Prediction Markets at Google

I have to say that this is the first time I've been exposed to prediction markets, so my knowledge is somewhat limited. The case gets to be a little confusing after a while, but I think I got the general idea. Reading through this case, however, I was more intrigued by the effect of the GPM activity within the employees as compared to how Google could further use the prediction markets within the company.

I really like the idea of engaging your workforce in a company, and the use of the GPM tool with rewards was a great way in which Google had done this. I believe that there are many people in a company that only know what their current department is working on and take very little interest in the company as a whole. Through the use of GPM, Google was able to engage its workforce in ideas and projects that existed outside of an individual's work group. It was very interesting to me that the participants in the program were more interested in prestige and recognition, as compared to financial incentives. I think this goes a long way to tell companies that monetary compensation is not everything. So many companies fail to recognize employees who do a good job on more than an annual performance basis. Sure, it's nice to receive a $1,000 bonus in your paycheck, but there is also a large amount of personal satisfaction in being seen as a strong and respected employee within your company. I think managers and executives fail to understand this and think that giving employees more money will always be a solution to their dissatisfaction. I know I am starting to go off on a tanget about general employee compensation, so I will end it at that.

Moving forward, I think Google does need to work to engage more of its employees in the GPM program. Building it up through emails, signs, and countdowns would offer a great way for this to be done. I mean, most people know when NCAA March Madness is coming around for college basketball because there are communications sent out at many levels. The funny thing is.....this game isn't even related to your job! Google needs to continue promoting the GPM program as a fun way to interact between coworkers. I agree that bigger prizes might draw more people, but Google should not lose site of the value of the recognition the employees receive for making good trades. I like the idea of allowing employees to share their trading information with others, or keep it entirely confidential. That is an option that should be in the employee's hands though.

Once Goggle has developed a larger user base for its prediction markets, I think it then has the opportunity to decide how it could leveage this information to increase its bottom line. I do believe it could be a valuable tool if applied correctly.

Threadless

In my opinion, the Threadless business plan is all about the online community. If Threadless decides that it wants to begin selling its shirts to large retailers, it is going to have to justify and clear this with its online community first. While selling to large retailers could heavily increase the revenue potential of Threadless, it could do so at the expense of its community. My guess is that a lot of the users of the website derive value from having access to shirts that are not available at normal retail stores. Selling to retail outlets would remove this value. Furthermore, Threadless shirts at retail stores would have to compete with other larger brands, such as Nike, Champion, Lee, etc. These are extremely large operations which are able to compete largely on brand and price. Threadless is not known in the retail sector, so it might end up having to sell its retail shirts for a cheaper price than what it does on the website. This could cause a lot of the non-designers to forego purchasing on the website and turn their attention to retail outlets.

In the end, I would not simply tell Threadless to drop the idea of selling to large retailers. I think the company needs to communicate with the online community and receive feedback if it decides to make this move. After all, Threadless understands that all of its decisions in the past directly affected its online community, and attempted to reach out as much as possible to get the community's input. It should do the same thing in this case. If the online community is largely against the idea, then it may not be wise for Threadless to move forward. Without the support of the community and designers, Threadless would lose the value of the website.

If the online community supports the selling of shirts to retailers, I would suggest that Threadless limit the shirts that the retailers have access to. This would ensure that some designs are strickly available via the website, and would also reduce the need to Threadless to greatly increase the capacity of its production facility. It should also move forward cautiously with this venture, first testing the waters to see if the shirts actually sell in the retail sector. If they do not sell, Threadless could simply forego the selling of shirts to retail outlets and focus back on the online community. This is a tricky, yet welcomed decision that Threadless is faced with. It needs to consider the interests of all stakeholders before making a final decision on how to move forward.

LinkedIn/Facebook

I'm not a user of LinkedIn and have never actually visited the site, so my knowledge on this social media outlet is very limited. That being said, I think there is a ton of opportunity for professionals to network on this site and is something that I will probably check out when I get some free-time after grad school (if that free time ever happens). I like the concept, but I don't think I'd really fully comprehend it until I started using the site. The case tries to describe the process, but it gets a little overwhelming after a bit.

Even though I don't use the site, I still think it would be advantageous for LinkedIn to provide the first option for revenue recognition; specifically, providing a bundle of eight new services for a monthly charge of $15. This would create a tiered system on the site that would allow premium services for those users willing to pay. Not everyone would be affected, so those happy with the site as is should not have any complaints. I would be hesitant to remove the intermediaries as a link between the members. Although a fee would be paid for this service, I still think relationship managers would get hit with loads of requests that they would not have considered in the current scenario. That would lead to potential for a large drop in these users. So my overall recommendation is for LinkedIn to move forward with the additional premium services, but to be careful and move slowly if they try to implement the removal of the intermediaries.

