2 Things I Gotta Know About Netflix

netflix

I’ve been using Netflix for about nine months. It’s cheaper that the pay-per-view I used to use on that TIVO-hating DirecTV, it has a much wider selection, and movies take an average of one day to get to and from my front door and the local Netflix distribution facility. I put two returns in the mail on Tuesday and I got two more yesterday. This is not an exception; it’s the rule.

So here are my questions:

1) If you watch movies, why in the world would you not be a Netflix customer? I really want to know. If you rent movies but don’t use Netflix please tell me why. Comments preferred so we can all talk about it.

2) How in the world can something this cool and inexpensive make enough money to last? You know that “this is too good to be true” feeling. Well I have it where Netflix is concerned. Someone give me hope that I am going to be able to use Netflix forever. Mr. Netflix, raise the monthly charge before you let yourself go out of business, ya hear.

Someone help me out here.

The Great Compromise: Ads for Free Content?

MobHappy asks the question– will people accept ads in exchange for free content.

In general, I think the answer is absolutely not. Here are the 3 reasons why not:

People want less ads and will go to great lengths to avoid them.

Just about every piece of media equipment I have is designed to avoid ads. TIVO, DVD Player; XM Radio; DirecTV satellite service; anonymous call blocker on my phone, caller ID on my cell phone; email spam filters; voice mail at the office. Almost everyone I know has a similar fortress protecting them from people who want to sell them something. Large companies are founded on the basis of protecting privacy, which for purposes of this conversation means…no ads.

There will always be too much other similar content available without ads.

Even if you have to pay for it, it will be deemed worth it. I can’t imagine what sort of content it would take to get me to agree to hear or see ads to get it. Just about everything I want to see or hear is available to somewhere without ads. I may have to pay a little more, but I am happy to pay for an ad-free life and so is almost everyone I know. After having XM Radio for a few years I literally cannot imagine listing to one second of ad-infested, over the air radio. I’d rather listen to nothing.

Even if we would accept ads, it would be the ineffective kind.

I don’t mind unobtrusive ads on web pages. But I have never, once clicked on an ad banner that wasn’t on a page I owned. Never, ever. Not one single time. And I bet there are a lot of others who could say the same thing. So if you want to put an AdSense ad or a banner on a web page, I don’t care. I won’t notice it and you’ll get very few clickthroughs. Add pop-ups or unders or, even worse, those irritating mouse traps and I’ll never return to your page.

The bottom line is that the cost to get permission from people to bombard them with ads would be more than any realistic revenue model could absorb. Pay for my gas for a year, and you can send me a few ads while I drive to and from work. Give me a top of the line Treo and service for a year and you can send me text message ads. Nothing that will fit in your pro-formas will be enough.

Advertising in its traditional sense is dying along with its original home- the printed newspaper. People don’t like ads and people don’t like other people dreaming up new ways to force advertising on them.

So if you really want to make some enemies, start tracking people via GPS and spamming their cell phones.

Blogging as a Business Does Not a Business Blog Make

willblogforfood TAN made a very interesting point in the comments to one of my earlier posts. I was talking about the sysphian task of growing a new blog, and he noted that he thought I was mixing two conversations: blogs as a business and blogs as a trend/cultural phenomenon. That got me thinking, and here’s what I’ve concluded.

It’s the blogging as a business part that causes the difficulties I’ve been talking about. Not so much business blogs or the cultural phenomenon of blogging.

What’s the Difference

First, let’s define what I’m talking about:

Business Blog- a blog operated by someone as a part of a larger business involving the sale of goods or services other than the blog itself.

Blogging as a Business- a blog that is operated by someone whose primary business is the operation of the blog itself (i.e., where the sole or primary revenue stream is ad revenue from that blog and/or the prospect of selling that blog).

When I talk about the complicating effect that the prospect of a dollar has on the blogosphere, I’m really talking about blogging as a business. Business blogs have other revenue streams and, for them, the blog is largely a marketing, communication, information distribution thing.

