Google video ads

Forget preroll, and postroll – the new new thing is Google’s idea of semi transparent ads over the top of the  bottom fifth of video. It may even have legs on TV – as we all move to control our own TV watching through time shifting.

Frankly this may be the only hope for TV, as consumers are increasingly driven to timeshifting to get past the great mass of advertisements on free TV.

It is to the point where I simply cannot watch a program of Free to air TV now, be it sport, movie or even news.

Scrolling or semi transparent ads may help me want to come back. The only other thing that could work is a dramatic reduction in the minutes of advertisments per hour – down to say one or two minutes of very expensive ads. Think of say four 30 second ads per hour – it would mean that you could actually watch a movie, and I’d even consider (briefly) not getting pay TV. On the other hand right now the choice for me is clear – between pay TV or no TV. No TV loses only because of rugby. The World cup rugby coverage on Channel Ten is so poor that I would simply not bother following things until the final. Thankfully all of the games are on Foxtel (Japan Fiji was excellent), and I am able to record them on my mac. Thank goodness for eyeTV, SkyTV/FoxTel and the 250 GB HDD on my MacBook Pro.

Air NZ and Telecom

I can’t help comparing Air NZ and Telecom. They face very similar circumstances, and yet are reacting very differently.

Both are ex Government owned, now private. Air NZ is quasi-private of course.

Both have a public-good role – to provide a network to the population.Both have a profit motive, and both benefit from quasi-monopoly position in the market.

Both have ability to add essentially infinite supply.Both can price at pretty much however much they want, as their cost base is fixed.

Both have very inelastic demand for their services at high prices. Business people will take a flight or make a phone call no matter what the price, even individuals have a minimum level of phone calls and flights, no matter the price (within reason).

Both have very elastic demand curves for their services when the price is cheap. $10 txts get huge traffic, Grab-a-seat fills planes.

Both are reliant on the strength of their marketing to promote use of their services.

How the two companies reacted to these market conditions is, however, very different.

Both have tried to maintain their monopoly through a variety  back-room lobbying, mergers (e.g. AirNZ & Qantas, AirNZ & Ansett). Telecom succeeded for a longer time, while AirNZ’s latest bid for a Qantas tie-up failed.
But Air NZ also worked on improving their business, to the point where they are now an excellent airline versus their international and domestic peers.

Their strategy of dropping prices and filling seats is a winner – something that will see them through tough times as well as good. Air NZ has also invested in leading-edge products – with the best business class in the world.

I would say that Air NZ has only really got going in recent years, once they shook off the Ansett debacle, and once they started to ignore the prospect of a Qantas tie-up and focus on the customer.

Meanwhile Telecom placed most of their senior executive energy into protecting their monopoly, through government lobbying, stonewalling and treating customers poorly. They continuously under-invested in the basics, and finally are getting dragged kicking and screaming by the Governemnt into belated investment.On the business side Telecom put the price of basic services like phone rentals up, sold the crown jewel Yellow Pages and launched the sad site that is Ferrit. They also doubled up on dubious Australian investments, and bought Gen-i for what was likely far too much.

Compare their marketing efforts. Go on. Which marketing do you enjoy watching? Which websites do you enjoy using? Which marketing is relevant to you?

But in the end both are making good profits.

One has a P/E of 15, and the equivilent industry in the USA has a P/E of 20 – so the market rates them as not quite as good as their US peers.

The other has a P/E of 5, and the equivilent industries in the USA have P/E’s of 24 and 32 (depending on how you define the sector) – so the market rates them as well beneath their US peers.

That second one is Air New Zealand, as they are one of the few airlines out there that makes good money. That drives their P/E down, but if that is sustainable then they are a fantastic bargain.

My take? Buy Air New Zealand, and sell US Airlines (not Southwest or JetBlue) and sell Telecom. It’s basic stuff – good businesses do better in the long run than bad ones, and you don’t need years of research to tell you that..

