September
This is why Google’s profit margins are going down
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5887555/google-street-view-is-coming-to-the-great-barrier-reef
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is the largest natural coral formation on Earth and you’ll soon be able to see it in all its glory—from your desk.
The Catlin Seaview Survey, a collaboration between Google, the University of Queensland, and the Caitlin Group, will perform a diagnostic on the reef system’s health via a panoramic underwater photographic and video survey. The program has already taken some preliminary surveys, though the group plans to undertake the projects main component—three surveys begin at 20 points around the reef—in September.
Images will be captured by a 360-degree camera (actually four conveniently positioned fish-eye lens SLR’s) affixed to the front end of an Diver Propulsion Vehicle (DPV) for shallow surveys, and robotic subs for surveys between 30 and 100 meters. The group hopes to also study how and if the migratory behavior of tiger sharks, green turtles and manta rays has been affected by global warming.
Starting today Internet users should be able to access these images via Google Street View and will also be able to watch video of each study section on YouTube. [University of Queensland via New Scientist]
Image: Caitlin Seaview Survey
Samsung / Blockbuster reportedly sign streaming deal in Oz, US and Europe next?
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/21/samsung-blockbuster-video-streaming-deal/
Samsung / Blockbuster reportedly sign streaming deal in Oz, US and Europe next? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Feb 2012 18:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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NYC opening its first public high school dedicated to software engineering
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/17/nyc-opening-its-first-pubic-high-school-dedicated-to-software-en/
There are plenty of specialized public high schools in New York City and in September of 2012 that roster of educational institutions will grow by one more when the Academy for Software Engineering opens its doors. The school will greet its first class of incoming freshman at the beginning of the next school year and become the first NYC public school dedicated to pumping out programers. Beyond filling our desperate need for more engineers the school will be special in several respects. For one, it will be a “limited, unscreened” institution, which means grades and attendance records are not considered for admission — only interest. Secondly, this isn’t a vocational school that simply teaches kids to live and breathe in C++ and JavaScript. While the focus will be on software engineering, it will be accompanied by traditional college preparation academic classes. Check out the source and more coverage links for a few more details.
NYC opening its first public high school dedicated to software engineering originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Jan 2012 04:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Facebook Will Have One Billion Users By September
Find out more out the future of disruptive technology and companies like Facebook, Google, Zynga, Disney, NBC and more at IGNITION West!
Facebook says it has 800 million active users.
Building a chart based on previous user number announcements, iCrossings says Facebook will probably reach 1 billion users sometime in August 2012.
In the past, “active” has meant that these people log in once a month. What’s truly stunning is that Facebook says more than 50% of its users log in every day.
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- CHART OF THE DAY: There’s Only One Place In The World Where Twitter Is Bigger Than Facebook
- The Biggest Employer For Young Americans Is Still The US Military
- CHART OF THE DAY: Android’s Share Collapses For The First Time Ever
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Will Groupon Thrive Or Tank In Q4? This Chart Holds The Key (GRPN)
Groupon’s Q4 2011 couldn’t be more crucial: Will it see the revenue bump it needs from holiday shoppers to justify its business model? Or will sales collapse following CEO Andrew Mason’s promised pullback on marketing and customer acquisition spending?
The Wall Street Journal reports that gross billings at the company rose just 1.5 percent from September to October, and not 22 percent as previously estimated.
Has the company reached a plateau before falling of a cliff? Or is it merely taking a pre-Thanksgiving breather before continuing its climb up the Christmas sales ladder?
The company could go either way. Until recently, the company has been dependent on a cash float (and the money it raised in its IPO, of course) to stay in business. Groupon generally makes a loss each quarter. It funds its operations by taking revenues from customers’ credit cards immediately and then delaying for 30 days or so the share of those sales it owes to the merchants who made the offers. As long as there is a greater amount of new money coming in than old money owed, Groupon continues to function.
But what happens if Groupon enters a period in which its revenues decline? At most companies that isn’t too problematic — management can cut expenses to remain profitable. But at Groupon the company’s marketing and customer acquisition expenses are closely related to its revenues. It is not at all clear whether Groupon’s revenues will continue to rise if Mason cuts costs. ! Here’s a chart showing Groupon’s net revenues plotted against its total operating expenses:
As you can see, in Q3 Mason pulled back on expenses (the green line) in hopes of seeing a profit, but revenue growth (the red line) began to lose steam. The WSJ report suggests it hasn’t regained momentum since, but the October sales period doesn’t include the Christmas run-up.
