Startup Diaries

You Simply Don't Understand Us

You got to check out this video... It's an hilarious parody, surprisingly done by Microsoft, that illustrate the biggest problem of advertisers today:
They think they know what the consumers want, but they truly don't.

I found this video in an excellent post by Dale Dougherty which I higly recommend you to read.

Dale talks about how to simply track users actions on the web and building their profile is not really knowing them. How advertisers should listen much more carefully to what the consumers actually want.

I think Dale nailed it right. We at NuConomy try to think a lot on how the conversation between the users and the advertisers should look at. Today one of the big discrepancies are the fact that advertisers are spending millions of dollars on creating ads while the users spend their money on technologies that can block them (Tivo/Pop up blockers...).
Advertising should not be something you want to avoid. It should be something that can serve the user better and contribute to him in some way.

Technorati Tags: Advertising

The Power of LIVE

I just came back from the Kooza circus.
First let me tell you that his was totally amazing! One of the best shows I've seen. It's been a long time since so many WOW have came out of my mouth. If you happen to be in the bay area this December, you simply got to go.

It was also really good to se that even in the middle of the Tivo/iTunes/Facebook generation, we can still be amazed from real life people and experiences.
There is simply nothing that compare to the experience of a live event. It could be a concert, theater or a circus. It doesn't matter. It will always be ten times better than the best surround and high def screen experience.

If the movies and music industry wants to keep getting our money, this is the direction they should take. Find ways to give us better experiences. To give us this "LIVE" feeling.
In the end, what we really like is to be excited and feel the adrenalin pump up, and this is one thing that even for the WII its a hard thing to do.

Just Say No to E-Tickets

If there is one thing that really bugs me is when companies are ripping people off with lame technology excuses.
If you ordered tickets lately (especially from Ticketmaster) you probably noticed that when you had to choose your delivery methods you got two options:
Will call - for free.
Print E-Ticket with your printer - $2.5 more.

I just have to ask - what the fu$*?!

The all idea of e-ticket is that you are actually saving money for the venue and ticket office.
They don't need to deal with sending you anything.
The venue lines are shorter, meaning they need less employees to work on show night.

So instead of actually discounting you for your trouble of printing the ticket and saving them money, they actually charging you for that with a lame excuse that this is the easiest way for you to avoid lines.
Again - They actually charge you $2.5 for displaying to you an image of a ticket and asking you to print it yourself.

I know it's easy. I know it's comfortable. But some things we should not accept. Say no to e-tickets.

The TV Ads are Coming to the Web

Since moving to San Francisco, I started watching my favorites shows on the networks sites instead of downloading them.
You can find today almost every series you want on the web just a couple of days or even hours after it ran on TV.

I started with Fox Prison Break. One of the things that I really liked is the Toyota ads the Fox put there. There were just about four of them each episode, each one in the length of five seconds.
This was a great way to do video ads. As Toyota was the only one to appear on each episode,it got me to remember their brand, and in the same time to get a good user experience.

But unfortunately this good user experience was long gone.
In the last couple of weeks, every major network (NBC, Fox, ABC...) started to put 5 - 6 commercials break in online videos. Each break in the length of 30 seconds.
I will argue that this is not just a bed thing for the users, but also bad for the advertisers.
If I looked at Toyota kindly for their 5 seconds ads, at the fourth time I had to watch the same ad in a Heroes episode, I actually started to hate the ad and the company behind it.

Users are used to not have ads at all. Trying to mimic the TV experience on the web don't get the same reaction. On TV, people are used to commercials. People are used to go to the kitchen and make a sandwich (or to buy Tivo and skip the ads). we are not used to do the same on the web and we don't want to get used to that.

By The way - I would also have to wonder how come all the networks started to do exactly the same at exactly the same time? Aren't any laws against this?

Technorati Tags: Advertising , Video

No Wonder Americans Are Fat

OK... So not all Americans are fat, but it's a known fact that the big fight of the American nation is against the disease of overweight.
So let me tell you something - Instead of spending billions of dollars on diets and health insurance policies, the only thing the Government here should do is simply to start regulate the price of vegetables.

I was shocked to see the prices of things here.
For my Israeli friends, here are some numbers:
How much do you think 6 tomatoes costs on average here? 20+ NIS!
How much a single pepper. A regular one. Not organic or something? A whooping 6 NIS. Yes. For one. Not for 1 kilo.

