60 seconds on the web

The world moves fast. When we we’re unconnected the speed of change went unnoticed. Now that we all have digital footprints, we can track all that happens. This amazing and statistically rich infographic is solid reminder of the world we live in. It’s also very cool that most of these business are startups that aren’t even teenagers yet. I’ve pulled out the numbers and got the pic below.

60 seconds on the web:

• 12,000+ new ads posted on Craigslist
• 370,000+ minutes of voice calls on Skype
• 98,000+ tweets
• 320+ new twitter accounts
• 100+ new Linkedin accounts
• 6,600+ photos uploaded to Flickr
• 50+ wordpress CMS downloads & 125+ plugins
• 695,000 facebook status updates, 80,000 wall posts and 510,040 comments
• 1,700 firefox downloads
• 694,445 google searches
• 168 million emails sent (of which 92% is spam)
• 60+ new blogs & 1500+ new blog posts
• 70+ new domains are registered
• 600+ new Youtube videos are uploaded. 25+ hours in duration
• 150+ questions are asked in Question forums
• 13,000+ iPhone apps are downloaded
• 20,000 new posts on Tumblr.
• I new definition added to Urban Dictionary 
• 1,600+ reads on Scribd.

And here is what it looks like:

2 horse race

If you haven’t already read the 22 Laws of marketing – then you should. It’s a short book which really should be called the 22 laws on entrepreneurship. It seems that most of the laws are true on a category scale – the type of scale that startups with big dreams should pay attention two. recently I’ve been reminded of the law 8: The law of duality.

The Law of Duality says that “in the long run, every market becomes a two-horse race.”

The most recent example of this is Twitter and Facebook. it seems as though they’ve won the social web race. Every brand or advertisement is now tagged with ‘find us on Twitter & Facebook’. We have to look pretty hard to find any of the other 400+ social networking sites. It seems the Law of duality is still true almost 2 years after it was written. It seems that certain power laws of dominance still exist, even though we all like to believe the market has fragmented and opened up for everyone….

The truth is there is only so much space in the mind. We can’t carry the baggage of too many ideas with us. So we simplify by limiting what we participate in. There’s lots new world industry examples of the law of duality.

Social: Facebook  & Twitter

Search: Google & Bing

Mobile: iPhone & Android

Computers: PC & Mac

The question for internet entrepreneurs, is which new categories are still to get their number 2 player. That is where the opportunity lies.

Gamification is coming…

I wrote an article for the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper on Gamification. I plan to extend the thought experiment here with a longer blog entry on it. So in preparation here is a link to the original article:

“Consumers know the score in the ultimate reality game”

Pricing & relativity

While reading SamsMojo earlier this week I was surprised to learn the prices of the top 10 selling iphone apps for 2009. In fact, the price for the top seller was more than 10 times what I expected at $99 – The TomTom navigator app. Not the $3 we’d get as a response if we asked a random sample of people.

Sure, it’s a high price as far as iphone apps go, but it much cheaper than a $500 TomTom. The point for startup is this. There is no such thing as expensive. There is only expensive in relation to the set of relevant substitutes. And when we are pricing our brand or startup all pricing decision need to be made relative to the alternatives.

Creating Brand Loyalty

Here’s a list of brands for which I am personally brand loyal with. And to the right of each brand I have a given a reason.

Brand & reason
Qantas Domestic:    They are the only full service domestic airline in Australia.

Ripcurl Wetsuits :   They are simply the best quality, and the warmest. I will never, ever switch as the cost of getting it wrong is $600+ mistake. I also love the brand history.

Collingwood FC:    I am a fan and I support the club, in this category performance wont create switching, but it does reduce my purchase frequency

iphone: I love it’s seamless funcationality and integrating so much, I find it hard to believe a better option will ever exist. I don’t even mind putting up with a few dropouts

Crumpler Bags: I love their design, and functionality, I also love the story of how they started and the fact the owners are from my local city.

Seth’s Blog: I know I’ll get a golden entry aroud once a week.

Twitter: It’s the only social network which suits my attitude & lifestyle. I like it’s brevity & immediacy.

Google Search: Works best. Would switch if better one came along. On occasion I now search on twitter for attitudinal & results based on timeliness.

Lavazza Coffee : Best tasting Roast & ground coffee after trying many others.

If we are fortunate enough to have a level of brand loyalty, then it’s equally important that we understand why we have it. In the case of Qantas, it’s more serendipitous than through providing a super product. Notice I’m only loyal with domestic travel, I’ll switch to Singapore or Cathay on international travel. Other brands like the Collingwood football club suffer from reduced revenue rather than losing market share. And Google, well they are only as good as their product where the switching costs are extremely low…. Once upon a time I was loyal Yahoo search…

The point for startups is simple. The reasons for brand loyalty are varied. Generating it is almost always related to having an awesome product. If our product isn’t awesome enough, then we need to ‘Awesomize it’. Only then will the brand story matter. Once we get loyalty our next job is to build a wall around it where switching costs are too high.

iphone apps & mini-preneurs

Got an idea for an iphone app you can’t find?

Great – there’s like a zillion iphone app developers waiting for your business right here, and here and here.

So write the brief for the app you want and can’t find, contact the developers and get it made. Get your itunes account up, choose a cheap ‘low barrier’ price, like a ‘dollar’ or so and sell that puppy. Remember it’s better to sell a $1 iphone app a lot of times than a a $5 or $10 one no times at all.

This micro-entrepreneurs opportunity is as simple as they come. Global distribution with an engaged audience – rare indeed. A classic ‘trend hijack’.

Go now – make it, sell it.