I must admit I have a pair of Cloverdale Park 25th Anniversary Edition Air Force 1′s. They are actually a bit tight, making them a bit uncomfortable and they are kinda heavy. But that’s more a sizing issue as they only had limited sizes when I bought them at the Nike Factory.

There’s a lot of documentaries about Nike Air Force 1. This particular documentary is part of WBF (World Basketball Festival) in New York which is sponsored by Nike. This looks like an awesome 4 days of celebrating the best sport in the world (MMA/UFC is second).

Nike also created this series of online docos called 1Love, which highlights the 5 boroughs in New York (Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, Bronx, Manhattan). They also have a video for Harlem, but I don’t think Harlem is a borough, and there’s no video for Manhattan. But enjoy nonetheless!

If you want to check more video’s look here:

Air Force 1, Part 1
Air Force 1, part 2
Top 100 Air Force 1 (Prolly my most favourite video, especially part 2)

As I have gotten older and the use of mobile phones have become more prevalent, there’s a culture of I’m out and about, I’ll give you a call and see where you are. I might have an approximate idea from an earlier conversation of where my friends are. But there’s no guarantee that I’ll stay there because I’ll see where the night takes me. We have more opportunities, more friends and more venues to visit.

An application like Foursquare / Gowalla tells you where you friends are when they have arrived and they decide to check-in. You can also see who else is at the venue. It’s great as post check-in data. However, you don’t know if your friend has left the building and moved on, and where they might be heading.

It would be *fantastic* if you could do a pre-checkin into a venue using a service like Plancast.

This could prove quite stalkerish intrusive, however hear me out.

Scenario #1: Meeting up at a Bar

I’m currently at work on a Friday afternoon. I plan to meetup with 7 friends to catchup at Bar #1. I have dinner plans at 7pm with another friend. I can do a precheck-in with destination  (similar to airline pre-checkin over the web) e.g. Bar #1. The approximate time of arrival could be also included. I could SMS them all, but don’t really want to SMS a group of 7 people.

At 7pm, my friends can see that I’m currently at a restaurant as I have “checked-in”. It’s currently 8.20pm and I’m running late. When I leave the restaurant, I can “checkout”. So my friends know that I have left and potentially on my way. Yes, I know I could also call them.

My friends have arrived at Bar #1 and I can see this on Foursquare as some of them have checked-in. Other associates can drop by, knowing that I’m at the bar.

Now, the data on my location based service is not old. Foursquare checkin’s have a timestamp, but I do not know if they are still at the venue. I might stay at a bar for 10mins or 3 hours. With a pre-checkin service and a post check-out service it adds greater utility and relevance to the user.

The main point is that I can pre-select a destination of arrival and my friends/associates can decide to join me during the night. Note – I don’t recommend this scenario if you have a stalker =)

Other benefits of Pre check-in services

I’ve listed a few other benefits of pre-check in data. Here’s how some pre-check in data looks like from my Plancast account. As you can see, I can view where people are going to be, what conferences, events and activities they are doing. I can also potentially hit “count me in” and meet up with them.

Scenario #2: Holiday Planning

If I was to head to a destination and do a plan where I’m going to be, then services/goods could be sold to me in advance.  For example, I’m heading to South East Asia next week. I’m planning to be in Bangkok, Thailand. Imagine, if I could receive offers from businesses like restaurants, bars, entertainment venues based on my location planning and activities I’m interested in BEFORE I arrive.

A hotel could say “would you like to stay 2 nights here”. A local restaurant could say “1 free meal with every main bought”. Perhaps I would like to see a  Thai kickboxing match and purchase a ticket in advance.

Scenario #3: Conference networking

I like to go to a lot of random conferences, often with a digital bent. I would like to know who’s going in to get a gauge of the crowd, who I might meet there, if its worth going to and importantly, if I know anyone attending!

That’s why I like Eventbrite when the attendee list is open. You can see names, positions, and companies attending. This is where Plancast is quite good. I can also see other interesting events that my peers are attending.

