Re: Finding the Men Who Have Digital Photos

From: Cliff Kurtzman <moderator_at_o-a.com>
Date: Fri 31 Oct 2003 12:08:51 -0600

Jeremy Stetson wrote:

>We'll probably try Friendster, because that $500 is a very low-risk/high-
>reward proposition. Thanks, Cliff.
>
>However, aren't most users of the "social networking sites" (poor) college
>students?

The audience of these sites is predominantly in the 18-30 age range.
It is largely a misconception that you can't sell to college students
because they are poor. Going to college is expensive--you can't do
it if you are poor. College students spend a lot of money on a lot
of stuff... it is just not the same stuff that people that are
through college spend their money on. Just look at the
interests/music/books/tv shows/movies that people list in their
Friendster profiles. Three million people (on Friendster), with most
of them telling you what kinds of things they are interested in. It
is a marketer's dream.

So far the folks that run Friendster show no sign that they have a
clue how to leverage off of the community that they have acquired and
build a profitable business model that will benefit both themselves
and their community. As the site suffers from being unable to
responsively handle the load of users that have descended upon it,
people are leaving it to go to competitive sites that are more user
responsive, like Myspace. Friendster has recently raised a round of
funding that should give it the resources to solve its problems... if
they can move fast enough and smart enough to do so. The venture is
interesting because it has the potential to become either a major
online business model success story, or a major failure story, and it
is too early to tell which way it is going to go. But in any event,
at present it is probably the best venue you are going to find for
inexpensively getting your message out to a large number of people
who post their photos.

>Also, there remains the possibility that no matter how nice the revised
>website is (an issue that some designers probably over-emphasize), most of
>the minority of men who have several digital images simply are not wise
>enough, or are too proud, to hire an image consultant. For all the people
>praising the site's main concept, how come very few are even taking
>advantage of the free services we are offering? Anyone here would be doing
>a great service to our spirits by checking them out.

Well, now you have identified the crux of the problem. Even when
something is offered for free by the seller, there is still a cost of
time and energy to take advantage of the offer. Ultimately it is your
job to find a way to communicate that is persuasive enough to
convince people that it is worth their time, energy and dollars to
hire you. If you are unable to do that, or if there simply is not
sufficient interest in the product or service you are offering no
matter how clever your creative, then you may not have a viable
business model. I don't know if such is the case for your particular
business model or not. The only way to find out for sure is to test
until you learn the answer.

Cliff Kurtzman
Moderator
Online Advertising Discussion List
http://www.o-a.com
281-480-6300




Received on Fri Oct 31 2003 - 12:08:51 CST