Posted by John Patrick on Feb 18, 2012 in
Go Figure,
Internet Technology,
Media,
Music,
Technology Last week I received a very official looking envelope in the mail. It came from PO Box 757, Chanhassen, MN 55317. Both sides of the envelope were emblazoned with labels including something for everyone - “ExpeditedDelivery GRAM”, “Package Tracking Number 80495100562″, “Extremely Urent”, “Recipient please hand deliver to addressee”, “Expedited – Not available to all locations”, “Special Notes on Enclosure”, “Time sensitive material”, “Materials Inspected”, “Recipient Name Confirmed”, “Postage Paid”, “Address of Recipient Confirmed”, “Delivery Date Verified”, “Service – Expedited”, “Weight 1 oz”, “Zone – 4″, “Sender authorizes the delivery of this shipment without obtaining a release signature and shall indemnify and hold harmless the shipper from any claims resulting therefrom”, “Release Signature – KC”, “Revision date 1/96″, “Format 196″, “Printed in U.S.A.” The envelope contained everything except the identity of who had sent it. Can you believe it? I did not make this up. I actually received the envelope described. It was obvious that someone was desperate to deceive the recipient to open the envelope. Who was it from? SiriusXM Satellite Radio. What was the extremely urgent matter being brought to my attention? “There’s never been a better time to be a SiriusXM Satellite Radio subscriber. Reactivate your XMradio today with this Special Offer!” I respect aggressive marketing when it is of high-integrity. This sham from XMSirius had no integrity. Fraud might be slightly strong, but at a minimum their mailing is based on deceipt — trying to trick the recipient to open the envelope. If the mailing was intended to be humorous that would be ok — if they had added their name to it.
If you read financial commentary about SIRI (the stock symbol for XMSirius, coincidentally the name of the new voice recognition software in the iPhone 4S), you find the word “desperate” used quite often. Seeking Alpha said that the SiriusXM 2012 subscriber outlook fell short of Wall Street’s consensus estimates. It also noted that the low subscriber number was just one of several disappointing subscriber measurements (see the full story – SiriusXM And Slowing Subscriber Growth). The conversion rate – the percentage of OEM trial subscribers that become self pay subscribers – is expected to show no improvement in 2012 and the self-pay monthly churn (the cancellation rate for subscribers that had previously chosen to pay for the service) is projected at 2.1%. These are most likely two of the primary drivers behind the company’s relatively low forecast of 1.3 million net additional new subscribers in 2012.
Meanwhile, Pandora seems to be gaining subscribers rapidly. PaidContent.org reported that Pandora had 94 million registered users as of their IPO filing in May, of whom 34 million are considered “active” users. That’s up from 53 million users registered and 18 million “active” in the same quarter last year. The listening numbers are even more impressive — Pandora played 1.6 billion hours of music in the quarter ending April 30, compared with 700 million hours the prior year. See New Numbers From Pandora Show Big Growth But No Profits for more details. It is not just CDs, newspapers, and video that is being impacted by the Internet — add satellites to the list.
Tags: disintermediation, internet, music, satellite, sirius, xm
Posted by John Patrick on Dec 26, 2011 in
e-Business,
Go Figure,
On Demand 
All the retailers are trying to become e-tailers so that Amazon doesn’t take all their business from them. They have a very long way to go to get with the program. Amazon has been honing their web presence for 16 years and they have it down to a science — and to putting the customer first. Seems everything they do makes sense. Amazon Prime, for example, is fantastic. Some of the things aspiring e-tailers do make no sense. My wife ordered a pair of gloves for one of our daughters-in-law. The unbreakable product arrived in a box that could have contained a suitcase or a television. The unbreakable unscratchable gloves were surrounded by enough packing material to handle a few table settings worth of dishes. Go figure.