Scenario #4: Temporal events like concerts and conferences

My belief is that foursquare /Gowalla, etc.. works better with permanent venues and you can get tips, see visits, etc… When I attend The Forum, in the Entertainment Quarter in sydney, there were a bunch of people that left notes about the venue in relation to other concerts.

But the data gets old. And sometimes events do not occur in permanent venues. For example, the Microsoft Foursquare meetup happened at Martin Place. People that did not know of the event will not understand that it is not a venue. They might even think the event is still on!

It needs to distinguish between an event and a venue.

Scenario #5: Encouraging others to attend

Sometimes I like to post events I’m attending to encourage others to come. Its always more comforting and sometimes more fun if a colleague or friend attends. When my basketball team was in the finals, I posted the location and time on Plancast and then shared it via facebook. It was great as as “upcoming event” you should attend! Here is an example of a concert I was heading to and wanted friends outside of my immediate circle to come.

Similarly, if friends know that I’m heading to particular venue such as a bar, and they are at different locations, they are more likely to drop by. It could be too late in the night to suddenly change plans after I see a check-in from a friend.

I’m hoping for a Plancast integration with Foursquare / Gowalla. That would be mega interesting, along with a check-out feature.

I’m out like Mel Gibson’s temper,

Matthew Ho

You Like?

I’ve added some new plugins into the blog which you may notice including the Facebook Like button.

I have wanted to add this since Facebook introduced this feature a few months ago. It allows you to “like” a webpage and notify your facebook friends. Its great because its a personal recommendation and so easy for users to undertake this action.

I thought that I needed to paste some code into the css/html settings. However, the wordpress open source community has created an easy plugin that only requires a few clicks. The thing I love about WordPress hosted blogs is the access to the treasure trove of plugins which do not require any technical ability to install. I’ve long been an advocate of simple, easy and low tech solutions.

Adding the Facebook Like button

These instructions are only for wordpress hosted blogs (as this is what I use). These are the blogs that have been installed onto a server. For example, it does not include the ones that end in “.wordpress.com”.

1. Search in the plugins section for “Facebook like”. There are a number of options. I chose the first in the list by Ahmed Hussein as it had the most installations. This gave me confidence as approximately 27,000 other people had done it.

2. Click install. It should automatically activate the Facebook Like plugin (too easy!).

3. You will be asked to fill out some settings. Firstly, you need the AppID for XFBML version.  Click “Don’t have one”. As long as you have a Facebook login (i.e. an account), it will connect automatically when you use your FB credentials.

4. You are required to enter your site name and site URL. For the URL ensure you have a “/” e.g. http://inspiredworlds.com/

Facebook Application Key

I’ve installed it on two blogs, and both times it did not seem to connect on the first try. However, it actually did it. If you refresh, you can try it again. Then get the API code and paste it into the Facebook Like settings on your blog.

5. Other settings to choose (see pic below):

Facebook Like WordPress Settings

• Decide whether you want to show the like button on homepage, posts, or pages. I’ve gone for homepage and posts.
• Before or after content. I generally like to have it “after content”. So when you are finished reading you can hit the button.
• I have chosen not to display faces i.e. facebook profiles. I would prefer to remain anonymous, and I suspect most people would too on a public site. It just becomes a numbered count i.e. “2 people like this”.
• I’m using the standard “like” rather than “recommend” text.

How easy is it to install the Facebook Like button!

If you like this post hit the facebook like button =)

I’m out like Myspace,

Matt Ho.

]]> http://inspiredworlds.com/2010/07/11/adding-facebook-like-button-to-wordpress-blog/feed/ 0 http://inspiredworlds.com/2010/07/01/read-all-about-it/ http://inspiredworlds.com/2010/07/01/read-all-about-it/#comments Thu, 01 Jul 2010 09:32:45 +0000 Matthew Ho http://inspiredworlds.com/?p=938 My company (lets call it “ND”) has published a blog. It’s been in the works for a while. You can check out my contribution which is titled “Trends in Australian social media usage“.

