[10] Google's war machine

Google will be everywhere o_o!
Androïd who will compete for every OS phones. (Big project of firm)
YouTube will become a cash machine. (Thanks to pubs) Orkut to compete with facebook.
Health for medical monitoring.
Knol to rival Wikipedia. (but with more articles relevant!) Docs to get a free online office suite.
Chrome OS is going to compete with Windows. (Free OS) News archive old logs.
Book that will scan all the books in the world. (More than 10 million scanned books)
And yes in the future, we'll eat from Google, Google's sleep, dressing Google, read the Google share of Google. . .
The amount of information they will have their servers let dreaming ... or scared.
All that to say that Google is now the most powerful moment, I'm on!
To see what google prepares us I suggest you read the article in the Capital N ° 216 (September 2009)

Really nice!
by: jst-2-earn-money

[9] The value of capital -customer-

And no, we are referring not essential that this transmutation is at the heart of Marxist thought, the transition from use value to market value, even if it remains in the program. We remain more modest in our interest that the idea of how each client is an asset of the company, it is conceivable that the value of the business is that of all clients. What will constitute the customer capital (Customer equity)?

By asking the client is an asset, we go to the heart of the problem. If the enterprise value is the sum of future cash flows that its current policy will generate, it is evident that this value is equivalent to that of its entire customer portfolio will generate in terms of the policy which it leads. To say this, we must share the idea that in an indefinite time, the value of the firm depends on the income it generates from its investments, and costs of grants for them. So that whatever business models, the value of the firm resolves itself in its ability to obtain revenue streams cons of spending resources. This is an extremely controversial, partly because the income can come from another source that motivates expenditure, the model of multi-sided markets, but also the fact that income can come because of the expectation of future income, discounted at the financial market, the venture business model.

Therefore remain within the traditional framework, as this term is the income produced by those who purchase the product or service, of the firm. In an effort to asset valuation, it is clear that we must compare what you invest, what they spend, what you hope to win. The investment is the current expenditure which can generate immediate income and future spending is what we should devote to serve the achievement of immediate income. The balance is done by comparing the accumulation of which is invested, more than that spent in the cumulative flow of income received. The difference is exactly what is called customer equity. Customer equity.

A first line is as we have analyzed, to define as the sum of the Customer Life Time values. But if the customer capital was limited to this single sum we would not set a new concept. We must go further. Life Time Value and customer equity are the same to the customer base closely.

But before going further settle the fate of other forms of capital. The first of these is the brand equity, another more fundamental is the principal product, I dare not yet speak of relational capital, or worst of social capital. We abuse of capital, capital does not multiply, but in time, it only added. The principal product is the quantity that the income of the offer on the market minus expenses necessary for the design and production, generate long-term accumulation of positive benefit. The brand equity is in the same spirit, this difference is added because the brand can charge prices higher or attention of a greater number of consumers. The principal innovation is similar. Each other and not added to the principal customer, they simply dial. We could simply concede that the very nature of the relationship with customers, there is a source of value that exceeds that produced by the function that produces more than a symbol, representing the excess particular quality of relationship that the firm establishes with its customers. By imagining that provides the same functionality as the competitors, imagining that they bring the same reputation, the fact of being worth more than others, can only come from what we have established a better relationship than other .

In this view the customer value is the value of the firm, although it can be decomposed into the value of the offer, brand value and worth of the relationship.

Customer equity is clearly equal to the value of the firm, in that it represents the sum of discounted cash flows. The difference is not likely, but depends on the method of calculation. The value of the firm is assessed from a synthetic indicator accountant, the client from an aggregate indicator. On one side we aggregate profit per unit of time, another unit of productive assets. So much for a general definition. We must now look to the decomposition of the customer capital, generally designated by the terms of customer equity.

The essential part of course consists of the sum of future cash flows generated by customers today, given the current policy. But the current policy not only to maintain existing customers. The aggregate value of their course needs to take into account phenomena cohort, successive waves of new customers. It is a technicality. The main point is that the current policy induces the recruitment of new customers, something that models CLTV does not take into account. The customer-equity is therefore defined in the amounts of future cash flows generated by the current client base, plus those of future clients, in the current political marketing. This includes policy acquisition, retention, development, but also a fundamental policy of creating value for consumers.

In distinguishing these categories we focus on the fact that marketing expenses are related to one part in a basic package, which may generate more or less potential demand, and other actions to stimulate which can speed up or slow down access to the potential. The costs of acquiring or holding do that eventually determine the speed at which the firm reached its market potential in the limit of what these costs may also affect the potential.

