Pandora

Pandora.com is a free online music listening website. It allows users to register an account for free, to pick the music they want for free, and most importantly to listen to the music for free. What is their pricing strategy? Free! However there is an account upgrade for a fee.

With these two options, Pandora offers to pricing strategies. The first is a free service that gives users a large amount of access to the site and music without having to pay for any of it. Pandora can offer this because it utilizes the advertising model described in Anderson’s Taxonomy. The free content on Pandora is sponsored by advertisers that place banner ads and videos on the Pandora website. Pandora also uses the zero marginal cost approach which is distributing digital content at virtually no cost to audiences. The free pricing strategy makes Pandora quite easy to use. A user can simply go on to the website, and immediately begin listening to music without having to create an account. The user will be prompted to type in an artist or a song name. Pandora will bring up the song or a song by that band and play it. If the user likes the song they can click the thumbs up box, if the user doesn’t like it they can click the thumbs down. Through these ratings Pandora develops a library of music for the user based on the songs they have stated they like or don’t like. The benefit to signing up for a free account is that the user can then access the “stations” that are created from anywhere in the world. For example, I chose to have several stations, each that plays a different set of music. I have a classic rock station, rap, modern rock, techno, and funk/soul. All of these stations play music that I have chosen and pretty much stick to the genres that I want. There are some drawbacks. If I do not like the song I can skip past it, but a user can only skip past so many songs per hour before Pandora is not allowed to skip any further. Also there is a large amount of advertising on the site. The ads do not interrupt the music but the ads surround the screen and are very noticeable.

There are other pricing strategy is to offer a $36 per year subscription that offers certain services or features that do not come with the free account. This subscription is an example of a fixed bundling pricing strategy. In bundling, a company establishes prices for a combination of more than one product or service. On Pandora, a user can listen to music, look up information about the artist and about their songs, and check out other people’s profiles who listen to the same music. Pandora also offers a mobile phone application for those people with smart phones who wish to listen to their stations when not at a computer. All of these services are bundled together and offered for free at first, but then there is the subscription account that offers some services that the free account does not. These features include a 5 hour time out interval (the free account is 1 hour), no ads being placed on the stations, and no ads on the website or on mobile phone applications. This trade-up from the free to subscription service allows Pandora to charge an annual rate for convenience. People who do not wish to see ads or be bothered by them can pay to avoid them.

The internet radio industry has been increasing steadily since its introduction. A business like Pandora, which offers limited interruptions by advertisements, presents a much better product to people who are wishing to avoid the nuisance of radio and online radio. Companies like Pandora offer a greater listening service then their predecessors and current competitors. With regards to its pricing strategies, Pandora has done an excellent job in pricing its products and services. The free package allows users to enjoy the core service of Pandora, while the paid service allows users to ascertain many other services that provide a much better listening experience. Pandora is consistently ranked as one of the most popular internet radio sites and with good reason. In the future, Pandora will continue to grow and might alter its pricing strategy, however for now, the system it has is both effective and popular.

Sporcle!

I site that I use quite frequently, is Sporcle.com. Sporcle is a user generate trivia site, that allows users to take or create their own online trivia quizes ranging in categories from sports to geography. I would consider Sporcle to be an Experiential site. While it does offer some trivia information for users, people who take the quizes are entertaining themselves and not in search of knowledge, although that is a nice side benefit. While Sporcle is not a media creation site, or social networking site, it is primarily focused on entertaining its users. While the site is not particularly beautiful or elegant, a key ingredient to having an experiential site, it does offer users hours of fun activities.

