You better be careful. There are many of these down the road. You need to keep your eyes open. Being alert is a state of being. Choose the road carefuly.
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The End Of The Free-Form Writing Era
There are so much specific things that I need to do, that I am no longer allowed to write free style. In this society we are rewarded by the amount of the work and quality we can produce, and doing free form writing is not giving me any benefit, except brushing up my personal writing skills and making me feel myself better as a writer, even though I am not allowed to call myself that way, until I actually start living from my writing completely.
It doesn’t matter wether it’s fictional writing, technical, blogging or any type, the bottom line is what matters, and the bottom line is, that your identity is based on what you are paid, not on what you would like to be paid for.
If you don’t put in enough effort and work into becoming a paid XYZ, you are only day dreaming about becoming XYZ. Obviously that can be anything. Whatever you want to achieve, you have to follow up a plan.
It is okay to linger for a while, and build a habit. But once habit is in place, it is time to grow up and move on. Like I am doing right now.
Do you have a dream you want to follow up on?
Updating WordPress via Hootsuite…
Wow, this might be the big reason why I might completely keep Hootsuite Premium. This lets me streamline all my social media efforts in one place. Speechless. This didn’t used to work before. Seems it does now…
Why I don’t care about the business model of Read It Later Apps
With the demise of Google Reader the blogosphere, including myself went in rage about Google shutting down the beloved reader, suddenly not becoming popular amongst the tech-geek crowd. Suddenly everybody became aware of the fact that “free” comes at the cost, and that the services we love and use today need monetary backup in order to operate.
But did we go a little bit too far?
A lot of people out there prefer to use Instapaper, because of its so called direct business model, you pay for the service, and you support maintaining it. Instapaper was clear cookie cutter until Marco Arment sold it. Ever since than Instapaper remained pretty much the same. No innovations, no progress, no integration with other services.
On the other hand we had pocket, backed up by the similar venture capitalist money that got involved with Instapaper, and yet somehow good portion of the users decided to “pay their way” for the underperforming Instapaper.
The reason why I don’t care about Read It Later business model
And why it doesn’t matter. Read It Later is not a business, it is a feature, and as such I can’t care less about them. For the time being I am using Pocket, and if for any reason they shut down, there will be no critical loss of data on my end. It is just a temporary inbox, where I decide what goes to garbage, what gets consumed and what gets actioned.
If it wasn’t for Pocket, I’d be using Evernote for reading, which has way better business model, and they already started incorporating the “Read It Later” as a feature set. Not only that they are a cash positive business model, they also have means to develop the tools if any of these two (or three) companies disappear from the scene.
Beside Evernote, Apple introduced read it later as a feature as well, as integrated environment of their browsers across all of their devices. Which effectively means that the regular user will never even use the “Read It Later” software.
The future of the Read It Later business model
The rise of Instapaper happened because there was no such feature in the market. The only competing alternative were RSS readers, and they became quite complimentary to the service, but now, as it became a feature of super products, I don’t see them surviving in the “regular” market, and I am referring to the crowds that aren’t tech-geeks who are very specific at how they are going about their technology.
Ultimately I don’t care about Read It Later services as they don’t provide innovation anymore, thus not creating any value. This might change in the future, but until than, I’ll stick with the free. Ultimately they will innovate and offer more value than the alternatives, or they will die out.
Empathy Manifesto: Providing Value For Profit
Getting the money for value provided, while remaining competitive, keeping low overhead, and consistently delivering what your clients or customers want and need. That is the foundation of good business, and right now I am thinking of the needs at which I am playing my entrepreneurial game.
Existing and artificial markets
Existing markets are proven to deliver customer base, but artificial ones have higher chances of attracting business. Artificial markets are made as derivatives of already existing niche markets or created out of communities gathered around the topic or interest. Artificial markets are always more competitive business model, as they allow you to create so called “legal monopoly” as you have means to satisfy the artificial marketing made need, putting you into the category of only supplier.
Doing your own thinking, once again
This the main thought of my upcoming book: “7 Steps To Alpha Efficiency”, figuring out stuff for yourself. This idea of figuring out your own money making idea is critical for securing your stability and financial security, finding the loop holes (referring to legal ones) in the system, that when they are exploited, will deliver value to you and your customers!
The era of psychological needs
Beside the basic needs, we understand that things people desire the most are completely unrelated to the physical product! The assumption proves real once we realize how much people are paying for digital products, like ebooks, music and movies. People have the need and desire for digital products that will better their lives and entertain them, and they are willing to pay a lot of money for satisfying those needs!
Untapped markets hidden within the collective mind
Knowing and breathing the needs of people is putting you in the drivers seat of 21st century entrepreneurialism! In order to fully comprehend digital opportunities, you need healthy dose of empathy! Without empathy, and comprehension of human desires, there is no effective way of conveying your product!
For the first time in history of human kind, we can gain access into the mind of our clients, and gain access to the things that people are actually looking for. Marketers of tomorrow will have to know how to empathize with their prospects if they ever want to have the chance of selling anything. Because if you don’t, your competition will, and they will devour you. Can you afford the risk of being the late mover?
