Category Opinions
Economy back? Gene’s gonna miss the recession. Here’s why
By Gene Marks
Rats. Looks like this recession thing might be turning around. The market’s been rising. Houses are beginning to sell. Durable orders are up. Banks are detoxifying. Bernie Madoff and Jim Cramer have (finally) been publicly humiliated. Is this the beginning of the end of the economic downturn?
If it is, I’m going to miss this recession.
Make no mistake. I’m not talking about such unfortunate events as the frozen credit markets. Or that sick feeling I get before opening my 401(k) statement, or news anchors and talk show hosts screaming “catastrophe!” and “meltdown!” every time I turn on the TV. I’m definitely not going to miss knee-jerk mass layoffs of good employees by profitable companies. Microsoft, for instance, had net income of $4.17 billion in the most recent quarter yet unveiled plans to slash as many as 5,000 jobs. Microsoft — really?
But as a business owner who buys and sells technology, I find the end of the recession marks the end of some pretty good times for me.
For example, those of us with a few bucks left in the bank have been picking up bargains galore. Like oceanfront properties in Florida and $2-a-gallon gas. When it comes to tech, we’re loving the rock-bottom prices of new computers, servers, and other hardware. The global demand slowdown has depressed manufacturing costs and fueled a surge in unsold inventories. Truckloads of liquidated equipment chugging out of Wall Street have driven down costs for the survivors. Thanks, Bear Stearns.
My negotiating power has exponentially increased. When I need to buy a new server, I shamelessly press for discounts. When times were better, sellers would laugh in my face. Now, instead of pleading poverty, I can blame the economy. Hardware salesmen make sympathetic clucking sounds and whip out their erasers. Software reps, never known to show much spine, simply cave.
Posted by Tom Polanski in Opinions on April 3rd, 2009
Not a shocker, folks: Facebook is forever
By Bob Sullivan, The Red Tape Chroicles
I know a computer science professor who runs the same Facebook experiment every semester. He invites his students to stand up in front of the room and show everyone their Facebook page on the big screen. No one has ever taken him up on the offer.
Why? They’re embarrassed, of course.
Moments later, the irony sinks in. Every one of them seems happy to share all those funny photographs, witty Wall postings and status updates with everyone on the planet. They just don’t want to do it in public, in person.
Facebook puts a lot of people in a lot of twisted situations, including those who try to rationalize their use of the site (Want to be safer on Facebook? There are tips below).
Studies show that about two-thirds of Americans say they care a great deal about their privacy, yet fewer than 10 percent ever do anything about it, such as destroy a store loyalty card or browse the Web with an anonymizing tool.
So it is with Facebook. This week, a dust-up — no, a tornado — hit the service when users found out about a subtle change to Facebook’s terms of service. A blogger at the Consumerist Web site posted the change, noting that Facebook now asserts the right to “copy, publish, store, retain,” anything you contribute, and that the firm’s rights to your material survive “any termination of your use of the Facebook Service.”
In other words, whatever you put on Facebook cannot be deleted. Even closing your account, removing all your pictures, and “de-friending” your friends doesn’t get your data back from the Facebook.
Everyone seems shocked by the idea that Facebook is forever, but that’s nothing new. In fact, I believe Facebook deserves some kudos for finally fessing up and including this concept in its terms of service. I’m thrilled that people are now discussing this issue.
Posted by Tom Polanski in Ethics, Facebook, Opinions on February 20th, 2009
Other aspects of the Facebook phenomenon
By Tom Polanski, EVP, eBrand Media and eBrand Interactive
Over the years we’ve compiled a large database of contacts who did not respond to our attempts to engage them regarding our services. Last month we decided to try and connect with these, “not viables”, through the social media site, Facebook. We weren’t expecting much. However, much to our surprise, 98.2% of those business contacts, those who already had Facebook pages, people who wouldn’t return an e-mail or a voicemail, accepted our invitation to be “friends”; thereby allowing us access to intimate details about their lives, families, and friends.
To be clear; we didn’t, and still don’t, try to hide the fact that we’re marketers; it’s right there on our Facebook page under the “Info” tab. We were, and still are, stunned by the positive response to our invitations. Why would they do that? Why invite us into their private worlds when they wouldn’t, otherwise, give us the time of day?
