Browsing Tag

Basics

Human Intervention: markets in the making

So I spent some time understanding a little more the impact of social media over the holidays, basically in response to the online norm piece and a comment on art from gapingvoid guy, [tag]Hugh MacLeod[/tag].   People who interact online can impact online markets and untimately offline concerns as well.  O’Reilly had a [tag]Bill Janeway[/tag], from [tag]investment banking[/tag] firm [tag]Warburg Pincus[/tag], quote on the [tag]Money:Tech[/tag] conference which is fairly relevant in context of human interaction’s impact on financial activity:

The timeliness of this Conference is NOT only because “web 2.0” technologies and business models have reached critical mass in the financial markets. It is also because, as driven by the web more generally, the frontier between human and machine-decision making has become radically problematic. First, quantitative approaches in trading, pricing, valuation, asset definition vastly expanded the domain for machine decision-making. But then the humans struck back, by refusing to act like the mindless molecules that the models driving machine decision-making required. The self-reflective, behavioral attributes of human market participants is now driving back that frontier, requiring innovations in every aspect of financial market processes, beginning with techniques of risk measurement and risk management. When price is an inverse function of [tag]liquidity[/tag] and liquidity is an inverse function of price certainty, the recursive loop can only be broken by human intervention and action

Wow – what a mouthful and insightful – people impact markets. The significant investment in optimized algorythm based business models online may have a challenger – human interaction as it relates to online advertising.

Changed search models, content availability and pervasive shared content may ultimately make Feedburner’s (Google) adverpublishing platform which best serves as a sliver markets to a high value market channel at some point in the future?   While not necessarily the mainstream population, active online human decision makers continue to collectively impact markets, one might say communities.   Facebook, Twitter or others represent segments of market influencers and makers. Most [tag]Facebook valuation[/tag] discussions all essentially acknowledge a significant market segmentation asset.

Communities as Market Makers

The current underpinnings of the global social media infrastructure (Xobni, [tag]Utterz[/tag], Twitter, [tag]Plaxo[/tag] [tag]LinkedIn[/tag], [tag]Flickr[/tag], [tag]Flock[/tag]…) are establishing market definitions, definitions of buyer classes in their highly attributed/user extended data model.   So that begets the question as to how does a collective commonality define a market? Are there bookmark markets? Blog markets? “Group” Markets?

It’s reasonable to infer this is in fact the case. Sites/Platforms such a Digg,  writing cabals creating content and individuals bring together friends and randoms around a common set of attributes which should they sustain overtime may in fact create micro-markets. Not a believer?  Go to Gizmodo – That IS a Gizmodo market.

Sure advertising is inherently audience biased and to that end the delivery vehicle has just changed, but can the vehicles actually begin to deliver value add services – access to branded public information, focusedcontent and web service community tools across an interoperable network.  Imagine it – share attributes (friends, content, services…) could be managed through a unified market based UI – the Facebook user who likes cooking, the Truemors reader who looks up his 401k balance on the truemors interface – there are all kinds of abstract concepts and extensions. Once the social media markets mature from their currently narrowly banded spiky reality, these may be the only advertising markets – community focused views of online commerce, communication and service consumption.

So now on to the the abstract thought to end the article.  Does an individual define the market or an individual’s relationships?  If it’s the latter, Facebook may be under valued and the usability race has begun!

January 5, 2008 by
(6)

2008 – Let the content storm begin!

So I got this note from a guy I know who abused me on not posting anything.  To that end, I will say – yup!  I’ve been doing other real world stuff and have apparently impressed my wife with my efforts, except I’ve been a little too busy with the [tag]iPhone[/tag].   So let’s have a great 2008 and start typing.

I decided to see what that friend of mine was up to on his blog, since I’ve been a little slack. He’s been tearing it up – with his last post on 9/9, which appears to be a [tag]Teddy Roosevelt[/tag] quote.  I want my national coney package back!

So here’s the next thing I’m hoping can take off, since I’m starting to like this facebook thing. I have a group on Software Product Management which now has people I don’t know in it!!!! The difference between this group and the one on Slideshare, SlideSouth, is that I actually told people about it.

If any of these are of interest, join and add value, since I can’t seem to do much lately.

January 4, 2008 by
(0)

Top 5 Posts: 2007 Keyword Traffic

So I’m traveling and doing the holiday thing and working on a couple of new posts, but as I noted in another post, I thought I would do a list of the top 5 posts with the most random keyword traffic:

How to Calculate Gross Margin:  From a set of questions I repeatedly get asked, now I have a URL to send and apparently a URL for people to search on too.  This one get hits directly off the title.