If you are ever in need of a good trivia challenge, sporcle.com is the site for you. Here is a link to one quiz that asks you to name the companies that use the slogans listed. Simply click the start button and enter your answers into the box...

http://www.sporcle.com/games/advertising_slogans.php

Careerbuilder.com

As a graduating senior, it has become more and more important to begin looking for a job as time goes on. In the past, before the internet became what it is today, students would rely on connections, career fairs, or going through a phone book to find companies or contacts that they would want to communicate with in order to procure a position after college. Nowadays, thanks to the internet, it has become much easier for graduates and people in the workforce to obtain company information and contact details in hopes of obtaining a job. Careerbuilder.com is a job posting website, much like Monster. Both focus on providing online job postings for companies and individuals in order to streamline the job search process and make it less costly. The online job posting industry is dominated by the two companies stated above. Both are slightly different in who they target and how they operate, however both are based on the same web business models. Both Monster and Careerbuilder rely on advertising revenues and to a lesser extent subscription revenues to sustain their operations.

I first came across Careerbuilder as a job search tool at the beginning of the 2008-2009 school year. It had become apparent to me that I had to begin looking for a job and Careerbuilder was a good place to start. The thing that Careerbuilder has that Monster doesn’t, is a slightly more focused attitude towards younger people and graduates. I use both sites and have found both to be quite useful. When first going on to the Careerbuilder website, you can create a profile that lets you post resumes and cover letters, and complete a profile that describes you professionally and personally in many aspects. After signing up for a basic membership, which is free, you can roam the site, inputting search details and looking up recently posted jobs by companies from across the world. You can choose to have a public or private profile, if public then the companies can see your information and contact you with job information. Through an in depth search engine of all job postings and specific information about both the user and the company, people can find jobs in no time and easily apply either through the Careerbuilder website or through a link given.

Careerbuilder applies the Advertising model much like Monster does and much like other websites like Google and Yahoo do. Careerbuilder acts as a portal to many other sites, mostly the sites of the companies advertising, it is also a classified model, and has user registration. On the Careerbuilder website, the website offers many opportunities to companies wishing to advertise. Each month, Careerbuilder has 500 million page views and 24 million visitors. Several options exist for companies that wish to advertise, such as placement ads, banner ads, skyscraper ads, leader boards, text links, and emails. Some web partners of the site include MSN, AOL, USA Today, and Google. With a huge amount of traffic Careerbuilder is in prime placement to provide advertising space for almost any company.

Careerbuilder also has a small subscription program. If a user wishes to use certain tools or programs that help them in their job search, then they would have to subscribe to the website and pay an extra fee. An example of this is a program that allows the user to see what companies have viewed his or her resume or information. Although not a large fee, I have not signed up for this added subscription because I would not find these tools too useful.

For any pure play retailer, there are hundreds if not thousands of performance metrics that can be used to evaluate the success of the business model being used. Some basic evaluations that exist for any company are the most basic to use. For example, historical information or comparisons against the industry, like number of visits per month or day compared to a site like Monster. The duration of the visit on the site is a good start for metrics, if a company can determine how long a customer stays on the site then it gives the company a good understanding of what it is the customer is doing. For a classified site like Careerbuilder, perhaps an evaluation tool calculating the amount of jobs that have been filled through the site. Both the companies and users need to know if the site is useful, and if nobody is being offered jobs through the site, then what is the point of using it? Evaluating what types of advertisements are the most effective would allow Careerbuilder to charge higher rates for companies for more effective ads. Other metrics related to evaluating the level of effectiveness of Careerbuilder would be extremely useful. Determining what demographics the user’s of the site are would be beneficial towards companies. Figuring out which career types are the most sought out on the site would also be useful.

Many metrics exist for pure play retailers. Careerbuilder has taken the advertising business model and applied it extremely successfully. In the future, Careerbuilder should look to expand and try to eat some of Monster’s market share. A focus on young adults is a good start and hopefully Careerbuilder in the near future will benefit me greatly by finding me a job.

Girl Talk; A DJ’s right to remix

DJ Gregg Gillis, also known by fans as Girl Talk, released his fourth album Feed the Animals on June 19 of 2008. If you are unfamiliar with his work, then this video is a track from his most recent album (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKqkcHvJN9k&feature=PlayList&p=9E976B64920F8F85&index=5)(Extreme language warning). While the video is not produced by Gillis, the song is. As you can see, the song is a mash-up of many songs, ranging in genre from Lil’ John to The Beatles. The question that many have come to ask is, are these songs by Gillis copyright infringement? Is the sampling used by this DJ and by thousands of other DJ’s illegal? Do the original artists have rights to royalties from these songs?