Here is my article also featured in our newsletter (which is sent to clients and staff).

Hopefully there’ll be more to come!

1. How a small group can start a trend, create a tipping point and influence greater adoption. Where can we find these early adopters, how can we tell what is cool? Malcolm Gladwell has written a short essay more than 10 years ago on the art of the Coolhunt. If you have  read Tipping Point, you’ll recognise the reference to the rise of Hush Puppies. Love the stories about basketball sneakers and AI!

2. What would it be like to work for Google? Don Dodge discusses what it has been like working for the search giant for the last 6 months, and how it compares to another giant which everyone wanted to work at in the 80′s – Microsoft.

3. Speaking of Googlers, check out the 22michaels blog on careers and risk taking. Ex-Googlers Michael talks about the greatest career risk – not following your passion and dreams. Follow their rollercoaster ride!

4. I’ve been reading this Fred Wilson’s  blog for the last few months, and its quite insightful. He became quite well known as an investor in twitter, foursquare and tumblr. Here he discusses why he doesn’t like share buybacks – an subtle signal that a company is not innovating and has nothing better to do with the money.

5.  The pay for news content model is getting hammered left, right and centre. Clay Shirky, respected academic blogs about why the iTunes model won’t work for news. I’ll give you the short version: each news article is a unique item which consumers only read once. Unlike music or movies where consumers will play or view them multiple times, and there is a longtail back catalogue. Of course, Steve Jobs will tell you otherwise.

6. QANTAS plane boarding passes redesigned. Blogger Jordan Sim discusses how we can improve the user experience of boarding passes based on how users read information (left to right) and ordering the information in a logical order. Size is also an interesting point.

7. Keeping with the travel theme, want to travel to India? I’ve been living vicariously through my friend Pace J Miller who went to Hyderabad, India. I thought the traffic in Vietnam and Shanghai was bad. Here it goes to another level! India, I will go see you one day.

8. Lastly, there is no better place for hip hop music than Kevin Nottingham. Here, you can get a free download of the Just Wright movie mixtape Vol 3. Check this blog for free mixtapes, albums and singles on the regular!!

I’m out like crossing the road in India,

Matthew Ho.

I have been meaning to write about this topic for a long time. The linchpin has been discovering this presentation via Mark Cuban’s blog, who knows a thing or two about online video himself given he is the chairman of HDNet and sold Broadcast.com for a bajillion dollars.

This slide deck is from Netflix. Its very honest and insightful into where this company is going, the opportunities, the threats and the future of entertainment. Check it.

My own personal thoughts

What’s really pissing me off at the moment is my data limit on my ISP and the random wi-fi disconnections. It happens when someone in my family yells out:

“hey we’re reaching our limit! We’re X% over, stop watching online video!”

Clearly, we do not have the infrastructure or the networks yet that can cope with high usage, fast internet speed. Nor am I on the correct data plan. YET. I do hear there’s this thing called the NBN being built and WiMax.

I love watching movies and tv shows. I love watching stuff on Youtube, tvshack, from blogs, friend’s videos on facebook, Hulu, etc… I smashed “How To Make It In America” in like 3 days (8 episodes makes it easy). I’ve just watched Book of Eli, A-Team, Hot Tub Time Machine, Zombieland, Invention of Lying, one episodes of Gruen Transfer in the past 2-3 weeks.

On average I watch several videos a week. I’ll also throw in some UFC action, NBA (in season), worldcup, Masterchef, Underbelly, etc… The majority of these I watch from my computer or from my tv.

I’m telling you – the future is going to be streaming. If I miss an episode of Masterchef or Underbelly on tv, I watch it streamed online. It gets posted up by the Network the following day. It’s just so much easier watching it online when I want to.