Maybe people just automatically respond to a “friend” request. There’s a likelihood that the branding process we initiated with our repeated attempts to contact them achieved enough of a familiarity where that person felt they probably knew us. I suspect that there’s no easy answer. However, Facebook has succeeded in creating a positive experience which, in turn, breeds trust. Another key driver may be the need, particularly when times are tough, to feel good about ourselves. Membership in a community and the accumulation of lots of friends, who without fail will post positive comments about our pictures, and musings, is a way to do that.
Speaking of which; we’ve yet to see a negative comment from, or directed to, any of the hundreds of people who are now in our circle of “friends”. This attests to the power of “Social Proof” which means we determine what is correct by what other people think is correct. The downside is that, as Walter Lippman put it, “Where all are thinking alike, no one is thinking very much.”
Posted by Tom Polanski in Ethics, Opinions on February 18th, 2009
Why you won’t get rich off your blog
By Daniel Lyons
For two years I was obsessed with trying to turn a blog into a business. I posted 10 or 20 items a day to my site, The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, rarely taking a break. I blogged from cabs, using my BlackBerry. I blogged in the middle of the night, having awakened with an idea. I rationalized this insane behavior by telling myself that at the end of this rainbow I would find a huge pot of gold. But reality kept interfering with this fantasy. My first epiphany occurred in August 2007, when The New York Times ran a story revealing my identity, which until then I’d kept secret. On that day more than 500,000 people hit my site—by far the biggest day I’d ever had—and through Google’s AdSense program I earned about a hundred bucks. Over the course of that entire month, in which my site was visited by 1.5 million people, I earned a whopping total of $1,039.81. Soon after this I struck an advertising deal that paid better wages. But I never made enough to quit my day job. Eventually I shut down—not for financial reasons, but because Steve Jobs appeared to be in poor health. I walked away feeling burned out and weighing 20 pounds more than when I started. I also came away with a sneaking suspicion that while blogs can do many wonderful things, generating huge amounts of money isn’t one of them.
Now others seem to be riding the same downward curve, with euphoria giving way to exhaustion. Michael Arrington, whose TechCrunch blog empire attracts 6 million readers each month, has gone on a monthlong hiatus after three years of nonstop blogging. His break was prompted, he says, by burnout and by the craziness of the blogosphere (he says he’s been stalked, threatened and spat on) and not by the fact that he’s been trying to sell his company for a year and hasn’t been able to find a buyer who’ll pay his price, which is rumored to be $100 million. Gawker Media, a leading network of blogs, recently laid off all but one of its writers for Valleywag, its tech blog, which has struggled for three years. In January Pajamas Media, a collective of right-wing political bloggers, shut down its ad network, which CEO Roger Simon says “was a money loser for three years.”
Posted by Tom Polanski in Opinions on February 9th, 2009
Tom Polanski and eBrand Media thank Zappos for their gesture of genuine partnership!
By Tom Polanski, EVP, eBrand Media and eBrand Interactive
A person can make a series of reasonably sound assumptions by the way a company treats it vendors. Savvy Senior Managers understand that the value they place on their vendors, customers and employees is directly proportionate to the value they place on their brand. Good relationships will always add to the brands equity.
Unfortunately, over the past 5-6 years, many managers, and merchants, have seemingly forgotten the importance of, and the investment needed, to build a brand. Most of the people I’ve met over the years have been driven by a direct return on investment now mentality. Too few were forward thinkers. These people wanted X number of dollars back for every dollar invested and many times, considering the gross margins they made, one could only arrive at the conclusion that they thought of their businesses the same way they’re customers thought of their homes; as ATM’s. I often wondered where the revenue was going. As far as I could tell it wasn’t going into creating a platinum level, end-user experience.
I think the companies that will thrive during this economic transition have been companies that have always had a coherent, cogent vision for the company’s present and future. In addition, management takes care of their employees; they create a positive environment and treat their people like a valuable resource. As a result, the return they see on the the investment they’ve made in their human resources typically exceeds the usual. These employees aren’t just showing up for work to trudge through another day.
Posted by Tom Polanski in Opinions, Tom Polanski, Zappos, eBrand Media on December 31st, 2008