Take Steve Rubel, for example. He is without a doubt as well known as any blogger anywhere. And he has a great blog. But that blog (I imagine- Steve please correct me if I am wrong) was conceived as a part of Steve’s pre-existing public relations business. It wasn’t like Steve threw a blog up there, started writing posts and called it a business. So while Steve has one of the most popular blogs in the world, it is a part of his business- not his business.

And while Steve is very well known in the blogosphere, we must remember that only a fraction of the people in the world read blogs and follow the blogosphere. I bet more people know Steve from any number of his past and other activities than they do from his blog. And, again, we’re talking about one of the most popular blogs in the world. If I’m right and Micro Persuasion is only an ancillary part of Steve’s larger business, how in the wide world of sports can a new blogger hope to turn his or her blog into a business.

Business blogs use the blogosphere as an extension of the sort of conversations that take place in the real world. For them it’s the conversation that matters, not where or how that conversation takes place. Amy Gahran talks a lot about this over at The Right Conversation.

Compare that to blogging as a business- where someone starts a blog and begins writing with the plan to make a living or a meaningful part of a living. Unlike Steve, who sells his PR and consulting services, what is this blog selling? Nothing other than via the occasional Amazon affiliate referral. This blog is only selling ads for AdSense or whatever other ad program it uses. Stated another way, this blog is completely dependent on generating traffic and maintaining readers to view and click on its ads. Once someone has clawed their way up the Technorati 100 list, human nature (not to mention the need to eat and live indoors) dictates that the now successful blogger guard his or her asset carefully. For sure, there’s a marginal utility to other bloggers. Someone has to engage in conversations with you and link to you. But too many bloggers talking about similar stuff is sometimes viewed the same as too many beers- it turns a good time into a bad time.

Steve makes money either way because he is selling something other than eyeballs. The blogging as a business blog only makes money if it can attract and keep readers. Hence, the competition factor that serves as a disincentive to welcome new voices to the table.

To say that I’m whining about this is one thing (I don’t think I’m whining, but I can see how some might interpret it that way). But to pretend these issues don’t exist is to keep your head planted firmly in the sand.

So What About All Those Ads

I used to do a lot of ad selling when ACCBoards.Com was independent. We got millions (and I mean millions) of page views a month. In the halcyon days of the dot.com bubble, we were making 5 figures of revenue a month. We signed a purchase agreement for 7 figures and a ton of stock. Then it ended. Almost immediately. I still get weepy when I flip through that dusty old file.

Is another bust on the horizon? I believe so. Steve thinks so. Even if it isn’t as drastic or painful as the last one, we learned (or should have learned) that these things are cyclical. What goes up, and all that.

So, at best, the new blog as a business blogger is trying to do the blog equivalent of playing in the NBA. There are Kobes and there are Jasons (I’m going to keep calling him the Kobe of the blogosphere until he responds). But there are many more good players who never make it to the top. And if you’re doing it to make real money, you have to get to the top. There’s very little money in the minor leagues- blogging or basketball wise.

Putting it All Together

So, yes, you can have a blog that is neither a business blog nor blogging as a business. Yes, yes, a million times yes. That’s what I’ve been saying a blog is and should be.

My point is that other people who also have blogs but have somehow decided that their blogs are going to make them rich make the blogosphere a more complicated, less welcoming place. It’s not a conspiracy, and it’s not sour grapes. It’s human nature and the way business (and blogging as a business) works.

I just don’t think blogs, in and of themselves, should be first and foremost about trying to make money. That is my point distilled into one sentence.

All of this doesn’t necessarily preclude having a popular blog. Or even a successful blogging as a business blog (there are always a few who make it to the NBA). It just makes it harder. A lot harder.

More Cat Stuffing

catoutofbag Every time I turn around, somebody else is trying to stuff the cat back into the bag, make the world stop turning, hold back the tide, stop the evolution of media distribution. That sort of thing.