The alternatives in Australia suck

I can’t say that I’ve watched many movies online. Because the better services like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon are not available in Australia. There are ways around it, but I can’t be bothered. Its too much effort. The ones that I can access for streaming do not have great quality. Plus my wifi connection will drop out at some point and I do not want to stream it again from the start or lose my point in the video.

Theoretically speaking, downloading means that I can’t watch it immediately. I would have to wait til when the download finishes (which could be the next day). But sometimes, you have a hankering for a certain movie or tv show. You don’t want to wait. So you have to settle for an alternative. We, well me specifically, are dreaming of a world where this stuff is on demand and affordable.

Currently, Netflix has a leading position in the consumer market in the US. It charges $8.95/month for unlimited streaming of its catalogue. It is focusing on the long tail – not the new releases. This is partly because the studios do not want Netflix to be showing new releases before it is in DVD rental / sales, as it could cannibalise those sales and they probably have existing arrangements that Blockbusters, etc… would have first release.

In Australia, we also have Telstra which has a online streaming consumption model and also iTunes. But these are either too expensive, alacarte and not subscription based.

Parrallels with music

With my music, I do not have a collection on my laptop anymore. I have some music on my phone. Now, I just stream music online. One of my favourite sites is 22tracks, where the music is available to be streamed and has been curated into the newest tracks and by genre.

I occasionally do download music such as free mixtapes or free albums which the artists or music blogs give out. I haven’t purchased music in a long time. The last time was in the States when I bought some mixtapes from Amoeba in Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles 3 years ago. Before that, it would be several years again when I was working down the road from Dirt Cheap CD’s. I’d wander into there and pick up a few hip hop CD’s during lunch.

For me, music has become a commodity. I still love my music. But I no longer want to purchase it or have the need to. I don’t even really download it anymore. I can stream it on demand. I can usually hop onto Youtube and find the songs that I like. There are lots of paid music services out there like Spotify, LaLa, etc… but I think its EXTREMELY difficult to get people to pay for music now, even if its unlimited streaming and storage in the cloud. As consumers are simply used to free. And many of them are not prepared to pay. The horse has bolted.

Back To The Future

I feel that movies and tv shows are also going down this path. We have so many movies available via P2p networks. People have more movies than they can watch. Because they have so many movies, it also devalues them, turning them into commodities.

The future is streaming movies. A mix of tv, cable and online streaming. The question is whether people are prepared to pay for this on demand access. Or will we simply shove better ads into them to entice purchase of goods/services.

I’m out like Australia in the world cup,

Matt Ho.

Let me break it down for you.

First Foursquare Mayor Meetup in Australia

I participated in #officemayor, where Microsoft were doing a promotion to hand out copies of Office 2010. You had a to be a mayor of a venue and you needed to checkin at the venue in Martin Place to get a free copy. Unfortunately, my phone and Optus didn’t want to co-operate, however I did manage to show them my treasured Mayorships and collect my free copy of Office 2010.

Officemayor at Martin Place

The problem was that there wasn’t much mingling or stickiness about this event. Most people came, saw, collected and left within 5 minutes. What they did though was broadcast the event to their social network, creating a ripple effect about it. Whether these same people are going to twitter/blog/etc… about the use of Office 2010 and to upgrade from Office 2007 is another matter. As a launch event it was not bad. Another issue is that not many people other than the digerati know about foursquare so it was a limited audience as not all connect their foursquare check-ins to twitter or facebook (to be honest I find these updates annoying in these news streams).

Foursquare Day Meetup

I also went to the first Foursquare Day meetup at Bar 333 a few months ago. It was on 16 April or 16/4 to Americans… so 4 Square… get it? Whilst there were a few people mocking me for going and the fact that there were only a few people attending made it hard to find. I actually had to go around and ask a few people if they were there for the event.

