Apple seems to feel about the mobile space like Microsoft used to feel about the PC space. Before Bill Gates retired he had threatened to eat up anti-virus services like Norton. During the span of Bill Gates' career numerous companies got eaten up. It was like the Sun would expand and eat up Mercury, and then it would expand some more and eat up Venus. Apple seems to be doing something similar.
In capitalism though, it is about the consumer. I am not an Apple person, so this does not affect me much.
I have had my cloud a long time. It's called the browser.
Forbes: Apple: Cheaper iPhone Could Expand Addressable Market By 6x: expand distribution to more carriers .... add the 8 largest carriers that do not currently offer the iPhone .... address the mass market by offering a reduced price version of the iPhone ..... the company is considering doing just that. The new version of the phone would have a much smaller screen size, and be sold to carriers for about half the price of the current iPhone ...... Apple’s move downscale would involve a non-data plan phone. ..... iPhone 5 .. to arrive in June ...... an iPhone without a data plan. “Like the iPod Touch, this device would be able to handle music, movies, Internet (via WiFi or cellular), and third-party apps” ..... such a phone could sell for $149 and $199 at retail and require only a voice plan
An iPhone actually costs as much as a cheap Dell laptop. Think about it. That is ridiculous. You feel like you paid $200, when you actually paid more like $500. They put you on a monthly plan. Every month you pay a little bit for two years. It is like buying a house. The house takes 30 years, the iPhone takes two years. That is ridiculous.
Apple should try but I believe the mass market already belongs to Android. The neutered iPhones that Apple intends to serve for lower prices will be matched, have been matched by fully functional large screen Android phones in those same price ranges. Why not buy a full phone for cheap? Why buy an iPhone?
GigaOm: U.S. Mobile Web Usage A Win-Win for Google: Android has a 25 percent share of mobile usage, up from around 10 percent last November .... Apple’s iOS platform, which powers the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, currently stands at 56 percent, down from a peak of nearly 70 percent at the end of 2009 ..... Google comes out a winner both today and in the foreseeable future due to mobile search. The main source of Google revenue is indeed search, but the real growth is in searching for data away from the desktop...... Essentially, Google has benefitted from mobile search since the iPhone launched in 2007 with Google as the default search engine. But now the search giant is outselling other mobile platforms
It is only a matter of time before Android's share surpasses that of the Apple platform. Steve Jobs set out to make expensive cars. That is his thing. There are cheap cars, and there are expensive cars. Steve Jobs is the guy who makes expensive cars.
Apple's business model has worked for Apple. The company surpassed Microsoft's market value, did it not? That is not my definition of failure. But a company that never set to reach the masses will not reach the masses. No surprises there.
The iPad is an important addition to the computing experience ecosystem, touch is an important addition, touch on a bigger screen than what a smartphone offers is important, but the iPad is no laptop killer. The iPad is a high end product designed to do a limited number of things.
The real story here is Steve Jobs. The man is a living legend. He has had a fascinating life story. After weeks and months of all the strong, inescapable buzz around the iPad I found myself leaving this phrase as my comment at several blogs: Steve Jobs, The Pied Piper. The guy's pull is magnetic. He sure has charisma.
I have never to date bought an Apple product, but I use many Google products. The company that has me gushing is Google. I am more of a web person. Talk of HTML 5 excites me. I can't wait for the Chrome OS, Chrome browser combo to show up later in the year. I would want that piece of hardware. Even on the smartphone front, I find myself leaning towards the Nexus One. (The iPhone, Nexus One, Or Droid?) I might get a Windows 7 laptop in a few weeks, it will likely be a Toshiba.
Mother, it is no gain, thy bondage of finery, if it keeps one shut off from the healthful dust of the earth, if it rob one of the right of entrance to the great fair of common human life. (Tagore's Gitanjali)
I am a Sam Walton, Michael Dell, 99 cent pizza kinda guy, as far as business models go. Take me where the masses are. Good enough is often good.
Bill Gates will - and did - cling to Windows as long as possible, Steve Jobs will cling to the desktop for as long as possible. The iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad all feel like pre-web devices to me. The iPhone is a smaller desktop, the iPad is bigger than the iPhone.