Now it’s the National Association of Theater Owners (a new kind of NATO), who show the movies made by the constituents of the other famous cat stuffer, the MPAA. This NATO is all a tither because Steven Soderbergh’s new movie, Bubble, is being released in the theaters, to cable and satellite and on DVD at the same time. The horror!

I suppose this NATO is compelled by its charter to join the fray since the MPAA, the RIAA and all sorts of other AA’s are engaged in a full fledged war against all sorts of enemies of their long-standing monopoly on how we receive our media.

Mark Cuban posts a great rebuttal to the gyrations of John Fithian, Commander in Chief of this NATO, who basically said western civilization would crumble if someone got to watch a new movie at home without paying $7.99 for popcorn and $5.99 for a coke.

Mark’s nail on the head comment was:

How sad is it when the President of the National Assoc of Theater Owners doesn’t think his members can create a better movie going experience than what we can see in our houses and apartments ?

That’s just it. When you control the distribution channels, you don’t have to worry about the experience. If you want to see a movie, you have to go to the theater. That’s why so many theaters, at least around my neck of the woods, have fallen into a mild state of disrepair. And of course it’s also the reason why popcorn is priced like caviar.

Mark also pointed out most pro sports games are on TV (live, not 6 months later); that even good cooks like to eat out; and that people still buy stuff from bricks and mortar stores. Great points all.

Mark sums up the difference in his approach and the one this NATO is trying so hard to hold onto:

It didn’t take me long to realize that the business of the Mavericks was not selling basketball, it was selling a fun night out and creating a favorable brand identification with our team and our players, with the hope that people would be excited to buy merchandise, products and services from us.

Mark then tells this NATO, in fine detail, exactly how to fix their problems before home theaters and Netflix put them out of business (basically by picking movies that appeal to your demographics and creating a better experience, but read his post because it is very well reasoned and enlightening).

Will this NATO do it? Not likely as long as they keep obsessing on the catless bag.

My Recent Comments Elsewhere

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Mercurytide Presents a Web 2.0 Handbook

In one of the best and most useful posts I have read in a long time, Mercurytide has posted a white paper entitled A life online: living decentralised.

The Mercurytide paper is a virtual handbook for Web 2.0 software and services, providing a service by service summary of the most useful applications. The paper is a must read for anyone who uses or wants to use the internet to become more organized and efficient.

Here’s my brief take on the applications and services mentioned:

Netvibes is a service that allows you to make a custom, highly configurable internet home page. Not a blog, but an internet starting page where you can keep information, links, and data feeds that you use all the time. Sort of a turbo-powered My Yahoo page or a web-administered version of The Home Place, my internet portal.

I’ve used Netvibes a little, but it hasn’t displaced the combination of The Home Place and my highly customized My Yahoo page yet. Yet being perhaps the important word in that sentence.

Writely is a web based word processor. I’ve read about it, but I haven’t used it, so I can’t really comment on it other than to say it’s probably the leader in the clubhouse as far as online word processors go. But Microsoft and others are still on the course.

Gmail is the tendered choice for web based email. I use it and it’s a good choice, especially along with Firefox and the Gmail Manager extension. Yahoo and Microsoft have new versions of their web based email applications coming out soon. Yahoo won’t send me a beta test invitation, so I can’t comment on its new product, but the new version of Hotmail, called Windows Live Mail is pretty spiffy, particularly if you use Internet Explorer as your browser.

Delicious is clearly the bookmarking service winner. I and almost everyone I know in the tech world use it daily. While not an organization tool in the same way a lot of these applications are, I’d add Technorati to the list of must-use Web 2.0 services. If not for tagging, then certainly for finding relevant content via searching.

Num Sum, an online spreadsheet, is the one on the list I had not heard of. It calls itself the “social spreadsheet” and looks to be the spreadsheet counterpart to Writely.

Flickr is Mercurytide, my and everyone else’s hands down choice for photo management, storage and sharing. It’s more than just a place to keep your photos- it’s an entire community built around digital photography. And the posters, prints and photo books are pretty cool too.

