FREE-ness on the Internet
When so many things are being offered for free over the web, I wonder what people would actually pay for in today’s market.
Just a quick (free) search of “free things” reveals the scope of free. For example:
Email, News, Pictures/Graphics, Desktop Software, Games, Music, Movies, Recipes, Courses, Internet access, Website hosting, School homework and Encyclopedias to name a few …
Give it a try. Just do a couple of searches for “free (random item)” and you’ll be bombarded with offers. Has this term become meaningless?
Neuromarketing discusses the power of putting the word “FREE” in marketing literature. But what happens when everything becomes free? Do we suddenly ignore the term like we have with “ON SALE NOW”, “LIMITED TIME ONLY” or “EVERYTHING MUST GO!”; or does it have a greater effect?
Economic theory states that in a competitive environment, price will move towards marginal cost – for virtual items this is basically zero. If companies have set the bar so low that they are now competing for non-paying users, how can they manage to get paying ones? Or is advertising now supposed to make up the difference.
I guess that like the maxim “time is money”, time must be the currency being sought after – and when you don’t have any time you will pay to get some of it back.
The last Internet service I paid for was a tax filing site - basically because there were no free options. I’m curious to know what web services or software people still pay for and why they still do it?
The future of online shopping?
With the current generation growing up on 3D gaming, will the virtual mall/store concept now take off? 3D shopping first popped up in the late 90’s with sites like boo.com but never really took off. A quick search found several sites experimenting with the idea:
In addition, Second Life offers some a similar experience - albeit for pseudo-fictional products.
Some examples of virtual malls are shown below:
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There is no question that the technology is available to offer web shoppers this kind of experience. But will they really want this? And will this work as a substitute for real shopping?
I think that brick and mortar shopping is safe. People who want something quickly or actually interact with the product will still visit the busy high streets and malls. Virtual shopping may however come as a substite for traditional online shopping; particularily when purchasers browse without a predetermined product or service. Established retail techniques of promotion and shelf placement might be reused here to influence purchase behaviour.
Another point of interest is with fellow shoppers, avatars in this case. Will shoppers really want them around or will virtual retailers try and use them to generate a herd mentality - A ‘busy’ web store must have better products/prices than a quiet one.
I do see the appeal for both shoppers and retaillers. Younger, 3D-world savvy generations may end up dropping their rocket launchers for their credit cards. Sites that adopt this technology early may have an advantage - conversely, they may again be wasting their money.
Has anyone had experience with virtual web shopping? Would you go back there again?
Get a life … for only $10/month
Most people by now will have heard of Second Life (http://secondlife.com). For those that haven’t, it’s basically a virtual world where users can interact with others through avatars - virtual representations of each other. To be perfectly honest, I originally dismissed this application as a forum for social outcasts (apologies for anyone currently on it). However, there are over 16 million people signed up to the site and this number is rapidly growing.
Taking a second look at the site, it’s being used by several real and fictional businsses. There’s even a business directory - http://www.slbiz2life.com/.
Notable companies such as Dell, Coca-Cola, Calvin Klein, Reebok and many others have bought ‘islands’ in Second Life where they can provide a pre-determined experience to virtual customers. Besides a gimicky ploy to gain news, does this ad any real value? Will virtual users become real users of a product or service?
In 2007, Gartner forecasted that 80% of Internet users and Fortune 500 Companies will have a second virtual presence (http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=503861). I would estimate this number is very optimistic unless real value can be proven.
Second life, and other virtual worlds, do offer some advantages to firms. Product trials can be done virtually instead of physically at a significant cost savings. Cheap market research can also be performed by tweaking certain experiences and measuring the outcome. It will be interesting to see if these virtual sites become a new channel for marketing or if it will just be another passing fad.
The ancient art of HTML
As I create my blog using tublr, I think back to my first personal webpage that I created 12 years ago. Using the tumbr interface, a few clicks allows me to publish content on the web and update it in real time. Same for flikr, same for FaceBook. Last decade, this would have taken a several hours and cups of coffee, a text editing program and a 3-inch thick book on HTML. This was of course followed by the several fun iterations of: uploading with FTP; testing in a web browswer; finding errors and modifying code.
As the web process seems to become easier, I wonder now what will happen to HTML. Of course it will still be behind all of the webpages that we regularily visit; but will it be as obscure to new users as the DOS command line? Will HTML be left to the guys with ponytails and thick glasses in the back room to design?
Given the tens (or possibly hundreds) of programs available to take the code out of web design, it seems that there will be no need for the general web publisher to learn any mark-up language. See http://personalweb.about.com/od/hostingdomainnames/ig/Easy-Design-Web-Site-Hosting/ for some example progams. But will all these template driven, ultra simple design tools eventually take the creativity out of the design process? I fear that most personal websites will eventually have the same vanilla look and feel to them. The art in HTML coding will eventually be lost.
A blog about blogging
Being new and completely unfamiliar to blogging (besides reading the occasional comment on FaceBook), I decided to take a closer look at the blog. Interestingly, ‘blog’ has been recognised as a word by Merriam-Websters since 1999 - http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blog. It’s the short form for web-log and basically comprises of an individual’s comments on a particular subject - or some have no real subject at all.
A quick search on Wikipedia (where I find out about most things of interest) revealed several types of Blogs exist:
- qlogs - question and answer blogs
- vlog - a blog consisting of videos
- linklog - a blog of links
- sketchlog - blog of sketches
- photoblog - a blog of photos
- tumbleog - mixed media and shorter postings, possibly for the lazy blogger
- moblog - a blog posted by mobile device
My favorite is a ‘blawg’ which is a blog on legal material.
Apparently, everyone seem to have lost track of how many blogs actually exist in the ‘blogosphere’. Technorati tracks over 112 million, but they are likely missing many blogs from countries like China. The number could well be over 150 million. Interesting, as this would represent 2.2% of the world’s population, or 10% of all Internet users.
Personally, this means that I’m maybe a bit late getting on the bandwagon (blogwagon?). But no better time than the present to work on mo’ blog - a blog by me.
