August 04, 2005

Baidu: Direct Competition as a Way to ...Get Acquired?

... or at minimum to increase your stock price.

Although maybe not a classic dragrace (in the sense of directly comparing oneself as a means of attracting attention), Baidu can definately pride itself on beating Google in China. And Google continues to loose share there.

Baidu announced last month that they would be IPOing (click here to see the notes from their roadshow). Interestingly, they recently raised their price range. And despite/or maybe because of all this competition with the world's hottest stock rumors continue (a year after Google bought some shares in Baidu) that Google may just through in the towel and buy Baidu.

Whatever the outcome, we love that this kind of competition keeps the leader (who prides itself on being scrappy and nimble) on its toes and that being a scrappy, nimble player has big rewards.

Hat tip to the Internet Stock Blog and the China Stock Blog.

(Note: we are partial to the Baidu folks - aside from being really smart, aggressive and nice, they also endorsed our book.)

Posted by johnza at 10:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 25, 2005

Of diamonds, dogged determination, dragraces, and uh, blogs too

Sticking to what you know can really pay off. Nowhere is this more true than in the category of etailing. We have previously written about Blue Nile and how we admired what we saw as their use of onlie to drive a best of both play. But check out Ice.com. These guys, a family that has been in the diamond business for generations, have seen it all from the dizzying heights of the dot.com bubble to its bust.

http://www.forbes.com/2001/01/29/0129ice_print.html

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/oct2002/tc2002101_8420.htm

Nice remaining private

http://sparklelikethestars.com/

http://www.justaskleslie.com/

http://blog.ice.com/

Posted by johnza at 01:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 21, 2005

Making the world safe to dragrace again...

It sure is fun to see a real dragrace in action. This time courtesy of the platform that the iPod has made available for lots of new accessory and add-on players - a perfect dragstrip for others to pour gas into - all to the benefit of the iPod experience and ecosystem.

There's a truly classic dragrace taking place in the category of FM radio transmitters for iPods.

The incumbent is the iTrip from Griffin (have one and like it a lot). Enjoying the glow of praise and a first mover advantage Griffin extends it to a line of "iTrips" for different products and tastes.

Then along comes a challenger. The AirPlay from XtremeMac. And all the dragrace stops get pulled out. I have to hand it to these folks, they are using all the right tricks.

Price matching. Direct comparison. And leading with proof rather than claims (letting someone else with authority speak for you).

Keeping it simple with the rule of three (just three attributes).

And of course we all love to be spectators. This little dragrace already had a whole slew of pundits both professional and bloggers joining in on the debate.

What also great to see is the Griffin response. They are clearly aware of the challenge but not taking the bait and saying "NO. WE ARE STILL BETTER THAN THE AIRPLAY." Why give them any additional free publicity. But they are trying to reinforce the importance of being established without resorting to any comparisons.
As a fan of dragraces in general, I will have to buy both and compare. And keep my eyes out for more. Almost as much fun as they playoffs.

Posted by johnza at 02:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 11, 2005

Google Chase Scene

Is Google dragracing IMBD? Check out Google Movie. Their relatively new feature for searching movies. Just type in "Movie: Lord of" and you get a listing of movies with this, their reviews, coverage, etc. Type in "Movie:" and your zip and you get local movie showings and times.

Very cool. Note that Amazon's IMDB is a true database, allowing you to crosstab on all kinds of things and also to of course buy the moview on Amazon.

Via Netflick Hacks.

Posted by johnza at 04:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 13, 2005

Next chapter in the search wars: Yahoo Desktop Search

The search dragrace drags on. Here's yahoo's recent entry.

Via Battelle.

Posted by johnza at 07:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 16, 2004

Talking with Serena

Was talking with Serena today about the rental business. It is interesting to see how the rental for flatware and other party rentals work. She told me that if you can get someone to rent something four times, you can get a full payback.

Its interesting to see how in Seattle there are folks like AA rentals, but you can't rent speciality items for events and parties.

There is an existing competitor called Choice Linens that does similar things. It will be interesting to see if Serena can find a way around this.

Posted by rich at 12:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 27, 2004

Keyhole and Google

Nice discussion from John Battelle on Google and Keyhole (the satelite mapping company just bought by Google), including a talk with former Keyhole CEO, John Hanke. Interesting to follow:
* 12 terabytes and growing
* geoblogging - allowing you to fly around Keyhole's data and write about spots of interests ("globemarks"?)
* overlays of real time traffic information
* and more

Mega, mega. Now Microsoft and Yahoo have to turn to a dragrace of global proportions ;-)

Posted by johnza at 08:13 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 24, 2004

Microsoft vs. Google: We Can't Seem to Get Enough

Once again, the blogsphere was filled this past week with more talk about the newest of the dragrace battles between Google and Microsoft - desktop search. And I can't help but watch and take notes either.