But do not refine too much reasoning, customer capital is the stream of cash flow up by existing customers and future customers that the current marketing policy lets hope. It would simply add that these customers current and future customers are going through their behavior, opinions, recommendations add to the population that we currently manage. In a previous analysis we declined to add their contribution to the CLTV. We can explain now. In principle it was reasonable enough to add this contribution to those who are the drivers, but it would in our decomposition to recognize this contribution in the value created by the current users. And therefore underestimate the efficiency of investment and expenditure.

By separating this contribution we give a face more realistic as to what the customer capital: the sum of future earnings generated directly by customers acquired today, the more customers that our policy will allow acquisition today of meet tomorrow, and finally those that offer basic, brand and relationship quality, will generate without having made any effort to direct them.

Thus we can argue that customer equity is not identical with that of the sum of CLTV but overflowing. And the passage of such a ratio CE / n * CLTV would be a good indicator of the ability to generate spillovers customers.

By extending this idea, we could even understand the business models less traditional. Ie those where the customer value is almost zero, but its side effects, generates income from very high as is the case in markets with many faces. If the life time value for users of Google is clearly negative, the customer equity to reading the results is largely positive.

But stay on our main line of the traditional business model in which a value is the difference between the investments made to serve customers and the revenue it generates directly. The key parameter here is the acquisition policy, and in the same way we have defined a maximum CLTV, we can define an optimal EC value, which will be determined by the best combination of investments for the renewal of the customer base and maintaining the old.

But there is no isomorphism. It is thus reasonable to think that if customer by customer, we should think it is better to invest in retention, across the portfolio acquisition, which is becoming the priority. To spend much more than renew the customer base could be compatible with the idea of spending little to acquire each customer, purchasing budget is compatible with high expenditure per customer asset is low. Such a situation is understandable insofar as spending little on average to acquire a new customer, lets hope it has a high value, total spending would mean a lot just to broaden considerably the potential market.

That argues for a simple idea, interest in the concept of customer equity on a strategic marketing, when the separate CLTV is essentially a business problem.

source: i-marketing

[8] SNS: physics or sociology ?

We did not expect Facebook to study how messages are spread in a social network, but the emergence of social media stimulates the past ten years of extensive research.
Even before the advent of the Internet, social networks have attracted the attention of sociologists and the result was expressed in the form of two important ideas and the development of many analysis tools. The first idea is that the density of a network affects the transmission speed of information but also promotes uniformity of opinion. The networks are dense networks where the links are strong, those of family and those of the clan. The second is that the value of a position in the networks just what lies at the intersection of several links which are connected by weaker links. Ronald Burt and Grannoveter are among those who developed these ideas in the 80s and 90s.
A major change appeared in the late 90s particularly embodied by a physicist, Barabasi, with the essential idea that the topology of large networks, such as the Internet plays a vital role in their dynamic growth and dissemination. This topology is characterized by distribution of the number of links available to each node in the network, Barabasi proposal is that Internet networks respond to a power law characterized by properties of preferential attachment. The rich are getting richer faster than the poor richer. The question of large networks is now a matter physicists (visit http://arxiv.org/list/physics.soc-ph/recent) methods by which simulation of particle fields attempt to understand how a message can be spread in a network in view of its structure.
In this course, an important contribution is that of Duncan Watts, who demonstrates that strategies targeting opinion leaders do not lead, or rarely, to phenomena of Buzz. In almost paradoxical, he said that communication within networks requires the tactics of mass communication. That will delight the traditional agencies and irritate specialists Buzz.
The nature of the links is one thing, another topology, but this does not exhaust the subject, an issue today relates to the actual mechanisms of transmission. It is without doubt the contribution of epidemiology. The innovation of Facebook does not lie in the idea of connecting with friends, in France as a site before Buddy brought this idea before, and on a global scale makes his MySpace success factor. The key is is the availability of gadgets and the quality of their ergonomics. These small applications that can provide one-click an object plays a particular role. The characteristic of social networking sites is that they convey not only ideas and opinions, but objects.
If Twitter asks him another challenge to knowledge. Its strength lies particularly in the eco-system it creates. Twitdeck, Twitpic, Twitdom, a community of applications itself into a network over the network's own twitter. Several levels of networks, networks of networks. The problem is that a number of sociologists are exploring, including Emmanuel Lazega with the idea of design link. Sociologists would resume it on hand physicists to understand the nature of networks?
In all cases, it is clear that mastery of social networking sites through the assimilation of an impressive amount of knowledge produced in various fields ranging from sociology to physics, from epidemiology and the role of marketing specialists is to put these achievements in order to think better communication strategies on these new media. This is an important issue that must answer three main questions.
Should foster communication focused on opinion leaders or to create a mass phenomenon spread?
Does the content of their messages or transmission mechanisms that are crucial in spreading?
How to manage the hierarchy of networks?
by : i-marketing

[7] Social Network Sites: A documentary on Network, Social and otherwise

Bonus post a previous documentary Social Ontology, in part with 5 Watt, Barabasi and some others ...