Openomy is an online file storage service. You get 1 Gigabyte of storage and, according to Mercurytide, you can use RSS to integrate your stored files with Netvibes. I’ve heard of Openomy, but I haven’t used it. I definitely intend to check it out.

Backpack is an online organizer. It can be private or shared among multiple people (a family perhaps?). Steve Rubel likes it, so it must be a well done and useful application. I am going to try to get a Newsome family Backpack page started so I have some idea where I have to be and when. Most of the time I feel like a dog looking out the window: I’m happy to be along for the ride, but I have no idea where we’re going.

Bloglines is (after my very rocky start) an excellent online news reader. I use it. Good suggestions for my blogroll are welcome via Comments.

CalendarHub is an online calendar. I haven’t used it, but it looks pretty full featured. My hunch is that some of these scattered applications (like the word processor, spreadsheet, organizer and calendar) will ultimately consolidate, either via acquisition or via some as yet unknown new application.

These Web 2.0 applications and others like them are changing the way we connect and stay organized. If you’re looking for a handbook on what’s out there and how to use it, the Mercurytide article is the place to start.

Thanks to Thomas Hawk for the heads up on this great article.

Oil Meet Water: Link Tracking in Firefox

Firefox developer Darin Fisher posted recently that the Firefox development team is adding a feature that will notify a designated server every time a link is clicked on. The idea is that, every time a visitor clicks on a link that includes this feature, Firefox will send notification pings to the designated server.

Correctly anticipating the community response, Darin assures us that “this change is being considered with the utmost regard for user privacy.” The idea, he says, is to enable commonly used link tracking mechanisms to get out of the critical path and thereby reduce the time required for visitors to see the page they clicked on.

Leaving aside the bigger question of why anyone should be allowed to track our comings and goings from a web site (lots of sites do this, including, to an extent, Newsome.Org, which currently uses Google Analytics for traffic analysis purposes), let’s think about this for a second.

Wishful Thinking

In a perfect world, no one would do any sort of link tracking and we could all come and go in perfect and blissful privacy. Of course in a perfect world, everyone would turn in all of their weapons too, and we’d live in peaceful, weapon-free harmony. Since people are as unlikely to stop link tracking as they are to destroy all their weapons, we have to deal with the fact that link tracking and traffic analysis are here to stay.

We also have to keep in mind, however, that privacy is both an important requirement of most web users and a rallying cry for both reasonable people and the lunatic fringe any time someone screams that someone else is trying to take it away. So Firefox has to proceed carefully and with caution.

Here in the Real World

If we have to accept link tracking, does the proposed Firefox implementation improve things? Embedding objects and redirecting links in the name of traffic analysis is not my area of expertise, so I have to go on what I’m told and logic.

First of all, if this implementation will, in fact, materially reduce server loads and wait times as I move from one page to the next, I’m all for it. On the other hand, if it will only marginally do so, but will further erode my already limited privacy, them I’m not for it. Also, I wouldn’t want to encourage even more link tracking by making it too easy.

Just to show off my math skills, let’s do some formulas on the whiteboard:

Faster surfing + equal privacy = OK

Much faster surfing + only slightly less privacy = Probably OK

Much faster surfing + materially less privacy = Not OK

Anything + more link tracking and similar stuff = Not OK

Let me put my slide rule back in my pocket and we’ll continue.

Will It Work With What We Have?

Another issue that I wonder about but can’t address is whether this new approach will be usable by and embraced by all of the tracking services and implementations currently in use. In other words, can Google Analytics use this implementation to make its service more efficient? If so, would it?

I don’t have the know-how or the inclination to change the way I handle my traffic analysis just to save a few milliseconds between pages, and I bet most other bloggers feel the same way. Ease of implementation seems to me to be the key to widespread effectiveness.

Opting Out

One potentially saving grace is that this feature can be disabled via your Firefox configuration. Granted, not many people will know about the feature (pinging, unlike some redirects, is invisible) or enough about the issue to think of disabling it, but it’s better to have the ability and not use it than to want it and not have it.