Farmville is the media savior, it is not the iPad. 99% of Farmville users don't pay. I never heard Mark Pincus complain about that. 99% of the users not paying is his business model. (Farmville Farmer's Market: My Idea)
How Eminem's Marketing Team Is Using Twitter to Build Buzz By using Twitter to dispense short, often disturbing thoughts and links to multimedia components revolving around a mental institution, they've helped make the album the most highly anticipated hip-hop release of the year -- and set it up for a sequel in the second half of 2009. ....... Some of the tweets are behind-the-scenes updates leading up to the album's release tomorrow ("They are still editing my video") while others are seemingly non-sequitur paranoia ("There's no place to hide ..."), complete with links to images that suggest Eminem is in a mental hospital and/or rehab facility called Pompsomp Hills. ....... Other tweets have included a link to the album's cover, a mosaic of pills that form an image of Eminem's face; a screenshot of his upcoming paid iPhone and iPod Touch game set in Pompsomp Hills; a link to a blood-splattered video for his single "3 A.M." that's set in the fictional clinic; and a link to an interactive web experience that's set there as well. That a simple Google search reveals a just-amateur-enough-to-look-real website for Pompsomp Hills makes the narrative details even more discomforting for fans familiar with Eminem's recent real-life troubles with prescription drugs, which put him in rehab and led to his hospitalization for pneumonia in early 2008, as he recently revealed in a Vibe cover story. Omelet, a branding, advertising and entertainment agency based in Los Angeles, helped develop the Pompsomp Hills website, along with other facets of the nontraditional push. ...... The entirety of "Relapse" was leaked onto the web last week, and in it the rapper reportedly describes his problems in both blunt terms and twisted fantasies, bringing life, marketing and product full circle. ....... a trail of breadcrumbs to the album ....... Eminem.com reached 113,868 unique visitors during April, while the most popular of his tweets -- which linked to Therelapse.com on May 7 -- reached at least 41,704 people within just one week ....... Eminem was the most-talked-about artist on Twitter last week, the week before the album's release. ...... one of Eminem's fictional characters, Stan -- a dangerously obsessive fan -- has, in the web lexicon, morphed into lowercase slang for a diehard yet non-violent admirer. ........ "Twitter is, in a way, the world of 'stans' who now have access to artists" ......... helped him build up mystery around the record ....... The 'Relapse' campaign is very similar to how we would break out a major movie ........ skewer a number of women pop stars and make lewd references to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin ..... Twitter can be just as effective at drawing out mystery and building anticipation as it is at making bands and brands more accessible.
I admit, it was going to be a marketing effort for me. Read a bunch of New York Times and Wall Street Journal blogs, and leave one liner comments for each blog post. Of course my comment would have a signature, this blog's web address. Looks like the moderators those places have been weeding out my comments.
Then I am like old media does not get it. How about new media? The Huffington Post, Mashable, TechCrunch. Huff lets you sign in with your Facebook account, and Mashable does Disqus. But then reading numerous posts on Huff, Mashable and TechCrunch to hit 1,000 page hits a day can feel mechanical. Reading and responding to tweets does not feel mechanical, takes less time, and is more direct. It is one on one. Instead of hoping for people to show up in the comments sections of big name sites and maybe click on that link, that is iffy. Why not go straight to the people? Kick out the middle man?
Now I feel I already have the solution and I was looking for far and wide. I have over 1,700 followers on Twitter and counting. (What Just Happened?)
I want this blog to hit 1,000 page hits a day. That would be 30,000 page hits a month. Mark Penn says at 100,000 page hits a month, a blogger starts making 75K a yar. That is decent income. I have a feeling there is a takeoff point. I am guessing once you hit 2,000 page hits a day, it then takes off. Word of mouth kicks in and then you can focus more on content creation and less on marketing.
For now I want 1,000 page hits a day. And I want to focus on my Twitter followers for marketing. If I could get to know 1,000 of my followers on Twitter, maybe I could hope for somewhere between 500 and 1,000 page hits a day just from that. Read and respond to their tweets, get to know people.
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