I think about 12 people turned up, and I had brought 3 friends along that also use the service. Hey it won’t be long before the rest of the crowd are on foursquare (just like how they joined twitter). All I can say is this – there are people that use it and those that demonstrate their passion for it – we call these people fanboys =)

NBA final badges

Also importantly, I discovered how to get two badges during the NBA finals. If you shouted “Go Lakers” or “Go Celtics” on foursquare, you could obtain the badges. Pretty awesome to have the 4 leaf clover as a badge. And you know I had to get both badges!

Location Based Stickers

I’m not so sold on these foursquare stickers that can be placed on shop windows / doors / walls. It kinda looks tacky. I do like the concept of notifying people physically before you enter that it is a foursquare venue. It doesn’t mean that the restaurant or bar is actually good or whether the special is good value. I prefer those crowdsourced comments.

Though the definition of good is relative, so how can we combat this?

If those comments are from people that frequent those types of venues or restaurants, we can attribute a value or a priority to them.

Robert Scoble talks about this and you look at Quora, the new Q&A service. We should be placing a premium on those that have expertise in a particular subject matter or experience.

I drink a lot of milkshakes, in fact its my favourite drink. I’ve had more than my fair share and I’ve had it all around the world. So my tip on whether a milkshake is good or not in a particular restaurant means a lot more than the average joe. A few years ago, my colleague and I were working at the BNP Paribas building on Elizabeth Street. I stumbled across this cafe inside the building that made the most awesome bannana milkshake I had in a long time. And I told her it was good (TRUST!). She had one sip of it and beamed the widest smile and said “you’re right! Its good!!”. Of course, I know my shakes. Now if you ask me about coffee, I have no idea. I never drink the stuff.

I do occassionally have the odd cappucino when I’m in a cafe, but my tip on whether the coffee is good or not doesn’t really mean much. But my tip on milkshakes, YOU BETTER BELIEVE DAT!

Its like those Zagat stickers you see everywhere in New York. It means its been rated by Zagat. So what? It doesn’t mean it was rated highly. We need to be ranking these crowdsourced tips and leveraging off our social networks of people that are like us. We should be able to vote on those tips to increase that peer’s expertise (and vote down if they suck). The more that they frequent cafes, the higher the value should be. It doesn’t necessarily mean there is a direct correlation, but I would tend to trust someone that drinks a lot of coffee at cafes more than someone who drinks it occasionally.

Next post will be about pre check-in as opposed to post check-in service.

I’m out like the Celtics,

Matthew Ho

Nokia's camera phone

Phone Lifecycle vs Consumer Lifecycle

In the world of mobile, the product lifecycle has not really changed much. What has really changed is the consumer lifecycle. Sure phones aren’t made like they were used to like my first phone the NOKIA 5110*.

Our expectations, desires, and wants have dramatically shortened. This has been driven by a culture of consumerism, faster software releases, hardware tweaks and more choice of models backed by multimillion dollar marketing campaigns. Its a culture which Apple has thrived on, by introducing iPods that needed to be replaced every year and I believe this has had a flow on effect to the iPhone.

Hey I’m no different, I’m hanging out to get the HTC Desire. And I’ve only had my HTC Dream for a a bit more than a year. My previous Nokia phone lasted more than several years including several overseas trips. Now I need more heft, cause I want to run Froyo 2.2 and apps that require more processing power. I *need” it because I have an Android blog called GhostInTheDroid. Thats what I tell myself.

I’m out like the 5110

Matt Ho

*This was a classic, no nonsense phone that still works.

What I look at are websites that are interesting to me or have an interesting/unique concept. Another important factor are the people behind the website.

Now, Quora was interesting because the team is made up of ex-facebookers. Not just ordinary employees at Facebook but “Adam D’Angelo, who was previously CTO and VP of engineering at Facebook, and Charlie Cheever, who led Facebook Connect and Facebook Platform”.

So I signed up to Quora a while back, and one day a beta invite popped up in my inbox.

