Take ‘Em to Church?

★ The Church of Market Share:

The truth is, the average Android user is not the same as an average iPhone user. iPhone users surf the web more, they’re more willing to buy software, they’re more willing to install and use apps

You can say that it’s elitist or arrogant to argue that iOS users are better customers than Android users. But you can also say that it’s the truth.

(Via Daring Fireball)

Apple has 2/3rds the share of industry profits while it has garnered only 5% in market share.  Why would I want to go after market share in this scenario?

 

More on the Louis C.K. Experiment

Just how successful is Louis C.K.’s indie video experiment?:

Still, a very cool experiment. And now one I’d love to see applied to some really, really popular celebrities, and some not-quite-yet celebrities. Then we’ll have a better idea of how much indie distribution will actually shift the balance of power in the media industry. It could be a little, it could be a lot, but it’s too early to tell.

(Via SplatF)

Two Sides of the Same Coin

How Much Is Your Brand Loved (Or Hated)? – The BrainYard – InformationWeek:

Passion makes a difference, in social media analytics as in life in general.

Measuring the intensity of emotion is one way NetBase distinguishes itself in the crowded field of social media analytics. Or, as Chief Marketing Officer Lisa Joy Rosner puts it, “I’m quite passionate about how we measure passion.

The point is to distinguish between liking and loving, mildly disliking and intensely loathing, while also trying to dodge linguistic pitfalls like satire that can confuse a computer program. NetBase does a good enough job of it that it has been able to win the business of major consumer products companies like Coca Cola and Kraft.

(Via Information Week – Business Intelligence.)

I’m not sure about this.  A mentor of mine found in his research that passion drives comments.  The more you care the more you tend to comment.  So, how do you account for people dissatisfied or satisfied with your product but don’t care enough to comment?  How does that change the reading on the love-o-meter?

RIM, You’re Done Here

RIM, You’re Done Here:

RIM’s legacy is writ large on the world around us. Almost every major enterprise mobile system is patterned on their excellent email and PIM solution. But they are now slaves to their own success. They can’t sell anything other than a keyboard-candybar phone in an era where the keyboard is increasingly irrelevant or hidden away until needed. This failure of imagination in both consumer and manufacturer is their curse. In a world where every phone is smart and every phone does email, there is little to recommend any RIM phone over any other. It’s over and now we’re just waiting for the buy-out and inevitable disappearance of one of the greatest mobile companies in modern memory.

(Via MobileCrunch.)

It’s so often a mistake for your current customers to determine your product roadmap.  Current customers can be a fickle bunch.  You need to figure out what future customers will want.  I’ve often heard that the “only” reason my friends stick with their Blackberries is for BBM.  When the one thing keeping your customers is a service that can be and is now replicated, you have a serious problem.  You need to be different in a way that motivates your customers to pay you and not someone else.

Business Class: Freemium for News?

The idea of creating a business class for online news where is not about buying information, but buying better experience, it’s about service and customer experience. That’s right: Customer (paying), not user (free).

via Daring Fireball.

Now this is an idea that might have some traction.  I would pay for online news to provide clean, efficient news delivery.

So Far, Rivals Can’t Beat iPad’s Price

So Far, Rivals Can’t Beat iPad’s Price:

Analysts and industry experts point to a number of reasons. Primarily, they say, Apple’s deep pockets — a staggering $60 billion in cash reserves — have allowed it to form strategic partnerships with other companies to buy large supplies of components, for example, in expensive flash memory. By doing this, the company probably secures a lower price from suppliers, ensuring a lower manufacturing cost.

 

At the same time, they say, Apple has sidestepped high licensing fees for other items it needs, like the A4 and A5 processors within the iPads. Those parts, designed in-house at Apple by a company that Apple bought, are among the costlier components needed to make a tablet computer.

Mr. Sacconaghi said Apple also could subsidize some of the cost of building iPads with the money it makes through its App Store, which generates more than a billion dollars each year. This means that Apple can take a lower profit margin on the iPad, 25 percent, than it does on, for example, the iPhone, which can yield as much as 50 percent profit.

Yet another advantage is Apple’s wide net of its own global retail shops and online stores; for customers, this means they can avoid a markup from a third party like Best Buy.

Although other companies have some of these factors in their favor, no one but Apple has all of them.

 

(Via Business and Financial News – The New York Times.)

Add the fact that the hardware and iOS is implemented well, delivering the Apple “experience,” and you have a tough competitor.  It’s not that HP and Samsung can’t compete. It’s just that they have to make different design decisions than they’ve been making to date.  And given the constraints they are under, they have their work cut out for them.

In a Galaxy Tab Far, Far Away

Samsung panics over iPad 2, may cut Galaxy Tab 10.1’s price:

Samsung was caught off-guard by the iPad 2 and may have to rethink its strategy for the Galaxy Tab 10.1, the company’s executive VP of mobile Lee Don-joo said on Friday. The Korean company had planned to charge a premium over the original Galaxy Tab, which already cost nearly as much as a larger, first-generation 3G iPad, but wasn’t certain it could do so now that the iPad 2 was roughly matching it in features for the same $499 price. Lee didn’t tell Yonhap what pricing was to have been, but a 16GB, 3G Galaxy Tab costs $600 in the US.

“The 10-inch [tablet] was to be priced higher than the 7-inch [tablet] but we will have to think that over,” he said.

(Via MacNN | The Macintosh News Network.)

I bet they do.  I never understood the Galaxy Tab, esp. in a world obsessed with tech specs.  After all, why would I pay more for a smaller tablet?  Now Samsung in in the weird place of charging much more for the same sized tablet minus the Apple experience to justify it.

Paid not to Understand

Nintendo chief slams iPhone, Android for devaluing games | Electronista:

“Iwata’s comments also sidestepped many of the factors that often force traditional game prices upwards. Nintendo despite its Internet services is dependent on cartridge-based game sales at retail, and its developers have to both account for manufacturing and for the cut demanded by retail stores. Android and iOS developers are only bound by the revenue split with Apple or Google and often have much reduced overhead. A typical 3DS game in the US will cost $40 where most smartphone-class games cost $10 or less, even when they represent direct ports of DSi titles.”

(Via MacNN.)

Iwata is near delusional in his comment about producing value.  His company monetizes value, specifically the value is in the bundle of the game plus the device that runs it.  Apple and Android have simply made it far more difficult for Nintendo to monetize the part of that bundle, i.e. the game, it has in the past.  Nintendo was able to lock the game up in a cartridge to control how the end consumer can enjoy the value that Nintendo “creates.”  Apple and Android destroyed that by using the Internet as distribution rather than expensive physical cartridges in retail stores.  And we’ve seen this movie before with CD’s and now DVD’s.  (No wonder Apple is no rush to get into Blu-ray.)

Upton Sinclair said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”  But in truth Iwata is paid to understand and it’s sad he doesn’t.

Facebook Adds Share Capabilities To Like Button

Facebook Adds Share Capabilities To Like Button — Facebook — InformationWeek:

“The move could reduce user confusion over which button to use, especially if Share is dropped in the future. However, the move is more widely viewed as a positive one for advertisers and content creators who can expect to see page views increase as referrals drive traffic to their sites, according to several published reports.”

(Via InformationWeek.)

It increasingly appears to me that Facebook continues to fool users into revealing more and more information by getting them to develop habits then suddenly changing the rules and behaviors of their site after the habits are entrenched.  Not good.