Worth reviewing: Netflix presentation on its culture
Man, this one is amazing. Netflix talks the talk and walks the walk about a high performance culture. TechCrunch did a great job of commenting on the meaning, so it’s only fair to link back to the August post where they brought it out.
The presentation, which you can see for yourself below, is as interesting as any 128-page document can be. If you read it over, about half-way through, you’ll probably start wishing you worked for Netflix. This was meant to be an internal document for employees to read, but it’s also one hell of a recruitment pitch.
Early on, a lot of it deals with workplace efficiency, and not being afraid to let someone go if they’re not doing their job. The idea is that if someone just wants to do mediocre works, that’s fine, they’ll get a nice severance package. It extends this into an emphasis on effectiveness over effort — the company doesn’t want to necessarily reward people who stay late versus those who don’t, but get the same amount of work done. It then turns to some internal policies including management best practices. And then to retention practices — making sure the company pays the top people a high enough salary that they’ll never want to leave.
The “Reference Guide on Our Freedom & Responsibility Culture” is meant for reading, not presenting, so go right to Slideshare and get started.
The fact that this type of human resources manifesto could get released into the wild is a sign of the times of course.
AdMob Releases July Mobile Metrics Report – Insights into iPhone, Android Apps and Behavior
AdMob, which serves advertising on 7,000 mobile websites and 3,000 applications for both the iPhone and Android platforms, has released a new report that provides some excellent reference data for those in the field. You can download it here, and here’s some highlights:
- Android and iPhone users download approximately 10 new apps a month, while iPod touch owners download an average of 18 per month
- More than 90 percent of Android and iPhone OS users browse and search for apps directly on their mobile device instead of their computer
- Upgrading from the lite version was the top reason given when users were asked what drives them to purchase a paid app
- iPhone and iPod touch users are twice as likely to purchase paid apps than Android users.
- Users who regularly download paid apps spend approximately $9 on an average of five paid downloads per month
Some good news for developers pursuing a “lite” or “trial” version strategy in that it’s the main reason for purchase cited by users…. no clear reason behind the iPod Touch owners high usage stats.
Full release here, plus supplemental data available.
IMG Publishing Partners With KlickableTV to Enhance e-Commerce Sites
Below is a press release from KlickableTV, an interesting interactive video startup and an active participant in the Digital Media MBA events. If you haven’t had a chance to check them out yet, follow the links in the release below and support our membership.
SOURCE: IMG Publishing
Highlighted Links
TennisWeek.com
NEW YORK, NY–(Marketwire – June 30, 2009) – IMG Publishing, a division of global sports and entertainment company IMG, has established a strategic partnership with KlickableTV, the interactive online video platform. Currently, KlickableTV is deployed on IMG’s digital property, TennisWeek.com. The platform provides visitors to TennisWeek.com’s videos with value-added information nuggets and e-commerce opportunities when they click on any of the virtual merchandise showcased.
“Our association with KlickableTV will give our visitors a more engaging experience,” said Lee Rosenbaum, IMG Publishing’s vice president of publishing. “We believe the technology will help to increase sales and add value to our featured brands. We plan to deploy KlickableTV this year on our other two digital properties, FashionWeekDaily.com and ChicReport.com.”
“IMG Publishing’s digital properties reach a wide and influential audience and we’re thrilled to be giving these visitors a new interactive way to consume video,” said Roger Wu, co-founder and president of KlickableTV.
Using Klickable TV only requires Adobe’s Flash player and an Internet connection; no software download is needed.
About IMG Sports & Entertainment
Operating in 30 countries, IMG Sports & Entertainment’s diverse businesses include: consulting services; event ownership and management; fashion events and models representation; licensing; golf course design; and client representation in golf, tennis, broadcasting, speakers, European football, rugby, cricket, motor sports, coaching, Olympic and action sports. IMG Academies are the world’s largest, multi-sport training and educational facilities, delivering world-class training experiences to more than 12,000 junior, collegiate, adult, and professional athletes each year.
