There’s been a heated online debate about the ways consumers are influenced to buy things and adopt new social trends. Some people say a small group of Influencers drive most consumer decisions. Others argue that ideas spread through society from random starting points, without a hierarchy. The evidence shows that both groups are wrong in [...]
Tag Archives | Consumer Behavior / Markets
Online Communities, How They Work (II)
This is Part II of a series of posts on online communities (that is also available in PDF form: Rubicon-web-community) originally done at Rubicon (the company I led/founded). To return to the Introduction, Part I of this series, click here. Overview Working with online communities has long been touted as a great way for a [...]
Online Communities, Why They Matter (III)
In strategy work with tech companies, my team and I are frequently asked about web communities — how they operate, what they can and can’t do, and how a company should look to work with them. To help answer those questions, we surveyed more than 3,000 US web users on their overall Internet usage, and [...]
Ars Technica: Pew Internet Report – Only half of US Netizens use search engine daily
Ars Technica assistant editor Jacqui Cheng wakes us up to the fact that many Americans may be on the Internet, but they’re not surfing with the style we use in Silicon Valley. That smacking sound you just heard? It’s the entire Googleplex smacking their lips at the growth opportunity. Jacqui’s key sentence is this: “There’s [...]
Pricing as a Head Trip
Can prices be set too low for consumers? A recent study by Dr. Antonio Rangel of CalTech says yes. Dr. Rangel observed the brain activity of subjects and found they exhibited more pleasure drinking wines when they thought they cost more. For those of us that study the finer points of pricing, this is a very interesting result. We all know that there is a sense to “you get what you pay for” that acts as a negative factor when evaluating the lowest priced alternatives. What Dr. Rangel has established is that there is more than the fear of getting stuck with an inferior product at work; people actually get more enjoyment from certain products if they think they cost more. The data communicated by the price is working not just at a rational level, but at an emotional level as well. That is, from the brain’s standpoint, these products are objectively better in a post-purchase environment.
The Man Behind Google’s Open Handset Alliance
If there’s one thing users want, it’s open use of the technology they buy. Hacked iPhones bear testimony to the desire for open cellphone use that is free of carrier restrictions.
Google’s November 5th announcement of their mobile phone software…
Some good reads …
I’d like to simply point you to some good articles with little commentary that I think are worth noting. Here, a great visual of every product Apple ever made since 1976. I became a customer in 1984, worked there from ’89-96, left the line briefly for two years and returned in or around the year [...]
The guides
I met last week with this incredibly zany guy named Nick Hayes of Influencer 50. His firm understands influencer marketing at a very deep level and he’s now in the Bay Area establishing a presence here. In doing so, he’s studying the top 50 influencers who influence the influencer marketing field. Trying following that. But [...]
Google is your UI
Let me paint a picture of the world today as a company sees it and then again as a customer experiences it. Company View: A company, say yours, has a “home page” where they organize the user experience so users can learn more about the company, its products, its vertical solutions and so on. The [...]
3,000 marketing messages per day
Today’s consumer receives over 3,000 marketing messages per day. That’s what Maritz Dialogue Marketing group says. Start counting and see how many you come up with in 1 hour. I think it holds true. Now the question I want to answer is what it takes to stand out amongst that crowd if you are marketing [...]