Funny business going on online

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Ever since a bootleg clip of a Saturday Night Live sketch comedy skit put YouTube on the map in December 2005, the growing consensus among Web watchers has been that short comedy clips are the "killer app" of the brave new viral video world.

So it's no surprise that websites devoted solely to comedy videos are proliferating, from amateur sites to big-budget efforts backed by entertainment heavyweights.

Among the latter: SuperDeluxe.com, a comedy broadband network launched in January by Turner Broadcasting, and FunnyOrDie.com, a partnership between Will Ferrell and Adam McKay's Gary Sanchez Productions and Sequoia Capital, venture capital firm behind YouTube and Google.

The business model is simple: Build it, make it funny enough, and the public will come. And once you get enough eyeballs, you can make money through advertising, just like regular TV networks.

Andrew Wallenstein, The Hollywood Reporter's digital media editor, calls dedicated comedy websites "a trend that's gathering steam."

"When you look at how online video is consumed, it seems that quick bursts of comedy on YouTube, or even jokes you get in your e-mail, work the best," he says. "The holy grail is coming up with a one-stop dot-com shop where you can snack on comedy until you pass out."

Two of the first of these dot-com comedy shops were CollegeHumor.com, launched in 1999 by two friends from Baltimore, and Jokeroo.com, launched a year later and now featuring video clips, forums, greeting cards and photo galleries.

Other popular sites include EbaumsWorld.com, which bills itself as the world's largest independent online publisher of humor-related content, and JibJab.com's Jokebox, a virtual swap meet for comic video clips, photos and text jokes that was launched last year by JibJab Media, best known for its hit 2004 online short lampooning presidential candidates.

SuperDeluxe.com has lured pro comedians to create content. Plans call for the network to expand beyond the Internet to such platforms as cable video-on-demand, mobile phones and personal media players.

Bob Odenkirk, the comedian, writer and director who created and starred in the HBO series Mr. Show, is creating a 12-episode Internet series of shorts called Derek & Simon: The Show for Super Deluxe. The series makes its debut May 16 and follows real-life bumblers Derek Waters and Simon Helberg trying in vain to pick up girls in Los Angeles.

"There's more people watching performances and programs on the Web than ever before, and it's going to grow," Odenkirk says. "With more and people having high-speed Internet, it's just becoming a great new venue for entertainers."

Odenkirk says professional comedy series, delivered in short bits over the Internet, is the logical progression from the user-submitted pranks and candid-camera clips so popular on sites such as YouTube and Revver.

"You're going to see a lot more of these conscious pieces of performance, something that's written and there's an idea and a character … instead of just a glancing blow, an accidental laugh," he says.

One advantage the Web has over television: "There are very few restrictions on language and subject matter, although what we are doing on Derek & Simon could go on any cable network," he says.

Another contributor to Super Deluxe is Brad Neely, the Arkansas comic book artist behind Creased Comics.

Unlike television, Neely says, "you get a direct line of communication between content and audience. We know immediately what works and what doesn't. Audiences can smell from a mile away anything that seems like a formula, so you constantly have to give them something new and different."

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http://www.bagborroworsteal.com/

Got rich friends and need to look the part? Those that can't afford to buy the latest Fendi purse can still sport it thanks to Bag Borrow or Steal, a designer handbag rental firm that allows customers to pay a monthly fee, pick and order handbags online, and borrow them for as long as they like.

The company added fine jewelry to the mix after its 2004 founding. The service allows style-conscious customers access to the ultra-luxe and high-end products that they otherwise couldn't get their hands on. Monthly memberships range from $20 to $175 a month.

BusinessWeek.Com

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When I was searching for a career, my dad gave me advice I still follow today: Find what you do brilliantly, and do more of it. Over the years, I've learned that this philosophy enables you to find your niche and discover unique methods to achieve your goals.

As an entrepreneur, you often jump at any chance to expand your business. However, your business's biggest and best asset is you. It's your expertise that makes your business unique and leads to the most efficient growth opportunities.

The owner of a jewelry store frequently updated the gems she carried but was never able to dramatically increase her sales. She thought her clientele might buy a broader line of products, so she added religious statues to her store. But ultimately, her lack of familiarity with these items caused the strategy to fail.

On her second try at expansion, she decided to delve further into her core area of specialization. She bought jewelry designed and made by local artists. It paid off. Her current customers and her new artists spread the word about her updated business, and her store became a shopping destination.