Then again, the new Telecom CEO has a chance to turn things around. The first 6 months will be telling – if long term insider heads roll and departments and companies are sold and closed then Telecom may turn around.

eBay shakes the model, but still doesn’t get it

eBay is still figuring out this auction thing.

For a start, all eBay neutral feedbacks are now counted as negative, as from a couple of weeks back. If big sellers start getting a bad karma ratio, then the amount of stuff they can post to sell will be restricted. They’ve also been playing with the fees, with a few promotions.

A fascinating stat is that apparently 1% of sellers generate 35% of bad karma feedback. So think about it – as a business wouldn’t you want to just be rid of those sellers that are ruining it for everyone?

Trade Me is ruthless in getting rid of lousy sellers – and the community is doubly ruthless in identifying them. It seems to me that eBay has been putting short term greed ahead of good business, and choosing to do business with lousy sellers rather than turf them out of the site. This is growth at the expense of long term sustainability, and the sort of stuff lousy management consultants wuld recommend to make this quarter’s earnings look good.

But the site in the meantime is rubbish compared with Trade Me (yes I am biased).
I’ve been using eBay over here in Australia, as it seems that, like in New Zealand, eCommerce otherwise doesn’t exist. Well except for my great folly, the Apple Store.

It’s a completely different experience from Trade Me.

For a start eBay is an intimidating place – it just feels disorderly with too much stuff (not necessarily a bad thing), wildly different product pages and a majority of the items posted by enormous passionless sellers. It feels like the bazaars in Istanbul or Isfahan- you know you are going to get a bargain, but you are just that little bit worried, and you sure know you have to work at it.

I searched for a Nokia E90 on eBay AU, and found one from a seller based in Hong Kong. I decided to trust the seller as he had a huge number of transactions, and committed to the deal. But the experience differed wildly from Trade Me.

Firstly, the confirmation screen was of little use, and it took me about 30 minutes to pay by paypal (I have a US and NZ account and… oh never mind).

Secondly, although I received an auto-confirm email from the seller, I heard nothing more for several days. More than enough days for the phone to have arrived, so I dropped him an email. It seems the colour I chose wasn’t in stock, and wouldn’t be for at least a week. No big deal, so I changed the colour. Again I heard nothing until a few days later I receved a tracking email and finally the package.

The phone’s great (Vodafone is not – more on that some other time)

But through the whole transaction I felt unloved – there was no personal touch from the seller, and there was not follow up email at any time – not even an acknowledgement that the colour change was ok. The eBay site wasn’t a fun place to be.

In contrast Trade Me feels like a giant family. Even the huge sellers are careful to send out emails after I purchase, after any changes and after they ship. I’m always kept fully informed about what is going on. Morever there is no messing with Paypal in foreign countries, or with sending money overseas – It’s bank to bank or Trade Me’s new Pay Now service. The site itself is fun to use, and the experience enjoyable, and it is because the sellers are great and the site is great. There is a more equal dynamic between buyers and sellers, whereas on eBay the sellers dwarf the buyers.

This user experience difference is the primary reason why Trade Me is so much more successful in NZ than eBay is in Australia.

Right now eBay Au has 1.3m items on sale, but only 1.13m are located in Australia. Meanwhile Trade Me has 966k listings right now – getting perilously close to that magic 1m.

So eBay – please keep on copying Trade Me – after all I do own your shares, and believe that you will get it eventually. Start by getting rid of some of those MBA’s and ex consultants, and scale back on that off line advertising.

World Cup in HD – not so good

It’s a messy situation over here when it comes to watching the world cup. But yes, I’ve finally got  HDTV working on my HD capable MacBook Pro 17 with hi-res screen.

The world cup broadcast rights are owned by Channel 10, but games are also broadcast by FoxTel – Aussie’s equivalent of Sky.

Sky does play the games live, but their on-TV guide is updated barely 24 hours ahead at times.

Sky’s broadcast quality is woeful – very low resolution, which doesn’t do well with the panoramic shots used by the European broadcasters used to Football (the round ball version)  and mature markets with good HDTV distribution.