Part 1


part 2


part 3


part 4


part 5

source: www.youtube.com

[6] Back to Customer Value ! new

Measuring customer value is now something old. If we dated things, perhaps we could set in 1987, more than twenty, a formalization of the most successful the proposal submitted Schmittlein, Morrison and Colombo (1). Our readers offer probably other references, and earlier dates. In the 90 years that this idea of measuring and modeling customer value has taken off, from 2002 to literature reviews are available (2). More recently it will see Gupta, Hanssens et al (2006)

The sophistication and refinement of models has been the extent of their bloom. Today they are like the flowers of a meadow in spring, occupying all the ecological niches of the market, even if lines of force structure in the clear variety. Between models of retention (lost for good), migration patterns (always a share), the models purely probabilistic, deterministic, autoregressive, Markovian, in those cohorts, the parametric and nonparametric, the survivals and the semi, blends the full range of statistical tools is used.

And yet there is still some confusion, customer value, the life time value, customer equity, are still varied terminology, addressing the same idea, has difficulties to account for the nature of concepts that it means. It is partly the fault of this abundance, which in a competitive spirit, has neglected the economic reasoning and took advantage of the munificence technique.

Let us return to the concept. The basic idea is borrowed to finance on the basis of this discovery 80 years, is managing the relationship is the real purpose of marketing that most purchasing decisions, and considers the idea that the customer is an asset whose value is measured by the method of discounting. In short, the value of a customer is equal to the sum over time of value which he hopes to produce each period. In this reasoning, and this definition, every point is important.

The first is the idea of cash flow. The value comes from the difference between what it calls, rather than costs, but investment and liquidity that obtains. From this point of view there are many models that have lost sight of the definition, confusing cash flow with profit, which is easily calculable, but worse with income. Number of models Life Time Value, what we translate customer value, are now in force models of Customer Life Time returned. An accountant will be very difficult to confuse the two concepts, although we understand that in the minds of marketers things can be confusing.

The second point is that the unit of analysis. Similarly the value of a security not to be confused with the value of the portfolio, the CLTV is a concept unique to each asset portfolio of clients, each client, each client relationship. And each asset is characterized by its expected value, but also risk, usually measured by the variance of this expectation value.

The third point is precisely this concept of hope value. The future gain is not assured. It makes sense that under a policy implemented today which looks at the extensions in time for back to the date hereof. This is the meaning of the update, not a forecast but an equity. What is the value today of cash flows in the future produced by the current policy? The financier to resolve this problem corrects the future value by a coefficient that represents either an arbitrage opportunity, the current performance of the assets, either by correcting the deteriorating value of the currency. It also includes expectations of growth. In the case of marketing, things are a little different since we do not expect that assets are maintained over time. Marketers are pessimistic, they know that there is little chance that a customer today is still in 7 years. Simply put, if the rate of customer attrition is around 30% after 5 years the probability of a client is still below 20%. In other words, if finance the expected gain is a constant average time for marketing is strictly decreasing.

Continuing on this point by examining the concept of hope of winning. From a mathematical point of view the expected gain is the sum of various contingencies, and each is the product of a possible value and the probability that it occurs. In the case of the expectation of customer value, it implies how the larger the probability that decreases over time, on average, and the gain that hopes to achieve, also varies paths that the modeller must determined. Often the assumption is that the expected (average) gain is constant, but the likelihood is that it occurs strictly and strongly decreasing. But one can imagine that the hope of gain follows a parabolic trajectory resulting in the life of the relationship that learning leads to develop the client's expected income, then that like everything else in this world, wear and fatigue erodes income. And regardless, we can say that the risk of being more customer grow in the initiation and establishment of the relationship, and then remain stable, may be weakened later when boredom takes over . Naturally these trajectories are peculiar to each individual, each story.