About KlickableTV
KlickableTV’s interactive video platform harnesses social media to create a comprehensive viewing experience and provides unique insights into viewer behavior. With a variety of professional and semi-professional users, KlickableTV is the leading interactive video provider. Founded in 2007, Klickable TV is based in New York City. For more information, visit www.klickable.tv.
Press Contact:
Alison Levy
IMG Publishing
646-871-2492
alison.levy@imgworld.com
Click here to see all recent news from this company.
Twitter & E-Commerce
http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/1136-Ecommerce-Know-How-Use-Twitter-to-Build-a-Community-of-Loyal-Customers
In the article above, Armando Roggio (contributing editor of Practical eCommerce) details a step-by-step approach for e-commerce sites interested in leveraging Twitter as a marketing tool. Many of his ideas are based on the framework introduced by Mike Volpe, Vice President of Marketing at HubSpot. Where Volpe focuses on Twitter as a Marketing tool in general, Roggio highlights Twitter opportunities for e-commerce.
I found this article (and Volpe/Roggio’s ideas) particularly interesting and effective. First, Roggio begins with a focus on customer engagement – how to gain followers. As with any other marketing strategy technique, Twitter strategy begins by identifying the target audience and their unique characteristics/interests. In his “five steps to get followers,” Roggio considers customer/follower engagement from many perspectives – educating the customer on who you are/what you do, providing easy linked access to the company site, sharing what other customers think, and creating a community of followers. In this way, Roggio sets up a well-rounded approach to customer/follower engagement.
Second, he shifts to specific tactics e-commerce companies might employ to attract and sustain this target market. Here, he takes traditional customer retention strategies and applies them to the microblogging world. For instance, traditional retail operations retain customers with effective product instructions and coupon incentives; e-commerce sites, through Twitter, can provide “how to” posts related to featured products and offer coupons for followers who re-tweet about the brand.
Third, he encourages e-commerce companies to use Twitter to take customer engagement beyond the capacity of traditional retail operations, by supporting their followers tweets and posts. In this way, by staying on top of customer activities and supporting their work, companies can create a true dialogue and community, adding a personal touch to the retail process.
Last, aside from the excellent content of the article, I appreciate the article and webpage’s format. Practical eCommerce itself practices what it preaches. After viewing this article, I as reader had the opportunity to share it, view other related sites, follow Volpe on Twitter, sign up for a newletter, and read other readers’ comments.
Twitter & E-Commerce
http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/1136-Ecommerce-Know-How-Use-Twitter-to-Build-a-Community-of-Loyal-Customers
In the article above, Armando Roggio (contributing editor of Practical eCommerce) details a step-by-step approach for e-commerce sites interested in leveraging Twitter as a marketing tool. Many of his ideas are based on the framework introduced by Mike Volpe, Vice President of Marketing at HubSpot. Where Volpe focuses on Twitter as a Marketing tool in general, Roggio highlights Twitter opportunities for e-commerce.
I found this article (and Volpe/Roggio’s ideas) particularly interesting and effective. First, Roggio begins with a focus on customer engagement – how to gain followers. As with any other marketing strategy technique, Twitter strategy begins by identifying the target audience and their unique characteristics/interests. In his “five steps to get followers,” Roggio considers customer/follower engagement from many perspectives – educating the customer on who you are/what you do, providing easy linked access to the company site, sharing what other customers think, and creating a community of followers. In this way, Roggio sets up a well-rounded approach to customer/follower engagement.
Second, he shifts to specific tactics e-commerce companies might employ to attract and sustain this target market. Here, he takes traditional customer retention strategies and applies them to the microblogging world. For instance, traditional retail operations retain customers with effective product instructions and coupon incentives; e-commerce sites, through Twitter, can provide “how to” posts related to featured products and offer coupons for followers who re-tweet about the brand.
