The Geek Forum
Main Forums => Hardware, Software, and Other Imperialist Crap => Topic started by: BizB on May 02, 2014, 09:26:02 AM
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I realize that I'm out on the fringe here, but I just read this article (http://bgr.com/2014/05/01/how-mobile-apps-make-money/) that states that 77% of apps that people download are identified through friend/family recommendation. Immediately, I thought of Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tipping_Point) where he points out how brands have reached critical mass and how it happens and who makes it happen.
If you want to become rich, become a Connector and a Maven and pimp out your friends list to brands wishing for greater success. Seriously, though, I'd love to come up with a method to scrape blogs, and social media sites and combine it with behavioral data to identify the Connectors and the Mavens. Then, sell that to brand managers.
...if only I had the time and the knowledge to get there.
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I'd love to see branding go the way of the zip drive and see more DIY and boutique everything. We're seeing upstarts start to shake up the incumbents in many sectors. Netflix is producing their own content. Kickstarter/Indiegogo, etc. are providing smaller scale financing. Etsy, Bandcamp, and the like are providing smaller scale marketplaces for the real creators. Makers faires and Tech Shops are sprouting up. Locovore movements are making things like fresh produce boxes from nearby farms possible for producers and consumers. The internet is helping to enable all of this. I was at a colleague's house earlier tonight and her son was telling me all about Minecraft. OOP is becoming so much easier, especially in the mobility applications that kids are building their own. I for one welcome this decentralization of power from the incumbents to the individual. When anyone can do something easily, the chances for innovation skyrocket and the need for marketing and marketing research will need to change too.
Perhaps your algorithms can give hope to the 800 pound behemoths of mass marketing, but I'm betting that they're in for a rude awakening and will be left behind in a decade or less as individual customization becomes cheaper and easier and the channels keep multiplying.
I'm still pretty sleep deprived so I hope my ramblings made sense.