The latest salvo came from Microsoft when it announced that it too would have an improved desktop search before the end of the year. We'll here's some of what the blogsphere had to say:

• John Battelle of course, was not surprised - Microsoft had to respond (cute Google glasses Bill);
• Mark Williamson, scoffed at the announcement of this date, feeling that Microsoft has already lost all credibility around hitting its dates; he's still waiting for his Hotmail storage to be big enough;
• Emergic highlighted the NYT view that, although lots of folks have entered the search battle, most eyes are on Microsoft and Google with both having so much now at stake in their core business areas.
• The Unofficial Google Weblog notes that amidst all this talk of a future google browser and Microsoft search, Firefox is busy working away. The Firefox toolbar extends now to desktop search and one click access to Gmail and Gmail search. Interesting...
• John Ludwig also ponders all the Google and Firefox happenings and speculations as well as highlights his own performance and development observations and tips.

Posted by johnza at 02:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 18, 2004

The High Cost of Dragraces

Wow. Here's another apt article in today's USA today. This time about the opposite of stealth. It's about the growing dragrace between Netflix and Blockbuster, and the high cost of running it... a full fledged price war and all that entails:
* Netflix lowered its monthly rate to $18 from $22 starting next month.
* Now Blockbuster will cut the price of its recently launched online service to about $17.50, from $19.
* Netflix stock plummeted nearly 41% on Friday, with shares closing at $10.30.
* Bad enough? Now, Amazon might join both Blockbuster and Walmart. Hoo boy.
* Now is it a juicy potential takeover target. Amazon? Yahoo? Barry Diller?

Moral: be careful of dragraces, especially with guys who have lots of gas and powerful cars.

Posted by johnza at 06:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 17, 2004

Behind Enemy Lines: Google Desktop Search

Not surprisingly, there have been a huge number of posts surrounding Google's latest forray into what Microsoft sees as its home turf - desktop search. I have to say, I've downloaded, and while still a bit clunky (like it only found two files when I searched for "playbook"), I think it is nice to do all of this in one place. That said, I still like the tab layout of A9 a lot for doing this multi-output searching. Anyway, here's a brief recap of all the posts and opinions about this interesting next chapter in the Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon battles:

• Scoble doesn't seem too worried and kinda pumped by the looming fight, which he rightly points out is likely to be good for users. He also points out some other DT search engines from companies both small (Copernic and X1) and big (AOL, Yahoo).
• Ross at Strategize is pretty damn enthused and can't wait for the Outlook PST version.
• Frogbody feels the same way.
• John Battelle of course covers this news and has a clear assessment of the implications for Google's long term strategy: i.e. establishing a beachhead on your harddrive, a continuation of the plain old google experience - a blurring of the lines between online and off, more personal data on you in their database, and maybe a true platform - eventually for 3rd party developers. We will see.
• The Unofficial Google Blog notes that it can be used to search private emails. Hmmm... big brother?
• Dave Pell draws an analogy to a body cavity search, but echoes the note of Google's platform ambitions.
• Mark Williamson notes that the only way to access google search of your harddrive is when you are the web. What's behind this? "if you are always connected to the net do you care where your files are stored?"

I'm already using Gmail to back stuff up. Is it the future harddrive in the sky for the masses? Again, will be interesting to watch and play around with.

Posted by johnza at 03:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 05, 2004

Retro Web Presence

You've got to love folks with a look like this. Creative Arts is probably the (or one of the) most "powerful" talent agencies in the world yet look at their website. In this day and age, it is a sign of real power if this is all you need. Of course if you represent Cameron Diaz, Nicole Kidman, Sandra Bullock, Renee Zellweger, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Julia Roberts (who made news when she defected from rival ICM in 2003). Other heavy-hitting clients include actors Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks, musicians Sting and Bruce Springsteen, why do you need a website at all :-) A great example of someone so powerful they don't need to promote in the conventional sense. Their arch-rival is of course ICM who takes a more traditional approach to the web. I love it overall.

Posted by rich at 06:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 02, 2004

AMD

It's interesting to watch to AMD vs. Intel wars particularly on processors.

Intel of course is the giant, but I think it is interesting to see how AMD plays it. They are running an interesting drag race in the processor business. They are of course x86 compatible, but they are trying to use 64-bit to put themselves into a new category.

