DVD Rental Business Model

What NetFlix did in the US is amazing. Faced with problems such as delivery rates and warehouse logitiscs they built a model that it’s beginning to catch Hollwoods attention. Like Amazon did a few years ago with small independent publishers NetFlix is doing with independent (and smaller) film releases. DVD rental stores don’t have the ability to offer such a big variety of goods. They offer the most wanted ones. But how do they know which ones are most wanted? By acting on demand. Well Netflix not only implemented a user based rating and review system like Amazon did but it allowed small film editors with niche market needs to be present in their database amongst big Hollywood hits. That has turned the distribuition market upside down. Along with it’s famous subscription model (which came up in a brainstorming night session) the film makers niche market is now a lot closer to the end user.

June 25, 2003 | Tags: e-commerce | Leave a Comment

Wi-Fi for Dummies

If want to build an Wi-Fi network and don’t know how, read this article and learn what options are important when buying an access point, how to configure the network and other related stuff.
Also Read:
netstumbler.com for keeping updated on wireless stuff.

June 25, 2003 | Tags: wireless | Leave a Comment

Virtual Companies vs Real Places

It’s quite strange when you get to see the office buildings of some of the biggest internet companies like Yahoo or Google. The internet page is their “face” to users not their actual buildings. Nice pictures btw linked from Heiko Hebig’s weblog].

June 24, 2003 | Tags: day to day | 1 Comment

Recommended by Microsoft…sigh

I would really like to know why does Microsoft recommend the user to set their MSN website has homepage in IE when installing MSN messenger.

Of course it is a nice way of generating more hits and pre-defining the browsers of less aware users. Users stick to the recomendation (in case something “wrong” happens if they do not comply…). And they will of course have some dificulty in changing that. With this simple trick Microsoft (sorry don’t know the url…) generates millions of “fake” hits from each time a user starts IE. That put it’s MSN portal in the top among others that gain that position through “real” hits from people interested in accessing the website. Shame on them again. They Use The User without a clear justification.

June 24, 2003 | Tags: day to day | Leave a Comment

Ebay Redesign

Well finaly ebay.com (ebay uk too) is making a redesign of it’s functional-but-not-stylish design. They built a Tour page of the new design which includes some notes. This way they can educate users and at the same time get user feddback before actually launching the new design. You can check the new design here.

June 24, 2003 | Tags: e-commerce | Leave a Comment

A Powerful Psychological Tool

Observing how people buy I can quickly spot 3 main reasons why they choose a certain online store to buy: Price, Free Shipping and Trust. It’s easy to see why succeeds. They fullfil each of the customer needs. Not only these 3 reasons but many others like availability, customer reviews and “customer who bought this also bought…”.

Free shipping needs a lot of money to maintain but as this article sugests going back and removing free-shiping would not be good as consumers have that for granted. It’s even a powerful psychological marketing tool that makes customers coming back and making their shopping carts biggers just to take advantage of the offer. Quoting Wired: “Free shipping absolutely is a drug(like) promotion”.

I wonder why they don’t buy one of the delivery services like or . Like Ebay did when they bought PayPal so that they could integrate technologies. That would be a big move probably away from their core business but certainly a bigger one towards complete domination of the worldwide market. Just wait and see.

June 23, 2003 | Tags: e-marketing | Leave a Comment

The New Era of Pervasive Computing

A very interesting article on the future of the internet a how it will change the way we comunicate. Tim Oreilly writes how web technologies are being used to build web services that soon will (I hope it too!) help the way we work and live our every day life. I really believe that the net will always be a proliferous new media that not only provides entertainment content but also, and more important, services that will make our life easier.

June 21, 2003 | Tags: day to day | Leave a Comment

Bush, Segway and the Future

As I was reading the article that said President Bush meant to fall off his Segway I was confident that it can not be true. The article states that this kind of (no-oil related) technology could be the end of the oil empire and that Bush is trying to show that it’s not a good alternative. What I don’t undestand is how this could be bad for a country that spends so much money on oil. Wouldn’t it be economical to have non-dependent forms of power? The author of bookofseg claims he spends $1 a month recharging it’s segway. I truly think the future is in using technology to use reusable energy. But then again, politics are never really interested in solving people’s problems…

June 20, 2003 | Tags: day to day | Leave a Comment

reboot6 in Denmark

I’m in online conference mode following reboot6. Reboot “is the annual meetingplace for the digital community in denmark”. John G�tze, Marc Canter and lots of other are updating their journals allowing us the outsiders keep up with what’s going on. This year reboot is full of well known web industry professionals:

- Jason Fried from the excelent 37signals (very good work btw).
- Meg Hourihan creator of blogger and currently engaged in the Lafayette project.
- Scott Heiferman who created meetup - a worldwide meeting tool.
- Tim Oreilly from oreilly.

I wish I was there too. Maybe next year. For the moment I’ll just take a look at live event pictures and wait to read a full report on the conference. If I find one I’ll link to it.

Update: Not only I read posts during the conference itself but I’m now able to watch the videos of the event. Cool!

June 20, 2003 | | 1 Comment

50 Worst Company Names

I had a really good laught with 50 Worst Company Names.Some:

7) Spirea: Get your kids vaccinated early!
13) Cognigine Corp: Cognahognahognabog? Cognahognahognabog!
20) Starbak Communication: Coming soon to every goddam corner near you…
22) VoicePump: The only telecommunications firm endorsed by Monica Lewinsky
29) Wanadoo: No, actually, we don’t.:
30) TruePosition Inc.: Recommended by missionaries everywhere
43) Optogone: Damn! And they just optogot here!