Beta invites are cool because they are not open to the general public and you need to sign up and register your interest. Websites are in beta for a number of reasons, one of these is that they are still in development and might not be able to handle the load if it was open to the public. Having a beta limits the number of users and allows them to get feedback and develop iterations rapidly. The other thing is that it generates a level of excitement in tech geeks who think they have exclusive access (see @inspiredworlds).

Que es Quora? (What is Quora?)

According to the website:

“Quora is a continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it. The most important thing is to have each question page become the best possible resource for someone who wants to know about the question.”

The closest analogy I can come up with is Yahoo Answers. Quora aims to be the best place to find answers or knowledge about a topic. They do this by having the community ask questions, and having the community answer it. Sounds like any forum right ala stackoverflow, or a wikipedia or google’s attempt at knol.

A particular feature is that certain people have expertise in an area, so their answer should be given more weight. The analogy Quora likes to use is if Michael Jordan answers a question about basketball, its not the same if you or I answer the question (though I do claim to know a lot about bball!). Clearly, an expert that answers a question knows a lot more about the topic.

In addition, the community can vote up the answer similar to a forum. The community can also edit the question, summarize answers, categorize, etc…similar to wikipedia. Quora tries to use people with real profiles and real names.

Here is an example below of a question about Firefox’s growth:

Right now, there a lot of interesting questions and insightful answers being posed like the above pic. Mostly, they have a tech skew because these are generally the first adopters of these kind of websites. The quality of the answers and the experts answering them are also really good. You can see in the example above, one of the original co-founders of Firefox answered, then the current CEO, and a bunch of people that use to work there or developers that have worked with it.

So much of the web is uncategorised. When you search in google, you are presented with web pages that best match your keywords. It might not actually ANSWER your question or search intent. What Quora is trying to do is create some sense of order in the web by having the community organise it, and giving priority to experts. The community also help shapes the answers by giving feedback.

Here is an example of a question I answered on Yammer. I corrected the person below who answered Blellow as a competitor. Yes, most people would see it as a competitor but its actually a different service.

One of the issues that I have is that right now there are a lot of really good answers from credible people at lot of tech companies. What will happen when Quora scales? When the questions drift away from tech, will the quality of questions and answers decline? Will it become like Yahoo Answers?

Honestly, I find Yahoo answers a bit of a hit and miss. It comes up often in google searches, but there are a lot of crass comments as well useless junk in there. Much will depend on the quality and willingness of Quora’s community to curate and moderate the content.

You can find a lot of interesting and insightful comments all over the web. Its buried in blogs, forums, reviews, wikis. A major problem is that you don’t know how authoritative or useful that information is. I mean, you can’t believe everything you read on the web right? You don’t know who posted that information or who answered a question, what their experience is with the subject matter. Maybe Quora will help bring some categorisation + order + expertise into topics.

As of this moment, this website is best described as Yahoo Answers meets Wikipedia, with a dash of facebook engineering =)

I’m out like beta invites,

Matthew Ho.

]]> http://inspiredworlds.com/2010/06/10/que-es-quora/feed/ 4 http://inspiredworlds.com/2010/06/09/group-buying-sites/ http://inspiredworlds.com/2010/06/09/group-buying-sites/#comments Wed, 09 Jun 2010 05:13:14 +0000 Matthew Ho http://inspiredworlds.com/?p=852 I decided to take a look at some of the Australian group buying sites. The ones that offer discounts to restaurants, $20 off massages, cheaper drinks, and the like. There’s quite a few now, and some of them have popped up recently like spreets and Scoopon.

These websites got my attention because of similar product buying sites like woot.com and its Aussie equivalent catchoftheday.com.au. Lately Groupon, a social buying site recieved a lot of press and VC funding with its $1 Billion valuation.

I quite like these websites and the idea behind them. As they offer discounts and better deals than if you bought these products or services directly from the supplier. I have used the Entertainment book for a few years now, and really enjoy the savings that you can get. Ironically, you do need to spend money in order to save money! In addition, it introduces you to new services, entertainment and dining venues which you would have never thought of. It gives you ideas of things to try.