Tags: amazon, e-tailers, online retail, prime shipping
Posted by John Patrick on Feb 15, 2011 in
Go Figure,
Media,
Public Policy 
Bill Bischoff’s article in the Wall Street Journal, Why Not Mailing Paper Forms is a Dumb IRS Move, misses the mark of common sense. The IRS plans to save $10 million a year in printing and mailing costs by not filling our mailboxes with forms that more than 90% of us will not use. Mr. Bischoff acknowledges that only about 8% of tax returns are self-prepared on paper, as the rest are prepared by professionals or filed electronically. His concern is that 11 million taxpayers will be “left out in the cold” with no forms. He feels it is unreasonable that the IRS advises people to get any forms they may need online at irs.gov. For those with no computer or Internet access they can call the IRS at 800-829-3676 and get all the forms they want. If they would like to use the Internet to do their taxes but have no access they can visit their local library. Almost 100% of academic, public, and school libraries in the U.S. are connected to the Internet and available for public access. I did not anticipate that I would be defending the IRS, but how can we complain about government deficits and spending, and then turn around and complain when an agency tries to save taxpayer money? Mr. Bischoff should look for something more constructive to write about.
Tags: filing, forms, internet, irs, library, paper, tax return
Posted by John Patrick on May 9, 2010 in
Go Figure,
Internet Technology,
iPhone,
Public Policy 
I felt compelled to reflect back on a posting I wrote in March 2006 about trading on Wall Street. With the wild swings in the market experienced last week, one of the key questions seems clearly to be how long does it take for regulatory changes to get in sync with market and technological changes? The trading irregularities that occurred are viewed with alarm by many. Should we be shocked that such a think could have happened? I don’t think so. Some will say that highly automated trading should not be allowed. In fact legislation was lintroduced to ban it. Maybe each trade should be artificially restricted to take X minutes or seconds or no trade can exceed X shares in Y minutes? Maybe trades should be approved by the government? Maybe trades should be on paper? Reminds me of the Luddites trying to destroy mechanized looms and many in the know expressing considerable resistance toward Johann Gutenberg’s press.
Maybe what we need is more “Net Attitude“. What we are being confronted with is not a technical problem and it is not a regulatory problem. It is a vision problem. Leaders not seeing and embracing technology. Advances in technology can not be stopped — they have to be embraced, understood, and planned for. I would not expect leaders in the congress or regulatory bodies to be techno geeks but I would expect them to be tech aware and to bring in the right experts to help them see a vision of what is ahead and to thereby enable the leaders to lead in a more progressive fashion and not hide behind political statements that may appeal to various niches. Unfortunately, we are seeing time after time that leaders in key places do not seem to have a clue as to what is happening or is possible in the technological world.
The No Fly List is an even more sobering and dramatic example. The TSA told the airlines that when a high priority name is added to the list the airlines have to look at the list within 24 hours. Twenty-four hours? After the recent terrorist act they reduced it to two hours. Two hours? Amazon can process your order or banks can move your money in fractions of a second but a potentially life-threatening addition to an important list needs two hours to be communicated? Have they heard of email or text messages or tweets? This lack of awareness and technical thinking combined with their staffs leaking to the press an analysis of what the terrorist did wrong and thereby providing a checklist for how to do better next time does not make one comfortable about our security in the future.
One more example makes the point. A senior political leader being interviewed this morning was asked the following. When a person buys a ticket a one way ticket to Pakistan a few hours before the flight and pays for it with cash should that send up a red flag? The politican said “I don’t know if that can be done”. I am sure he doesn’t know what a tweet is either.
Read more…
Posted by John Patrick on Mar 9, 2006 in
Go Figure 
While driving to Reading, Pennsylvania, earlier this week to visit Maestro Sidney Rothstein for a conducting lesson (more on Beethoven’s Prometheus Overture later), I tuned in to Bloomberg radio. The reporter was interviewing John Thain, CEO of the New York Stock Exchange (NYX), which had just started its first day as a public company. The interviewer asked about the possibility of the Exchange becoming "all electronic" to which Mr. Thain responded that the exchange is a very people oriented process, that people are required to balance the many buy and sell orders received and that the human element is essential and "that’s not going to change".
