovation centre was poorly attended. The 5 minute demo showcase attracted maybe a 100 people. It was embarrassing. A couple of the presenters did a good job but most were clueless about pitching in less than 300 seconds. I like the concept behind Soonr, which seeks to act as a cloud based secure storage and retrieval system to rival the likes of box.net. With $15 million in backing, some coming from the likes of Cisco, it should be a success. When can we see it in action? Anyone’s guess. They’re piloting in Denmark. I spoke with the company’s CEO, Patrick McVeigh who says the target customer is the SMB with possibly 50 employees but they expect to see distribution coming from the big telcos and network operators. If that’s the case then it’s almost certain to be a failure. The telco industry has shown itself almost incapable of marketing beyond airtime. I have no reason to believe it will get any better, anytime soon.
One small shining star for me was Masabi. They’ve taken the pragmatic route of developing secure mobile applications for the 90 per cent of people who don’t have the latest iPhone, Nokia N95 or the soon to be realeased N96. I like what this company is doing but along with many others, it is solving problems one piece at a time. Nowhere was there a concerted effort to solve problems in a packaged manner. My ZDNet colleague Matthew Miller got excited by Yahoo! oneConnect but I can’t share his enthusiasm. As I said over at my ZDNet blog:
But who will use it? The latest figures say Nokia sold 7 million N95’s out of a total 1 billion mobile units shipped in 2007. That doesn’t register as a market leader. More important, will it actually work? Matthew thinks so but if it is anything like the YahooGo service then it will need more development effort. I have YahooGo on my N95. While the interface is great, it has a tough time loading when accessed via our GPRS network. Most of the time it fails. I hope that Yahoo! is watching out for this problem. Even assuming Nokia gains more traction, will oneConnect be limited to ‘edge’ cases like us?
This is the problem. The industry seems obsessed with shiny new toys and half baked solutions instead of thinking about where the real money lays - business apps - and giving them the support they deserve.
One interesting aside. I attended an evening party at a law office. We were told this was aimed at startups but when we arrived, the place was swarming with ’suits.’ If I’d been looking for funds, (they had a couple of marketers flogging their angel investor wares hard,) then I would have been terrified. Sitting around the very expensive conference table in even more expensive leather chairs sipping beer out of wine glasses and gazing at the view from the 20th floor, you just know that if you’re there looking for funding, then you’ll likely walk out with your head handed on a platter. Professional advisors need do a much better job presenting themselves as friends of the startup. That’s not how it’s done.
FreeAgent Universal delivered on time
February 14, 2008
The development team delivered FreeAgent Universal on time and it is now live along with some site redesign to reflect the changes they’ve made. Users will be the final arbiters of whether this is a solid service they trust but I’m happy the team delivered on what they said, when they said. That’s a rarity in software. I’m not so naive as to assume that everything will be perfect but since it’s a service, it will either sink or swim based on the customer service that is delivered.
Just to recap: FreeAgent is aimed at freelancers that want to escape spreadsheet hell or don’t want to learn accounting the 600 year old way but want a simple, reliable and intuitive way to manage their business finances.
There’s also a referral program that provides both users and referrers with a discount from current prices. Users who like the service enough and are willing to refer 10 others who sign up go free.
While it would have been great to develop tax engines for each of our target markets, the reality is this is hard work. We opted to see how the service is received in the market place and build out based on demand. We think that’s fair for everyone concerned yet provides a tiny bit of geographical competitiveness. So for instance the fact the US population is 70 times the size of Ireland doesn’t mean the US will get its tax engines built first. -:)