Third, he encourages e-commerce companies to use Twitter to take customer engagement beyond the capacity of traditional retail operations, by supporting their followers tweets and posts. In this way, by staying on top of customer activities and supporting their work, companies can create a true dialogue and community, adding a personal touch to the retail process.
Last, aside from the excellent content of the article, I appreciate the article and webpage’s format. Practical eCommerce itself practices what it preaches. After viewing this article, I as reader had the opportunity to share it, view other related sites, follow Volpe on Twitter, sign up for a newletter, and read other readers’ comments.
Digital Media Downloading – The French debate
We discussed in class yesterday how the media industry (music, tv, movies etc.) was being affected by illegal downloading, and some of the possible legal responses / alternative models to this phenomenon.
France is one of the countries where illegal downloading is the most important. (”cultural” factors not withstanding, the fact that broadband triple play (cable TV, Unlimited national and international landline, and broadband internet access) of much higher bandwith than in the US is available for only €29.99 a month probably plays a major role).
Hence, for months, the Parliament has been debating a law to fight piracy and protect digital media agains P2P downloading. The topic has become politically sensitive, with Mrs. Sarkozy, an artist herself, getting involved in the debate, and the left opposition, tradionnally sensitive to the artists’ revendications, opposing the government’s plans.
To add to the confusion, the European Parliement adopted a couple of months ago a legislative package which was said to be in contradiction with the government’s plans under way.
Here finally was the French government’s law, named Loi Hadopi:
- An independent Authority for the protection of copyrights on the internet was to be created.
- After a first notice of illegal downloading, the internet user was to receive an email warning. After the user was caught a 2nd time, he was to to receive a formal written warning by registered post.
- Upon the 3rd breach, the user was to have his internet access suspended.
The public authority was to act as an intermediary between the holders of the rights (movie studios, etc.) , who have to identify the IP adresses of the culprits, and the ISPs, who have to identify the users and ultimately cut off their access.
Why do i use the preterit? because this law is most likely going to be born dead.
First, it had to be voted twice, because the first time government-supporting MPs did not show up enough for the late night vote, and the oppostion was able to reject it.
When it was passed at the 2nd attempt, the opposition asked for the ruling of France’s Conseil Constitutionnel, which in charge of ruling whether laws are set in accordance to the Constitution (i guess the equivalent of the US Supreme Court).
And on June 10th, the CC rejected key components of the law.
To begin with, it ruled that a public authority cannot decide to deprive somebody from his right to access the Internet. Only a judiciary authority can do this. For the first time, the Internet is considered to be a “fundamental right”, such as freedom of expression and communication, which was instored in 1789. Therefore, only a judge can take it away. The CC in this matter ruled in the same way as had been decided by the European Parliement .
Secondly, it said that the law was wrong in deciding that the user was presumed guilty ex ante, and not ex post. According to the CC, this in contradiction with the principle of presumption of innocence. Therefore, illegal downloaders should be considered not guilty until proven otherwise.
This is considered to be a major blow for the government. Whereas most artists supported the law in principle (although did not express their support too vocally), a lot of controversy surrounded the text: since it provided for illegal sites to be referenced, Google protested against what it viewed as censorship (wtf? the Company is not that vocal in China imho); ISPs protested against the associated costs; some online content websites, such as DailyMotion, the French Youtuve, mounted a public protest campaign. A plan allowing people found guilty to reduce their sentence by installing spyware on their PCs brought back some painful memories.
Since the ruling came out today, it is too soon to see what will happen next. The government just said that it would make sure any sentence would have to be pronounced by a judge, but it will have to go to Parliament again, for the 3rd time this year.
How can we conciliate respect of copyright with individual privacy laws ? tough…
To be continued!
Can you trust a tweet?
As we have discussed over the past five weeks, social media and social networking have revolutionized the way users interact with the internet, other users, companies, advertising, and the offline world. The emergence and explosion of social media has change behavioral patterns for information and ideas exchange dramatically, leaving many traditional media sources shaking in their boots. More and more, individuals and companies have come to rely on information provided via social media for important decisions.
