E-tailing's beautiful argument

I'm not positive, but I'm fairly certain that random pedestrians–not paying customers–don't stroll in and out of Amazon's buildings all day long, clogging their toilets, breaking their toilet paper dispensers, and stealing their soap pumps.  I'm also fairly certain that few people have decided that Amazon's buildings are a good place to sit down and read a magazine or take a nap while they're drunk.  Or high.  Again, I can't be sure, but I'm pretty confident that no ever successfully wheedled, guilt-tripped, intimidated, or threatened their computer screen into giving an extra parking validation or into accepting an expired coupon.

I've seen lots of talk about how online retailers don't have the same overhead that brick-and-mortar stores have, and they have lower labor costs, etc.  There's one aspect that isn't talked about very often, at least not in brutally honest terms. 

E-tailers have a barrier that keeps out the 20% that aren't worth anyone's time.  You have to have a credit card and you have to be savvy enough to use a computer.  That means they can focus on the 80% who are interested in exchanging money for a good or service at the listed price.  They don't have to deal with people whose only interest in any given store is as a place to have a nice bowel movement or a good nap.  They can focus on the 80% who actually want to, you know, buy stuff.  They can deal with the 80% of consumers understand that haggling is not a generally accepted practice in American life instead of the 20% who think that a wink and a smile or a raised voice and threat to "speak to your supervisor" justifies the off-chance of a 50¢ discount.

Once upon a time, a customer could bang a can of beans again their shopping cart and noisily tell a clerk, "I'm a loyal, paying customer!"  There was a pretty good chance they'd get a discount on the dented can, or the scuffed book, or whatever it was.  I'll be amazed if there comes a point in my life where I can't go to some kind of store and buy a loaf of bread.  At the same time, I'll be amazed if I can still go to a store and buy a new book, poster, or movie in twenty years.  I'll be shocked if clothing stores look anything like they currently do a couple of decades from now. 

The shift from X% vs Y% in the online% vs brick-and-mortar% ratio is going to keep moving.  But I just started wondering how much of that is driven by retailers realizing that some customers just aren't worth chasing.

Was it a letdown?

Apple's big announcement–the Beatles are now in the iTunes store–let a few people down.  It wasn't a steaming music service and neither was it some combination of iTunes, Twitter, and/or Facebook.  I'm certain that I will, in fact, forget Tuesday, the 16th of November, 2010.  Still, it is interesting to see them working to fill the biggest hole in the iTunes catalog years after the Beatles' absence stopped being an issue.

The big reveal, part two

I'm already over Facebook's non-event.  This teaser from Apple is certainly making that even easier:

Quote for the day

It turns out that I, and whole lot of other people, were wrong about Facebook's big, new feature.  But they did introduce something that leverages stuff and integrates things and, well, I think Perez Hilton says it best:

This is pretty intense. And we don't really get it.

On Facebook

I had a thought halfway through my last post.  It didn't really have any place in my last post, so I didn't put it anywhere.  Here's my thought:  Facebook can't do anything right.

They were sitting in the slingshot right when people realized that Myspace was terrible.  They rode that momentum until they reached a critical mass.  Are you going to join a social networking service if only a fraction of your friends or colleagues were members?

IE 6 was really, really popular for a while.  Even today, with Firefox, Chrome, and Safari, it refuses to die.  It is–and always was–terrible.  Bud Light is a terrible beer.  Two and a Half Men isn't a funny show.  Facebook is a terrible service.

• They can't do privacy right.  Period.
• They can't give users features they want.  (Dislike button?)
• They force users to use features they don't want.  (Redesigns anyone?)
• They can't even get something as simple as chat right.

They fell into half a billion users.  They've upped the number of photos you can upload, and they've introduced newer algorithms for suggesting friends.  What else?  Can you imagine another tech company that could manage to be an industry darling for half a decade, acquire half a billion users, and still manage to never introduce a (really) useful or a (really) innovative feature? 

@facebook.com

When someone gives you their email address, do you judge them?  It's always interesting to find out that someone you had respected just moments earlier can be reached at sexy_manotaur19@something.com.  I don't see that very often anymore.  I still do, but most people have caught on to the fact that email is not just a passing fad.  But I'm still judging the second half of your email address.  Do you use Aol's email system?  Even in 2010?  My mother does.  She signed up for Aol sometime around 1995.  I don't know if she's learned how to attach something to an email since the last time she asked me how to, well, do that.  Whenever I see someone's @aol.com email address, I imagine that person and my mom struggling to send attachments to each other.

There's a rumor going around the internet that Facebook is going to unveil their own @facebook.com email service on Monday.  So what are you going to think when someone give you an @facebook.com email address?  Facebook can't even make a decent chat program.  Maybe that's harsh.  It's entirely possible that Facebook can make a chat program that isn't terrible.  Maybe they just choose not to.  I could be wrong, but I doubt that Facebook is going to unveil an email system along with a calendar, decent chat service, and a cloud-based productivity suite that's actually competitive with Microsoft Office.  And make it all of those pieces work with each other.  Seamlessly.

They're not going to do it.  So Facebook's email service is going to less capable than Gmail.  Less capable isn't necessarily unmarketable.  Lower common denominators can be very popular.  Factories churned out quite a few Yugos.  Is New York Magazine (and many others) getting hot and bothered by the rumor that Facebook is going to unveil their very own Yugo?

This is still a rumor, but it sounds like there might be something to it.  We won't have to wait very long to see.  Even if they don't introduce an @facebook.com email service on Monday, I wouldn't be surprised if they do eventually do something like that.  What would surprise me is Facebook creating something that's not an internet Yugo.

Was it worth it?

I'm not surprised that the Republicans had a big night, I can't say that the Democrats didn't bring it on themselves.  There's plenty to say about the elections, but so much has already been said by people with more talent than I have.

I do have one observation.  Over the last two years I've been frustrated, exasperated, and downright angry at times.  But I often felt that the party in power was looking out for my interests.  I don't anticipate that same feeling from Boehner and company.

Reading more

I love my RSS reader.  I use Google's Reader, and I've been adding feeds for about two years.  At first, I was obsessive about reading, or at least skimming, everything in my list.  That could be a few hundred items a day.  I wouldn't actually read three hundred items in a day, but I'd read the headline, the first sentence or two, and then go on to the next item.  If it was interesting and short, I'd read the whole thing (maybe 20-50 items a day) and if it was interesting and long, I'd open the story in a tab in the background (maybe 5-10 items a day).

I've cut back quite a bit from that, but I still read many news stories and blog posts in my reader.  But I've been questioning how few I can actually read.  Every hour I spend reading news is an hour I don't spend reading books, and I usually get much, much more out of reading books.