According to Gillis, whose 2006 album Night Ripper catapulted him to fame in his genre, his tracks are covered under copyright law’s “fair use” principle. For “fair use” to be applied it must meet several characteristics. If it falls under one of the following categories: criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research, than it can be used and not be subject to a lawsuit. However, in reviewing each category, it would appear as though Gillis does not fall into one the stated above. Another factor in “fair use” is what is the purpose of use. Is it for commercial or non-profit purposes? In the case of Girl Talk, his latest album has been offered on his website in a “pay-what-you-want” method. This means that a user can choose to pay for it or download it for free. For bonus tracks and HD features, a user would be required to pay between $5 and $10. So it would appear as though technically Feed the Animals is non-profit. The other factors that have to be looked at are as follows. What is the nature of the copyrighted work, is it factual or fictional? It does not entirely apply here. What is the substantiality of use, is it a portion or the whole work being used? In this case it is snippets of songs, some ranging in a couple of seconds to minute long pieces. Lastly, what are the effect on the potential market? Is it neutral or will it result in lost revenue? An artist could argue it would result in lost revenue, but it is a stretch to say that a fan of Lil’ John is deciding to purchase this album over his because of the rapper’s 5 second clip in the song.

Many artists in the past and on this new album have had works used. In Feed the Animals, the following artists were sampled at one point or another: Beyonce Knowles, Rick Astly, Nine Inch Nails, Yo La Tengo, Jimi Hendrix, Lil Wayne, the Jackson Five, Missy Elliott and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. There are many more. Girl Talk at no point has asked artists or copyright holders for permission. Is this a case of copyright infringement? Or does Girl Talk’s mash-ups fall under the principle of “fair use”?

It is an interesting question, and to this point no lawsuit has been filed although it is certain that one has been discussed. In the 1976 Copyright Act, the owners of copyrights have exclusive rights to the following: reproduction, performance of the work publicly, distribution, and preparation of derivate works. The latter is the most important piece. The mash-ups created by Gillis are considered derivative works because his tracks have no original base. A derivate work is one that is built on the bases of other songs. Under the Copyright Act, depending on the language of the law and intent by lawmakers, Gillis could be violating the rights of the owners of the copyrights.

To date, Feed the Animals has been met with much fanfare. In December of 2008, the album was #4 on Time magazines Top 10 albums of 2008. Rolling Stone magazine gave the album 4 stars in 2008, and ranked the album #24 on its list of the 50 best albums of the year. It is unknown how much money was made off of his most recent album. Although based on its reviews, Gillis quit his medical engineering day job to focus on DJing full time. His label, named “Illegal Art,” has released 4 of his albums. The New York Times have called his music a “lawsuit waiting to happen.” Gillis states that the media is looking for a story and all of his music is covered under “fair use”. Meanwhile, Gillis continues to perform across the world and create new mash-ups.

Customization Continued

Here is another case of customization being used:

http://www.smart.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/mpc-us-content-Site/en_us/-/EUR/Smart_CC-Line

This is a Smart-car webiste, those tiny little two seaters you might see driving around.

You can custom design your own.

Just another example of how companies are taking steps to offer their customers complete customization.

NikeID vs. Puma Mongolian BBQ (Case 1)

The age of manufacturing has changed from mass production to mass customization. The mantra is no longer “any color you want as long as it's black.” Companies like Dell have mastered the ability to provide customized products in high quantities, and with there large market share in the computer industry, it makes sense that other companies would attempt to provide the same customizable features. In a saturated market like the sneaker industry, companies will do near anything to differentiate and off unique products to their customers. Two market leaders, Nike and Puma, have taken a big step in providing mass customized shoes to their customers. This is done through two websites, NikeID and Puma Mongolian Shoe BBQ. These two sites offer interactive software for users to take a shoe from scratch, and add their own designs or colors to create a completely customized pair of shoes. The following will review both websites in their attempt to offer customized products through interactive software. Then I will review first-hand experience of using both websites and present one pair of customized shoes that I created.