As far as Facebook goes, I see loads of opportunity for targeting advertising based on the profiles created by the users. However, I'm worried that this could infringe on privacy rights and lead to more public apologies by Facebook. If Facebook developed an opt-in program for the specific advertising, I think it would help to bypass this issue. I'm sure there are some people out there who would prefer to receive advertisements that relate directly to their interests (I would be one of them). I also think Facebook needs to continue to focus on the Facebook Connect ability to link with other sites in order to increase its revenue stream. As the largest online social community, Facebook needs to leverage itself in every way possible.

Wikis/Wikipedia

I think wikis are an interesting concept, but I've always been reserved from using sites such as Wikipedia, due to the fact that I can't be sure that what information I'm receiving is correct. The idea that anyone is allowed to edit postings causes me to have some reservations with this type of system. Granted, the readings from this week note that Wikipedia's error rate in its articles is only slightly larger than that of Encyclopedia Britannica. That single statistic helps to alleviate my fears of using information on the site, but I will still always hold some level of mistrust with what I find. I'm also very interested to see what the academic world thinks of using Wikipedia as a source in a research paper. I know in the past I've been told to avoid Wikipedia for the reasons I stated above. However, do most teachers allow Wikipedia to be used as a credible source, now that it has grown to a size where the information is highly reviewed and edited if found to be incorrect? That may still be the preference of the teacher, but thinking as a high school student, it is a question I would ask before starting any new class.

Everything I wrote above is specific to Wikipedia, but I do want to comment on wikis in general for corporation use. My opinion is that wikis could potentially help a business, but only if it develops a culture where wikis are found to be highly valuable and people wish to share their ideas through this medium. I'll be honest and say that I would rather pick-up the phone or send an email, rather than use a document with the wiki feature. I also think that there are still quite a few baby boomers in the work industry who would be confused with the wiki format. Furthermore, many people in the work industry are not proficient typists, so using wiki documents could have a negative effect on their productivity. Even beyond this, some people are better off expressing themselves through phone or personal conversations. Ideas may lose their luster if they are transmitted through a wiki format.

Although there appear to be some downsides of this technology, I also think there are certain general situations where it may be successful. I think two main things have to be considered before a company would consider using wikis. First, there has to be a high level of trust among the employees of the business. If employees do not trust each other and think they have valuable things to offer, the wiki documents will be constantly changing as people attempt to assert their opinions over others. Second, I think a company needs to have a structure that could take advantage of wikis. At this point in time, it isn't something that any business could just pick-up and start using. For instance, a highly decentralized business with little interaction between an older population of co-workers could find this quite difficult. However, a company that utilizes small teams familiar with technology- working together to find solutions- could see a huge benefit from this technology. Again, I believe it all comes down to what type of interactions occur at your business and whether your people trust each other. Sure....everyone writes e-mails at work.....but there is a huge gap between writing an e-mail and expressing all your ideas through a constantly evolving online document. My belief is that wikis will eventually work their way up in corporations......I just think they may be about 10 years ahead of their time for many corporations and businesses.

BzzAgent

It would almost seem logical to say that any company not paying some marketing attention to social media sites is losing out on a valuable opportunity. In fact, not paying attention to what consumers are saying about you may be actually hurting you in the end. Blogs have always been popular since the development of the internet; however, their ability to spread information has been somewhat limited. With the growth of social sites like MySpace and Facebook, it now only takes a few clicks until you can create your own posting or publish a link on your page to a friend's blog/video posting. In this manner, a funny or interesting blog/video can catch on like a wild-fire and be passed over a large network of people in a very short time frame. The supplemental reading this week (Harnessing the Power of the Oh-So-Social Web) probably best makes this point with its example of Dell and a customer who started blogging about a very negative experience. This one event sparked a passing of information that made Dell look bad. For this reason, Dell created the "Direct2Dell" blog to communicate directly with customers, recognizing the need to take part in a social network linked to the end user.

The issue is that companies have very little control over what consumers have to say about their products. However, this can been seen as a good thing if companies approach it the right way. What can be more valuable than direct, honest feedback from the consumer? My opinion is that a lot of managers/executives within companies don't want to hear what they are doing wrong, so that it doesn't hand them extra work to do to correct problems. And let's be honest....no one likes to be told that they are doing something wrong....it doesn't feel good.