Fourthly, we emphasized that these changes were consistent with the hypothesis that the marketing policy, ie the effort to acquire the customer first, then to maintain or develop, was the same across time. The update does not measure future, but now it is what it is today and that it continues stubbornly. The acquisition led effort to select a certain type of client. We know that it is important, it is likely that customer is unfaithful and opportunistic, we know that if we chose freely, without being force it is likely to be faithful and generous . Likewise if one does nothing to nourish the relationship, he will be leaving us soon. One can imagine the optimal policies for managing these customers. The dynamic optimization techniques are at our service. The central idea is that much depends on CLTV effort acquisition, retention and development. It is therefore at least in principle the idea of an optimal CLTV which we must compare the current CLTV.

The value of a customer is not a given thing. It is the result of what he is, the circumstances, but especially what he did. It is without doubt one of the most misunderstood. There are no customers with high value or low value, there are customers that are successfully exploited the potential of assigning resources, and those that are neglected. This is probably the key point.

This reasoning also allows a third idea, that of the intrinsic CLTV, which is defined simply as the value generated by a client for whom it would be no investment. This is the value it produces, regardless of the marketing effort. It is obvious that the issue of lifetime value is a comparison of these three indicators: the intrinsic value that requires no investment, the present value measures the reward of the investment policy adopted on the day calculation and that of a hypothetical optimal value which corresponds to the best investment.

At this stage of the analysis we have done almost around what models should be able to report. And we should look now at this other notion is that the portfolio's value, otherwise the Customer Equity. This will keep in mind that if that is the sum of individual values, it is not a new concept, but is confused with what we have analyzed. We will keep for another post this discussion.

We'll just have to take into account an idea that has been developing for some years. Customers are not alone and talk to their neighbors, they themselves recruit new customers, which has led some researchers to want to include these secondary gains in the calculation of CLTV. Our view is that this bias is wrong, less by principle than by its consequences, but we shall return later, we simply reiterate here that the strength of the concept of Customer Life Time Value, is to consider today the future consequences of current marketing policy, taking into account as reasonably possible, the time paths of the relationship with each consumer participating customer base

by : i-marketing

[5] the net out of time?

Internet over time find the time. The innovation brought by microblogging, and more generally by the techniques of wireless information, whether or RSS feeds for facebook is to slow the flow of instant messages to give the feeling of a real-time information . This is the term now devoted: that of real time search. One may also ask the question what is real? It would be more correct to speak of a current time, unless you consider that the only real things are those of the present.
It is a time that is similar to that of news agency press, and if technology changes, it is this same spirit that animates the new tickers. The space of this information is that of an immediate relative, a layer of a few hours of messages transmitted, reflected, transmitted, redundant whose thickness reflects in part the interest.
Immediacy but not instantaneous. The moment belongs to what immediately issued dissolves into oblivion. It is the virtue of messaging, which one retains only rarely archives. The son of time information is that of an archive whose period is short but significant.
This time is different from that of the first continuous web sites whose design was standing in the idea of timelessness. Although as time goes by, they have improved, these improvements are for ever, and take the past for some kind of imperfection that we must erase. The timeless is what escapes time.
Blogs have introduced the idea of duration, at a slow pace, the days, weeks and months. They are over information that the press is in the mail with this cumulative advantage which the internet press did not take the advantage. The real value of the press lies in its records and the potential it has to introduce in the space of the net the first elements of a true story.
That would suggest that the Internet does not innovate that much, at least in relation to time that we can conceive. The flow of innovations seems to catch just the status of traditional institutions of knowledge. This leaves out hopes of prospects for new models of media, and the idea of some places of memory.
The past is probably the area obscured. The admiration that is Google and its indexation diminishes when one realizes that the research gives little importance to the dating. If indexing is powerful archiving is bad. Even in advanced research, time management is limited. We note in passing that the propensity to timelessness, to disregard the time, is also found at Amazon, which, against all habits bibliographic confines dates publishing books in corners of shadows.
This propensity to timelessness is a fact even more curious is that few people also entered by the timekeepers. Computers, electronics, date, timestamp, with unprecedented precision the least of his documents. The right tools are also those who manage the genesis of the production. This is the heart of the process of editing Wikipedia pages, which tracks each version. But this geometric accuracy has little to do with history, but much more with the organization and the sequentiality of decisions. If a page for each tab history is available, the date of publication is not provided on the current page. But it remains a unique event that allows the reader to assess the conditions of genesis of a document.
If today is any attention paid to this extraordinary extension of the original model of the Internet, an extension of intertextuality to sociality, ie the extension of the principle of linking texts to each other and weaving between them a network of meaning, than to link their authors, their agents, it remains to introduce a particular order, one time, that of a story. This is less than chronology, even if it is necessary that archiving. It is less observed trends that indicate changes. It is less calendar that memory.
And who would doubt that this observation, suggest a simple exercise: how to research tools and aggregation available to us prior to the evolution of an event as easily as one gathers information on the current status of this information. This function has been little news in Google, but it must be sought in the advanced search. Here is an example for the case of the influenza A H1N1 keyword.
by : http://jst-2-earn-money.blogspot.com