A recent Cambridge Business News article (http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/cn_business/displayarticle.asp?id=423848) discusses one such instance. According to the article, social media is changing the workplace environment, in terms of communications, protocol, and even recruitment. Now, in many cases, employees update their social media posts while at the workplace. While some companies permit such activity during lunch and breaks, others completely block these site. As the article argues, although blocking these sites during work time may encourage a more focused work ethic among employees, it negates the very purpose of many sites like Twitter, which rely on regular updates throughout the day for maximum engagement. Furthermore, many employers now reference potential hires’ profiles during the recruitment and interview process to background check potential employees. While sites like LinkedIn are designed for this purpose, sites like Facebook and MySpace might misinform employers. For instance, an employer might find questionable content posted on a potential hire’s wall, but perhaps that content was posted by a disgruntled acquaintance seeking to defame the user. An employer might feel concerned that a potential hire’s photo albums are littered with party photos, but this content does not necessarily mean the individual lives a wild lifestyle (consider: people tend to take larger volumes of pictures at parties, so naturally, profiles will contain quite a few photos with the classic red Solo cup peeking in the corner). In other words, while social media sites provide some insight into potential employees, employers should take the content with a grain of salt and stick with focused recruitment sites, like LinkedIn.
What I find even more compelling (and perhaps disturbing) than these workplace trends is the emergence of social media content as news. More and more, people turn to blogs, posts, websites, YouTube videos, and even tweets for the latest news. On one hand, these social media sources provide news more instantly than more traditional media or even online newspapers and magazines. Recently, several major newsworthy events have first emerged on Twitter (like the Mexico City earthquake and the results of the Lakers games). On the other hand, these open source technologies essentially empower anyone to become a “journalist” or “reporter,” raising credibility and bias issues.
At the same time, while I’m skeptical of Twitter and other social media sites as veritable news, I also wonder how truly trustworthy our traditional news sources are. Television and newspapers often rely on sensationalism to attract and maintain viewers and readers. Flip on the TV during news hours and you’re bound to encounter a commercial for the latest BREAKING NEWS that you JUST CAN’T MISS! “Lead Poisoning: The Silent Killer…next, on channel 6″ ends up being a two-minute report warning viewers that they might contract lead poisoning…if they drink 6 gallons of tap water a day…and lick their faucet. Every week, mass media seems to change its opinion on whether coffee will kill me or make me immortal. And don’t even get me started on swine flu. So, while I’m tempted to criticize those who trust tweets, how truly trustworthy and unbiased are the traditional channels?
That being said, consumers have learned which sources among traditional media tend to provide the most accurate news and which sensationalize in excess (New York Times vs. Daily News; NBC News vs. Fox News). Perhaps the same will evolve as social media develops as a news source, with Twitter “followers” trusting certain users’ tweets more than others. In the meantime, I think I’ll espouse “trust no one” philosophy. Except maybe the Times, in moderation.
From “Google it” to “Bing it?”
ComScore announced today that Microsoft’s share of search result pages in the United States increased from 9.1% for the five days ending May 30 (before the launch of Bing) to 11.1% for the five days ending June 6, an increase of 2.0 percentage points. Similarly, penetration among searchers in the United States increased from 13.8% to 15.5% over the same period.
I will not compare the anatomy of the Bing and Google search engines. I will, however, try to analyze the quality of search results of the two engines to determine whether search performance may contribute to Microsoft’s growing market share in search. In one of my previous posts I as asked the question of whether Google is a network effect. As it relates to search specifically, the question is whether Google’s search methodology is simply more accurate because (naturally) more searches have been performed on Google over the recently launched Bing. That’s why I’ve decided to perform an experiment: I will compare three random searches and their corresponding results on Google and Bing by using the following website that conveniently provides a side-by-side comparison: www.blackdog.ie/google-bing. I will then rate the results and conclude which search engine is more effective based on my highly limited experiment.
