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.