Telecom increases prices

Telecom are in a monopoly position so they have pricing control – these increases are an easy way to increase profit.

018 calls go up 50% to 75 cents from 50 cents. Given that directory calls over here in the USA are a crippling $1.25 to $1.50, there is plenty of room for further growth. However this creates an opportunity for new entrants to the 411 (018) game – like easy 411.

Meanwhile monthly connection rises from $54.95 to $56.80 – a 3.3% increase. This will help people decide to migrate to Telstra Clear, or, better yet, to abandon the home phone entirely in favor of mobile. I find the connection fee reprehensibe, but I have to pay it to get ADSL. (I do not even plug the phone in, and have no idea of my lanadline number.)

TUANZ understand – the inflation based increase is a.. “curious concession to a company that enjoys a very high degree of market power, operating in an industry where prices are trending down rather than up”.

media old and new

Fantastic commentry on one aspect of how old media is migrating the new – by someone that straddles both worlds. I especially like the bit about bloggers with 100 viewers displacing old media types with millions. That isn’t really true (or it depends upon who those viewers are), but bloggers with millions of viewers should certainly have their place on the stage..

iPhone

The best summary of the iPhone I’ve seen. The device is beautiful, does everything you could dream of and more but is fatally tied (the phone locks out other SIMs) into a 2 year contract with dubious Cingular.

To give Apple credit, ALL of the USA mobile networks in are terrifyingly poor – with Cingular arguable the best of the GSM providers.
But why upon why do they not just sell this (also) as an unlocked consumer device? The price would be reprehensible, but the volume would match.

Yellow pages

Some numbers from the potential Yellow Pages sale emerge, with expected EBITDA of $160m this year. Yellow pages prices have been cranked up over the last few years, and with online being what it is I don’t see huge upside for the printed product.

The upside is all online, and although it is essentially an irresponsible act, I believe that Telecom is right to divest.

The reason is simple – Telecom managers have proven time and time again that they are not able to make a success of commerce online, and so by selling this asset they will capture some of the value of someone else doing this for them.

Amerika

Well I’m back in the USA, and all the differences come flooding in.

The homeless guys all down the street, polite greetings, overly attentive waitresses and the stench of disinfectant in my cheap motel and my rental car..

The car itself is bizarrely shaped and barely drivable, while that gulf between poverty and wealth means the homeless guys sleep (and, in one instance, leave a trail of suspicious fluid) outside stores selling Prada shoes. The sheer ostentatiousness of the wealth and afro culture – the jewelry, the massive trucks masquerading as cars – all combines to make the music videos appear to be reflecting rather than parodying life.

But it is freezing cold here in LA – which is great news as that means the powder is dumping on the mountains where I will be skiing tomorrow…

Paypal moves to two factor security

Well done Paypal – customers apparently will get a dongle (for free if you are a business) that generates a password that you use along with your own each time you login to Paypal.

Paypal fraud is a huge problem, and the service is highly sensitive to phishing attacks. Phishers will still have one shot at a users account with the dongle system – a fake login screen wil capture the user name, password and only one one-time key. However when the key generates a new number, and that number is used to login by the real customer, then Paypal would (hopefully) prevent the previous key from ever being validly used.

<update>

looks like the fob password only lasts for 30 seconds, so this really does lock out all but the most saavy scammers.

Wiki on Trade Me

Codswollops. I cannot comment on this as I’m an insider but not a spokesperson. Apply a bit of common sense to these statements though….. (and no – I’m not going to edit them)

(From Wikipedia – TradeMe)

Fraud and controversy

…In recent times, TradeMe has not in all cases helped out victims of fraud.


…. Some of the sellers tend to have very bad feedback and can still continue to trade and sell. ….. Although one might consider these Trade Me sellers as criminals, Trade Me will still allow these traders to continue on selling.

….Members can report fraud via the “Community Watch” feature or ScamBusters. (A community of users originated Scambusters — which has no affiliation with TradeMe — to report fraud on the site.)

…. As yet Trade Me has not undertaken action to remove any fraudulent members under eighteen years old

….Various third party software developers have been threatened after developing software which interface with the Trade Me website.