SEARCH #1: TRAVEL
Google Top 5 Results:
- Expedia
- Travelocity
- Orbitz
- Yahoo Travel
- New York Times Guides and Deals for Hotels
Bing Top 5 Results:
- Expedia
- www.travel.com
- www.travel.travel
- Yahoo Travel
- Travelocity
SEARCH #2: BUSINESS
Google Top 5 Results:
- Wikipedia
- www.business.com
- www.business.gov
- CNN Money
- BusinessWeek
Bing Top 5 Results:
- www.business.com
- www.business.gov
- Wikipedia
- CNN Money
- MSNBC Business
SEARCH #3: FLOWERS
Google Top 5 Results:
- 1800flowers
- FTD.com
- ProFlowers
- Teleflora
- Wikipedia
Bing Top 5 Results:
- 1800flowers
- ProFlowers
- FTD.com
- Phillip’s Florals
- Wikipedia
Based on these results, Google is the clear winner in my opinion. For the “travel” keyword search, Bing returned (among others) www.travel.travel, which is not as relevant as Google’s search results. With respect to the “flowers” keyword search, Bing returned “Phillip’s Florals”, which is not as prominent as Google’s search results. The “Business” search results seem to be a toss-up. So will “Bing it” be able to replace “Google it”? Only time will tell, but Bing is clearly experiencing some early-stage growing pains. The clear takeaway is that drivers beyond search performance are contributing to Microsoft’s rapidly increasing market share in search.
Mobile applications – the nail in the cellphone coffin?
A recent eMarketer article announced that there are now one billion mobile applications. The main player benefiting from this dramatic increase in mobile applications over the last several years is of course Apple, with its iPhone and the mobile application store.
While the iPhone was the not the first ’smart device’, I believe it is the single smart device that will change the market – and these mobile applications are the main drivers of iPhone’s sales growth. It is likely that the “cellphone” as we knew it from 1995-2006 will quickly fade out over the next several years and be replaced by these smart devices which, in addition to being a mobile phone, are a camera, an internet browser, email and text messenger, and, most importantly, a mini computer running all of these new applications.
Allowing open source software developers to create applications for the iPhone was a brilliant move by Apple because it served to drive the sales of iPhones, which could do more for users everyday. It fits with the web 3.0 model, where users are the ones driving trends. While many of these applications are silly trivial games, others have proven to be extremely useful (like iWant) and innovative (like Shazam, which can recognize songs name simply by holding the iPhone next to a speaker playing music). While other smart devices will eventually eat into Apple’s market share, the iPhone has developed a huge “first mover” advantage by anticipating the tremendous growth of these open source applications.
Should we be paying for online content?
This recent articleby Catherine New, posted on the Columbia Business School homepage, brought up some interesting insights as to the future of content on the internet.
Catherine details the growing possibility that online content providers will begin charging for their services. While many of these sites, such as Hulu.com, offer ad-supported content, where viewers must sit through various video advertisements around the featured content including prerolls and overlays, a new subscription model may be emerging. Because there are so many other sites where content can be accessed for free, like youtube.com, New wonders what “necessary value” these sites could offer in order to convince web surfers to pay for content that they are traditionally used to accessing for free.
This is related to the same issue that I previously posted about on the music industry – how can you convince people to pay for things that they feel that they should receive for free? The “necessary value” might be faster upload speeds, no advertisements, or higher quality content (at least when it comes to video). But is this something that customers are willing to pay for? And if so, how much?
I am skeptical that a paid content site will be able to gain traction – at least not yet. While the amount of content accessed via the web is large and growing fast, the broadband infrastructure needed support to support high quality video, which is much larger in size than the cheap-looking, compressed content on sites like youtube, is not yet in place. Secondly, users may want to “own” the content that they pay for much like paying for a DVD. Until internet video is on equal ground with cable TV, I doubt whether such a model will be successful.
