Utube Followup: They monetized their website (Like I said they should)

Breaking news, Utube has succumbed to the better option (ie: my advice) and monetized their website with a search bar at the top of their homepage. Now you can get instant access to all the wonderful world of poker / dating & xtreme travel.

At least utube have chosen a smart, professional looking & unobtrusive option without losing too much integrity. The search bar only appears on the homepage & search pages. The only problem with this approach is that it appears this type of monetization doesn’t quite cash in on the video traffic they will be recieving. Thereare no video links or other various other video-targeted strategies I would have imagined. For example, if we were searching for a video of the latest internet hype, Chaccaron, the netflix results return a terrible no results page instead of something that may direct me to a video site, any video site. The only other results I get from searching with utube are Poker ads, which are like the scourge of the internet (even if they do pay well).

I think utube has succeeded in the look & feel of their monetizing efforts, but the execution will leave a lot to be desired. At the end of the day if they leave it like this, they wont make nearly as much money as I predicted they could.

Something to think about

“Two years from now, spam will be solved”

Bill Gates – January 24, 2004

I was just reading up on Wired’s 2006 Tech Foot-in-mouth awards. It just really proves tech companies are full of shit (among other things).

UTube, YouTube & Missed Opportunities

It has come to my attention the company who owns utube.com is sueing YouTube!

From here via drmike:

YouTube is being sued by an industrial equipment maker whose domain name is Utube.com. Universal Tube and Rollform Equipment said it has been deluged by confused video searchers causing numerous crashes of its site and costing it business. The company’s site once drew a steady 1,500 unique users monthly, Utube said, but that figure has soared to some 2 million per month in recent weeks.

This almost makes me extremely angry. I honestly dont know what UTube are thinking here. Something tells me they heard Google bought YouTube out for billions of dollars and somehow they saw dollar signs in their own eyes. It’s not hard to see how this could happen, they just don’t know how truly stupid they are – for a number of reasons.

1. Sueing Google for this is… well… Stupid.

Do I really need to explain how big Google is. But it’s not just theie size that’s a worry. Try the fact that they are complete and utter experts in the web AND technology AND law. If you are suing for something like this, I’d almost compare this with trying to sue Russia. No matter how good UTube’s their argument is, Google will get out of this quite easily.

2. Monetising Your Website means money… lots of it.

I don’t think UTube realise how much cash they would make if they did the following 3 simple steps:

• Moved their corporate website to utubellc.com or something
  (Keep in mind they can still keep their emails on utube.com and also even place a banner to redirect existing clients to their new website)
• Place their website on a domain sponsor page
  or actually develop a small video/media website with ads.
  or even place a one page website with a carefully chose ppc (pay per click) or affiliate program

They could make so much damn money.

For instance…. they are claiming to have 2,000,000 visitors a month. Now lets say they found & utilised a targeted video advertising campaign that gave them 10 cents a click. Keep in mind this is a very very conservative number considering I have basic websites on Google Adsense that can earn up to $1 dollar a click.

Ok now lets just say that conservatively 25% of users clicked through. This all depends on how well the ad is targeted & integrated into the website. I personally believe you could achieve 75% with the right advertising but for now lets say 25%.

Based on the above very conservative calculations, utube.com could make $50,000 in the first month. Not to mention traffic could (and WILL) grow, you could (and WILL be able to) find a better affiliate program in time. This is so scalable as well, for instance 50cents/click at 50% click through at the current rate would mean 10 times this amount: $500,000. This is half a million dollars a month if they play their cards right.

Now I don’t know how large this company is, but honestly how important is a website on a particular domain for a TUBING company. I mean c’mon! An extra 6 million dollars/year revenue is nothing to sneeze at. Especially for just being in the right place at the right time. Not to mention I highly doubt they could settle this at court for any amount near the potential yearly income.

Also don’t forget this will solve their problem with bandwidth issues yet they can still have a reputable website & their email addresses need not change.