If you read the earning call you can see how they work to say they are in their own ecosystem with their own partners building their own systems.

It's not easy to do this and IMHO is a great example of trying to run a stealth play (we are in 64 bits and Intel is not), while everyone else thinks that it is a drag race. A great try, although for many folks a stealth add-on play might make more sense.

Still exploiting the 64-bit gap has been amazingly successful for them plus the fact that Intel has had trouble delivering knockout performance and is instead moving to deliver "solutions" like Centrino for mobile, whatever they will call digital home, etc.

What does this mean? Both sides are trying to get out of a drag race and keep from dropping prices. The real end point to a drag race.

Posted by rich at 12:30 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

October 01, 2004

Photostamps

. A cool idea where you could put your kids photo on a real US postage stamp and send it.

Like many great marketing ideas though, there is abuse, so you can imagine what kind of images people are using.

A great example of drag race the stamps.com people are in and how they try to differentiate. Personalization. Ease-of-use. That's the traditional stuff of drag races.

Me, I'm going to order some of these before it all goes away :-)

Posted by rich at 10:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 28, 2004

Travel Drag Race

Great notes from Josh. He was on the team that first worked on Expedia and is doing is own work in the area now in scheduling group travel

Here are his notes on the whole travel space.

The travel meta-search space is currently hot and likely over crowded (Moblissimo, kayak.com, Farechase now part of Yahoo, Sidestep, etc.).  Obviously a ton of money is being spent on travel online (#1 in ad spend and transactions).  Another company you might find interesting for their scrappy approach is "Smarterliving":http://www.smarterliving.com.  Began humbly mid-90s by a guy sending travel deals via email to friends.  Discovered there was demand for this content and has translated that into a very nice ad revenue business.

So it sounds like there are lots of people in a drag race, but folks like Smarter living can do a good job

Posted by rich at 12:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 25, 2004

Google's next plays

We've written a lot about the search engine dragraces (and Amazon's new sort-of-stealthy entry). Here's a nice summation from the Economist on the history and potential future of Google's playbook:

Google now faces a three-way fight [double dragrace] with Yahoo! and Microsoft, which have both vowed to dethrone it as the dominant internet search engine. Yahoo!'s strategy is to interconnect its various online services, from search to dating to maps, in increasingly clever ways, while Microsoft's plan is to integrate desktop and internet searching in a seamless manner, so that search facilities will be embedded in all its software, thus doing away (the company hopes) with the need to use Google. Both firms are also working to improve their basic search technology in order to compete with Google.

In response, Google has gradually diversified itself, adding specialist discussion groups, news and shopping-related search services, and a free e-mail service, Gmail, which is currently being tested by thousands of volunteers. It has also developed “toolbar” software that can be permanently installed on a PC, allowing web searches to be performed without having to visit the Google website, and establishing a toe-hold on its users'PCs.

Google's technical credentials are not in doubt. The question is whether it can maintain its position, as search, the activity where it is strongest, moves from centre stage to being just part of a bundle of services. Yet the example of Gmail shows how search can form the foundation [i.e. platform - if, and only if lot of others make money from it] of other services: rather than sorting mail into separate folders, Gmail users can simply use Google's lightning-fast search facility to find a specific message. So the technology that made Google great could yet prove to be its greatest asset in the fight ahead. Let battle commence.

via Emergic.

Posted by johnza at 06:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Search engine plays on Marketing Playbook

There has been so much activity in this space, thought it would be fun to do a quick retrospective on the entries we have done chronicling the progression of plays in the ever changing google/microsoft/yahoo/amazon playing field.

GMail Drag Race Ho!
Beyond the Google Search Dragrace
Baidu vs. Google -taking a page from your competitor's playbook
Google Moves Toward a Direct Confrontation With Microsoft
Google gains or holds share
Chinese Search Engine Battle: to the loser goes the...
Email dragrace heating up
And the email battle rages on...
Search Turf Wars - Next Chapter
Gmail part of Google moving to plaform play?
Search Engines - let all dragraces bloom
David and Goliath redux redux
A9: What Play is it?

Are we obsessed, not really, but fascinated to watch, yes.

Posted by johnza at 06:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 02, 2004

David and Goliath redux redux

Microsoft sets its sites on Google. - The Unofficial Google Weblog - google.weblogsinc.com
Another chapter in the pending search engine dragrace. Ballmer declares war. This will be fun to watch.

Posted by johnza at 06:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 05, 2004

Search Engines - let all dragraces bloom

Boy this category and all it's offshoot categories just seem to keep germinating more competitive dragraces.

