The Search For Conversions

How Apple stays focused

Apple CEO Tim Cook

Via Businessinsider.com

We are the most focused company that I know of or have read of or have any knowledge of. We say no to good ideas every day. We say no to great ideas in order to keep the amount of things we focus on very small in number so that we can put enormous energy behind the ones we do choose. The table each of you are sitting at today, you could probably put every product on it that Apple makes, yet Apple's revenue last year was $40 billion. I think any other company that could say that is an oil company. That's not just saying yes to the right products, it's saying no to many products that are good ideas, but just not nearly as good as the other ones. I think this is so ingrained in our company that this hubris you talk about that happens to companies that are successful and sole role in life is to get bigger, I can tell you the management team at Apple would never let that happen. That's not what we're about. Small list of things to focus on.

Facebook Business Foundations

How to build a Facebook landing page for your business 

Googe Analytics for Facebook Fan pages

Social Mobile

Links that have caught my eye over the last few days.

The Power of the Audience.

Getting the Message accross. Seven rules for effective mobile advertising.

5 things Fedex has learned about managing relationships through social media.

Wired Tablet Ap

This is the way I'd really like to get my magazines.  Looks great.

Guardian Technology Print Section to go

Maybe I'm old school, but for a long time now, I've bought the Guardian every Thursday morning specifically to read the Technology Section.  That supplement was one of my favourite pieces of reading every week, to be enjoyed over a coffee.  Reading it on screen won't be the same. Like Bernie and Karlin I'll miss it when it goes. 

Mobile is where the opportunities await

Moblile is where the opportunities await.

This week, Google signed a deal to acquire a company called Admob a mobile display advertising company for $750m.

Techcrunch reports that

Since AdMob splits its revenues 60/40 with publishers, that implies AdMob is on course to see $40 million of that $100 million gross.

Almost 19 times revenue clearly demonstrates how important Google feels that mobile ads will be as a future driver of revenue growth.

This interview from a year ago with the company founder gives an insight into the business.

But just how big is mobile?   Reading this prompted me to go back and read a post from TomiAhonen Consulting 2009 on The Digital Divide in Numbers: TVs, PCs, Internet users, Mobile around the world

But understand, in the Industrialized World, there are roughly similar 'scale' of the main technologies. More mobile phones than TVs, PCs or cars, yes, but not dramatically more. Roughly speaking twice as many phones as PCs or fixed landlines, only 50% more mobile phone accounts than TV sets, and actually less mobile phones than FM radios.

But in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and the Developing parts of Asia, mobile is alone, far far bigger than any other. There are nine times more mobile phone accounts than cars. There are seven times more mobile phones than personal computers, nine times more mobile phone accounts than home or office PCs that are connected to the internet. There are seven times more mobile phone accounts than fixed landline telephone connections, and five times more mobile phone users than total number of TV sets in use. Even radio, there are 2.5 times more mobile phone subscribers than all FM radios in use in the Developing World.

By every measure, mobile is the giant, the only giant, and the other technologies are the lilliputs. If you intend to communicate with prospective customers in the Developing World today, then you cannot think of mobile as the 'fourth screen' and consider possibly including it in your communication mix, as we still can think in the Industrialized World, as a luxury today. No, in the Developing World mobile is the first screen - and obviously, for as many as 1.8 billion people - one quarter of the planet - it is the ONLY screen. These 1.8 billion people do not have a PC, not a TV, not even FM radio, but they have a live, active mobile phone account. Out of all 3 billion people in the Developing World who have some kind of connection, a massive 60% have no other way to connect, than their mobile phone! Did I get your attention now?

An internet connected PC will get you 325 million people or 6% of the population in the Emerging World. A fixed landline will ring in the homes of 425 million people or 8% in Africa, Latin America or Developing parts of Asia. A wealthy 10% of the population, 550 million people have a TV set and one in five, 1.2 billion people are lucky to own an FM radio. But more than half of the population have a mobile phone subscription, 56% per capita or 3 billion. And yes, 1.8 billion people - that is six times the size of the USA - have no other connection or technology, than a mobile phone.

Baaad Apple

I laughed out loud.

Nama Nonsense

House prices in Ireland are still very overvalued, despite the falls that have already happened. 

David McWilliams tells it like it is.   He writes.

The value of the asset will have some relation to the yield the asset returns. In houses, the yield is the rent. So let’s take a yield of 7pc as being a reasonable return on an asset that costs money to update and is not generating a significant capital gain. This 7pc would be a long-run average yield, particularly as government bonds which form the benchmark for yield of other assets are on their way back up to that figure.

Using this 7pc yield idea we can value a house at some multiple of the rent it generates. Typically, the value of a house was calculated at 12 to 14 times its annual rent. (The 12 to 14 times equates to a yield of around 7pc.) This relationship has held in the US for over 100 years. There is no reason to believe that this shouldn’t be the way to value Irish houses.

This is a normal price/earning ratio that we would use in the stock markets to assess value. What the US valuation model is saying is that, over time, property should trade on a price/earnings (P/E) ratio of 14 times.

So, let’s see where Irish houses will end up. Take a typical house in a commuter town. On daft.ie there are hundreds of them. Let’s take Newbridge in Co Kildare, a typical deckland suburb where unemployment has tripled in the past year. You can buy a new three-bed house for €335,000. This is a steal, according to the ad. Beside the house is yet another predatory ad from AIB saying that it will finance the house for €995 per month.

According to the same website, the average rent for a three-bed in Newbridge is between €950 and €1,000 a month. This house, if it can be rented, will yield €11,400 a year. This implies that, applying the US valuation to the asset, the house should be valued at €159,600. However, in Ireland, we are expecting the house to sell at €335,000.

The Irish house, at a “bargain” price of €335,000, is still way overvalued. It will have to fall by almost half again to make the sums add up.

Exactly.  Which, it seems to me means that Nama is nonsense unless we are talking about valuations of 25% or under of the peak of the market.

Are you listening eircom?

One of the most wonderful things about the net is that it enables peoples voices to be heard. Are you listening eircom?

Google Ads. Bang in the Middle.

A few years ago, I, somewhat tongue in cheek, suggested that Google should just switch the respective positions of the organic results and the ads.

As of yesterday, it seems to me that things are moving in that direction.  At least the ads are.  They now appear directly in the middle of my monitor.

I really dislike it.  But I'd imagine lots more people will click on those ads, at least in the short term.