In Q4, this chart is all you will need to understand whether Groupon can mature into a business that isn’t funded by stock sales. If Mason can get the red line above the green line, or if he can keep the red line moving upward, then he should be congratulated.
If he cannot, then the company — and its investors — will need to do some serious thinking about whether their daily deal business model is viable or not.
SEE ALSO: Groupon Allegedly Hacked Merchant’s Email To Alter Contract
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- Here’s The Math Formula For Structuring A Groupon Deal That Doesn’t Lose Money
- Groupon Allegedly Hacked Merchant’s Email To Alter Contract
- Here Is How Much Twitter Makes From Each Of Its Advertising Clients
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This Bakery Had To Make 102,000 Cupcakes Because Of A Groupon Deal And Lost A Ton Of Money
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/london-baker-makes-102000-cupcakes-groupon-deal-2011-11
A London bakery recently experienced the worst-case scenario of offering a Groupon for a small business, and it cost the owner thousands (via NBC Chicago).
Need a Cake bakery owner Rachel Brown decided to put up a 75% discount on a dozen cupcakes on the site, which dropped the price down to $10 from $40.
Apparently, people really love getting cupcakes cheap, because she was rushed by throngs of customers in a cupcake frenzy. 8,500 people signed up, and her crew of eight had to make 102,000 cupcakes to meet the orders.
Brown lost $3 per batch because she had to hire 25 extra workers to help, and she ended up losing $20,000 because of it, which a ton for a small biz. It wiped out her profits for the year, reports the Daily Mail.
“Without doubt, it was my worst ever business decision,” she told the BBC. “We had thousands of orders pouring in that really we hadn’t expected to have. A much larger company would have difficulty coping.”
This is just the latest in Groupon small business horror stories. A story popped up in September about a Portland cafe losing $8,000 because of a Groupon, which prompted a personal letter from founder and CEO Andrew Mason.
It brings up the always-present question about the daily deals site: does Groupon suck for small businesses?
Well, it looks like most small businesses think so. An overwhelming majority of 70% hate Groupon, if the latest survey from iContact is to be believed.
As for Brown and her bakery, the experience may have cost her 20 grand, but what about all the exposure she’s getting for her store? Great, right? It doesn’t hurt, but it probably wasn’t worth the cost.
Small businesses like this bakery thrive on relationships with their local customers, not crowds of outsiders coming in to snatch up a free lunch.
Getting new customers is great, but in this case, the bakery rewarded the wrong customers. Those 8,500 people that rushed for the Groupon probably won’t be coming back to pay for the same cupcakes at quadruple the price.
Only those the store has nurtured relationships with for a long time (in Brown’s case, 25 years), should be the ones rewarded. They’re the ones that keep coming back for more.
NOW SEE: The 10 Largest Family Businesses In The US >
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- INSTANT MBA: "Learn Fast, Fail Fast, Tweak Fast"
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Why Does Amazon Need Its Own Voice Recognition Company? [Amazon]
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5857972/why-does-amazon-need-a-voice-recognition-company
![medium fb31b52908d2f955fc8ced050fb4c283 Why Does Amazon Need Its Own Voice Recognition Company? [Amazon]](http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2011/11/medium_fb31b52908d2f955fc8ced050fb4c283.jpg "Why Does Amazon Need Its Own Voice Recognition Company?")
Amazon has, apparently, ponied up for a speech recognition company called Yap, the Atlantic reports.
Yap was an iPhone and Android app voicemail transcription service that would turn your audio voicemails into text, somewhat similar to Google Voice. It had generally positive reviews. It was purchased by a mysterious suitor in September, which CLT Blog traced back to Amazon’s address. On October 20, it shut down.
The question, of course, is what will Amazon do with it. Is this headed to mobile? Is it a Siri competitor? Android, the OS underpinning the Kindle Fire, already has voice control. And of course the Kindle Fire doesn’t have a microphone. Is it planning to use it on the Web as well as (or instead of) mobile? Could it be bringing voice recognition to its product search?
Whatever the plans are, it’s unlikely to simply let it die on the vine.
[CLTBlog via The Atlantic]
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Here’s What Groupon Insiders REALLY Think Of LivingSocial (GRPN)
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-what-groupon-insiders-really-think-of-livingsocial-2011-11
LivingSocial is a very close competitor to Groupon.
Unaiz Kabani, the data whiz at Daily deals aggregator Yipit, tells us that Groupon’s market share dropped to 54% in September, down from 57% in August. Meanwhile LivingSocial was up to 22% from 19% in August.
