2010 January | Sazbean

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With Apple, under a formula that tethers the maximum e-book price to the print price on the same book, publishers will be able to charge $12.99 to $14.99 for most general fiction and nonfiction titles — higher than the common $9.99 price that Amazon had effectively set for new releases and best sellers. Apple will keep 30 percent of each sale, and publishers will take 70 percent. - Books on iPad Offer Publishers a Pricing Edge (NY Times)

With the Apple iPad, publishers will be able to charge prices similar to print books (but no higher). While it’s nice that publishers get a bit more control on the iPad platform, I don’t really think they should charge the same price as print. After all, there’s no printing, raw materials (other than content), shipping or stocking. It’s the whole argument that we had when CDs came out – publishers were able to get away with large profit margins as the cost of the technology dropped (and they didn’t drop the price). One could say that the market will set the price with whatever buyers are willing to pay. True, but charging the same price for different delivery methods doesn’t really make sense either. Time will tell.

Jan

2010

Review: PostRank Analytics

By Sarah Worsham | Analytics, Marketing, News & Notes, Reviews, Strategy

6 Comments

PostRank ranks online content based upon social engagement (how much readers are interacting with the content by commenting, sharing, responding, bookmarking, etc.). PostRank provides ranking services, blog discover, data services and also analytics. I’ve had the PostRank plug-in installed for awhile and use it to see how individual posts are doing as well as see what the top posts are. PostRank Analytics is a paid service ($9/mo or $99/year) which integrates with Google Analytics to provide an overall picture of how well your audience is engaging with your content. I decided to give it a try to see what type information it was able to provide that I wasn’t getting through the plug-in.

Jan

2010

Top Internet Strategy, Marketing & Technology Links – Jan 28, 2010

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Starting as soon as sometime this week, the 75 million monthly active users playing Zynga’s FarmVille will have a new way to buy virtual tractors and seeds; they’ll be able to “Pay With Facebook.” - The Apple Tablet Will Save Media, But Not How You Think (Silicon Alley Insider)

Obviously Apple’s new iPad has been revealed (and I’m sorry, that’s a horrible name). Silicon Alley Insider’s point reminds us that Apple’s product will indeed save newspapers – because of all the advertising spending Apple will be doing to promote the iPad. I think newspapers do have a chance – not due to the iPad or any other device – only if they embrace the Internet and use a model that works. It will require some hard decisions.

Jan

2010

QR Codes – Adding Complexity or Providing Benefits?

By Sarah Worsham | Marketing, Strategy, Tech

1 Comment

You may have seen these funny little boxes around – possibly in a magazine or in a store window. They’re called QR Codes (Quick Response Codes) and they allow the encoding of information. For practical terms, if you were to scan one of these codes with a code reader from your phone, they’d could take you to a website where you could get more information. But in order to work, they require you to install software on your phone (and to have your phone or other device with you). So, is this making it easier or more difficult for someone to get more information?

Jan

2010

Top Internet Strategy, Marketing & Technology Links – Jan 27, 2010

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Starting as soon as sometime this week, the 75 million monthly active users playing Zynga’s FarmVille will have a new way to buy virtual tractors and seeds; they’ll be able to “Pay With Facebook.” - Revealed! Facebook’s Plan To Double Its Revenues (Silicon Alley Insider)

If people are addicted to playing games on Facebook (and judging by the number of Farmville, Mafia Wars & Restaurant City updates, they are), then being a middleman to help feed that addiction is what Facebook wants to be. So Facebook is providing the payment service by which Facebook users will be able to purchase virtual goods or services in these games. Facebook applications already make a lot of revenue, so by providing the payment service, Facebook has found a way to take a percentage of each transaction. Sounds like an obvious revenue stream now, doesn’t it?

Jan

2010

Top Internet Strategy, Marketing & Technology Links – Jan 26, 2010

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Josh Williams, chief executive officer and co-founder of Alamofire, a Austin, Texas-based company behind the location-based mobile application Gowalla, stopped by our office last week to discuss his company and its future.. - GigaOM Video: Gowalla CEO Josh Williams on Foursquare, Yelp & the Future of Location (GigaOM)

There’s a lot of interest in these location-based mobile “applications” (in quotes because they’re really games at this point). These apps tie in where a person is with who they are and how loyal they are to the establishment. Which allows you to reward loyal customers. Possibly in the near future, local businesses will also be able to advertise to people in the area (not just those who check in). It’s interesting to hear one of the creators talk about these types of applications.

Jan

2010

Sazcast Episode 15 – Twitter Goes Local

By Sarah Worsham | Marketing, Sazcast, Strategy

sazcastlogo250 Twitter launches Local Trends – Are they late to the game? New segment: Quick News. Web Strategy & Marketing News & Tips. Please consider reviewing us on the iTunes site or emailing us your comments and ideas at sazcast@sazbean.com. Thanks!

Jan

2010

Top Internet Strategy, Marketing & Technology Links – Jan 25, 2010

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Gizmodo reports that monthly information subscriptions and fees can easily run to $500 or more nowadays. A lot of people today probably spend more on information than they spend on food. The reason we fork out all that dough is (I’m going to whisper the rest of this sentence) because we place a high monetary value on the content we receive as a result of those subscriptions and fees. - Information wants to be free my ass (Rough Type)

It’s interesting to think about how much we do pay for information – especially since most people think of information on the Internet as free. And there’s always a clammer when a site that’s offered information for free starts to charge for it (ex: NY Times). But, in reality, we already do pay quite a bit for most of the information we access – although a good portion of that goes to the broadcasting technology (cable, wifi, cellular) rather than the content providers (depending on the medium). It should be interesting to see if that relationship changes as people are able to get information from multiple media. Also of note – people do assign value based on how much they pay for something.