Conclusions

The jury’s still out on this feature. My knee-jerk reaction is that it’s a bad idea, because Firefox is supposed to be one of the freedom fighters working to keep “The Man” out of our hair and off our computers. But if all it does is make something that’s going to happen anyway less intrusive, then maybe it’s OK.

As is often the case, the devil will be in the details.

More Discussion on this issue at:

Download Squad
RC3.Org

Dpoll AJAX Polls: Cast Your Vote Here

I learned about Dpolls via a post at ProBlogger. It looks like a neat little service, though I don’t like to use iframes, which it relies on.

So what do you think about it:

[no longer available]

The Argument for Gather

citizenjournalism There is a long and thoughtful post at Mister Snitch about the citizen media movement which, combined with all the venture capital money out there chasing deals, might just make the About.Com-inspired, Wikipedia-be-damned, bloggers-come-a-runnin’ model proposed by Gather work.

Maybe. Let’s take a closer look.

There’s a Lot of Money Chasing Deals

This is absolutely true. For the time being. A market disruption, Steve Rubel’s predicted Web 2.0 crash and any number of other things could change that. But for now, there is no arguing that there’s mad money out there. Candidly, I believe the Gather funding that kick-started this conversation is proof positive of this.

Mister Snitch compares the Gather plan with the current structure of Blogcritics, where contributors get paid in “attention and swag” as opposed to dollars. Yes, we can all agree that dollars are better (with all due respect to Steve Miller), but all those writers posting at Blogcritics (which is a cool site, by the way), can also post their material on their own blogs and (drum roll please) make money there to go with the attention and swag.

Bottom line: I doubt Eric is all that worried about Gather.

Will the Reporters Come, Even if the Bloggers Don’t?

Another point Mister Snitch makes is that all the soon to be unemployed reporters at all of the dying on the vine newspapers may turn to Gather in the hopes it will enable them to make an independent living by blogging on local events.

I agree that newspapers are dying and that there will be a local trend to the news reporting of the future (in whatever form it takes).

But what I don’t agree with is the idea that somehow Gather will be a better platform for these local bloggers (nee beat writers). Why not just do your own blog or some sort of loosely based blog network with a shared AdSense account. Again, where is the value Gather will add that warrants a share of the revenue?

I’m not trying to pick on Gather. To the contrary, I think it will be an ideal outlet for a select number of (likely not technically savvy) writers, who don’t want to fool with the whole blog thing. I just don’t think it represents some evolutionary advance in the writing, attracting readers and generating ad revenue arena. At best it will be a leading online newspaper, hiring reporters (via a revenue share) the same way traditional newspapers hire writers now. There’s not a thing wrong with that, but it’s not a stop the presses moment (to borrow a phrase) in the development of the blogosphere.

Mad Money Accelerates the Demise of the Traditional Newspaper

Mister Snitch also talks a lot about the acceleration of the end of traditional print media in the face of wild spending on these move to the edge, citizen media driven, online sources.

Clearly, I agree with this. Like many other areas, the movement to the edge will result in the banishment of the traditional gatekeepers, be they record labels, radio stations or newspapers. As Mister Snitch correctly points out, Craigslist, Monster and eBay have already taken a lot of the traditional revenue sources away from the traditional newspapers.

The clock is ticking for traditional newspapers. Once our parents’ generation passes, the clock will stop. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.

The Continuing Interest in Local News

I also agree Mister Snitch that the failing health of the traditional newspapers has nothing whatsoever to do with a lack of interest in local news. Sadly, however, the local newspapers don’t have the same talents and resources to reposition themselves as the leaders in local online news as their new born-online competitors do. For one, they move too slowly, as the Digg/Google Pack story indicates.

Additionally, the move to the edge will benefit citizen media (bloggers and aggregated blogs) first and foremost. Old media was the gatekeeper for a long time and once that wall is knocked down, human nature will dictate a change in the parties responsible for distribution of news and other content.

I do think that the one and only chance traditional newspapers have is to go online completely by putting it all out there for free and trying to move their ad sales online. One thing newspapers know how to do is sell ads. But every day that passes makes this transformation harder and less likely.