Mr. Thain’s words immediately rang a bell with me. It sounded like ten years ago when the CEO’s of banks and brokerage firms (and Microsoft) were saying that the Internet was interesting but that it would never be used for banking or securities trades. Over the ensuing years financial services companies ran print advertising campaigns saying how important brokers were and how they provide advice from people you can trust. After the denial phase was over the firms couldn’t get into online trading fast enough and now Barron’s does in depth analysis of which securities firms have the best web-based trading and investment advice capabilities.
Computing power and networking speeds are accelerating rapidly beyond the already amazing capabilities of today. Computational biology has made it possible to decode the human genome years ahead of the projected time. Human proteins are being designed that may provide cures for cancer. A supercomputer defeated the world’s greatest chess player. Two robots are driving around the surface of Mars under computer control from Earth. But buy and sell orders for securities can not be modeled, optimized, and matched by computers? Is it possible that the financial services leaders are once again benighted about what is in front of them? Could it be that the jeopardy of profit margins and bonuses could blind them from seeing what is ahead?
Posted by John Patrick on Dec 22, 2004 in
Go Figure 
I received a bright yellow letter in the mail today from Comcast. It was a "Pending Disconnect Notice". Comcast is my high-speed Internet provider and technically they have been quite good. The customer service is another story. After looking in Quicken, I found that I had somehow made the payment late. I assume the notice went out before they got the payment posted. I went to comcast.com to see if everything was ok. The homepage said "You are just a few clicks away
from managing your Comcast Cable and/or Comcast High-Speed Internet account online. Sign up now — it’s fast, easy and free"! I registered successfully and then clicked on "Simply add your account number to your profile and you’ll have online access to your account information 24 hours a day, 7 days a week" Great! I am on the way to confirming they received my payment.
One of the fields of information requested in the "Add Account" feature was the account number. "Enter the account number exactly as it appears on your bill including spaces and dashes". I did not have a bill handy but I had the yellow letter and it had my account number on it. It said Account Number: 0032762-01 so that is what I entered. An error message appeared saying "Please enter your account number exactly as it appears on your bill". After another couple of tries, I dug out an old bill and saw that the account number on it was 0327003276201. Obviously related but not exactly the same. Comcast wants me to be consistent, even though they aren’t. I entered the number yet again — exactly the way they wanted it. Then I got the following message. "We’re Sorry.
Although you are a current Comcast customer, online account management features are not available in your area. We are working hard to upgrade our systems to provide these features to all of our customers. Please check back again soon." On Demand. Not.
Other
patrickWeb On Demand stories
Posted by John Patrick on Oct 16, 2004 in
Go Figure 
A new study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project revealed that "only" four percent of Americans have used the Internet to buy prescription drugs — and even fewer do so through foreign pharmacies. Given that most of the solicitations to buy drugs online are spam and that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has said it cannot guarantee the safety of drugs sold through foreign pharmacies, it is not surprising that there are relatively few people who have bought drugs online. I am actually surprised it is as high as four percent. What is surprising to me about the study results is that WQXR (classical music station of the New York Times) reported that "Americans do not trust the Internet" and then described the study results above as justification. (Editorial comment about the The New York Times’ editorial comment: The Times can find bad news in just about anything. They seem to report a lot more bad news than good news).
The good news with regard to people buying on the Internet is that the numbers continue strong double digit growth. The commerce department reported that retail e-commerce sales in the second quarter of 2004 were $15.7 billion, up 23.1% from the second quarter of 2003. Total retail sales for the second quarter of 2004 were estimated at $919 billion, an increase of 7.8 percent from the same period a year ago. Even though the e-commerce sales are still less than 2% of total sales, the faster growth rate will insure that on-line sales will become a bigger and bigger share of the pie.
