web strategy, social networks, game thinking, and the future of good
Not only that, but even while the going was good, it was hard not to let the tail wag the dog. Despite knowing that the true future of the company was rental, it was hard not to spend time focusing on the area of the business where most of the money was coming from.
Former CEO of Netflix shares my take on the decision: A Netflix/Qwikster split helps Netflix get stronger and gives the nod to Qwikster, the aptly-named has-been, to die off slowly in a few years.
In order to subscribe to the plan, called Blockbuster Movie Pass, consumers will have to subscribe to Dish Network. That means selecting one of Dish's cable packages--the company recommends the "America's Top 200" plan, which actually includes 220 channels for $39.99 a month. From there, members can add Blockbuster Movie Pass (starting at $10 a month) to gain access to DVDs by mail (one disc at a time) and streaming content, for roughly $50 per month in total.
Dish Network is going the absolute opposite direction of Netflix. They're trying to merge two very different brands (into one muddled product). Netflix has just separated two different products (and created two brands in the process).
Again, I think Netflix is going the right direction, despite the initial backlash.
Lesson: Unify and simplify. Don't hold on to sacred cows.
Now Facebook is making your profile into a more holistic timeline, or scrapbook, of your life. This will enable a new class of applications focused on helping people express themselves to emerge and revolutionize existing industries and experiences.
The founder of Causes goes into some good depth about what Facebook's new interface for one's profile means not only as an aesthetic change, but as better mechanism for allowing one's core passions and actions "rise to the top."
Before Timeline, the only way for you to help your friends understand something that was very important to you was to shout loud and often via status updates. People have done that and the "wall" has turned from Activity Display to Incomprehensible Graffiti. I have apps posting to my wall, me posting to my wall, others posting to my wall--it's a mess.
At the same time, one's Profile has never been very sexy to look at, and there's no reason to return to it, meaning that, again, the only thing to do to really see what I care about is cull through my activity stream.
Timeline solves both those problems (a messy Wall and a boring Profile) by helping users fuse the idea of actions and aspects. You are not only who you say you are (the old approach to "profiles") but also what you do (the old "wall" approach). Timeline allows users to fuse "you" by allowing you to express who you say you are via the actions that you do.
All this leads to a better platform for app developers. You see, because the Timeline is now focusing on user actions to determine "who they are," app developers now have a better place to allow their users to express themselves without fear of sharing actions becoming too spammy.
As the founder of Causes articulates in his post, those who really care about their causes now have a much better place to communicate their actions for that cause rather than the boring Profile or the noisy Wall.
All in all, I'm pretty excited about timeline, not only from a personal perspective but from a business/application development perspective.
A nice little infographic. They're not giving out tons of information about user behavior here, but it does show quite a bit about what makes people connect to each other best
So far, we've raised over $38,000 which will fund our four programs in Nepal for one year; it will also help fund our teachers in three schools in Africa, which serve more than 400 kids every week as well as some of the costs to run those schools. And it will help fund the purchase of additional instruments for all programs. You can still make a donation to help spread peace through the power of music.
It's been awesome to be a part of this global community. Big dreams for 2012!
Crowdsourcing seems to be a popular topic these days. But, I can’t help thinking that its popularity will be short lived. There doesn’t seem to be any credible evidence to support this practice as being particularly productive.
Certainly no one can expect that the random crowd will demonstrate great insight and wisdom in helping to solve a problem. There are innumerable examples that show exactly the opposite to be true. Two well known examples of this are the 1630’s Dutch tulip frenzy and the witch-mania that was common throughout the Renaissance and Reformation periods. History teaches us that the wisdom of the crowd is a fiction and that the intelligence of the mob regresses to the mean.
The ace in the whole for crowdsourcing has been well designed systems. Crowdsourcing has come of age not because human nature has drastically improved and we no longer suffer the madding crowds, but because better systems of interaction, fidelity, and quality have been put into place to allow the energy of the crowd to be channeled in the right ways.
I'll agree here: The random crowd will not demonstrate great insight and wisdom. The DESIGNED crowd, on the other hand--they will create Wikipedia, accelerate the impact of countless organizations, and, ultimately, topple dictators.