Creating product extensions within your area of expertise expands your customer roster. Increase your chance of success by focusing on what you do best -- and do more of it.

1. Tap into the innate power behind what makes your business unique. Growing your business based on your inherent strengths allows you to discover dynamic expansion possibilities. Use your intuition, and ask your employees and colleagues for help on how to rework or redesign your core product to appeal to a broader market. For the jewelry store owner, it was her expertise in gems that allowed her to sell the stones in multiple ways.

2. Shift from selling to actively listening. Become relentlessly focused on broadening the appeal of your core product by engaging your customers. What new uses have they discovered that may not have occurred to you? Ask them to be direct and truthful, and keep a log of their suggestions. Tapping into this rich vein of recommendations allows you to jump-start new growth opportunities.

3. Convert the benefits customers share into product features. Use the recommendations offered by your customers to construct new uses for your core product. Regularly reinventing your product with fresh benefits keeps your customers interested and excited. It was Arm & Hammer's customers who informed the company of alternative uses for its top-selling baking soda product. The company has now expanded its core product into numerous other uses, including cleansers, deodorizers and beauty products.

4. Gain loyalty by thanking people creatively. Thanking people for sharing their ideas deepens customer loyalty. It also increases word-of-mouth advertising for your business. A sandwich shop owner who was famous for his use of cheeses decided to name his weekly specials after customers who made distinctive recommendations. They brought their friends and families into his store to see their names and pictures up on his "Say Cheese" board.

Keep your network of customers and colleagues informed of your product enhancements. Your enthusiasm will encourage them to tell others about your business. And more important, it will inspire them to share even more product-transformation ideas with you.

P.S. A Special Message from Jim Cramer
Good news! You can get my new bestseller, Jim Cramer's Mad Money: Watch TV, Get Rich autographed and absolutely free when you subscribe now to my premium investing service, Action Alerts PLUS. It's a great deal!
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Funny business going on online

Commuting And Marketing

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There is a great article in the April 16 New Yorker magazine on commuters. The writer put in a few facts — which got my salesman’s mind reeling — and a lot of Studs Terkel-style “man in the street” profiles… which offer a psychological portrait of an increasingly average Americann consumer.

As a marketer, you should always jump on info like this. It’s priceless demographic knowledge, explained in a way that keeps the humans involved at the center of the story.

Here’s the gist: According to the Census Bureau, one of every six Americans now commutes more than 45 minutes each way to work. Over 3.5 million travel 90 minutes or more… each way. (That’s double what it was in 1990, when the last census was taken.)

That’s a LOT of time in the car, sitting on your ass.

My take: They can’t read, can’t watch DVDs, can’t watch TV, and have limited patience for learning while crawling through jams.

Still, a good percentage are going to be YOUR customers. A literally captive audience, potentially.

This used to get radio advertisers all excited… but radio ad revenue is plummeting, after years of cramming so many obnoxious ads into each hour that people just stopped listening to commercial radio. (Radio does this slow-suicide dance every decade or so — recently, the average talk radio station had more ads than talk each hour. They just push it until they lose listeners, and then scramble to become “relevant” again. Dumb. But it’s the way the biz is run.)

People learn to zone out, or jockey around the dial, or escape to commerical-free satellite radio and CDs. (Or NPR, which is hit-and-miss on being interesting.)

Think about it: Frazzled, frustrated people hating thier lives, forced to stay awake during a routine drive that is too unpredictable to lose focus while you’re suffering through it.

These are people with a problem — essentially, wasted hours that cannot be replaced. It’s purgatory. Quiet desperation.

For savvy marketers, this could represent an opportunity to be the most exciting part of your prospect’s day.

Back when I worked for The Man, I had opportunities to sit in “parking lot” traffic jams in Silicon Valley (on the 101 between Palo Alto and Santa Clara), and the 405 nightmare between the SoCal beach cities and the Sunset Blvd offramp (which includes LAX). Two of the most notorious and horrific commutes in the country.

If you have NOT experienced true traffic psychosis, you probably should go sample it.

Just to understand what it is many of your customers are going through.

Why? Because, for most information products (and even many services), you can and should be providing audio options. (There is also a place for audio with retail products… if you do it right. Most physical products — especially high-ticket items — are only purchased after information is digested.)

But there’s a caveat: You need to understand your prospect’s state of mind, in order to create a CD or mp3 that doesn’t create a disconnect in his head.

