Ads that don't want you to click

Short article - essentially it details pre-qualifying clickers (read: web surfers that click on your ad). Given that a business pays a banner hosting site by the click - the business is going to want to make sure the right person clicks.

Some ads should be designed to reduce response.... In order to qualify for a loan, the prospective business must accept all major credit cards and have been in operation for at least one year.

This ad does not mention these requirements and generated a 17 percent click-through rate (CTR):

Merchant Account Loans
Business Loans. Fast and easy.
Low rates. Quick approvals.

When we added the two requirements, and presented ad copy with qualifiers, response dropped dramatically -- to around a 10 percent CTR:

Merchant Account Loans
Must accept Visa/MC. Established
1 year. Fast/easy approval process.


...the conversion rate associated with the second ad, with pre-qualifiers, was significantly higher than the ... more generic ad. Not surprisingly, the overall return on investment (ROI) for the campaign improved dramatically.

Read: article

Competing on the Basis of Speed

Concept of "fast companies":
Dell: through speed - significant cost advantage due to low cost infrastructure. They have cheap price per component not because they buy cheaper - they buy at same price of course, but cheaper surrounding infrastructure. (1:25)
Toyota: Brought Prius from concept to market in 15 months
Google: competes on speed in software dev area

Competing on basis of speed gives : 1) a significant competitive advantage, and 2) a large barrier to entry - companies need to catch up.

Things that kill speed:
complexity
3 faces of complexity

1. waste: anything that depletes resources/effort/space/money - keep it simple
2. Inconsistency: uneven, unbalanced, etc - make it flawless
3. overload: excessive or unreasonable burden - make it flow

1) waste
Keep common infrastructure
achitecture/convention/tools
keep simplifying the code via refactoring

a dev process that anticipates change will result in software that tolerates change

Toyota's design process:
"set based design" (9:45)
They have 10 engines and pick one before production - not use one and keep making changes.
Makes decision as late as possible

Make decisions reversible whenever possible
-when change creates complexity, refactor

Paused at 13:00... fascinating, but getting sleepy...

Watch: google video

History of the iPod

• Jobbs returns to Apple
• Jobbs says you can't ask the consumer what you want... but you can create an environment where everyone gets together and brainstorms until you say "that's it! that's what we'll do!"
• Decide to do the iPod
• Napster goes down, so need a new electronic way to obtain music
• Designs iTunes
• Same day of iTunes launch, announcement of 3rd gen (windows compatable)
• Sells 1 mil songs in 5 days, 200 mil by 2004
• Now Jobbs wants to expand the iPod line so that there's a size for everyone and for everyone's wallet - this blankets the market and makes it hard for competitors to get a niche
• In Oct 2005, they market the video iPod, something that Jobbs has always said would never happen - the consumer will never get the same feel of video when you watch it on a portable screen. Conspiracy theories state that Jobbs suggests this is bad all along to deter competitors.
• Apple now has 4 iPods at 4 pricepoints, so now there's no excuse not to go with iPod when choosing an mp3 player
• in 2005 - own 75% of US mp3 player market - 32 million iPods
  
• "the reason for such a large % is they stay ahead of competitors and stay unmatched in the market"
• In sept 2006, iTunes sells song # 1.5 bil, 3 mil per day, 5th largest music retailer in the US, bigger than Tower and Sam Goody.
• "80% of Microsoft employees who own mp3 players own iPods"
• Cultish following - noone else makes fake players/phones for other companies
• The iPod system is supposed to goto 1 bil $, making iPod the only device with a $1bil side business. An iPod owner spends $100s on accessories and iTunes - that only works with iPod - ppl won't jump ship after that investment.

Watch: google video

Details on the gootube deal...

Long, but interesting read. Posted by anonymous source, but it definately points out a valid strategy.

First, google buys youtube.

500 mil of purchase goes to settling lawsuits (50m per media giant).
Within the 50 mil, google requires 2 things:
1. Media giants look the other way for 6 months while google fixes a copyright infringment scheme for youtube - this includes a middleground so that youtube can still offer copyright material (since that IS the real reason why video sites grow so quickly).
2. Media giants create lawsuits for youtube competitors (and by now, this has already taken place)

Causes:
Cause from #1: Youtube flurishes for another 6 months (paraphrase: "Every day that youtube can avoid copyrights is another day youtube grows")
Cause from #2: Youtube competitors will not grow in popularity, nor will they recieve venture capital.

End result:
Youtube will grow, all else will fail. Google is happy. Youtube FTW.

From Jawed of YouTube

Killer apps section
14:11 wikipedia
It really was proof of social collaboration. You don't necessarily get chaos with everyone involved, you can get good things.

18:00 del.icio.us
Creditted with introduction of tagging.

in short:
Used earnings at paypal to create video sharing website. Didn't work initially, but they noticed that they had to keep ppl there. Redesigned for that and it worked. Fastest growing website to date.