I lived the same problem in the late 90s. The point you are missing (with apologies) is that corporate travel agreements with carriers, rental car companies, hotels and such are NEVER about getting the lowest price, especially when the industry you're in allows for billing travel expenses back to clients. They are also rarely about getting improved on-the-road benefits for the folks doing the work. These agreements are complex cashflow arrangements wherein the company receives "benefits" from the vendors...might be cash, might be discounts or free travel for senior execs, might be rebates on total spend. Certain rental groups, hotel chains and airlines live on this stuff. It's very confusing and counter-intuitive until the whole agreement is disclosed. Which almost never happens.
I agree with your sentiment, but never forget the inconvenient truth: internet advertising revenue for most sites is peanuts in both absolute terms and when compared to print ad revenue. That's a big part of the problem.
Wha? Look, I agree that these lawyers (and Murdoch) are getting into territory that is murky, dangerous and overly dramatic, but it is simply nuts to say that Murdoch (NewsCorp) is insignificant, and his sites are a blip. Have you LOOKED at what he owns outright, or has a substantial stake in? Forget fox.com and foxnews.com, even wsj.com and all his Sky news services, how about MySpace and Hulu? How about his HarperCollins book division, one of the world's largest publishers (including of some very interesting economics and digital culture titles)? NewsCorp puts out a HUGE amount of content (which is, of course, not the same as information. I agree with the general sentiment of the thread here, but that sentiment is only undermined by trying to erroneously belittle the scope and impact of this massive media house.
You're spot-on. Some of what I react to on TechDirt is what appears at least to me to be this black and white notion of smartness versus stupidity (as Mike likes to say). "Paywalls are bad." "Free is good." "It's smart to do xxx." "It's dumb to do yyy" I think there is a lot of gray area, and many valid and valuable hybrids yet to be tried or even invented. Thanks for your thoughtfulness.
*Some* people want to support their artists. Many people are perfectly happy taking the free music. The question becomes the constant search for how to make *some* into *enough.*
Blaise, thanks for your patience. Your last few lines make a lot more sense to me, though I think they are at odds with what is often espoused here on ol' TechDirt: "No one's saying "don't sell music." I'm just explaining why you don't need to rely on selling digital audio files (since that's risky business)."
Derek, I do see your point. The complication here is that many news and content sites aren't self-sustaining from monetization of free traffic today. The true risk is in doing not. I think we can agree on that. Certainly putting up a paywall is a risk, no doubt. But it is a risk that tends toward the known for businesses like WSJ, where subscription models of various sorts have sustained the business for decades. And those models have evolved, BTW.
I am not advocating paywalls. I am saying that paywalls CAN and may very well need to be PART of a strategy of either continued revenue success or a return to revenue success for businesses that had somewhat indiscriminately been giving their content (not information, which is ubiquitous) away free without seeing commensurate monetization with prior approaches. There has to be a balance between "potential future monetization" and being able to sustain the business with real cash flow between now and then. Paywalls may not be an end point, but they are a legitimate (meaning: not dumb) method to consider when trying to dig a content business out from the revenue abyss.
Okay, touche on the smarminess...I probably overstated. But you often use an implicit "smart-dumb" dichotomy which admittedly bugs me.
On "Are you a subscriber here? No. I have receive no revenue at all from you then. Should I block you from reading Techdirt? That seems pretty dumb to me. There are lots of ways to monetize your presence, even if I'm not getting you to hand me cash directly." Again, the "smart-dumb" thing. But anyway...your business model (an entirely business, actually) is DIFFERENT than WSJ. TechDirt is almost exclusively derivative content and comments on it...and I mean that appreciation and respect. The point of TechDirt is the commentary, so the driver for you to remain open and free is obvious. The WSJ produces original content targeted at a predominantly business audience. And the scale, cost structure and audience are wildly different. Totally different, so I think your strawman doesn't quite fit.
As for how much communities matter to revenue for the B2B WSJ, you say "But they sure will be tomorrow." Okay...that's your guess, with your a priories. Do communities take only one form and must they be free? Certainly not. Why can't Murdoch explore a different approach to the same challenge? Free is, perhaps, one means to the end of revenue. There are certainly other means and many hybrids yet to be explored.
"You assume that those "freeloaders" can't be monetized. You're in the news business, aren't you? Do you really need a map on how to monetize "freeloaders"?" Yes, you know my IP reveals that I am in the middle of some of this. I am not assuming that freeloaders can't be monetized. But I can give you 30 examples live today that show that it is extremely difficult to monetize freeloaders to the degree necessary to support a business as a going concern, even partially. I agree that this will change (Hulu, in many ways, gives us all hope). But we have to get from here to there, and business that have dozens, hundreds or tens of thousands of employees need revenue along the way. A leap of faith is generally not regarded as a solid business strategy.