And this goes for both audio products, and for audio pitches.

Most smart direct marketers know that providing audio versions of their products can increase sales dramatically. Many people simply prefer audio over visual (whether it’s reading or watching video).

Very few entrepreneurs, however, have yet realized the opportunities for putting your pitch into audio format. That is changing, as test results come in.

But I know of few marketers who tailor their audio for commuters. And thinking about how commuters digest audio input will help you in EVERY effort to communicate clearly and effectively, regardless of the format.

Here’s the key: Your presentation must be in short, identifiable chunks – because your listener’s concentration will be constantly interrupted by sudden braking, the need for snap decisions, and occasional outbursts of road rage.

Keeping things in chunks means any rewinding is brief, and there are no long, delicate trains of thought to be shattered.

Most of the audio I’ve heard — both in products, and in the few audio pitches I’ve seen marketers produce (mostly via podcasts, but sometimes through downloaded mp3 or snail-mailed CDs) — make the outrageous assumption that your listener has the luxury to “sit back, relax, take the phone off the hook, and listen to a tale…”

I’ve actually critiqued a LOT of ads over the years that use pretty much that identical language.

So get straight on this: Online and offline, your prospect is never in a place where he can — or wants to — sit back and listen to you ramble.

Both pitches and products should be as long as necessary to deliver what is needed for your prospect or customer to get the desired result. So, yes, I still write very long emails, Web site copy, and print ads… but they never RAMBLE.

And I present very long workshop seminars, teleconferences and Web conferences. And this “never ramble” tactic is the key to making them all work.

It may require some time to make your point… but in all cases, you still need to GET to your point immediately. And stay there, without wandering off on tangents.

Even long-copy ads — when done right — deliver bite-sized chunks of info… tied together in fascinating ways that ensure your reader stays with you. (The “Bucket Brigade” technique of holding interest.)

But you do not want to overwhelm him with stuff. Give him a little bit of info, help him digest it… and smoothly segue to the next bit of info. Navigating your reader through a pitch (or the info in your product) is very much like running along uneven terrain.

Consider how you would run along a mountain trail next to a river. Lots of rocks, gopher holes, tree stumps, puddles… you can’t rush mindlessly headlong toward your destination, or you’ll quickly stumble.

You can still move quickly… but you’ve got to pay attention to each step.

In copy, each chunk of new info is a step. Present your point, make your point, tamp it down in your reader’s brain… and then smoothly transition to the next point.

That’s the key to making long copy work.

So when you create audio — which is just “spoken” copy — that you suspect (or know) is going to be consumed in the car… don’t construct elaborate arguments or points that require long-term memory. (The all-too-common “I’ll get back to that in a minute… but first, I want to tell you about…” tactic is a sure sign you’re dealing with a rookie copywriter.)

When you deliver your material in short, digestible chunks, you can go on for hours and never “lose” your listener. This is how master communicators command attention fro long periods.

The commuting culture — which ain’t going away anytime soon — is a target audience that hasn’t been fully tapped. These are people who are ripe for certain products and services… if only the info can be delivered in a way that doesn’t make their brains bleed.

Commuters listen to books, and sometimes attempt to learn foreign languages. There’s no reason why they can’t consume your info product, too… or listen to your pitch.

Here’s a nice exercise to do in your spare time: Consider all the products that could be put on audio for consumption in the car (or on an iPod during a train ride).

Audio is different than reading… but the tactics for delivering content are the same.

Okay, I gotta go pack.

Stay frosty.

John Carlton, http://www.marketingrebelrant.com/

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Average American household spends $1,200 annually on gadgets

This Is How You Sell T-Shirts Online

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Matt Cohen figured that the millions of people who love T-shirts might love them even more if they sported personalized designs. His company, Pennsauken (N.J.)-based ChoiceShirts, makes custom shirts using a fully automated process that keeps costs low and volume high.

Cohen was no stranger to the T-shirt business when he started his company with about $500,000 in personal savings in 2001. His family had been in the business for about 30 years, selling everything from T-shirt designs to heat presses. Cohen had learned about selling online during a previous job at an e-commerce company. He sold stock designs at first, but quickly realized that offering custom designs could set him apart.

Cohen upgraded the software on his Web site, working closely with an online development company in which he has an ownership stake. The process took about four months and cost several hundred thousand dollars, most of which went to developing interfaces that connect to back-end administrative and production systems. In 2002, he launched Mother's and Father's Day shirts that customers could personalize with their own or their parents' names.

