I wrote an article yesterday that contains some personal musings on the nature of paid versus free content on the Internet, and the trial-and-error process used to determine what surfers will pay for and what they won't.
http://news.tmcnet.com/news/2006/07/31/1755768.htm
I'd love to hear readers opinions on the subject, and some examples of what they are willing to pay for (in both monetary terms and giving up personal information) and what they won't.
TES
Every once in a while, I need to visit the comments section of this blog and clear it out. It seems I need to do it more often. I expect the proliferation of spam to the blog...that's easy to spot. Lots of companies selling mobile phones, SIM cards and accessories will spam. When those are deleted, these spammers get a tad smarter. They post something that tries to look like a real comment..."That's a great idea!" and then plaster their URLs all over the posting.
Don't get me wrong...I get a lot of great feedback to the blog. I've got a lot of postings from veterans sharing information about identity theft, a venting forum for bad Walmart customer service, a debate regarding whether China or India is the next best thing for outsourcing, a few Comcast customers who share my pain, a couple of disgruntled former call center workers expressing distaste for their previous employers, and regular commentary from someone named Sven Jørgensenjensen, which is the alter-ego of a slightly warped friend of mine.
But then there's the weird ones.
I recenty had someone confessing to a regular Walmart shoplifting habit. I've had posters asking for money. Many posters seem to believe I have the ability to give them a job. (I don't, but I leave their requests up there, in case HR personnel from BPO companies are looking to hire.) I've received some odd personal comments from strangers. I once received a marriage proposal.
I'm starting to know how priests in a confessional feel. Nineteen normal penitents or chatters, followed by one who hovers slightly outside the ionosphere. It's the nature of blogs.
TES
An article in Time magazine this week speculates that AOL may soon decide to ditch its once-but-no-longer popular subscription method in favor of an ad-based model, such as that followed by Yahoo! and others.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1214959,00.html
It seems that AOL is becoming exhausted trying to re-fill its leaky bucket, and the water level of customers keeps dropping at alarming rates. I've always wondered why anyone in his or her right mind would pay for broadband Internet and then pay for an AOL subscription on top of that broadband bill. It seems a lot of AOL's customers wondered that, too.
TES
There is a good article in Time this week speculating that AOL may ditch its once-but-no-longer profitable subscription model for an ad-drive model:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1214959,00.html
Makes sense. There's only so long they can keep plugging all the leaks in their bucket, and the waterline is sinking rapidly.
TES
I was just on the Web site of eMicrophones, Inc., a reseller of headsets, and saw something that made me happy. Under the contact information, it says:
Phone: 914-556-8286
Fax: Faxing is Old Technology. Please write message below (into Web form).
Couldn't have said it any better myself. Faxing needs to go the way of the dodo.
TES
If you ever doubted the value of the Internet for being a busybody when it comes to your neighbors, doubt no more.
Web site Zillow.com keeps tracks of estimated home values all over the U.S. You can see what your house is worth as compared to your neighbors. Not only that, you can drill down and find out what your neighbors paid for their houses and when, exactly how big their houses are, and how the houses have lost or gained value in the past years.
The sobering part is...they can do this to you, as well. I guess deep down, we're all curtain-twitching Gladys Kravitzes.
TES
If you're thinking that what you need to get you motivated is a personal trainer, but don't relish putting yourself into spandex in front of a set of washboard abs, you now have a choice: you can get yourself a virtual personal trainer via Podcast.
Wake me up when the day comes when technology allows us to "virtually" do the exercise and see the results without having to actually do the exercise.
TES
I've gotten some comment on my article of yesterday, Someone Needs To Put A Leash On Credit Card Issuers. Here is one:
Tracey;
Kudos! I just read your article, "Someone Needs To Put A Leash On Credit Card Issuers." You're right on target, of course, but there's even more!
I've been toying with a piece for my blog at http://preventchargebacks.blogspot.com/. I'm wanting to go way out on a limb and predict the end of credit cards as we know them. I want to, but I can't seem to find that last bit of common sense in the credit card industry that might actually make it happen - they'll just keep keeping on in spite of themselves. But I can tell you that in any other industry that was as business unconscious as the card companies, prediction of imminent doom would be easy.
Consider this...
Visa and MasterCard will proudly boast that the online credit card fraud rate has remained steady or declined ever-so-slightly over the past 3 years. Independent polls seem to be in that ball park too. There's a problem - Online sales have increased at the rate of 30% a year, making the total dollars lost to fraud increase at 30%. All this is going on while Visa and MasterCard are touting their Verified by Visa(R) and SecureCode(R) as the best thing that ever happened to online merchants. You won't see all three of those facts in the same paragraph anywhere else.
If you take a look at the credit card situation from the E-Commerce merchant's point of view, it isn't any better. At merchant911.org we're seeing horror stories from merchants that you wouldn't believe.
New merchants are being signed on every day and never given even the slightest education on the perils of on-line fraud. Why would the card companies educate the merchants when all losses to on-line fraud are the merchant's liability? E-Com merchants take a triple hit on every fraudulent transaction.
The more fraud, the more money the card companies make in the form of chargeback fees - a politically correct term for the fines assessed to merchants for being a victim of a crime. And remember that in 2005 there were over 55 million card numbers, complete with names, addresses, expire dates, and security codes that were either stolen or known to be at risk with unknown consequences: http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/ChronDataBreaches.htm. These are just the ones that we know about. This year so far we're at 1.1 million cards and 700,000 full ID thefts - with a reported potential in the millions.
At Merchant911.org (free) and PreventChargebacks.com (fee) I fight to educate the merchants. I'm losing! Take these facts and add them to the issues that you brought up in your article. Can the credit card industry, as we know it, not implode? Tom Mahoney, Director
As often happens on Friday, I'm too tired to cook. The very thought of making even�toast right now exhausts me. While I'm normally an avid cook, I am less than inspired to start experimenting in the kitchen tonight. The sum total of my kitchen equipment manipulation will be to acquire a beer out of the fridge upon entering my house.
Which, of course, means pizza. Though I know how to search for pizza places in my area on Google the long way (without about 25 keystrokes), here's a trick I didn't know: in the Google search window, type in "pizza" and your ZIP code. Ten keystrokes, then a�comprehensive list of pizza joints near you.
Now, if only they could rank the quality of the pizza for me, ensuring I get the best available in the area.
TES
Former CIS editor David Butcher spotted my article on the Netflix versus Blockbuster patent hoo-ha today, and sent me a wonderful tidbit of information...that someone has actually patented the childhood "string phone" concept. To think...how much money do our former seven-year-old selves own the patent holders?
United States Patent 4,195,707
Kupperman, et al. April 1, 1980
Communicating Device
A device for communicating in which a hollow frustum extending outwardly from a flat base has tabs at the ends thereof for holding a relatively rigid diaphragm having spaced apart apertures therein. A pair of these devices are interconnected by a cord or string, whereby conversation or sound projected into one of the devices is reproduced at the other device. Two devices are molded as a single integral unit and merchandised as an in-pack item with children’s breakfast cereals.
We are not making this up. Repeat, we are not...
TES
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