In the past we've written a lot about a company we admire, Baidu, the number one search engine in China who successfully dragraced and won in that market. Well, here comes someone to dragrace them.
According to China Digital News, huge Chinese portal Sohu has entered a new challenger, "its all-inclusive, proprietary search engine under the new brand name SoGou, which means 'Search Dog' in Chinese." Search Engine Journal also noted this news but say's it means "Search Fox." Hmm. Pretty different connotations in English I will have to ask some pals about the Chinese. John Battelle notes that, whether dog or fox the logo looks kind of like some kind of cross-breed (between Ebay, Yahoo, Google, Lycos). What I'm really curious about is what is the real secret sauce, or differntiation in the offering and positioning.

Meanwhile in another search market, yet another dragrace has emerged. Local search has been a huge topic. How come it is so hard to find stuff I want where I want it. (Note that local advertising is still the lion's share of the market outside of search). So now for the local search dragrace.
First there was Google's Local Beta. Which John Battelle, noted when it first came out still needed work. Now, there's a beta of Yahoo Local which Battelle seems to like. I need to check them out but I really look forward to hearing his comparison and to watching the dragrace mount (keeping my eyes out for MSN local too).

Posted by johnza at 09:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 30, 2004

The Potential Power of Being Number 2

I love this entry from The Origin of Brands Blog: What should you do if you are #2?

I've alway's found #2 positions really interesting opportunities. They can be the best thing for driving attention and eventually winning a dragrace. By contrasting and picking on the big guy you have a lot to gain and they a lot to loose.

As Laura Ries points out,

"A strong #2 brand needs to position themselves as the opposite of the leader.

Listerine: bad-tasting mouthwash
# 2 Scope: good-tasting mouthwash

Home Depot: messy, male-oriented
# 2 Lowes�: neat, female-oriented

Coke: older people
# 2 Pepsi: younger people

Microsoft: proprietary-software
# 2 Linux: open-source software

Wal-Mart: always low prices, messy
# 2 Target: cheap chic, wide aisles, neat

Mercedes-Benz: big, comfortable cars
#2 BMW: smaller, “driving” machines

Republicans: conservative
# 2 Democrats: liberal
(Rank determined by which party is defending the White House)"

This strategy can work great - look at Microsoft Word and Excel (in the old days) picking on WordPerfect and Lotus123 (#1 Established, complex key strokes, # 2 GUI and easy to use). And of course look at how long Avis has used it's "We try harder" position to good use.

Posted by johnza at 11:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 10, 2004

It's keeps on going - Yahoo buys Oddpost

Thanks Rajesh Jain and Paul Kedrosky for the heads up. In the what seem like ever escalating stakes in the yahoo/gmail/hotmail dragraces, here's a new development.

Yahoo just bought Oddpost, the service/tool that has a very nice, integrated RSS reader and a bunch of fans and their own blog (of course).

Of course, they also had their detractors and switchers, cause gmail was turning up the heat.

Interestingly, they were already on some kind of Yahoo stealth play - they aleady let you use Oddpost to read your Yahoo mail. Wonder what the next move will be.

Posted by johnza at 06:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 02, 2004

Orkut, Friendster and social networking

Google sued over Orkut bug replication feature | The Register. It's amazing how a trend can start and there can a be a whole host of players. A good example if Friendster and Google's versions called Orkut.

These are great examples of sites that are driving for popularity. Friendster has 2M users and they are not just chatting (uhmmm) online. Amazing what basic instincts lead you.

In any case, like online dating, these sites represent the epitomy of drag races, get out there, drive for momentum and get to a tipping point where if everyone is on a network, then you win.

These things combine two ideas, first there is Metcalf's Law, the value of network increases as the square of the number of users, and also the Tipping Point where, if you can get to that kind of geometric expansion pretty much you own the world.

Where is the Tipping Point, or the point where folks can't catch up. Well, for products we've worked on that point has been around the 5% mark if you can get at the influentials. Before the Tipping Point, there was the theory fo the influential end-users used at Microsoft in the late 1980s. This was all about getting the most influential core of users to talk about your product (whether hush puppies or Excel) and get them to recommend it.

Its why so many drag races like social networking, ebay auctions have this incredible property that lots of people an start and there is one sustainable winner.