Today, customers can download any photo and place it in one of 600 templates. About 65% of ChoiceShirts' $3 million in revenues in 2005 came from the custom shirts. More recently, he has launched a system to allow customers to create designs from scratch. He says an added benefit is that offering personalized products breeds loyal customers. "There's a greater impact on the customers, and they are more likely to come back again," he says. About 20% to 30% of ChoiceShirts' business comes from repeat customers.

[Via - BusinessWeek]

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Average American household spends $1,200 annually on gadgets

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A study conducted by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) has determined that the average American household spends approximately $1,200 annually on electronics products. The study, which also provides insight into the popularity of various kinds of consumer electronics products, was devised and conducted by CEA Market Research in February.

According to the study, televisions are the most popular consumer electronics product, and can be found in 92 percent of American households. HDTVs, which significantly increased in popularity this past year, can already be found in 25 percent of American households. Mobile phones, which are owned by 76 percent of American households, are also amongst the most common consumer electronics devices.

In the past year, the largest growth was seen in network hardware (e.g., wireless access points, routers) and digital video recorders, both of which increased by 8 percent. A quarter of American households now own a DVR and 30 percent own network hardware. Digital audio players (owned by 32 percent of American households) and digital cameras (owned by 62 percent of American households) also saw tremendous growth in the past year.

"Many of the top owned products have enjoyed mass-market saturation for years and will likely see growth based on upgrade and replacement sales," said CEA senior research analyst Elena Caudle. "Some of the more intriguing categories are those that still occupy niche markets, such as mobile CE devices like GPS systems and satellite radio, which have seen healthy growth in the past few years."

The study also determined that the average teen spends approximately half of their total discretionary income on consumer electronics products, and households with teenagers and children typically exceed the national average expenditure of $1,200 by up to $500, likely due to digital audio player and cell phone purchases.

The CEA's study does not segment the statistics into categories such as early adopters and technophiles like us. A quick survey of the staff here at Ars showed that almost all of us had surpassed the $1,200 figure by a good deal during 2006. It's not too difficult to do it: a cell phone upgrade, an iPod, a console, a handful of games, and a GPS unit is enough to push one past the national average. How close to the national average are you?

Average American household spends $1,200 annually on gadgets

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The honor system for your business

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Just about everything in civilization works on the honor system.

No armed guards at the local grocery store, no pat down as you leave the library. Most people cross the street without fear of crazed hit and run assassins.

Great marketers are able to deliver customer service because they're willing to give people the benefit of the doubt. They tend to take your word for it.

Of course there are bad actors. One out of a thousand people will cheat on that test or rip off that store. When LL Bean or Patagonia offers a no-questions-asked money-back guarantee, some jerks decide to buy an outfit, go on a trip and then return it all.

If you spend all your time worrying about these folks, you end up underserving the other 99% of the population. Take the write off. That's what successful marketers do.

When we move online, though, two things happen. First, word among the black hats spreads fast. One person starts ripping you off and suddenly it's a hundred.

Worse, the ripoffs and bad actions can scale. Sure, only one in a thousand email users is a spammer. But one spammer, aided by a computer, can send a million or more emails in a day. Suddenly, the people who violate the honor system are able to drown out the good guys.

Just like the real world, though, if you spend all your time preparing for and defending against the black hats, you'll never accomplish anything. If you assume that every single interaction online is fraudulent until proven otherwise, people will just move on to the competition.

So, online, you're between a rock and a hard place. The first opportunity is to treat your friends better than ever, because word of mouth online is incredibly powerful. The Net brings significant leverage--you can spread ideas farther and faster.

The temptation is to embrace only the advantages of the web and insist on eternal vigilance against the possiblity of getting ripped off. To act as if everyone online is a criminal. To assume that the moment you are generous or trusting, squadrons of bad actors will exploit your generosity. I don't think that's the answer. If you treat people like criminals, the good ones will leave, because people have a choice.

There's a different path. Awareness of the potential problem helps you keep your eyes open. You can watch the trends, be aware, but still embrace the honor system. Realize that the vast majority of your customers will always want to do the right thing. Look both ways before crossing the street... but still cross.

How does this legendary adult webmaster drive more than a million unique visitors a day to his websites? I went to Las Vegas and inteviewed him to find out. For a VERY limited time you can get a free copy of the entire interview with this traffic legend by Clicking Here

[Via - Seth Godin] 

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