12/29/2010

hr manager needed, too

One of the reasons I have long liked Apple is that their business model makes sense. They sell stuff that customers pay for. So long as both parties are happy with that relationship, things will continue indefinitely; what will ebb and flow are simply users at the margins who move with fads and technological changes and so forth.

One of the interesting business models that's developed more recently in the tech world is one built upon advertising. Google is an advertising company; they compete with newspapers and radio stations much more than Microsoft or Apple. Like Google through its flagship Search product, Facebook delivers a valuable product in its core offering - the social network - but one that, like Google, isn't valuable because of the tech aspect. It's valuable because of the network effect, because 'everybody does it'. And like Google trying to monetize outside of search, Facebook faces the intriguing challenge of trying to monetize an idea that everybody knows. The phone book and the little black book and even contact management software have been around for ages. Heck, even digital directory programs predate Facebook; the program at my school was called Faces.

So when you're built on a model of extracting value discretely from users rather than billing customers directly, there's enormous pressure to cut corners at the expense of quality. When I saw this ad, I thought it beautifully captured the ongoing strategic challenges for an ad-based world.



They need a secretary themselves.

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