Meanwhile Sky broadcasts in glorious HD quality. Except there are two issues – first the quality of playback is terrible when there is lots of movement (which means I prefer those panoramic shots) and secondly Channel 10 inserts advertisements at seemingly random times.

Oh – and thirdly they don’t actually play that many games, and nor do they do them on time. They played one of the myriad AFL ‘finals’ rather than the NZ-Italy game live, right now the Samoans are taking on South Africa, and Chanel Ten is showing, well, this:

Chanel TenYup – they are talking  about the prospect of the game, rather than show the live pictures. Losers.

Interestingly enough the replays that FoxTel played on Saturday used NZ TV3 commentary, so I am able to empathise with one commenter on Rod’s post on the commentary matter in NZ. The commentry there is woeful, the coverage by Ten here is woeful and yet sometimes this always happens as the economics of big events clouds the thinking of broadcasters who really don’t care about the sport the rest of the time. It’s not as if we are going to switch loyalties to Ten or TV3 based on one event – we’ll follow the quality content to where it resides.

The new paradigm in shavers?

I keep breaking my Philips shavers.

I have (had?) two – one for home, and one for travel, and they’ve been great. Both were usable in the shower, which  is good, but sadly both were susceptible to the stone-hard floors found in the bathroom. They both (and they are different models) broke in the same place:
Philibroke

For something designed to be used in the shower this is a poor show. They should be designed to take the occasional spill to the floor. But that fall is a hard thing to design for, given the mass required for the motor, battery, waterproof cladding, mechanicals and electronics.

So this weekend I went looking or a model with a metal head, but not only does that not seem to exist, but Philips seem to have stopped selling fully waterproof models.

Except for this:

new philips shaver

What a compelling redesign. Rather than beefing up the strength of the materials, Philips instead trimmed down on non-essential elements of the shaver. The three heads are attached with a single spindle, and the whole thing is light, strong and, importantly, flexible.

Here’s what happens when you knock it from the bathtub onto the floor, which, distressingly, it took me just a day to do:

Philibroke new

The head releases from the body of the shaver, both bounce a little on rubber pieces and nothing is damaged. Fantastic design – a new paradigm.

The downsides are threefold.

First – there are only two models here in Australia (and I had to go to the “shaver store” to see them), and they are both relatively underpowered due to their size and the fact that the three heads are driven by one center rotating part.

Secondly, neither model has a trimmer, but both come with the silly auto-moisturiser. This is something I have yet to fathom – my take is that it is Philips’ way of attempting to have an ongoing sale of  ‘razor blades’

Finally recharging is slow – the more powerful of the two models comes with an enormous and vastly ugly recharging and moisturiser replacing unit. It was so monstrous and there was no travel charger option, so I went with the second, lighter and cheaper version. It takes 8 hours to recharge and gives just 20 minutes of power.
Overall the shaver is certainly down on power versus the old shavers, but the sensation of shaving with the three flexi heads is quite different and fantastic. The lightness of the shaver versus the old one means I’ve shed a few more travel pounds, leaving more room for other electronic toys..

But the one to get is this one, which combines more power, longer battery life, faster charging and a trimmer. Now I am still looking for a travel replacement, so I’ll do some hunting….

shavercentre canada

More pictures of the old and new after the jump

Continue reading “The new paradigm in shavers?”

Aussie bush motorcycle excursion

I finally got out into the bush today.  No snakes or kangaroos, but some distinctively Australian scenes. First – some bush:

bush

A great track which made me feel like I was in the middle of nowhere:

bush2

A somewhat awkward pose as I rush to get in place for the timer..

KTM and me in the bush

..”Aerial Burn Planned” – time to get out of here…. Continue reading “Aussie bush motorcycle excursion”

Trade Me Travel Press Release

Media Release

Sunday 9 September 2007

Trade Me Launches Travel
Trade Me today launches its new travel website “Travelbug” with an initial focus on accommodation.

