Category Archives: Markets

Markets

Restricted Brand

Posted on by

FULL DISCLOSURE: I am not a Republican, Democrat, liberal or conservative. Hence, this article is non-aligned. Are Facebook, Twitter and Google corrupting their brands by being socially underhanded? Of late, both Facebook and Twitter have been publicly accused of censoring non-left-of-center content. Now Google admits to blocking advertisements due to Google’s perception of social desirability. In each instance, these corporate goliaths, which together control the flow of most online human interaction, either admit to or are accused of filtering legal content based on their perception of what should or should not be. The new media is aping the old media, and runs the risk of the same fate. Regardless of if you agree or disagree with the filtered content, the troubling aspect is that large corporations are deciding what content their users should and should not see. Outside of endangering activities (e.g. terrorism, child porn, congress convening), the Internet has … Continue reading →

Sopped Sales

Posted on by

Apple has more to worry about than the FBI, courts and the government breaking Apple’s privacy engineering. Apple has a peaked market that appears to be limiting their growth. All markets eventually saturate. The smartphone market, in most first-world nations, is saturated, or nearly so. Thus, the number of people willing to pay a premium for Apple mobile devices is almost capped. iPhones – at least in their current incarnation – appear to have reached saturation. iPhones will not compete in second- and third-world markets against $4 Android phones. All markets are segmented. When the segment you dominate becomes saturated, you have to change something before revenue growth abates and stockholders call for your head. The question remains which action is correct. Apple has a brand built around the high-end of their market, so they are unlikely to trash their brand by dropping prices. Since this is basically a segmentation … Continue reading →

Lavish Leadership

Posted on by

“Maybe Microsoft suffers from too much leadership.” That surprising statement came from an industry analyst with one of the major groups. We were recently splitting lunch and enjoying some obscenely great Silicon Valley weather, discussing the tech industry as a whole and wondering if Microsoft might soon be known only as “The Xbox Company.” We mutually marveled at how seemingly inept Microsoft has become, with one market disaster after another. Since we both had experience with start-ups and big vendors alike, the discussion focused keenly on leadership and ossification. You never want to be the leader for the former. Microsoft has two primary problems when it comes to innovation, the first of which is that they remain consumed by former glories and the old ways of thinking. This same analyst told me that – at least until recently – Microsoft sized their markets based on the number of PCs in … Continue reading →

Triple Targeted

Posted on by

Say goodbye to television (I tossed all mine in the recycling bin several years ago … quite a liberating experience). Broadcast TV’s days are numbered, though when it will fade into distant technology memories is uncertain. Market forces can never be denied, and we are witnessing new and highly profitable ways of wasting people’s time (seriously, have you ever seen an episode of The View?). Broadcast TV’s demise will come both from consumer preference and the profit motives of providers and advertisers. Is there any way we can speed-up the process? Please! Broadcasting has always been a limited medium. Necessary in pre-digital and bandwidth poor eras, broadcasting was expensive and required people to be couch-bound at specific days and times lest they miss their favorite mental gruel. The high cost of entry isolated many creative people and separated viewers from buckets of new and potentially tastier gruel. Even starting a … Continue reading →

Psycho Marketing

Posted on by

When it comes to marketing, is your company a guru, sportsman or warrior? This may not be an exhaustive list of psychologies, but these three traits cover most go-to-market plans and mentalities I have encountered in B2B marketing. They can be as individual as the CMO or corporate-wide traits. Each has its own operational MO and they apply well to different markets. Pitted against one another, any can win depending on the market they seek to exploit. With some overlap, market dominating mutts can be whelped. Gurus: Passive marketing, which these days is largely typified by social media marketing, is nearly spiritual. It seeks to affectionately coax buyers to come forward — encouraging, not pushing. Gurus play the long game and seek actual relationships with customers, and are willing to take time, invest effort and wait for returns. Sportsmen: These are people who keep score. Market share, quarterly revenues, and … Continue reading →

Bustle Bit Business

Posted on by

Who wants $29B a year? The ubiquity of cell phones has not gone unnoticed by anybody, even the stodgy old banker down at your local branch (though he merely finds his daughter’s monthly texting charges aggravating).  Even the most primitive of modern cell phones is a small computer with wireless data capabilities.  With cell phone penetration nearing 80% in the United States, and emerging nations adopting cellular as their first telecommunications infrastructure, soon a cell phone will be owned and operated by every homo sapiens and a few lower order mammals as well (cats will not deign to dial themselves … that’s what they keep humans for). Thus, folks who earn a dime from financing a dollar are interested in using any technology to speed payments.  In our fast paced modern world, waiting behind someone using an ATM card at Starbucks seems like an incredible waste of time.  Hence the … Continue reading →

Mobile Mechanics

Posted on by

Mobile is a microcosm for market mechanics. In recent weeks we witnessed the mobile market churning in seemingly random directions, but each has actually affirmed fundamental and very mechanical aspects of every market. If you are interested in mobile marketing check out white label SMS reseller, you will be able to send text messages to your clients for appointment reminders along with other things. When Nokia makes a bold move by adopting Microsoft’s mobile operating system, it asserted one market imperative.  When HP and Google forced Apple to blink, another market realty was at play.  As Google’s Android OS heads toward ubiquity, yet a third force of marketing was displayed. Commoditization: All markets commoditize over time as competitors provide similar or identical features.  In the mobile market, Google is the major force toward commoditization as they emulate what Microsoft did with desktops (indeed, the rumor that Android and webOS will … Continue reading →