Lawrence Gee | Marketing, Internet, Creativity, Strategy

Why iTunes Should Be Worried

Yesterday, Amazon.com unveiled their new digital download service called amazonmp3.

Simply, this is great for consumers and troublesome for Apple.  The competition is great for the industry as it will create more incentives to be price competitive.  Consumers will benefit from lower prices, more promotions, and more innovation from both companies to keep or take away business from each other.

Amazon has positioned their product for success and it’ll be interesting to see Apple’s reaction. 

• Amazonmp3s can work with both iPods and other MP3s — will Apple finally succumb and allow iTunes music to be played on other non-Apple players?
• Amazonmp3s are DRM-free — this means that the files can be burned and transfers without restriction.  iTunes currently limits the number of times the file can be used and burned to CD.
• Amazonmp3 has 2 million songs right now - this is much less than the 6 million songs that iTunes currently has but record labels will be wise to negotiate deals with both companies.
• Amazon.com has a trustworthy name and the capital to keep this service going — unlike other failed mp3 sellers, Amazon has the money and branding to pull this off.  If purchasing music is as easy as iTunes, they can likely be a threat to Apple.

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Go Go Google Gadget

Apparently Google is continuing its efforts to push advertising to be more dynamic, engaging, and interactive.  It has apparently been testing its latest ad format - Google Gadget ads - since May 2007 but now is starting to slowly rollout. 

According to Google’s help - “If gadget ads are enabled in your account, you will have received an invitation to create gadget ads from the Google support team. If you haven’t received this notice, don’t despair: We expect to offer Google Gadget Ads to other advertisers in the future as the launch progresses.”

This looks like a better alternative to rollover video ads as it provides the user a greater chance to interact with the ad without committing to going to the actual site.  For an example, click here.

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New Criteria for Google Search Results?

I was doing a random search on Google yesterday and noticed something funny.  At the top of the search results were results with time stamps!  I did some searching after that and found out that it is something that Google has been working on to give the most relevant, up-to-date results. 

This is the first time I noticed or came across time stamps and it made me think about the implications this could have for SEO purposes.

1. Are more highly updated webpages really more relevant for user searches?  I’m inclined to say no but I think it might make sense to have a separate section of the search results that is time related.
2. Would news sites and blogs that often have the most refreshed content be even more valuable? Depending on the impact of timeliness on Google’s search formula, these sites would obviously become more valuable. 
3. Google can’t crawl every webpage every minute to find the most current content so how could you ensure your site is part of Google’s spidering more often? I think the goal for Google still remains the same.  If you are relevant for search results, this issue will go away.  But of course, there will be people who find ways to manipulate the system in order to get ahead on page rankings.

Very interesting stuff…

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50 Cent’s Curtis was Doomed from the Start

The much hyped album battle between 50 Cent’s Curtis and Kanye West’s Stronger is turning out to be not much of a fight. It is estimated that Kanye will win with approximately 800,000 copies sold versus 50’s estimated 600,000. This should not be of much surprise because 50 Cent’s album Curtis was doomed from the start.

From a marketing perspective, let’s look at the famed “4Ps”. Price and Place are identical for both artists. They both were sold in similar big box retailers for about $9.99. For promotion, each artist benefited by the media attention given to the same release date. Each artist was also heavily promoted on radio stations with similar radio spots and advertisements. 50 has recently been quoted as complaining about Kanye’s exposure on the MTV VMAs but I think that the last “P” is the real cause of his likely loss.

In terms of product, one could argue that one album is superior than the other, but for this debate we’ll assume they were of equal quality. Both albums hit up the hip-hop market with some pop crossover appeal. Packaging will roll up into Product and for this aspect, I give the advantage hands down to Kanye. If you look at the covers, Kanye’s is colorful, playful, and unique whereas 50’s looks serious, muted, and understated. If you saw both albums on the shelf, I feel that you would immediately gravitate towards Kanye’s.

Perceived image of the artists also plays a role in sales. Kanye is known as being more playful, lively, and he has more “pop” appeal. 50 drives home the more hardcore, gangsta, and “real” street edge. Unfortunately for 50, the bad boy image has taken a bit hit in the media this summer with the likes of Michael Vick being the poster boy for illicit behavior. I think youth today is also tired of reality and I think Kanye provides a bit more escapism.

All in all, 50 Cent’s album was disadvantaged from the start. Unfortunately, his “brand” of music does seem to be what people want at the moment whereas Kanye’s blend of humor, pop, and beats seems to fit the bill perfectly.

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Air Google One

Google has too much money.  Interesting article on how they paid their way to use NASA-run Moffett Field, up in Mountain View.  I used to drive past Moffett Field on my daily commute to work on the parking lot known as the 101.

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