Aimed at everyday New Zealanders, Travelbug launches with over 1500 accommodation providers and over 10,000 rooms from Ahipara to Stewart Island.

“We’re delighted by the take-up we’ve enjoyed from the industry,” said Trade Me founder and CEO Sam Morgan.

“We have a great spread of coverage with a selection of places to stay in nearly every town in New Zealand. However we expect to double our operator numbers within a year.”

Travelbug shares a navigation bar with Trade Me, and also draws on the principles of community feedback and trading histories. Prospective customers are able to check out other travelers’ experiences and provide their own ratings of accommodation providers.

Overnight accommodation ranges from $25 to $1500 night, but the main focus is family accommodation between $80 and $160 a night. The service allows you to check availability and then book online up to a year ahead.

“Just as Trade Me Jobs has grown the number of people looking for jobs online, we believe Travelbug will significantly grow the number of people who find and book holidays online in New Zealand.”

The website provides Kiwis with a comprehensive marketplace of local accommodation providers with online booking facilities. There are no additional charges for consumers and suppliers are only charged if bookings are made.

Trade Me has built Travelbug in partnership with Vianet International, a Kerikeri based travel software and development company. Once the accommodation service beds down, Trade Me and Vianet plan to expand Travelbug into other areas including holiday homes and tourism activities.

You think RWC is bad in NZ….

Rugby World Cup coverage here in Perth, Australia is underwhelming – Here, for example, is Chanel Tens newly launched website showing the match schedule:

ten

Three issues:

1: The coverage is biased to Australia – nothing to do about that I suppose but endure, and go to rugbyheaven.co.nz

2: The timezone over here means that those times in that table above are wrong. Surely the website can either figure out where I am or give me the option of changing time zones?

3: They have free to air HDTV over here, and Ten is broadcasting the RWC matches in HD. I’ve got an HD receiver thing, an external powered aerial, and my mac, so I should be able to record and view (through a TV or projector or my HD screen) the rugby in glorious HD detail.

I can’t.

Apparently Fremantle has notoriously bad coverage and at none of the several places I’ve stayed in around here have I been able to get HD reception.

This sucks beyond all suckiness. So close, yet so far.

And of course we can forget about Free to air TV over the internet – apparently there will need to be several more of these world cup (of the various genres) things before the rights holders figure it out.

Travel Bug soft launch (Trade Me Travel)

travelbug

Here at last. Trade Me have soft-launched Travel Bug.

Simple, elegant and it just works. But still some weirdness with underlining in Safari.

Interestingly TravelBug uses Google Maps rather than Smaps – at least for now. It’s obviously a version 1, and we can certainly expect more goodness to come down the line.

Go ahead – book a weekend in Wairarapa!

Was Telecom right? Introducing Google Yellow Pages (or not)

Was Telecom smart to sell Yellow pages? Here was I thinking they had given up on the online market of that empire, but perhaps they just recognised that giving up was the right thing to do, as Google was coming to town.

Here’s what I received just now into my Yahoo!Mail, but there is a catch – it is not from Google, but from envision.FM, and the reply-to is different from the send. Where the heck is FM I wonder? They are offering to get your business onto Google Maps.

google spam

They had my (aging) US address details there, which means they got hold of some database (easy to do with $$ in the USA)…

google spam

That’s the link to envision.fm.

google spam

and you get $100 of adwords for free. While supplies last, because Google adwords are runing out folks…

In that light gray on white fine print disclaimer (not that useful really) it says:

“Basic user listings are submitted to Google in approx. 6 weeks. Professionally managed clients are submitted to Google within 48 hours.”

On the first link (I realy hope it wasn’t a spammer)  I get this text disclaimer. Bolding is mine:

“Envisoin is a worldwide provider of quality Google consulting service. Envision has is a Google Enterprise Partner that specializes in helping small business’ to start using Google services, even ones who don’t quite know how to use them.”

That’s right – they got their own name wrong.

Spammers or brilliant marketers? I have no idea…