Posted by rich at 09:25 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Search Turf Wars - Next Chapter

This week's announcement by Microsoft of it's new moves into search are the next salvo in the ongoing turf battle/drag race between Microsoft and Google. You can get a brief peak at the "Sandbox." Have to say my initial tests underscore that this is still very much a work in progress or just the first "baby steps". What will happen? Can the new and more scrutinized Microsoft still turn up the heat and come to dominate this space? Big question, especially in light of Google's move last month into the home turf of MSFT, the desktop - with the announcement of "Puffin" it's desktop search tool. Paul Kedrosky sees this as a very smart move to grow and grab stickiness. A kind of thrust and parry long overdue to keep MSFT on the run. Others see that MSFT Longhorn search may have some advantages but either that they may be too late or that desktop search is kind of irrelevant anyway. I don't know. Finding stuff on my computer seems just as hard or harder than on the net. I hope this battle results in a better answer for consumers and not just a lot of scorched earth.

Posted by johnza at 02:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 27, 2004

And the email battle rages on...

Looks like a three way email Dragrace is now in full force. Do something pioneering, unique and attention-grabbing and you won't be alone for long. As noted before, Yahoo quickly copied Gmail's free storage play with their own. Well, now Hotmail has jumped on the megastorage bandwagon with what some think of it's own "gratuitous" offering. Now things get really interesting. Of course, controversy and suspicion immediately arose with Microsoft in the game, to the point of buzz that Hotmail was blocking Gmail invites (including a post from me on the subject). Talk about a SPAM filter. But it turned out not to be true - we tested it. All that said, the all the PR buzz and heat still seem to be in Gmail's favor. Frogbody has a very nice summary of what they did right in marketing Gmail. Covered all the bases, from product offering, to positioning, to targeting. (And hey, it was a great way to generate noise in what is supposed to be a quiet period.) But one key thing seemed to make all the difference. Scarcity. As noted by MediaPost, By Invitation Only added prestige, cache and a sense of preciousness that verged on lunacy. Everyone wants a Gmail beta account. Why? For one thing, the chance to have first (or at least early) crack at getting a cool name. I know that was a key thing for me. Also, it got very cool to be able to give them as little "Aren't I cool?" gifts. This notion reached it's peak in my POV with the launch of Gmail for troops that takes donations of email accounts and sends them over there. Click here for even more wacky reasons people are frothing to get a Gmail account. There is a contrary view. For one thing. They haven't made it oparticularly easy for users of the competition to switch(makes me think of how important �help for 123 users� inside Excel during the spreadsheet dragraces), although we did find this nice little guide. Given that Gmail is still in beta and Hotmail and Yahoo are not, is Gmail missing the boat? Are they going to have their thunder stolen? Who knows? But the good thing about dragraces is they are fun to watch. And this one has clearly changed the shape of the email playingfield permanently.

Posted by johnza at 09:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 21, 2004

The next leg of the email dragrace

Strategize: Hotmail Blocks Gmail Emails (and Invites) We were wondering why Hotmail seemed so strangely silent in all the buzz on the yahoo vs. gmail dragrace. Well now they enter the race or at least try to slow it down, by supposedly blocking email from gmail. Hmmm... Doesn't seem very sporting.

Posted by johnza at 09:46 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 16, 2004

Email dragrace heating up

A lot of talk around the blogsphere noting the next leg in the free email Dragrace: Davenetics says Yahoo's increase in free space and functionality was not a moment to soon. The Unofficial Google Weblog says "2GB of mail, No Adversitising and a new interface. WOWOWOWow!!! Take that, GMail." Frogbody does not think this will cut it. Yahoo's announcement is just too me too. John Battelle, of course, provides a full review in what he describes as the next shot in an ongoing war of attrition that is not really about email at all but is really about registration. Interestingly enough, also check out Gmail is too creepy for a very different perspective on the whole Gmail phenom.

Posted by johnza at 07:38 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 15, 2004

Chinese Search Engine Battle: to the loser goes the...

Not long ago we noted how Baidu (a local Chinese search engine) beat Google in a terrific Dragrace (see also Real SEO for some of the stats). Well, the thick plottens. After losing it's race, now, according to China Herald AP, and MarketingVox, Google is buying a stake in Baidu. John Battelle notes that some think this was a response to Yahoo's investment in Beijing 3721. If you can't beat 'em buy 'em. Often happens if you have a strong enough Platform, you embrace and extend. Well, still hope Baidu can keep Google on it's toes, even with some of their money in the bank.

Posted by johnza at 06:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 11, 2004

It�s not personal, it�s just business. Or is it?