What is Scientific Management: I got bored, wasn’t feeling creative and did this one, kinda like this post of top 5.  The search term is almost always “relevance of Scientific Management”, there is some [tag]Business 101[/tag] lecturer or a lot of lecturers who have this as an essay or something.

A Community’s Place:  This gets hits only for the term “Bob’s Ichthyosaur”, so apparently I’m not the only one that liked it or would want to read it.  Thanks John for my copy – see you next July.

Top 100 Things to be Thankful For – This is not only one I like, but the highest traffic post on my site.  Who’d a thunk, a stream of thankful consciousness.

Police Setlist  – This one gets weird keywords, but nevertheless it’s [tag]top 5[/tag]

I’ll do some more, like the 5 i like but no one else appears to and my fav’s, which some may have liked. Back to the task of life.

~Cheers!

December 21, 2007 by
(0)

Lessons Learned: What is Value? Depends on how/when you look at it

So I spent a good deal of time thinking about value this weekend for a couple of reasons:

1. I had to spend way too much time in a vet hospital for my dog panic and cost/benefit never really entered my mind, but I did do some quick budget math out of financial diligence – couldn’t help it.

2. I need to find Guitar hero and I can’t.  But I did find out some guy paid $10,000 for one, not me though – cost/benefit entered my mind on this one.

3.  The dollar menu at McDonald’s – how are those items only worth $1?  I mean I like double cheeseburgers.

So I thought about it and realized that value is in the eye of the beholder or rather the coveter – but perhaps the marketer as well.   Not sure if value is ever the same or within banded limits at any point in time and this is the most confusing thing about value. Value is about the buyer, so as a marketer and product manager know how can you optimize the value or perceived value of your product.  Effective product placement can significantly change the value of something  – right channel, the right package, the right promotion….   Often the value of something is marketed and delivered to market based on a plan, so perhaps a double cheeseburger is only worth a $1, if [tag]share of wallet[/tag] is a key careabout.  Value is situational for both the buyer and seller.  So I’ve cut in a general overview from Wikipedia on Value for consideration:

The economic value of something is how much a desired object or condition is worth relative to other objects or conditions…

In [tag]neoclassical economics[/tag], the value of an object or service is often seen as nothing but the price it would bring in an open and competitive market. This is determined primarily by the demand for the object relative to supply. Many neoclassical economic theories equate the value of a commodity with its price, whether the market is competitive or not. As such, everything is seen as a commodity and if there is no market to set a price then there is no economic value.

In classical economics, the value of an object or condition is the amount of discomfort/labor saved through the consumption or use of an object or condition (Labor Theory of Value). Though exchange value is recognized, [tag]economic value[/tag] is not dependent on the existence of a market and price and value are not seen as equal.

In this tradition, to [tag]Steve Keen[/tag] “value” refers to “the innate worth of a commodity, which determines the normal (‘equilibrium’) ratio at which two commodities exchange.” To Keen and the tradition of David Ricardo, this corresponds to the classical concept of long-run cost-determined prices, what Adam Smith called “[tag]natural prices[/tag]” and [tag]Karl Marx[/tag] called “[tag]prices of production[/tag].” It is part of a cost-of-production theory of value and price. Ricardo, but not Keen, used a “labor theory of price” in which a commodity’s “innate worth” was the amount of labor needed to produce it.

In another classical tradition, [tag]Marx[/tag] distinguished between the “[tag]value in use[/tag]” (use-value, what a commodity provides to its buyer), “value” (the socially-necessary labour time it embodies), and “exchange value” (how much labor-time the sale of the commodity can claim, Smith’s “[tag]labor commanded[/tag]” value). By most interpretations of his labor theory of value, Marx, like Ricardo, developed a “[tag]labor theory of price[/tag]” where the point of analyzing value was to allow the calculation of relative prices. …

Value in the most basic sense can be referred to as “Real Value” or “Actual Value.” This is the measure of worth that is based purely on the utility derived from the consumption of a product or service. Utility derived value allows products or services to be measure on outcome instead of demand or supply theories that have the inherent ability to be manipulated.

Alas, value is subjective and may or may not have any relationship to production effort ([tag]cost plus[/tag]) or value in use.  The ever changing marketplace makes understanding your products value an ongoing and continuous thread of activity.

Sounds like this value thing is a continuous loop caused by an if-then-goto statement in the business plan.

December 16, 2007 by
(0)