Conclusion

I think the best way to look at this would be to compare it to having a Fish & Chip shop on a quiet area of town. Then all of a sudden that part of town gets extremely busy & everyone in the town all of a sudden needs Gummi Bears, and you get lots of people coming into the Fish & Chip store asking for Gummi Bears because you now have the best location in town. You have the option to move out of the busy suburb & keep your current store (being able to convert it into a Gummi bear store or at least refer people to a good gummi bear store for kickbacks). What would you do? What… would you do?

Hosting Madness

Purchasing website/file hosting is sometimes like gambling. You win some, you lose some. (And in fact, some lose the lot) .

A few months ago I took a gamble and signed up to DreamHost, one of the most popular and widely used web hosting companies on the internet. I didn’t really know why they were so widely used and popular – they had a bad webpage and it all looked to good to be true.

I ended up signing up with a promo code and paying something incredibly low like $50 for a whole year of hosting with a free domain name thrown in. That price included 20gig of space and 1000gb of bandwidth! Insane. Not to mention every single week it goes up in gigabytes of space & bandwidth! Even crazier!

Now you wont believe what they did last week. Try: “Hey lets double everyones bandwidth” and “Hey lets give every 10 times more space.” No Kidding. I now have 200gig of space and 2000gig of bandwidth each month. Storage grows by 1gb a week and Bandwidth grows by 16gb a week. What’s going on here! These guys must be mad but it has happened. Some customers are even using this service as an offline backup hosting solution and just tranferring everything to their DreamHost account.

What now? Well I reccomend DreamHost if you truly want to host anything and everything you want on the web without having to worry about limits (this service is practically no limits with the amount they give you) & if you want a reliable large web/file host. They are even releasing new products such as files forever which enables you to store you files forever with a price that is practically for free! It’s just too good to be true – sign up before they raise their prices.

For those who are interested I have a promo code you can use to get yourself $50 off instantly. It just makes it even cheaper. Just enter the code: BLAZE50 when prompted on the signup screen and they will honour the discount for you.

Also if you can refer people in the future, you end up with cash in your back pocket or completely free hosting. So it helps to spread the word.

NetVibes Rocks

I have just switched from Google Home to Netvibes and let me tell you, it's really really good. I like having a custom homepage with all of my favourite feeds and Google Home worked for me quite ok up until now. I had actually tried Netvibes when I made the choice to Google back in the day and it wasnt quite polished enough for my liking. The interface was clunky and hardly worked. Now they really have got it together and the service works great.

I currently have my homepage split up into:

• General (24)
• Blogs / Tech (49)
• Blogs / Business (19)
• Blogs / Music (73)
• Blog / Design (21)

It's working a treat . These guys really know how to put together an easy to use homepage and you have just won some business from a previous google user. Well done.

Different is Better than “Better”

Seth has it right when he says:

When you make something that works a little better, you're playing the same game, just keeping up with the status quo. When you make something different, on the other hand, you're trying to change the game.

Instead of creating something just that little bit better, why not try an innovate? Why not do something no one else is doing? It will be a lot more fulfilling for yourself and your business.

Free VOIP Phone Calls?

I haven't made a post in a while because I am extremely busy with new business but I thought this warranted a quick post.

In the light of Skype now offering free calls to USA and Canada it had made everyone think about phone calls a little bit differently. Phone calls just got a whole lot cheaper and Skype have set a benchmark. Skype is of course the most popular VOIP provider and actually one of the cheapest. It's not until you dig deeper and look at the companies without such a large front that you actually start to see real VOIP value.

I dont know how they do it but VOIPStunt seem to be pulling a stunt by offering 300 minutes of free calls to a number of destinations around the world.