VentureBlog: The Who Hates Who Of The Technology World We've talked alot about Dragraces as the most typical Marketing Play. Can be a very smart, rational strategy. Defines your advantage, draws attention and is fun to watch. But sometimes maybe it goes beyond the rational. David Hornick observed from the "All Things Digital Conference" that in tech many of these rivalries may go beyond the hard core rational business strategy dimension. The leaders actually, kinda hate each other. Here's his list: - Gates hates Google - Jobs hates HP, Dell, Gateway, etc. - Fiorina hates Dell (and pities Sun). - Rollins hates HP (and R&D). - Ellison hates . . . yes, you guessed it . . . Gates. Human nature, ain't it fun?

Posted by johnza at 10:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 08, 2004

Google gains or holds share

A bunch of new stats from the ongoing search Drag Race. Marketing Tom notes that (at least in Europe) Google gained 0.3% of the search engine market moving share numbers as follows: 1. Google 56.4% 2. Yahoo 21.1 3. MSN Search 9.2% 4. AOL Search 3.8% 5. Terra Lycos 2.0 Visual Knowledge highlights new stats from Internet Retailer.com on share of total traffic combined across search and portal: 1. Yahoo.com, 29.24% 2. Google.com, 15.26% 3. MSN.com, 11.26% 4. Search.Yahoo.com, 10.01% 5. Search.MSN.com, 7.24% This is a 21% year/year gain for Google and declines for Yahoo and MSN. Meanwhile Cooee notes that for all this, Google still only represents 2.7% of all web visits. Search as a whole is 14%, while - surprise, surprise - porn is 18.8%. Hmmm...

Posted by johnza at 04:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 07, 2004

Salesforce.com Violation

The New York Times just reported that Marc Benioff's statements in a previous article with them may have been the cause of a violation with the SEC. According to EWeek, Salesforce.com denies this but has nonetheless delayed their IPO. The Street calls this "cooling off." Well, a number of blogs have been saying for some time that Mr. Benioff should do just that. While Paul Kedrosky came to his defense, sort of, "Benioff would vibrate wildly and then burst into flames if he ever had to stop talking about his company... Far from hyping his company, Benioff is actually saving his own life." Maybe, but PR Opinions is scratching its head over this miss of PR 101. Whatever the case, although a Dragrace Play has served Salesfoce.com well growing to the point of IPO. Maybe now they will finally understand, that even raging companies need to shift to Stealth mode now and again.

Posted by johnza at 04:01 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 23, 2004

Gates/MSFT late to the blogging party?

Joi Ito's Web: Bill Gates talks about blogging Joi Ito's blog is one of a lot of discussions arising from Billg's recent little tutorial on blogging at his big CEO summit (see full transcript, and see Reuters story). One perspective, that a friend just posed to me: isn't Gates late to the party? I wonder. Microsoft is often late to the party, and those have usually been its biggest successes (word processing, spreadsheets, browsers). To mangle metaphors nicely: fast followers who are late to the party often make better dragracers because they are still sober while the other guys are getting drunk on their early success. Heck, Ford was late to the sports car party and they created the ultimate dragracer for the masses. The mustang. Now Joi wonders whether this means that the whole blogging thing is going to turn into another war/dragrace between Google/Atom and Microsoft/RSS. Robert Scoble at Microsoft thinks not. But it still leaves you wondering. Meanwhile, Hugh Hacleod at gapingvoid seems just fine with all this. He basically feels like getting a big gorrilla like MSFT in there indicates that blogging and blog publishing tools are going mainstream. And that's OK. Especailly if it means he gets more free space to publish and push sales of his blogcards. For some further thought on this topic check out: - Joe Wilcox of Microsoft Monitor/Jupiter Research. He thinks Billg gets it. That he understand blogging as outside the Windows OS world and in need of bringing in. - Mary Jo Foley of Microsoft Watch. Sees Gates as doing a nice job of being a blogging spokesperson for normal business people. (more from her on other MSFT blogging thoughts, announcements, etc.) - Ben McConnell of Church of the Customer, also has been noting Microsoft's Blog March. Whatever your perspective, this will be interesting to watch.

Posted by johnza at 05:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 18, 2004

Broadband Drag Race Final Plays

Techdirt:Broadband Tiering Based On Intended Use?. Well, in the US you don't see it yet as everyone is beating each other over the head to get broadband into homes. A classic drag race. If I'm 10MB to the home then I must be 10x better than that cruddy 1MB stuff. BT is going to move to a tiered price scheme. A good example of what happens towards the end of a drag race. You start segmenting and differentiating when shares get tight. Remember when every PC was beige with a monitor on top. Segments happen at the end of drag races is the lesson.