The Counter Arguments

Mister Snitch then examines and makes the counter-argument against a couple of the arguments posed by myself and others over the past couple of days.

In general, the rebuttal to these argument is that a lot of the existing networks and mega-blogs are brands themselves- such that anyone who leaves can be quickly replaced. And that Gather is trying to be a platform where the writers are the brand, not the website. OK, but that’s true of any blog created and manned by these writers. Other than the fact Gather seems to plan on selling ads directly, what’s different about this and an AdSense supported blog or blog network?

The other argument, which we all know is dear to my heart, is that it would take too long for one of these displaced writers, acting independently, to build an audience. Certainly I agree with that, but as a lot of people have explained to me in the comments here and in cross-blog conversations, it can be done. Any “A-List” writer would have an audience that would follow him or her to the new location. Others could slug it out like I do or create or join a blog network. Again, what’s the Gather advantage here?

Then Mister Snitch goes into the “best of the best in one place” argument, which sounds an awful lot like an attempt to be the online gatekeeper. Maybe that will work, but there are two problems with it: one, the implication that Gather will choose the best of the best (surely not everyone can write there) implies a troubling subjective element; two, the best writers will find an audience, whether they write at Gather, at their own blog or on subway walls.

My Conclusions

Mad money will allow the rise of a few of these print media to online content websites and a few of them will become major players in the blogosphere, but Steve is right, the party won’t last forever. Additionally, my extensive experience in the blogosphere’s forefather, the internet message boards, taught me that the best, most popular writers will eventually want to own their platform. So eventually the money will move on and the writers will jump ship. Like the demise of the traditional newspaper, the only question is when.

My Ship Has Come In!

Just a little bit ago, while I was watching Tom and Jerry with the girls, I got this exciting email:

From: Richard D. Forrester, Esq. (For Trustees)
Managing Partner (Aaron & Partners LLP, Cheshire, England CH1 1HG)

Notification of Bequest.

On behalf of the Trustees and Executor of the estate of Late Engr. Mark Halligan, I once again try to notify you as my earlier letter was returned undelivered. I hereby attempt to reach you again by this same email address on the WILL. I wish to notify you that late Engr. Mark Halligan made you a beneficiary to his will. He left the sum of Nine Million, One Hundred Thousand US Dollars(US$9,100,000.00) to you in the codicil and last testament to his will.

This may sound strange and unbelievable to you, but it is real and true. Being a widely travelled man, he must have been in contact with you in the past or simply you were nominated to him by one of his numerous friends abroad who wished you good. Engr. Mark Halligan until his death was a former managing director and pioneer staff of a giant construction company (JULIUS BERGER). He was a very dedicated Christian who loved to give out. His great philanthropy earned him numerous awards during his life time. Late Engr. Mark Halligan died on the 9th day of February 2004 at the age of 82 years, and his WILL is now ready for execution.

According to him this money is to support your humanitarian activities and to help the poor and the needy.

Please If I reach you as I am hopeful, endeavor to get back to me as soon as possible by email: richardd.forrester@personal.ro to enable me conclude my job. You should forward along your current telephone number, including your current mailing address.

I hope to hear from you in no distant time.

Yours in His service,

Richard D. Forrester, Esq.

***

How exciting it feels to be rich. I’m not bothered by the fact that nowhere is my name mentioned. Or that some big time British lawyer uses an msn address to send mail and an email address in Romania for replies. I just wonder if the “Esq.” means he is a lawyer or the son of a British nobleman. Probably both.

You always hear about people falling for these things, but I honestly can’t believe that these dumbasses really believe anyone will fall for this or that anyone will.

I bet the real Richard Forrester would be stoked to find out someone is impersonating him in such a fine manner.

This lame attempt at a scam reminds me of one of the funniest lines from one of the funniest movies ever: “The Ring! I can’t believe you fell for the oldest trick in the book! What a fool, what’s with you man, c’mon!?”