The NikeID website is a flashy and looks driven website. Nike plasters Kobe Bryant on the front of the website and offers drop down menus of each line of shoe they offer. Sneakers ranging from football to track, men’s to women’s, are offered on the site. Nike was attempting to push their athletic footwear by displaying Kobe Bryant, their top endorsement holder. The drop down menus have tons of options and can be somewhat daunting to any user. When I first visited the site I was not sure where to go to customize my own shoes and after talking with others, they agreed that it took them some time to get to the customization page. The Puma site is built differently than Nike’s. Instead of a total user controlled system, Puma has their site set up so that each person follows a set of instructions to build their shoes. It is displayed as if the user were cooking something, hence the Mongolian BBQ theme. Puma’s site is set up so that a step-by-step process is done to create customized shoes. The site was less complex than Nike’s but at the same offered fewer models to customize.

Both sites attempted to create an easy-to-use interface where users could go to the website and create their shoes in a matter of minutes and place the order. With regards to the styles and looks of the sneakers, both sites offer diverse but different colors and models. The NikeID site is more focused on solid colors for several segments of the shoes. The Puma site leaves something to be desired in colors. The patterns tended to be ugly and not solid colored. And it felt like there was 100 different sections of the shoes to alter. While this may be considered good by some people, completing a fully customized pair of shoes requires at least 10-20 minutes, and in some cases the same colors aren’t offered for each section of the shoe. NikeID offers different patterns for each section (although some patterns can come in only one color) and has only a few colors per section. There are much fewer sections on the Nike site and thus less customization.

The two websites were created differently but essentially with the same goal in mind: to offer complete customized sneakers online with the ability to order. Nike focused the main page of their website more on athletic shoes while Puma, whose shoes are in no way meant to be athletic, offered a creative cooking style site. Both offer different variations of colors and designs and one site is better than the other in that sense (Nike). With regard to speed, the process of customization was faster on Nike’s site, but the load time of the intro video, the main page, and each point and click section of the shoe had a little lag. For users who have a slow bandwidth, this might render their experience with the NikeID software slow and ineffective. The Puma site was somewhat faster than Nike and with a lot of experience on the internet, it really disappoints people when its difficult to load a webpage.

In the end, both sites achieve the same goal and allow users to customize their sneakers. While there are differences between the two in areas like design, color, and bandwidth, the two essentially do the same thing in different ways.

After using both sites to customize my own shoes I believe that the better customization site is NikeID. The Nike site gave me an easier and more efficient way of creating sneakers. With a point-and-click feature, where each section of the shoe can be changed with one or two clicks, Nike’s site simplified the process and made it much easier for me complete my pair of sneakers. I attempted to make the same design with both sites, centered around the Philadelphia Phillies (the 2008 World Champions). After spending roughly 10 minutes on my NikeID design, I was very satisfied with the end product. When I attempted to recreate the design or something like it on the Puma site, I found it very difficult to create anything that looked like what I wanted. I attempted other designs focused around other Philadelphia sports teams, but unfortunately I was unable to access colors necessary (green and orange). The customization section of Puma was easy to get to, however after that, the 100 sections of shoe to select became annoying and undesirable. I could not even match the colors so that the sneakers looked consistent.

In the end, I felt that Nike was much better at utilizing online mass customization technology. The NikeID site at first appears to be a little too confusing, but after some navigation and clicking I was able to create a pair of sneakers that I thought were cool looking and that no Phillie would have any trouble wearing while parading around with their World Series trophy and rings. As you can see, the sneakers display the red, white, and grey colors of the Phillies, while providing a nice message on the back. “F ING CHAMPS” in honor of second baseman Chase Utley’s unforgettable remarks.