Why aren’t e-commerce sales 20% of the pie by now instead of 2% ? There are many reasons — most of them not technology related. The number of people with "always on" Internet connections is a factor. Ease of use and concerns about security, identity theft, and privacy also contribute. I am optimistic that these issues will be adequately addressed. As eBay and Amazon continue to grow and show real profits to the world, business leaders are paying more attention. The free markets will drive competition and then innovation will kick into high gear. We have barely scratched the surface of what is possible.
Why do people drive to Walmart and other retailers to buy things instead of buying it online? There are various reasons including social factors, habit, and a desire to touch and smell things. There are some things that we buy that don’t really need much touching or smelling though and I believe we will see the emergence of "fulfillment models" for them. Just as the online bridal registry has provided an alternative to the old way, so too will e-businesses that offer to fulfill your staple needs. If you were to analyze the grocery bags that you bring in from the car, how many items really needed discernment and how many were blindly grabbed from the shelves?
Paper towels, toilet paper, salt, flour, ketchup, potato chips, coffee, etc. are staple items. Webster says staple means "a commodity for which the demand is constant". When you think about it, there are a lot of things in that category for many people. So if the staple items just "showed up" outside the door from UPS, we could save a lot of shopping time which we could then use to shop for things that require more time. At some point e-businesses will begin to offer fulfillment services and as we place things under that model, they will get to know the pattern and based on shipping costs, they will begin to suggest quantities of things that will save us money in addition to time. This kind of thing won’t be for everything nor for everybody but it will be one of the new models that will emerge that will cause the 2% to grow.
The other model that is already beginning to contribute to on-line sales is "order online and pick up locally". Every needed a nut, bolt, gasket, fastener, or doodad on a Saturday afternoon and then spend the afternoon driving around from store to store trying to find it? I have. Wouldn’t it be nice to go to Radio Shack, True Value, or Pep Boys online and buy it and then print out the receipt along with a map to the nearest store that is open and has it in stock? Amazon and other retailers are offering TV and other consumer electronic products for order online and pickup at Circuit City. See "Local Fulfillment" for other examples.
The glass is half full, not half empty. In the days ahead we will see many new capabilities on the Web and they will save us time — our most valuable but scarce asset.
Epilogue: Of the 4 percent of Americans who bought online, the vast majority went to pharmacies based in the United States. They reported that the sites they bought from required a prescription and they said they had one from their doctor. An AP story reported seventy-five percent of the online drug buyers say their most recent purchase was for a chronic medical condition, such as arthritis or high blood pressure, and most said they were satisfied and planned to order online again. According to the story, most cited convenience and cost savings as reasons for buying online.
Other
patrickWeb stories about e-business
Posted by John Patrick on May 23, 2004 in
Go Figure 
The "Go Figure" series will report on things that don’t make sense to me. Perhaps a story that is unbelievable or incredible in some way. Demand for a product is down so the company raises prices or a person is cold so they turn down the thermostat. Sometimes there is more to the story than meets the eye — either the reporter didn’t get the entire picture or perhaps there is method behind what seems like madness. I hope readers find these short stories interesting.
Posted by John Patrick on May 23, 2004 in
Go Figure Ted Bridis at the Associated Press wrote a story last week called
face=Arial size=2>Executives Criticize the Tech Industry. The complaints by the Business Roundtable, a trade group for executives of 150 of America’s largest corporations, reflect frustration over the "expense and hassle of keeping their computer networks safe for consumers". The group says that attacks by viruses and worms costs the American banks and savings institutions alone more than a billion dollars per year.
There were two things about the story that jumped out at me. First was that there was not one mention of Microsoft Windows. With a monopoly on the desktop, Windows is a prime target for the perpetrators. Microsoft hasn’t historically had the best reputation for giving priority attention to security either. The second surprise was a quote from someone at the ITAA (Information Technology Association of America) saying, “Cybersecurity is everyone’s responsibility, including the vendors, the users, enterprises and government agencies”. No argument there — it is a shared responsibility. But then the quote went on to say, “No serious commentary will say that the user has no responsibility. We all have responsibilities to lock our doors in our homes and to buckle up when we get in our cars.” (read more)