I believe that BzzAgent needs to keep its blog site alive. For as much time and resources this site may require, it can also provide some extremely valuable information that can not be obtained through traditional methods. Instead of canceling the blog site altogether, BzzAgent should look into ways in which it can better take that information and make sense of it. I think BzzAgent needs to better determine what exactly the purpose is of its blog site. If it is simply using it to run "90 day" blogs to provide information about the workings of the company, then I really see this as a waste of time. It needs to blog about things that are important to the company which weigh heavily on the consumer. From my experience, consumers are very happy to provide feedback when they know someone is listening. In fact, studies have shown that consumers are more likely to purchase products from companies that provide surveys for feedback, because the consumers feel the company wants to make changes to benefit them. In the same respect, BzzAgent needs to use its blog site in a strategic marketing way, focusing on ways it can improve its systems and offerings. The supplemental article stated it best when it said "the potential benefits of direct and intimate customer relationships that social applications can provide are just too compelling for companies to deny." I truly believe in this statement and think that social networks provide one of the best ways to promote customercentric thinking within a company. After all, the use of social networks is only going to increase in the future....why not get onboard now???

Brightcove

I think the move to internet television is one of the most interesting things currently going on with the technology industry. We already touched on many of the issues in the Netflix case, so there is no need to restate all the issues again. I think Brightcove is in a good position to take advantage of this market, as they have already become established and developed the relationships needed to be successful. Competitors face a difficult task as Brightcove has formed alliances with customers at the upper end of the market, whereas Google, YouTube, and other competitors have not. Brightcove has taken advantage of the first mover approach in this respect and it should pay off for them in the long run.

The end of the case presents some questions for how Brightcove should move forward. I think it is an absolute necessity that it continue to develop the features that are valued by the consumer. I believe that it will be the company offering the most diverse amount of video to the customer that will be successful in the end. Brightcove should focus largely on building its network through heavy marketing to increase its user base. The value of the site will increase as more people use it, hopefully to a point where switching to a competitor will be too high of a cost to the consumer. Whether Brightcove decides to build or buy this platform is a hard decision to make. By building the network, it will have control over all aspects and features of the site. However, buying pieces could be cheaper and would allow them to develop the network more quickly, rather than having to wait for development.

I do not think it would be a good thing for Brightcove to expand internationally at this point in time. The internet television market is still being developed, and there are many variables that have yet to be worked out. I'm also not sure how well the European and Asian markets would adapt to this type of technology. While opportunities may present themselves, the case does not offer much information regarding the risks and potential that is available for these new markets. Just because one thing works well in the US doesn't mean that it is going to work well in other countries. If Brightcove understands the international customer and is willing to modify its business plan to accommodate differences, then there may be some profit that can be made from an international expansion. I just think the market is not quite established enough and Brightcove still has has to build-up certain parts of its company. Money would be better spent on the company, rather than expansion, at this point in time.

Google

I can't say that I adopted Google as soon as it was developed. In fact, I am still a user of Yahoo as my main search engine and e-mail carrier. However, in the very near future, I will be switching to Google and G-mail largely due to the features and benefits it offers over Yahoo. The interface is just so much easier. I think Google has been extremely successful over the past 10 years largely due to the fact that it has taken something that is already out there and made it better. Simply looking at exhibit 3 from the case is evidence of this fact. Specifically, Google introduced Google Maps when a large number of online mapping systems were already available. Before Google Maps, I was a user of Mapquest, but found Google to be much more user friendly, with features that were not offered by Mapquest. I won't go through all the services offered by Google from the exhibit, but I think most people can look at the list and think of sites that existed for the same purpose before Google released their version.

The end of the case presents some questions as far as how Google should move forward in the future. I think they should spend a large amount of time developing superior search solutions and monetizing those solutions through targeted advertising. However, I also think Google has a great opportunity to move into new areas, such as becoming a portal like Yahoo or MSN. This might have been difficult for Google to have done 5 years ago, but it has now developed such a large user base that it would seem logical for it to expand its homepage. I personally would like to see it add the same types of portals as Yahoo so I wouldn't lose this benefit in my switch between the two.

I did not like the ideas of expanding as an intermediary into financial transactions or developing products to compete with Office and Windows. I think these may be undertakings that are too risky as they are already dominated by players in the market (Paypal for instance as a transaction mediary). Granted, Google may come up with something better, but these companies already have established users and the switching costs are higher for these types of products. It goes beyond simply changing your homepage default from Yahoo to Google.