If you’re a marketer or a WordPress user, you might like the WordPress plugin I recently created. Based on a principle taught by Seth Godin, it lets you treat new visitors to your site different from returning visitors:
Along the lines of my previous post, The Value of Free, I thought I’d point out a success story:
I found an essay called The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz. Turns out it’s an excerpt from his book by the same name. After sending around and discussing the essay with several people, my roommate bought the book.
By offering a free excerpt from his book, Mr. Schwartz earned a book sale he would not have otherwise had. He also shared his ideas with over a dozen people through me alone. For some people, sharing the idea is the most important part.
I just bought Norah Jones’s latest single “Thinking About You” from Yahoo Music, a good song made better by the fact that it’s offered in 192 kbps unprotected MP3 format. That is, there’s no Digital Rights Management (DRM) to “control” it. The publishers take the risk that I’ll (illegally) share the song with all my friends and the world at large, while I Mr. Consumer enjoy the play-anywhere convenience.
The Wall Street journal reports that Yahoo Music General Manager David Goldberg favors unprotected downloads:
Antipiracy software on music isn’t helping the industry because the same music is already available without copy protection on CDs and through Internet file-sharing programs. What’s more, many consumers don’t like the limitations that copy protection imposes on how and on which devices they can listen to their music. (The Wall Street Journal)
This also allows Yahoo Music to compete with the iTunes Music Store since these unprotected MP3 files will play on any iPod.
This week on Forbes.com Cory Doctorow, sci-fi author and co-founder of BoingBoing.net, explains the value of giving away something for free. He invokes Tim O’Reilly who said, “Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy.”
As a consumer, I have too many choices and not enough attention span. To win my attention, give me something for free. To win my wallet, make it easy to buy and consume your product.
I’m impressed by the idea that the steady pursuit of small things can have great consequences.
Rudy Giuliani noted that crime in New York City decreased when they began enforcing the “petty” crimes: “If you want to change big things, you pay attention to small things.” (Via 37Signals.com.)
The Book of Mormon prophet Alma similarly noted that “by small and simple things are great things brought to pass”. (Alma 37:6-7)
Modern prophets repeatedly enjoin steadiness, including daily scripture study and prayer. The promised results are huge.
A new company called FeedCycle.com allows you to create RSS feeds that are delivered over time. You could create a feed to deliver a passage of scripture each day, or to deliver one lesson from a sales presentation to your sales staff each week. You choose the content and the pace.
Like the pyramids and character, building great things takes time, and it’s usually just 1 day, then another, then another.