Group buying website, Cudo, is on the market for over $60 million less than one year after it was launched by Nine Entertainment Co and Microsoft for the initial amount of $800,000.
The website, which has supposedly generated profits of more than $500,000 per month for the Nine/Microsoft partnership, is reported to have gathered interest from American group buying sites Groupon and Living Social, and the Seven West Media-Yahoo! joint venture, Yahoo!7.
The move comes as the partnership also reportedly plans to slash its 35% stake in the online comparison website, iSelect, which is valued at more than $500m.
Online retail models now come in all shapes and sizes in the modern global village, especially against weaker dollar economies. Media giants like Nine/Microsoft look to dominate the digital space and own the platforms, but when will traditional retailers innovate to move beyond the simple product transaction and develop their own online shopping model to protect their market share of the consumers wallet?
Sunday, 21 August 2011
Tuesday, 9 August 2011
Is Email Dying?
The email hit my inbox with the subject line; Professor quits email for social media (and no its not Wags)... The sender thought that he had stumbled onto the next wave of the 'social media' revolution and wondered if I had come across the article - which I hadn't, but it definitely got my attention.
http://reesenews.org/2011/06/02/professor-quits-e-mail-for-social-media/16193/
I agreed it was an interesting read and challenged conventional means of communications, but I think it also reinforces the need for a sound channel strategy in relation (to my work) and using the right channels for the right audiences.
Where I sit, we have different objectives to what the Professor is trying to achieve and his motivations appear to be driven largely by his ability to talk/communicate with undergrads and professional colleagues without the hassle of 100 emails - basically looking at more efficient ways to talk. As he points out, his undergrads communicate on various platforms and by his reckoning rarely on email. So why talk to them that way if that’s not how they communicate? I couldn’t agree more with his approach if this in fact true of his ‘audience’.
I think the key take out from the article is that “Jones’ goal is to maximize all the available channels to demonstrate alternative uses for promoting communication”. This comes back to our (my work) channel strategy and how we speak to our customer segments - underpinning our comms objective is to speak to a mass audience and not one single channel will deliver across all segments. We have members who are not even on email and will only receive comms from the Club via ‘snail mail’, our Young Members on the other hand respond to last minute SMS blasts that tickets are still available to a function, the most cost effective communications channel we used last year was Google Search – 8 times more cost effective than digital display but they both sold the same amount of tickets. My point here is that we need optimise every channel to get the best results and not rely on one to deliver the result – not unlike what the professor is wanting to achieve and optimizing how he communicates.
Social media will be one of the channels that we go to market with for the 2011 season and with the launch of a new website we have a robust communications platform to work with. Tactically Twitter and FB offer a live broadcast for commentary and deliver instant messaging that ‘traditional’ media channels are not capable of, what we do, say and deliver through these channels is part of the broader communications strategy for the Club.
My two cent 'response' to the email was that the strength in social media for the Club is delivering an on course experience/product and having a global community talking about their experiences with Caulfield (or whatever the venue might be through their social networks). Don’t get me wrong, we can use social media to deliver live commentary, talk about an event coming up, spruik a competition but the true power in social media is that its word of mouth marketing delivered to a global community from trusted sources – we couldn’t buy that out come even if we had the means to.
The the marketing focus for the club is directed at the on course experience for our customers and what we can offer them. Through the use of social media channels the strategy will be to push/promote as much ‘user generated content’ about the upcoming Carnival, the preview race days, the competitions and the new on course offerings as much as possible.
What did surprise me about the article was that the Professor wasn't the only one moving off email and I wondered what impact it would have on my professional and personal life if I trialed this myself - if only for a month...
http://reesenews.org/2011/06/02/professor-quits-e-mail-for-social-media/16193/
I agreed it was an interesting read and challenged conventional means of communications, but I think it also reinforces the need for a sound channel strategy in relation (to my work) and using the right channels for the right audiences.
Where I sit, we have different objectives to what the Professor is trying to achieve and his motivations appear to be driven largely by his ability to talk/communicate with undergrads and professional colleagues without the hassle of 100 emails - basically looking at more efficient ways to talk. As he points out, his undergrads communicate on various platforms and by his reckoning rarely on email. So why talk to them that way if that’s not how they communicate? I couldn’t agree more with his approach if this in fact true of his ‘audience’.
I think the key take out from the article is that “Jones’ goal is to maximize all the available channels to demonstrate alternative uses for promoting communication”. This comes back to our (my work) channel strategy and how we speak to our customer segments - underpinning our comms objective is to speak to a mass audience and not one single channel will deliver across all segments. We have members who are not even on email and will only receive comms from the Club via ‘snail mail’, our Young Members on the other hand respond to last minute SMS blasts that tickets are still available to a function, the most cost effective communications channel we used last year was Google Search – 8 times more cost effective than digital display but they both sold the same amount of tickets. My point here is that we need optimise every channel to get the best results and not rely on one to deliver the result – not unlike what the professor is wanting to achieve and optimizing how he communicates.
Social media will be one of the channels that we go to market with for the 2011 season and with the launch of a new website we have a robust communications platform to work with. Tactically Twitter and FB offer a live broadcast for commentary and deliver instant messaging that ‘traditional’ media channels are not capable of, what we do, say and deliver through these channels is part of the broader communications strategy for the Club.
My two cent 'response' to the email was that the strength in social media for the Club is delivering an on course experience/product and having a global community talking about their experiences with Caulfield (or whatever the venue might be through their social networks). Don’t get me wrong, we can use social media to deliver live commentary, talk about an event coming up, spruik a competition but the true power in social media is that its word of mouth marketing delivered to a global community from trusted sources – we couldn’t buy that out come even if we had the means to.
The the marketing focus for the club is directed at the on course experience for our customers and what we can offer them. Through the use of social media channels the strategy will be to push/promote as much ‘user generated content’ about the upcoming Carnival, the preview race days, the competitions and the new on course offerings as much as possible.
What did surprise me about the article was that the Professor wasn't the only one moving off email and I wondered what impact it would have on my professional and personal life if I trialed this myself - if only for a month...
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