Big Retail

Big online retail sites tend to vary a bit by country.

Check out the biggest French, German and UK sites – measured by Comscore traffic. Strange huh?

Amazon is #3 in France, #2 in UK and Germany, while eBay doesn’t make the list – probably because Comscore fall into the old trap of treating eBay differently from “retail ” sites.

They should realise that a huge percentage of items sold on ebay are new – and that eBay sales of new items probably exceed those of almost all the other retailers.

NZHerald ads

Some ads are back – there is a Microsoft one (that’s smart enough to know I’m on a mac) served up by http://ads.apn.co.nz/ADCLICK/CID=xxx – which is not the former doubleclick method. There is also a super slow Sorted ad – served by http://secure-nz.imrworldwide.com/xxx, which is Neilsen. The ad appears quickly enough, but clicking on the link garners you a 6 second pause before a new window opens.

Then there is also an AirNZ/Victoria button served by http://ad.nz.doubleclick.net (which came up ok).

There are still no banner ads on top of the page, and those google ads are still everywhere. I now see google ads for Lexus, Ferrit and Autobase (who feed motors dealer listings to Trade Me), along with Qantas, who were there before. Meanwhile ChrisRogers.co.nz is advertising Devenport real estate – nice one Chris.

Stuff has Ferrit on the homepage, Southern Institute of Technology on the tower slot, and that’s about it, aside from Vodafone soponsorship of the entertainment section and Suzuki sponsorship of the motors section. It’s bleak days for the online advertising industry.

Skype numbers adding up

Fantastic analysis of Skype’s numbers here.

The author projects just under $12 revenue per active Skype user in 2007, versus the $78 per real Skype 2007 user paid by eBay. All up those are not bad figures, and the purchase by eBay makes financial sense.

I’m a fan of Skype as it gives eBay the potential to dominate the entire voice market. So far we are not seeing the splintering that happened with IMing (ICQ, MSN, AOL etc.) – you either Skype or you don’t.

Fly in comfort – check out Seatguru

If you are flying soon check out Seatguru – it gets behind the airlines spin and shows you the actual configuration of the seats on the plane. Use it to see exactly how much space you will ‘enjoy’, and what the best and worst seats are.

For business class travel check out the AirNZ 747 configuration versus Qantas 747 –  see how the AirNZ business class seats have so much more space than their Qantas equivalents. That’s because AirNZ lie flat builds on the angled Virgin Atlantic pod system, while Qantas uses the older face forward system. Seatguru shows the Qantas business class seats as not completely lie flat, which is a poor substitute for the excellent AirNZ ones. (Which is why I’m about to fly AirNZ to Europe).

If you do fly AirNZ make sure that you partner with Virgin Atlantic, or stay with AirNZ for the whole trip, so you get the great seat pods all the way. Avoid at all costs AirNZ  alliance partner United (or Untied as I call them), which offer only the appalling old part reclining  business class seats across the Atlantic.

If you are travelling with someone else and want to chat, then British Airways offerings are not bad. The VA and AirNZ pods make it harder to talk or look out the window.

For a great site for customer reviews check out flatseats.com – BA reviews in particular are excellent. also on the site is a business class seat comparison table – note that no US airlines even have the angled lie-flat product – another symptom of their failure.

Stuff ads

Well – perhaps there is just no advertising money out there at this time of year. Stuff has esentially no advertising showing. Maybe NZHerald is in the same situation, and is using Google ads as a backup plan. Good show if so.

Trade Me, meanwhile, looks to have a full complement of ads, as does Scoop, while Seek is all over XtraMSN and TVNZ has some paying advertising.

I wonder if this has anything to do with sales people making 2006 calendar targets, or just sales people and media buyers being away.

Perhaps it has to do with the paucity of newspaper advertising right now – which would indicate that online advertising is at least mainly being sold in conjunction with offline, which in turn opens pandoras box. Is the online spend being fully charged to clients, or are clients getting a free add-on component to newspaper ads? Do clients see the value of online spend, or is it masked by other elements of the campaign?