Posted by rich at 10:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Baidu vs. Google -taking a page from your competitor's playbook

Chinese Google, Baidu, eyes IPO - The Unofficial Google Weblog - google.weblogsinc.com We've seen a lot written about Google's new plays - Dragracing others on gmail and moving toward becoming more of a Platform. But here is an interesting development. In China, Google dragraced and lost. To a start up called Baidu that was built on only $11MM. Baidu's president has the right spirit for this play: "As a scientist by training, I am a little bit obstinate and I wanted to know how best I could use my talent... The most effective weapon for us is continuous upgrading of our technology and enrichment of our function. Then users will decide who is the winner." Reading directly from the Google book, Baidu began generating profits last year and 80 percent of the revenue came from paid listings.

Posted by johnza at 06:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 17, 2004

Great Analysis of Movable Type

Paul Musgrave Dot Com: MT makes a wrong turn. Paul Musgrave is _just_ a student, but boy is he insightful on the post mortem of the MovableType brouhaha Would only MovableType had someone like Paul on board. His lessons are great. A good read.

Posted by rich at 11:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Mark Pilgrim on Movable Type vs. WordPress

Freedom 0 [dive into mark]. Wow, this guy besides having an incredibly beautiful web site is sure articulate. He goes through why he switched from Movable Type to WordPress and why. Great points about GPL and not taking away the rights of folks on upgrade. Big lesson here about how consumers like to have long term expectations. Even if Movable Type fixes licensing, its a problem if guys like Mark Pilgrim move. Plus he's basically saying its easy to do.

Posted by rich at 10:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Beyond the Google Search Dragrace

filtered: Google steals from Starbucks' playbook Lots is being written about the Google, Yahoo, MSN etc. dragrace in search. As well as now its dragrace using Gmail. Filtered's Mark Jones gives another perspective on the emerging Google set of line extenstions that it's moving in the direction of ubiquity a la Starbucks. Two other entries follow this - including "GBay, GCommerce..." with the Industry Standard's guest blogger, Jen Muehlbauer. And indeed why not the Google OS See also Topix for a great full analysis. Is the direct truly for Google to evolve into a complete Platform? Who will it face then? Will it be up to it?

Posted by johnza at 07:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 15, 2004

Movable Type Allies

MT-Blacklist/Comment Spam Clearinghouse: Six Apart quells the fury. A good example of how having allies in the world helps when you make a mistake. Clearly having folks like Jay Allen, Brad Choate and other powerhouses in the community help quite a bit as do the changes. Still, it is sad to see that the folks at Movable Type didn't test this kind of stuff and still don't quite get the point that, having 50 blogs with 50 authors on a non-commercial site is terrific for them. If you could get that kind of PR, what would it cost. That's one reason why if you want a copy of Microsoft Office for academic purposes it cost $50 (and still does!) while the enterprise product is 5x more. And this is from a company with 99% plus share. Sometimes it pays to get distribution and happy folks. The lesson: The real money is in the enterprise, but the excitement is at the end-user non-commercial level.

Posted by rich at 08:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

MovableType Moves...

The Sky is Not Falling (Jeremy Zawodny's blog). In a good example of how to respond when customers are mad at you, Ben and Mena were smart ot essentially come off of their big price increase. The subterfuge of pretending that it was just confusion about the license is smart and will get people back on board. It's better to be confusing than evil and they take good advantage of that. Of course as Allen points out in comments, the absolutely best course is to say, "heck, we're new to this, we made a mistake, this was not our intent, we continue to do what customers want." But, its a rare thing for a company to do that. BTW, the folks that think loyalty goes both ways, it shows that you can have a loyal base, but if you raise prices without warning or signalling (particularly when going from free then to $600, then to $150, then to $50 which is basically what they done), you can create a sense of mistrust. Also, I'm sure it is not lost on folks that MovableType can dramatically change licensing at a drop of a hat, so the smarter folks will realize llocking in with them is a one way street. That is once locked in, who knows what Sixapart will do. The lessons: # In a drag race, the loyalty of your customer is super important. Don't break their trust and they will love you. One test I used to run, was to insert the words, "Customers asked us..." in front of every sentence in a press release to see if it was true. If not, really wonder if you are doing the right thing. # Once you have made a mistake fix it fast. Best case is to apologize for confusion and say here is what we meant rather than just say we are stupid. # Disobey the standard price points at your peril. That is $49.95 for consumer stuff or $9.95/month. And for corporate, $495-$995 for small buisness/departmental or $49/user/month. And for big enterprises $4995-9995. # Be aggressive on upgrade policy (actually they still haven't done that). Reward your loyal users, they are the recommenders. That's the real sin of the Movable Type drag race, not to understand the standard price point and also to surprise your loyal customers

Posted by rich at 10:34 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

May 13, 2004

GMail Drag Race Ho!

