Disqus - Latest Comments for rtwomey

Re: Thoughts on Google and Apple's Earnings

rtwomey — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 10:46:06 -0000

What would make you feel more comfortable with Apple? At what point would such compelling fundamentals make it possible to overlook things like their management transparency track record, or are you out no matter what?

Re: Thoughts on Google and Apple's Earnings

fredwilson — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 10:18:29 -0000

New management that tells the truth. But of course we might get that and that is what is weighing the most on the stock

Re: CBS Is Quietly Building An Internet Radio Powerhouse

David Porter — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 14:19:01 -0000

On that note, just saw this, form RAIN (http://bit.ly/IZ0N):

Yahoo! will hand over the reins of its webcasting pioneer property LAUNCHcast Radio to CBS Radio next year, the companies announced today. The reason, according to Yahoo! Music chief Michael Spiegelman: royalties.

“Because of the unfavorable rates, we didn’t think it made sense to invest in the product,” he told the Associated Press.

Re: CBS Is Quietly Building An Internet Radio Powerhouse

David Porter — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:41:55 -0000

This is interesting - internet radio has been a large and growing sector for years, well before YT came along a couple of years ago. The biggest problem has been an expensive royalty rates ($0.0014 per stream in 2008). While still far cheaper (than the on-demand rates that imeem and others are paying (by 3.5 to 1), the rates make it difficult to achieve marginal profitability (revenue - [royalties + bandwidth]). As a result, I believe both AOL and Yahoo have seen declines in listenership as those services pushed traffic elsewhere. I suspect their willingness to let CBS run those operations reflects these difficulties.

However, pursuant to the Webcaster Settlement Act (passed in Sep), a new, cheaper royalty rate supposedly is close to being / has been negotiated b/n DiMA (which represents webcasters) and Soundexchange (which collects webcaster royalties). So CBS's moves may well prove savvy given a new set of economics.

Re: CBS Is Quietly Building An Internet Radio Powerhouse

rtwomey — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 11:27:32 -0000

It will definitely be interesting to watch. I liken this to the Internet video industry: it wasn't until YouTube proved that online video could be a commercial enterprise did the media companies become interested in working with the trend (Hulu) instead of against it.

I'd bet that the success of streaming radio via Yahoo and AOL (and Pandora and Last.fm) has shown the media companies that it's possible to work with this audio trend rather than against it.

Re: louisgray.com: There Are Two Phones In this World: iPhone and Not iPhone

rtwomey — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:24:13 -0000

I'd still recommend it. Text messages are very easy to use, and I especially like seeing it in the iChat-like interface. For web connectivity, you can't find a better device: Safari on the iPhone is excellent. And you'll probably like the apps. There's a lot out there and I'm sure you'll find one that's helpful.

Re: Example of Good PR

Tyler — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 22:22:20 -0000

Clearly a copy and paste email pitch sent to everyone they want meetings with.... and they forgot to change who they are big fans of to match the intended recipient...

Re: Example of Good PR

rtwomey — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 15:49:05 -0000

Terrible pitch. Aside from the complete nonsequitor of Wired, I have no idea what they're talking about.

Re: Calculate How Much Spam Costs You

rtwomey — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 10:16:03 -0000

I'm not too annoyed by the marketing pitch. Really, I prefer things like this over advertisements: it proves to you why you should consider their service using your own data. If we had fewer banner ads and more things like this, people could judge for themselves what products to purchase on a far more even level.

Re: Apple releases iPhone 2.2 update, it’s a big one

rtwomey — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 10:05:08 -0000

I've been using the update over the weekend, and I'm certainly impressed. The iPhone is getting progressively better, but I wonder about Apple's priorities. For instance, street view is a nice feature (and they implemented it beautifully), but I think there are other, more pressing priorities they could have worked on instead.

For one, the maps feature is *so close* to being great for in-car navigation. All it would need is improved recognition of where you are on your route. Throw in turn-by-turn directions and route-recalculation and you've got a full-blown GPS device right there. I see no limitations with the hardware that would prevent this, only that it must not be a very high priority for Apple.

So how does Apple decide priorities? GPS devices have been fantastic holiday sellers. If Apple implemented these features in the iPhone, couldn't they make the marketing case to consider the iPhone as a gift instead of a GPS device? Seems like that might further help holiday sales.

Re: How to calculate cost-per-acquisition for startups relying on freemium, subscription, or virtual items biz models

andrew_null — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:43:45 -0000

yep, and in fact an interesting calculation is figuring out how much it costs to support a free user, and count that as part of your "cost" for acquiring paying users. That way you can compare, apples-to-apples, against paying users acquired via advertising.