Despite this heated race, Groupon barely mentioned LivingSocial in its IPO roadshow. Can you even spot it on this slide from the presentation?
But what do Groupon execs really think of LivingSocial? While we were talking to sources for our story INSIDE GROUPON, we got a pretty clear picture.
Highlights:
- “LivingSocial was discussed in every management meeting. It always seemed liked Groupon was winning in the markets that mattered, except in D.C., which is LivingSocial’s home base.”
- “I would say LivingSocial was the main driver behind the huge marketing expenses because the idea was always, lets have more subscribers and thus more sales, then them.”
- “Internally, the company rhetoric to employees was we’re way better, way cooler. [It was] a pep rally approach – they’re the rival the team can beat. At the management level, I would say they were taken seriously.”
- “LivingSocial had the biggest influence when they would do something before Groupon. They launched their instant deals before Groupon Now got launched and that was kind of a blow. They did their escapes before we had a travel channel and that was a blow also. “
- “The perception was that they launched an inferior product so ours was better. Just as a consumer, their mobile platform is far inferior.”
- “Having that first mover advantage was huge. It just always seemed like Groupon maybe had deeper pockets and could take advantage of the scale they thought they needed, then LivingSocial could.”
- “They think they’re a lot smarter than LivingSocial. Andrew thinks about LivingSocial all night and all day. He totally obsesses about them.”
- “The Whole Foods thing drove him crazy. Groupon was bidding on that too, and basically LivingSocial went in and fully subsidized the deal and said “we’ll pay the whole thing, we just want Whole Foods on our roster.’ And you saw the number, the LivingSocial thing really worked for them, it really lifted their top line.”
- “They’re a great company, a great fast follower. I don’t know what they’re worth – maybe $3 billion to $6 billion dollars – which is amazing [since it] didn’t exist 3 years ago.”
- “There’s scale advantage that they don’t have; they don’t have a global presence. “
- “I think they get gobbled up by one of the big four – Apple, Amazon, Google, and Facebook. Or maybe they even get acquired by Groupon.”
- “[If] Groupon is worth $15 billion or $16 billion then maybe LivingSocial is worth 4 or 5.”
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See Also:
- Groupon’s Chairman Had To Push Andrew Mason To Do Group-Buying
- Groupon Is Already Set To Open With A Monster Spike
- HOLY CRAP: Look At How Much Groupon Had To Pay Just To Go Public
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Most Valuable Pitchman
Source: http://blog.compete.com/2011/10/25/tom-brady-most-valuable-pitchman/
I had been eagerly awaiting the start of the Patriots season since their heartbreaking loss at the start of the year. The first Monday night game in September I got to see my favorite team back in action, along with my favorite player. What I wasn’t expecting was to see Tom Brady off the field as well, advertising footwear during one of the game’s commercial breaks.
I loved the commercial, and not just because it made walking around aimlessly look incredibly cool. It brought a new dimension to a brand that I remember seeing only on girls walking around campus in the winter. Forgetting their origin as Australian surfers’ footwear, Uggs are now so tied to their classic boot look for the female demographic that I can’t imagine them breaking into the male market significantly.
Well after a month of walking around Boston seeing Brady’s image posted on buildings (and I’ve heard they’re in other cities, as well) I wondered what kind of boost the brand is getting from the campaign.
While the trend looks the same, with the traffic starting to pick up for the holiday season, uggsaustralia.com has a whopping 237,887 more unique visitors than it did in September last year, a 48% increase. There has been an overall increase in traffic year over year, but that difference was only 23% in July before the ad campaign started.
Also, more people online seem to be going to the site. The trend has steadily been on the rise, with some significant peaks since the commercial started airing in September.
The most important question, though, is what kind of effect is Brady having on driving the male demographic to the site? There isn’t a major increase during September, but it’s up 2% year over year in the male demographic. The beauty of the campaign is it may be targeting females just as much to get the shoes for their guys as gifts during the upcoming holiday season.
After all this, it’s still hard to tell if the campaign is having a significant effect—the next few months will give us a better idea.
But I think I might get a pair. If Tom wears them they must be cool, right?
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Dr. Augustine Fou is Digital Consigliere to marketing executives, advising them on digital strategy and Unified Marketing(tm). Dr Fou has over 17 years of in-the-trenches, hands-on experience, which enables him to provide objective, in-depth assessments of their current marketing programs and recommendations for improving business impact and ROI using digital insights.
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