That Interweb

The Netflix Meltdown Addendum: The Netflix Relief Fund

A little perspective from the folks at Funny or Die. Hat tip to @AdeleLaurie for the find.

Netflix Relief Fund with Jason Alexander from Jason Alexander

The Netflix Meltdown

It’s been pretty amazing to watch Netflix completely destroy their brand. They went from the underdog everyone rooted for to the player that everyone loved to the jerkiest of jerks jerking us around.

I’ve been a Netflix customer for years. I’ve been with them through numerous price changes and plan updates but I’ve always been satisfied because their prices were fair and their selection was extensive. I understood they were a new company tweaking their business plan to find the sweet spot.

But this latest move just seemed greedy. I don’t think it is greedy, I think it seems greedy. Netflix has had to shell out more and more money to studios in order to stream movies and that money has to come from somewhere and that somewhere is us.

Where Netflix messed up is they just sprung this change on us and pretended like it was a good thing for us. Really? Less service for more money and I’m supposed to happy? Forget you.

They should have come straight out and said, “Hey, business costs are going up and we want to make sure we can give everyone the service they want so unfortunately, that means we have to change our pricing plans. We don’t want to but the studios are demanding more and more money so we kind of have to. Sorry.” This would be disappointing but the honesty would let me know they’re not trying to squeeze me, the studios are.

We’ll see if Netflix recovers but they’ve been shedding customers to Redbox and Blockbuster By Mail so it’s going to be tough. I hope they make it because I’m sticking with them. After all, my queue is almost 100 movies long and I’m too lazy to rebuild that list with someone else.

For more on the Netflix debacle, checkout this Huffington Post article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/25/netflix-less-popular-than-blockbuster_n_908499.html#s315821&title=Netflix_Loses_Your

 

WiFi on planes is cool. Making me pay $12.95 for 2.5 hours of access is not.

 

Last night I boarded my flight from LA to Austin with dreams of burning down a dungeon boss with my guildies while sitting snuggly in seat 25A at 35,000 feet. Nirvana had arrived—I could finally play World of Warcraft (WoW) on a plane. No kids, no chores, no distractions. Hell, there’d even be people brining me food and drinks so there would be no bio breaks either. Alas, my night of nerdly glee was not to be.

$12.95 for internet access? Seriously? LA to Austin is a two and a half hour flight. That’s about $6.50 an hour. My battery life while playing WoW will maybe get me an hour to an hour and twenty minutes. There’s no way I can justify that cost.

/cry

So, one nerd can’t play a nerd game on a plane. No big deal, right? Maybe not. At $12.95 the only people that can justify that cost are people that aren’t really going to pay it and that means business travellers with expense accounts. That’s fine and dandy if that’s your business model but the cash you make is probably not worth the ill will you receive from the nonbusiness fliers with laptops, iPhones, iPads, Androids, et al.

The Boeing 737 I was on can carry 148 passengers. Let’s say 20 of them spring for the $12.95. That’s $259. Not bad, not great. Even 30 passengers would only be $388.50. Everyone else that doesn’t get online but wants to is left really disappointed at the airline that just charged them $400 for the flight plus an additional $50 a bag. On second thought, they’re not disappointed. They’re angry and thinking, “Just one more way to nickel and dime me.” While business travelers have warm fuzzies everyone else has just one more reason to fly someone else.

This could go a different way. This could be an incredibly powerful customer experience that makes people love flying with you. “Internet at two bucks an hour!? SWEET!” Everyone can spare two bucks. Imagine 100 passengers online for two hours at two bucks per. That’s $400 and 100 happy customers that go out and tell all their friends how they got online in the stratosphere for only two dollars on your airplane. They’re in love with you. They want to fly you again because while paying $50 a bag sucks, $2 internet rocks.

As word gets out, every person with an internet capable device will pick your airline over the others when all else is equal. More customers, more love, more money.

Of course there are other pay options available, too. Pay-go is something many people are familiar with and it seems fair to people. Pay for bandwidth is another option. Want it fast? Gotta pay more. Anything would be better than $12.95.

Please, please, please airlines with internet rethink your fee schedule and turn my /cry into a /woot! And while you’re at it, put a plug next to my seat. Running heroics takes way to long and my meek little battery isn’t up to the task.

If you go into a new biz pitch without an interactive strategy, you're an idiot.

A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine was super excited about a business pitch he was working on. He'd developed some work he thought was ground breaking. He was over the moon and couldn't wait to go to the pitch. Yesterday I asked him about it. Poor boy lost the pitch.

"Why?" I asked.
"Because we didn't do interactive," he replied.
"What, you just had banners and no strategy?" I asked.
"No, we did nothing. No strategy. No banners. Nothing. I insisted we do some but my bosses shot me down."

WTF?! What kind of moron doesn't pitch interactive in today's business world? I realize many agencies aren't up to the task of creating a true, comprehensive internet strategy but to not even try is simply asinine. At the very least you should have some banner ideas. It's simply a cost of entry nowadays.

And to any clients reading this, if your agency of record doesn't have an interactive strategy, fire them. They are doing you a disservice and don't deserve your business. Plus, they're fucking idiots and if they're screwing the interactive side up so badly, you have to wonder what they're doing to the rest of your business.

Facebook makes an oops.

You’ve probably heard all the hoopla about the snazzy new advertising program Facebook developed. You’ve probably also heard that Facebook users revolted, forcing a major change in the program. Seems Facebook forgot the golden rule of social networking, “Do unto me only what I ask done unto me.” Cheers to the power of the people!

Untrusted? Ineffective? Sign us up!

There’s a new study from Nielsen that shows consumers don’t trust banner ads. Only 26% of people surveyed trusted the skinny little bastards. Only Text ads on mobile phones fared worse at 18%. I’m shocked, I tell you. Shocked.

Who’s on top of the online heap? Online consumer opinions and blogs came in at 61%, followed by brand websites at 60%.

Banner ads also have a notoriously bad click-through rate, usually below 1%. So why do clients and account folk turn to these untrusted, ineffective blights so often when developing a web strategy? I have several theories:

1. Most agencies don’t know how to make money if they’re not marking up media. To these agencies, buying a ton of banner space is just like buying a ton of TV.
2. Banners are easily measurable and clients love them some metrics.
3. Clients, account folk, and media people don’t really understand the full capabilities of the web. Banner ads look like print (kind of) and thus are more comfortable to people unaccustomed to online marketing.
4. Clients believe the fact that you can “click” a banner ad means maybe, just maybe, a sale is around the corner.

The truth is, banner ads are nothing more than billboards on the internet. Sure they can be flashy, interactive, and clever billboards, but they’re still billboards. And just like billboards, they have a part to play in most marketing campaigns. Just not the lead role.