With these prices, no wonder everyone eats junk food. In the price of two tomatoes and a cucumber, you can get a full meal at McDonalds...

How did I Became Internet Shopoholic

As you probably know, I moved recently to San Francisco.
After I got here I realized how many things I need to buy in order to make the new apartment a place you can live in.

Recently when I browsed through Amazon, I got a message saying that I'm eligible for a free month use of Amazon Prime.
What is Amazon Prime? For $79 a year, you get reduced or free deliveries for thousands of products that are delivered from Amazon.
As I now have a lot of things I need, I decided to give it a shot and take the free month.

What I discovered is that this is a very risky thing. It just makes you buy a lot of things. When you have 1 click to buy option and free two day delivery to your door, I found that I was just tempted to buy more stuff through Amazon instead of going and browsing stores.

From iron board, to shower curtain and of course some books, I expect to get them all in the next two days :)

Technorati Tags: Amazon , Shopping

Size Does Matter

I went to day to the MOMA (museum of modern art).
I know that what I'm going to say will not be popular, but I must say it.
Guys and Girls. I admit. I just don't get it.
True, there are some incredible modern art, but there are also a lot of things that I'm just not sure if we can call them art.

Take the piece in the photo. Is this art?

Basically it is a shape colored in one color and hanged on a wall.
And there are many other pieces of modern art that looks very similar.
So what makes them art? Is it just the fact that they are basically very big in size? If I would do the same shape but in a 10cm size, will it still be art?
I don't know. But what I do know is that it won't have the same effect on us.

Size seems to affect us all. When we see something very big, it impress us (at least most of us). It gets us to stop and look.
We are impressed from large buildings, large movies screens, large club spaces. For most of us, in our basic instinct big equal better.
This is why the giant, building size advertisements are so effective. We all stop for a second to look at them. We all remember them. In a way, they are all a sort of art in our eyes.

Technorati Tags: Art , advertisments , modern art

The Apple Bubble

Every time I'm going to tech conferences on the west coast I feel really ashamed pulling out my IBM T60.
You look around and all you can see are cool, shiny, white apple laptops. It got me thinking that in the US, everyone is using mac.

This week I went for the first time to an advertising conference (Ad Tech). In one of the big lectures, i suddenly looked around and was surprised to see a variety of laptops. Dell, IBM, Acer, Toshiba. They were all there. Actually, from a room of few hundreds I saw just two macs (and they both were used by people from the press).

This brought me again to the fact we sometimes forget, that San Francisco and the silicon valley is a bubble.
Not everyone enter Facebook ten times a day.
Not everyone upload every single picture to Flickr.
And apparently - not everyone owns a mac.

CPA is the New King

I just got back from another day in the Ad Tech conference. If you look at the numbers the IAB, Hitwise or comscore are releasing it seems that CPM still rules and CPA is still in a very early stage.
However, after going through the 300+ booths in the conference exhibit hall it is obvious that the numbers are different and going to be very different in the near future.
Almost every second booth had a big sign talking about how company X can help you with your CPA campaign. Almost no one talked about impressions.
I have to just assume that all those companies knows their customers pretty well, meaning we are seeing the new king of the industry - CPA based advertising.

Also check out what Google trends is saying:
UPDATE:It seems that the graph is misleading as people search for the term CPA is a short also for stuff besides "cost per action" (and also a name of a company).

 

Issue of Trust

I find my self in the last days exploring some of the differences between life in Israel and the states. I thought it will be interesting to point out some of them.

As I wrote yesterday, I signed up this week for Comcast high speed Internet + HD digital cables + digital phone service.
All I needed to do is to make a five minutes phone call and after 4 hours I already had a technician in my place setting up everything.

Now the weird point (as an Israeli) is that I got all the equipment and a user and password without signing any document besides one stating that the technician did install everything I'm suppose to get.
No credit card information, not even signature on the price I'm willing to pay. Nothing.

In Israel such a thing would never have happened. First you pay just than you get something.
I wonder why it is different here? Is it because Americans are more trusting in nature, or because in Israel we know everyone will take advantage of something like that in two seconds...

Technorati Tags: Israel , US , Comcast