[3] Mass Customization - A modern myth

The on-mass measurement (Mass customization) is probably one of the most enduring myths of contemporary marketing. Personalization is often confused with the idea that we should adjust bids closer to the desires of consumers. We forget in passing that the idea of personalization is content to offer standard, provided that special attention be given to one recipient. The smile of the dairy certainly enhances the standard basket of eggs that the consumer has bought, but that's another story.
So let us say on the measure, including information technology makes possible the massification and automation. It is curious to note the popularity of this idea, as history shows us the consumer after all, that standardized solutions are excluded in many areas the individual solutions. The clothing has annihilated the population of seamstresses, the supermarket has almost eradicated the traditional grocers long ago that our apothecaries can prepare more in their mortars medications that we agree we strive to standard doses in blisters.
Of course we understand that the savings made by these solutions, and lowered costs through economies of scale have changed the relative value between the standard and tailor-made, and that therefore the hope that we can produce, with the same scales and the same cost reductions, solutions tailor-made to justify this craze persistent.
Aurelie Merle in a thesis in 2007 and an article of 2008 (1) shows that the value of a bespoke is largely in the product value and adjusted, but does not depend directly on the participatory experience, even if the latter contributes to the value of individual products. From this perspective, it supports this view. The key is in the individual product and it has more value than the standardized product.
However, the details of the thesis, not in the article, a particular fact was that a small fraction of subjects perceived less value in the individual solution in the standardized solution. The partial and marginal in research could be understood as the fact that for some consumers the benefit of individualization was exceeded by the cost of the process. When you go to the dressmaker, it must undergo the time of measurement, it can be painful.
This reinforces the hypothesis that two recent publications (2,3), showing one another and that the value of a bespoke is mainly related to consumer characteristics: its level of competence and knowledge in particular that it has its own selection criteria, and level of involvement and motivation.
On a more fundamental level, we must bring these items from the perspective of modern cognitive psychology that reports that faced with a choice where the alternatives are many, the decision is of poor quality and often unsatisfactory. It is the thesis of B. Schwartz on the paradox of choice. When the choice is too difficult, too expensive, it relies on the chance! Who has not experienced this panic at a radius too large?
To set clear and largely developed from this point of view, we will gladly take the lesson from Barry Schwartz (4), including empirical tests begin to be provided in the decision analysis on the web. (on a subject near and ways of solution we will look at the fresh Collapsed Choice Theory)

The practical implications are important. Needless to engage a consumer who does not know exactly what he wants and is not ready to make a major research effort to design the product or service that suits him best. It may even turn away from platforms which offer these solutions for their preferred options crudest, whose choice is limited. Unless we can simplify his task, not only offer him the opportunity to individualize the offer but also by the hand and taking him the least time possible.
The mass-customization is probably an option reserved for narrow groups of consumers and areas where the involvement and expertise are high. Two signs are indicative of favorable situations: what price is willing to pay the consumer? What is the status of the brand? So what can Nike be prohibited other shoe manufacturer.
The whole question boils down to what proportion of consumers (a market or mark) is finally motivated enough and competent? It is likely to be low, leaving a bright even mass marketing. But it is a point of view to discuss!
(1) Merle A, J Chandon, Robert E. Understanding the perceived value of mass customization. A distinction between product value and the value of the experience of co-design. (Englisha). Research and Applications in Marketing [serial online]. September 2008, 23 (3) :27-50.
(2) N Bharadwaj, R Naylor, F. ter Hofstede Consumer response to and choice of customized versus standardized systems. International Journal of Research in Marketing [serial online]. September 2009, 26 (3) :216-227.
(3) Franke N, P Keinz, C. Steger Testing the Value of Customization: When Do Customers Really Prefer Products Tailored to Their Preferences?. Journal of Marketing [serial online]. September 2009, 73 (5) :103-121.
(4) Schwartz, B. The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less. Harper Perennial, 2005.
by : http://jst-2-earn-money.blogspot.com