I’ve bought goods from catchoftheday before. Occasionally, I receive emails from friends and facebook updates from my social network about JumpOnIt and Scoopon. Both these sites seem relatively new and tend to have a female skew (well at least within my social network!).

Group buying sites for services

The premise of these newer group buying sites that are emerging is that they focus on services and need a critical mass of buyers. Living social is another example.

Initially these kind of websites focused on products – a supplier or manufacturer may have a surplus of stock which they needed to offload. Hence, they could list on catchoftheday or some other website offering daily deals. It was great for the tri-parties involved. The supplier (seller) could quickly get rid of stock and convert it into cash. The website (deal maker) instantly got a lot of traffic from people visiting the site looking for a  deal and a cut of the sales. Lastly, the consumer (buyer) won by buying a product at less than market value (commonly known as a bargain).  These websites have proved popular for quite some time, though I’ve only come across them recently in the last year or so.

I love the idea of focusing solely on one product and offering a superior price for it. As these sites have been built up over time with a loyal following and because the products already existed and needed to be offloaded, there didn’t need to be a threshold level that was required to be reached to sell the product.

This brings me now to the service group buying sites. The way that these sites work is that they require a minimum number of people to buy the service before the deal is “on”. e.g. for today’s deal you might need 20 people to buy the massage service before you can obtain the discount. So it encourages people to tweet, facebook, email and generally share it. I think its perfect for today’s social status obsessed environment. People want to share news about a bargain, and encourage their friends to buy it to help them.

I look at some of these daily deals, and I can see that they can easily smash the required number. For example, yesterday Spreets featured a deal @ Doctor Pongs that for $10 you could get $40 worth of food. A saving of 75%. When I checked it with 11 hours to go, there was already 230 people that had bought the service and it only needed a threshold of something like 30!

Behold The Threshold

A key question is whether these service based sites require a threshold number to be reached. Many businesses have multiple coupons and promotions which they use to bring customers through the door. The idea is that these are lead generators. They might take a hit the first time the consumer uses the coupon, however these discounts are more like advertising. What they are hoping for is:

a) an increase in volume in a short period of time (weeks or months during the promotional period)

b) reaching new customers to consider buying their product/service (marketers like to call this “consideration”)

c) however, it really boils down to repeat transactions and selling them more stuff (upsell, cross-sell, monthly or yearly subscriptions, add-ons, etc…)

By having the threshold, it is easier to sell to the business involved i.e. that you need 30 people before the deal is on. This also makes it worth their while to be involved. The more people that buy the product, the more viable and better priced that discount can be and the better the business can absorb that initial hit. What it creates is an economies of scale. It also allows the business to have a crude prediction of demand for that discount.

The other subtle yet important factor is that if you know that you are going to save money in a transaction, aren’t you compelled to spend slightly more? I know I am the type of person that thinks since I’m saving 25%, I might as well spend $40 more!

However, for these websites to be successful, the thresholds needs to be relatively low. Because most consumers like me, will wait til the threshold is almost within reach. In this Scoopon example below, it is tipped @ 20 people. It is within the range where I would consider buying. It is also worth noting that you do not get charged unless the threshold is reached.

Some other Australian examples

The main reason I started writing this post is what I noticed about these sites. So that was Scoopon above and Jump On It above.

Take a look at OurDeal.com.au

Here is Spreets.com.au, a newer site built by Pollenizer and Booking Angel.

Yes thats right, they all look the same!

I showed a friend of mine, who said exactly the same thing. Its like they’ve all been built on the same CMS (content management system), or by the same design team (doubt it on both counts).

However, more likely, they’ve managed to figure out what is the most optimal way to sell these services and some of them may have just borrowed some elements from each other.

I’m out like buying services on my own,

Matt Ho.

]]> http://inspiredworlds.com/2010/06/09/group-buying-sites/feed/ 5