They offer Free calls to any regular landline in:

Andorra Argentina Australia Austria Belgium Canada Chile China Colombia Denmark Finland France Georgia Germany Gibraltar

Hong Kong Hungary Iceland Ireland Italy Japan Latvia Liechtenstein Luxembourg Malaysia Monaco Mongolia Netherlands New Zealand Norway

Panama Peru Portugal Singapore Slovenia South Korea Spain Sweden Taiwan Thailand United Kingdom United States Venezuela

Looking at the software its just like skype but a little less bloated. I typed in my number and it was calling 2 seconds later. I was amazed.

There truly is such a thing as a free lunch.

Of course there is going to be some fine print but it's nothing too unexpected:

* Max 300 minutes per week of free calls, measured over the last 7 days. Unused free minutes cannot be taken to the following week(s). If limit is exceeded, a minimal rate of 1ct/min will be charged (as shown in the VoipStunt software).

So i's obvious here that they want people to use the service so much that they exceed 300mins and buy some credit. 1c/min is actually cheaper than Skypes global rate anyway so I think we have a real contender here.

Moral of the Story: Just when the big guys release something amazing and great, don't forget the little guys could already have something that kills it  

Your Beta Better Be Brilliant

This is a letter to all companies creating new and innovative software and releasing it to the public. I just have to make this clear.

I happen to be very interested in new and innovative technology and in particular, software. Although I think the whole “Web2.0″ bandwagon is a lot of hot air, it is still pushing a lot of people to create better applications for users in more ways than we knew possible. This in turn creates a greater user experience for users and the web a better place for people to be.

The Web2.0 Bubble has only really started but look at the competition

It is just getting ridiculous the amount of Web2.0 companies out there and even worse is the fact that 99% of them are in “Beta” phase or even less. Now fair enough if being in Beta is one of the traits of Web2.0 due to the fact you can change your application at any time and adapt and move and evolve.

This however, can be your downfall if you don’t play it right.

So what are all of these companies doing wrong?

To put it simply; it’s one thing to gather input from users and model your application based on their feedback, it’s another thing to do this at the users expense by exposing them to something that’s just not quite right.

That dont impressa me much.

The real reason why I am writing this is because – on numerous occasions recently – I have come back to re-download or re-signup to a service that I have used before in Beta stage. The reason I came back is because I know I have used it and I know it can get the job done the quickest way possible. Upon first use of these products they really didnt impress me much. But wait! All of a sudden I am using them again and I rediscover how great they are plus they are stable and are just generally impressive.

I’ll let you in on a little secret. People don’t want to do what they have to do or use what they have to use… they want to be amazed by something, they want to be engaged by something. For those who disagree with me, you just don’t know it yet.

Developers, you need to ask yourself…

By letting people in on our beta is there a chance of destroying initial interest in our product?

Is it better to do demos and screencasts etc until the date when we can release something substatial and impressive.?

What can we do (marketing wise) to innovate and keep people interested instead of exposing some buggy software.

The Bottom Line

If someone sees something impressive, they will use it, they will continue using it and they will rave about it. People are getting smarter on the internet and if you disappoint them with your initial offerings, it is definately a bad marketing move on your part. Even in such a fast paced world you still need to sit back and work out the best way to do these things.

New Digg Commenting System

Would you believe how complicated the new digg commenting system is. I have never been a fan of digg, but it seems this is just going to complicate things even further. I can’t even work out what is going on or what conversation is happening within the comments.

Maybe they did this to appease the tech users (which admittedly, would be most of their userbase) but this doesnt get me any more excited to sign up at all.

I think, at the end of the day, It all comes back to K.I.S.S.

WikiPedia’s Influence

You will most likely know that if you post up good content on the internet that it will be well recieved by readers. You may also know that if you are one of the first to do this (and if you do this regularly) you will recieve first option on gaining a link from anyone and everyone who subsequently writes about this topic. This can get you a lot of traffic to your web site. Then there’s getting a link from wikipedia. The results are amazing.

Seth Godin posts about how much traffic he gained from recieving a prominent link on a WikiPedia article. Seth, for those who don’t know is one of the leading marketing guys out there these days so it’s not hard to see why his popularity will gain exponentially.