Thoughts on finance, marketing, and infography

Posted by Darren on Apr 25, 2010 • (Comments)

Thoughts from 30000 feet on way to Mexico with Sherri. Not: these are totally random streams of thought.

…on finance
Millennials have terrible credit. Imagine if they actually paid for content, they would be even more in-debt

Non-financially minded oriented entrepreneurs lack the knowledge to decipher between gross/net revenue. Lots of companies we hear about today may have sweet top line numbers but net numbers and even operating margins are slivers.

…on marketing
Lots of chatter about giving consumers the ability to choose everything. Time and time again, consumers don’t want to be forced with telling us what they want, but would rather be inspired and select from a curated list. Case and point: apps in the iTunes store outsell their peers if try are on the recommended list, custom shirt companies who publish a few customized examples know that those examples will sell well as templates, and any retail clothing store has representatives helping shoppers shop…

…on data and infography
If business is shifting to a data driven ecosystem, the emphasis on visualization of the data in quick, actionable, and colorful ways will ultimately win. Most business folks, let alone consumers, are not SPSS nuts or Omniture junkies. Infographics are going to be key… Which leads to a potentially lucrative future career: infography design

Fantasy sports is one of the most data-driven applications for consumers in the world. I’d venture to guess that the amount of phd’s and mathematicians playing are <10%. The reason why fantasy sports have taken off is because of the visualization of realtime data. The visualizations are not complicated but are utility driven.

…on haters
Facebook and Twitter are quickly becoming very powerful companies and Google’s perch at the top may get a bit charger to accommodate these guys. Facebook and Twitter, while darlings today, will have to start to manage for mass criticism. It’s a good problem to face as it means you are on top (walmart, ford, Nike, gap) but a pain to deal with. The larger you grow, the larger the ‘hater’ volume and sentiment.

Tagged as , , , , , , , , + Categorized as Darren Herman, Internet & Web X.0
  • kurtnelson
    For more on infography, see the vast scholarship of Edward Tufte: http://www.edwardtufte.com/tuf... - at the very minimum, I highly recommend his (very popular) essay on Powerpoint.
  • Great stuff (BTW where is your 'Like' button so I can like this post?! Gotta check out http://openlike.org and http://likefeature.com)...oh and I hear a rumor that the two of you actually met on a plane way back when...I'm guessing you weren't doing any live blogging on that flight though ;-)

    Enjoy the trip/vacation (I'm assuming it's at least a bit of a vacation since you are both getting to go)...you def. deserve it!
  • Thanks Kevin!
  • on Marketing..
    This is a problem that is absolutely *plaguing* much of the internet. From publishers marketing to their consumers, to publishers then selling to their advertisers. Everyone seems to believe that "search" is the solution to everything, but relating to your last point - I think social curation is the solution to a bigger slice of the pie than search.
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