Techdirt:Yahoo Finally Responds To Gmail, Boosts Email Storage. Gmail is in the middle of a classic drag race with market leaders hotmail and yahoo. Mail is where people spend lots and lots of their page views, so it inevitable that there would be a war here. The really smart thing Google has done has been to latch onto an iconic feature that makes it easy to explain why you should switch. Yes, you could talk for hours about the merits of this or that antispam filter. Or about their cool DHTML interface, but in a Drag Race, it is much easier to have one feature that stands out. In this case, turning the whole race into a number. If Google has 1GB, Yahoo has 100MB and MSN has 2MB who is the winner? Final point is that this is a wonderful strategy in a competitive sense because it pushed competitors in a way that is very hard for them to respond. The thrust is that we are better able to manage servers than anyone, so we can offer more storage than anyone. Means that for MSN and Yahoo to respond, they have a much higher cost structure and since they have huge installed bases, their marginal cost to add this is way worse than a new entrant. Another bravo for Google.

Posted by rich at 08:17 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Movable Type blows a Drag Race

Mena's Corner: Movable Type Developer Edition 3.0. Movable Type is probably the leader in the drag race for blogging tools. Like most classic early stage drag races, there are literally a hundred "competitors":http://www.lights.com/weblogs/tools.html. Yes, Still Movable Type did a great job early on by offering more features like multiple authors, etc. They were the darling of the early influential end users in this category. But, they just introduced pricing that is the classic mistake of early market leaders. They raised their price from essentially free to somewhere in the $100-600 range. That's just amazing given that 99.99% of all tools (that is except for Microsoft Office) aren't priced that high for average consumers. So, they are going to lose lots of good will even if they correct because they thought they had won the drag race and could just raise prices. Substitution is already happening 24 hours afterwards with folks on the Movable Type page actually recommending competitors! Hows that for free advertising. What's the lesson: # In a drag race, the point is to get to a high share and _only then_ look at differential pricing. Raising prices in face of competition is a good way to lose share. # In a drag race, doing anything that alienates your loyal base hurts. Pricing is a good way to hurt the base. For instance not having any upgrade pricing or preferential treatment for early users is a super typical sin amongst drag racers. For instance with Windows, pricing started at $10 and took two decades to get to $100 or so. # In a drag race that you want to convert to a platform, getting ubiquity is super important, so have the longer term view. And just that long to eliminate upgrade pricing on Office. # Even sadder is that they had a chance to move to a platform play which would feature distinguished pricing. That is, keep it free for the masses, but charge $50 for pro-sumer editions and $1,000 for departmental and $5,000 for enterprise editions. That would actually have gotten them much more revenue. You can charge for new features or new support, but going backwards is super hard, even for the biggest players.

Posted by rich at 08:06 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 12, 2004

Go ahead and pick on the Big Guy

Another typical Drag Race move, this time from the bottom up. Saleforce.com made much of its name by attacking the big guy in the category, Siebel. This put them on the map, and given their target and thier offering it was very hard for Siebel to respond, just when things were getting hard for them. How could they without just validating Salesforce.com in the process. Now that they are going public (see Jason Calacanis' and Steve Gillmor's comments) things may get tougher for them. Especially, as reported in the NYT, Marc Benioff continues to have trouble keeping his mouth shut during the quiet period.

Posted by johnza at 01:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 11, 2004

The Drag Race Play

The Drag Race is simple. In this Marketing Play you pick one competitor to compare yourself to and then you put all you have into beating them across the finish line.

Posted by johnza at 06:22 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 09, 2004

Dragrace Play Classic: Kick 'em when they're down

Check out Sprint's new campaign. Typical dragrace against a weakened player. Draws great attention to itself. Better by comparison: "Think AT&T Wireless is the obvious choice? Think again. Because AT&T Wireless has been around a long time, most people assume they have a better nationwide network. But the facts prove otherwise. Compared with the AT&T Wireless EDGE network, the enhanced Sprint Nationwide PCS Network gives you: - Better Technology to meet your wireless communication needs today and tomorrow - Better Coverage for secure access to critical business information nationwide" And getting ample attention. From Techdirt, RedNova, and Geek.com notes the interesting twist that in WiFi these two companies are signing agreements to cooperate. Ironic, but typical of many such dragraces.

Posted by johnza at 08:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack