Showing posts with label economics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label economics. Show all posts

The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More Review

The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More
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The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More ReviewWell, timing is everything... and isn't always fair. Had I not just completed reading Jeffrey & Bryan Eisenberg's "Waiting For Your Cat to Bark?" before picking up "The Long Tail," I would probably have given this book 4 stars.
Chris Anderson has done a very good job of showing us the new "economics of abundance," or the connection of supply and demand thru technology and the Internet.
Question: What happens when everything in the world becomes available to everyone?
Answer: A market that never dies... markets for every niche, and vice-versa.
The Long Tail.
Using corporate examples like Google, eBay, iTunes and Netflix, Anderson lends an interesting perspective on how these companies have grabbed the Long Tail theory (consciously or unconsciously) and used it as the foundation for their staggering success. For customers of these companies, being online means unlimited "shelf space" - access to hundreds of thousands of bits of information, products and services they'd never been exposed to otherwise.
But how does the ordinary businessperson experience the success of the eBays of the world? Here, Anderson falls short. He states his "secret" to The Long Tail:
1.Make everything available
2.Help me find it
It's the "help me find it" part that Anderson ignores. In fact, it's the end of the book... you're left hanging, thinking, "So how in hell am I supposed to help people find me?"
Taken for what it is - a good presentation of a present-day theory (and one that was adequately covered in the original article in Wired magazine), the book is fine. But to really understand what it takes to make the Long Tail theory work for you, you must get a copy of "Waiting for Your Cat to Bark." It's in-depth coverage on not only how our economy works today, but understanding how people buy, how to understand what they're looking for and what you need to do to create persuasion magic not only on your website but in all your marketing materials.
This is not a time for "build it and they will come." Understanding an economy is only the first step. The real question is - what are you going to do about it to make yourself an integral part of the Long Tail?
It's too bad "The Long Tail" and "Waiting For Your Cat to Bark" can't be sold in a box set - they were made for each other.The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More Overview

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Free: The Future of a Radical Price Review

Free: The Future of a Radical Price
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Free: The Future of a Radical Price ReviewI read the original WIRED magazine article written by Mr. Anderson that this book is based on back in February 2008; I've been anxiously awaiting this book... and I've just finished it.
First off, I've implemented a few "freebies" in the past year that I give away in my line of work; the question was whether it would pay off. It did. I offered something of value (to me, and I believe to my customer) and waited to see if interest in the free item would increase sales of a companion item. Sales were there.
So many people are attacking the book for various reasons, but for me the key question for rating this book was "Is the author's information accurate and can it hold up to real-world results?" The answer is Yes.
A lot of things in the book aren't relevant to me, but I've taken what I can from it (in addition to the original article) and made some changes in how I do business. (I'm a small business owner, not a corporate giant.)
You can agree or disagree with the book's overall theme, but my findings are that the book has a solid grasp on how any business that has any Internet-related sales or support must adapt. The author's argument about how costs are moving to zero for the "bits" world is dead-on.
I find it humorous that so many negative reviews of the book are simply about the price of the book (or the lack of price for some of the free versions). The book is about the concept of Free. Some people are seeing "Free" on the cover and whining that it has a price???
The book isn't light reading - it's got some complicated concepts that the reader must grasp, especially business owners. For that reason, I could never listen to an audio version - I've highlighted my text at various points that I want to come back to and consider how I might use the info with my work.
I give the book 5 stars - I enjoyed it, it gave me much to think about, and I didn't feel (when done) that I'd been ripped off... the value of the information contained in the book is worth much more to me than the $20 I paid.
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Hardcore Inventing: Invent, Protect, Promote, and Profit From Your Inventions Review

Hardcore Inventing: Invent, Protect, Promote, and Profit From Your Inventions
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Hardcore Inventing: Invent, Protect, Promote, and Profit From Your Inventions Review
When I cruise through B&N and spot a book that might be helpful to my SCORE-dot-org clients I usually take the necessary steps to write a book review for it. These days I am being a little more particular as to what I will review since I am tiring of the activity. But I could not let this book slide by. In my humbe opinion it is a great companion book to Invent Yourself Rich: 16 Secrets for Creating Million-Dollar Inventions which I read and wrote a review for a few years back.
The instant book has five parts broken into twenty chapters and three appendices as follows:
I. Invent (1-8)
II. Protect (9-11)
III. Promote (12-14)
IV. Profit (15-20)
V. Appendices (A-C)
0. Introduction
1. Success story - The Rescue Streamer Technology
2. Identifying & solving the problem
3. How nature inspired my inventions
4. Scour your brain
5. Making your idea a reality: Inventor's logs, prototypes, & marketing evaluations
6. Build a show prototype
7. Name your invention
8. Checklist - Is your idea feasible, marketable & financially viable?
9. Safeguard your intellectual property - Paranoia can be good
10. Step-by-step guide from disclosure to patent - Etch it in stone
11. Alernatives to utility patents
12. Get your invention out there
13. Find investors: Targeted strikes & mobilizing the troops
14. Protect yourself from fraudulent promotion companies
15. Licening
16. Manufacturing
17. Marketing
18. The home entrepreneur - Bottom-feeding
19. Venture Capitalists & angel investors
20. Critical crossroads
A. Useful Web sites
B. Suggested reading
C. Sample agreements & letters
The book is not written by an attorney nor a business consultant. It's written by an inventor who wants to share his experiences in getting his invention (Rescue Streamer Technology) patented and profitable. He's also probably written it as a marketing tool for his invention. If I had not read the book, then I would never have heard of his invention.
This book is probably more detailed and a little bit more informative than the book I read a few years back. It gives another perspective - so I highly recommend anyone interested in the subject get both books and become very informed on the topic. 5 stars!Hardcore Inventing: Invent, Protect, Promote, and Profit From Your Inventions OverviewBased on the author's experience in the world of inventing and promotion, HardcoreInventing offers the kind of advice you can only learn from experience: how to develop an idea into an invention, how to build a prototype for show, how to safeguard intellectual property, how to market both strategically and in "guerilla" mode, how to find investors, and much more. And all of that is based on his IP 3"Tactical Method" which breaks everything down to Invent, Protect, Promote, and Profit.

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Long Tail, The, Revised and Updated Edition: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More Review

Long Tail, The, Revised and Updated Edition: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More
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Long Tail, The, Revised and Updated Edition: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More Review
Note: The review that follows is of the revised and updated edition of a book that was first published in 2006. It offers essentially the same information and insights except that Anderson has added a new chapter on marketing, one in which he explains "how to sell where `selling' doesn't work." More about this chapter later.
In the October 2004 issue of Wired magazine, Chris Anderson published an article in which he shared these observations: "(1) the tail of available variety is far longer than we realize; (2) it's now within reach economically; (3) all those niches, when aggregated, can make up a significant market - seemed indisputable, especially backed up with heretofore unseen data." That is even truer today than it was when The Long Tail was first published years ago. The era that Anderson characterizes as "a market of multitudes" continues to grow in terms of both its nature and extent. In this book, Anderson takes his reader on a guided tour of this market as he explains what the probable impact the new market will have and what will be required to prosper in it.
According to Anderson, those who read the article saw the Long Tail everywhere, from politics to public relations, and from sheet music to college sports. "What people intuitively grasped was that new efficiencies in distribution, manufacturing, and marketing were changing the definition of what was commercially viable across the board. The best way to describe these forces is that they are turning unprofitable customers, products, and markets into profitable ones." Therefore, the story of the Long Tail is really about the economics of abundance: "what happens when the bottlenecks that stand between supply and demand in our culture start to disappear and everything becomes available to everyone."
If I understand Anderson's most important points (and I may not), they include these:
1. Make as much as possible available to as many people as possible.
2. Help them to locate what they need, quickly and easily.
3. Offer maximum inventory only online.
4. Customize supply chain in terms of niche markets
5. Maximize its efficiencies and economies (especially inventory control, order processing, and distribution,)
5. Be customer-driven in terms of "crowdsourcing"
6. Have strategy that separates content into its component parts (i.e. "microchunking")
7. Have a pricing strategy that is "elastic" (i.e. based on the ROI of fulfillment per product per niche).
8. Have an open source business model for information sharing.
9. In markets where scarcity exists, "guesstimate" costs, margins, sales, profits, etc.
10.Where there is abundant competition, let those markets "sort it all out."
These and other points can guide and inform decision makers as they struggle to compete profitably during the era of "long-tailed distributions," when culture is unfiltered by economic scarcity and high technology is turning mass markets into millions of niches. Anderson provides invaluable advice with regard to how minimize the cost of reaching, penetrating, and then developing a multiple of niche markets. The paradigm has shifted from selling more in fewer markets to selling less in more markets but also, key point, selling as much as possible within as many segments as possible -- and prudent -- within those markets.
With regard to the new chapter, Anderson devotes much of his attention to online marketing and suggests that critical issues to address include these:
Who's influential "in our space (and how we know)"
Who/what influences them
How to get Digged
Effective blogging
Using beta-test invite lists
The art of begging for links
"Link bait" (e.g. stunts, contests, gimmicks, memes)
How to view the Web? "Forget it as a marketplace of products, and instead think of it as a marketplace of opinion. It's the great leveler of marketing. It allows for niche products to get global attention. Most products will be sold offline, as they always were. But in years to come, more and more products will be marketed online, taking advantage of Web methods to fine-slice consumer groups and influence word of mouth more effectively than ever before in history. Not all industries lend themselves to an infinite variety of products, but all industries have an infinite variety of customers. Finally we can treat them like the individuals they are. It's the sunset of the thirty-second spot."
There are several reasons why Anderson believed there is a need for a revised and updated edition. Here are two. Because the earlier version became a bestseller, it attracted lots of attention, generating an abundance of discussion of his core concepts. Also, the process of adopting his ideas (many of which at first seemed counterintuitive, if not precious and naive) was complicated by the globalization of culture. Focus shifted to distributed audiences around the world. Anderson was asked for additional examples of Long Tail effects outside the digital realms of media and entertainment. He certainly could not cover all of the extensions in fashion, travel, organic and "artisanal" food, and even alcohol as indicated by -- to cite one example -- Anheuser-Busch's embrace of niche beers, the establishment of Long Tail Libations, and the increased number of beers from 26 brands in 1997 to 80 in 2007. Given the fact that change continues to be the only constant in the global business world, think of this revised and updated edition as only the latest update on some Long Tail developments thus far.
Presumably the tail will continue to lengthen in months and years to come.Long Tail, The, Revised and Updated Edition: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More OverviewThe New York Times bestseller that introduced the business world to a future that's already here--now in paperback with a new chapter about Long Tail Marketing and a new epilogue.Winner of the Gerald Loeb Award for Best Business Book of the Year
In the most important business book since The Tipping Point, Chris Anderson shows how the future of commerce and culture isn't in hits, the high-volume head of a traditional demand curve, but in what used to be regarded as misses--the endlessly long tail of that same curve.
"It belongs on the shelf between The Tipping Point and Freakonomics."--Reed Hastings, CEO, Netflix
"Anderson's insights . . . continue to influence Google's strategic thinking in a profound way."--Eric Schmidt, CEO, Google
"Anyone who cares about media . . . must read this book."--Rob Glaser, CEO, RealNetworks


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Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-By-Numbers is the New Way To Be Smart Review

Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-By-Numbers is the New Way To Be Smart
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Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-By-Numbers is the New Way To Be Smart ReviewIs it a new brand of cereal? Or maybe it's a granola bar, or a chunky peanut butter spread? Then again, could it be the latest infomercial exercise device designed to give you the six pack abs you've always dreamed of but know in your heart of hearts you'll never achieve? Actually, it's a book - the title a product of the very methods the book describes. Here's what SUPER CRUNCHERS says.
(1) Mathematical regression models generated from large datasets often generate better predictions than human experts, and they provide supporting information on the predictive weight and reliability of each explanatory variable.
(2) Well-crafted experiments using randomized trials and control groups provide good market research and behavioral analysis results.
(3) Technological advances - the Internet, massive data storage devices, rapid computation, broadband telecommunication - are making it possible to share more sources of information and create ever-larger databases for analysis.
(4) Today's companies engage in multiple forms of market research by creating and using large databases and large-scale randomized trials.
(5) Many phenomena conform to normal distributions in which 95% of the population will be found within two standard deviations of the mean, the5% balance generally divided evenly in the two tails.
That's it. I just saved you $25.00 U.S. and a half-dozen or more hours learning how a guy from Yale named Ian Ayres collected a bit of information about applied mathematical techniques that have been in practical use for decades, packaged them up, palmed them off as something new, and cooked up the ridiculous name Super Crunching to describe an ostensibly new technological development. Yet "Super Crunching" is nothing more than the author's marketing hype for a couple of standard mathematical methodologies, a creation of nothing from something. There's no new breakthrough here, no new paradigm.
Yes, the anecdotal information about the future prices of wine vintages, Capital One's teaser offerings, and evidence-based medical diagnosis are interesting (hence the two stars rating). The rest, however, is neither prescriptive nor sufficiently critically analytical. Should we go out shopping for a Super Cruncher tomorrow? Should we delight in the increased accuracy of data-driven modeling and prediction, or should we fear the implied manipulation of our desires and the incessant, single-minded drive toward maximum profit at the expense of creativity? Do we really want movies and books to be developed from mathematical models like Epagogix? Do we really want our every keystroke on the Internet to be fodder for market research that manipulates us in response? John Kenneth Galbraith, among others, warned of exogenous, manufactured demand decades ago.
SUPER CRUNCHERS is part business tome, part econometric paean, and part sociology book, but not fully any of the three. No matter how many time the author uses words like "cool" and "humongous" and "amazing," it's still regrettably a "No Sale" even for someone like me who enjoys reading about applied mathematics.
Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-By-Numbers is the New Way To Be Smart Overview

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