Re: How to calculate cost-per-acquisition for startups relying on freemium, subscription, or virtual items biz models

rtwomey — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:51:39 -0000

Great overview. I typically focus on two critical parts of this for my freemium service: breadth and conversion ratio. I first ensure that we have a steady flow of new users coming to our service and registering for the free account, then I make sure I'm spending enough time getting our conversion ratio as high as possible. It's death if either of these sides of the equation get out of balance.

I've found that getting people to sign up for a free account is often the easy part: convincing enough people to sign up for the paid version is where the real work lies. :)

Re: Usability presentation for iPhone apps and store

andrew_null — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 12:04:54 -0000

re: reviews, it may be that this is an error with self-reporting, actually - a good way to drill into this further would be to do a cardsort asking them to rank different attributes in importance (reviews, rating, icon, description, WOM, etc) and see how they would rank them. If you ask them explicitly if they would trust reviews, I think there's a distinctly American attitude of "I don't care what people think!" even if they might.

As a comparison, consider what it'd be like to ask everyone if they picked fashions based on what other people would think - I'm sure you'd get an above average number of people stating that they dress for themselves, not others, when it's probably not true ;-)

Re: Usability presentation for iPhone apps and store

rtwomey — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:39:41 -0000

Very interesting research. I'm especially intrigued about the results of the App Store behaviors. Most of what I saw confirmed my own suspicions, but it's reassuring to see people taking reviews "with a grain of salt". A lot of developers (myself included) have felt that the reviews on an app can make or break it with new users, but if people really are skeptical, then there may be some hope.

Re: Does a Web Office hurt Google or MSFT?

adondai — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 22:09:52 -0000

Exactly... I could use Office Live for collaboration I guess, but the other great thing about Google Docs is the simplicity and also the fact you can invite anyone with an email address to collaborate, even if it's not a Gmail account, no sign up involved... Office Live requires signup which is a pain if you just need to do stuff fast.

Also I think the other major point so many tech bloggers seem to forget is that MS moves with the curve, not ahead... no matter how much people have been banging on about moving to the 'cloud', it's really only now that mainstream businesses and users are actually interested...

Re: Does a Web Office hurt Google or MSFT?

rtwomey — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:31:24 -0000

I certainly agree with you on that. I think people that promote Google Docs as an Office killer aren't quite understanding what Google Docs is all about (and what it isn't). It's excellent for collaboration, and I use it regularly with people at work. However, it's definitely NOT an Office replacement.

Microsoft realizes this, and I think that's why having an online presence to compete with Google Docs will hurt Google far more than cannibalize any Office sales.

Re: Does a Web Office hurt Google or MSFT?

adondai — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 10:27:35 -0000

I seriously don't understand how Google Docs can be seen as anything more than a simple note-taker... I'm a uni student and I use Docs for collaboration on group assignments etc and it really is handy... but anything more than that and it's a joke... I copy and paste into Word of course.

Re: Does a Web Office hurt Google or MSFT?

rtwomey — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 09:39:29 -0000

Another possibility could be that this further extends the Office dominance in business, and slows down the adoption of Google Docs. Many businesses purchase Office for the desktop as a necessary cost of doing business: they're not interested in jumping through hoops to save a few bucks (Open Office has only a fraction of Office users). Extending that idea, I don't think Google Docs could be a replacement for Office anyway, as these mainstream users just aren't interested in switching.

Therefor, I think by giving users additional options for using their existing Office installation will only further solidify Office dominance and continue to give users just enough reason not to switch. So I see it hurting Google far more than it could ever hurt MSFT.

Re: How Apple Can Support True Background Applications on the iPhone

rtwomey — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 16:13:48 -0000

I agree, but what if you just limited it to one app at a time? Basically, you'd restrict the user to only have 1 foreground and 1 background app running at any time.

I worry that if you use the slicing approach (which is perfectly fine in that case), you would find yourself getting into task manager territory.

Re: Ryan Twomey - ActiveMerchant is about as easy as it gets

rtwomey — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 10:25:30 -0000

You bet. I'm still working through my implementation now, so there's still some work to be done. Incidentally, I used your Peepcode book as an introduction to getting started, which was a very helpful guide.

Re: Ryan Twomey

rtwomey — Sun, 18 May 2008 10:51:29 -0000

haha, thanks. I'm using it too, and I'm impressed. It's a nice eye-candy way of viewing feeds, though it's not really meant for hardcore RSS addicts.

What I'm doing, actually, is pulling together lots of feeds that aren't in my regular newsreader and using snackr to display them. That way, whenever I glance over at it, I'm guaranteed to see something I haven't already read, and can pick out things I may not have seen otherwise.

Re: Ryan Twomey - A busy day...

rtwomey — Sun, 18 May 2008 10:41:38 -0000

Thanks. Luckily, the rain has been holding off. Hopefully it stays that way, otherwise it will be a miserable day.