And I do agree that the loss of prestige and virality (is that a word?) is a problem for any business using a paywall. But it is much more of a problem for pubs that are purely consumer focused. Either way, it is something that needs to be carefully measured and managed. And measuring and managing that is a helluva difficult task.
I'm really trying to get my mind around this stuff...but I'm a simple guy, so let me see if I can summarize this simply: In the case of music, I pay $0 for the song, which I value (the song which I "connect" with and "embrace") because it is not scarce as a result of easy means of distribution and reproduction. Yet in order to support the artist, I pay $10 for a tote bag, autograph or T-shirt, which I value not nearly as much as the song, because they are scarce? Basically, as a result of this support-by-proxy-purchase, I am still paying a higher price for the thing I value - the song - but I have to get crap in the mail to do it.
I'm not trying to be smarmy, but so much of these conversations seem to boil down to paying nothing for the thing people actually want, and instead buying something you don't necessarily want in order to support the artist who produced the thing you actually value. Again, I KNOW I'm oversimplifying, but that's tough for markets and businesses that aren't driven by some kind of personally connected fandom. Explain to me how that would work for a B2B?
Mike, I get your points above and agree that this needs more consideration. I - as always - take issue with your subjective labeling of things you like as "smart" as it's kinda smarmy.
That said, you make the comment above "If they stop allowing that [free access to expensive content], then I won't read the WSJ any more..." And to that I say, "so?" Assuming you are not a subscriber today, you are of little to no revenue value to WSJ today. You not coming to the site means nothing to the WSJ. The inconvenient truth is that online ad revenue is peanuts and Murdoch is right: advertisers don't want to pay for fleeting eyes. Your further comment that "and the community of readers and commenters here will never hear from the WSJ again." is true to some degree...some communities (namely those who don't subscribe and represent little to no revenue value to WSJ) will self-exclude, true. But those communities are largely of no value to the business of the Wall Street Journal today. For some businesses that might be suicide. For the WSJ, I doubt it. It thrives on unique and uniquely targeted content (not information, which is ubiquitous, but content) for predominantly business-oriented readers. In this regard, it is more akin to a B2B publication than most newspapers out there, even the biggies.
I agree that limiting the near revenueless eyes hitting the pages will likely result in a loss of prestige, if not carefully managed, but this is not the same as loss of revenue. As a for-profit business, is it better to have 100,000 revenue generating pairs of eyes, or 1,000,000 freeloaders? It differs business to business, but the tendency is probably toward the former, not the latter. THIS is the challenge of print to digital migration.
I know that you and TechDirt spend a lot of time talking about everyone "embracing" everything and "connecting" all too often in very nebulous, warm and fuzzy paragraphs. I'll shock you by saying that I AGREE that those strategies are useful, even very useful in consumer markets especially where fandom is a big factor in the purchase decision. But connecting in a more B2B context is often (not always) a different beast. People don't subscribe to Bloomberg and Westlaw so they can giggle in the forums and speculate the universe. "Connecting" in the B2B context is being relevant, useful and constructive toward the business at hand. WSJ is, in my opinion, more along those lines, than fan-based consumerism.
Mike has a great point (though FoxNews Buzztracker is dead, as far as I can tell...Mike had to grab and old link on origin2.foxnews.com). Murdoch definitely has some major inconsistencies to deal with.
That said, he is no one's fool and has turned crap into gold many, many times before. It is silly and historically inaccurate to portray him as quixotic, out-of-touch or stupid. Doesn't mean he hasn't and won't again make a bad call, but it does mean that there is a definite (and most often successful) method to his madness.
On the broadcasting from inside the courtroom front, it's just not as simple as broadcasting is allowed or isn't. Certain areas and events in court need to be blacked out in order to protect jurors, witnesses, confidential or embarrassing information. With a court operated TV feed, they can manage that relatively easily and reliably. But if everyone has a laptop or smartphone, there is NOTHING to prevent someone from broadcasting names, information, even juror descriptions. Hell, why not pictures, video and audio? Clearly this is a problem for any court proceeding open to the public, even before technology was a factor. But in-person activities can be managed to a degree and are not realtime and don't carry the recording risk. But now, the means to record and broadcast realtime are nearly ubiquitous and only traceable after the fact...once the damaging bell is rung. Most devices which can Twitter can also capture rich media.
There has to be a balance between the rights of those attending court and those involved in the case - plaintiff, defendant, jurors, witnesses.
I know in my county courthouse, no cell/smart phones or PDAs are allowed at all, except for court officers.
Really, really bad logic, AC. A licensed locksmith is now a likely criminal because he has a set of lock picks that COULD be used illegally? The owner of a car is a likely drunk driver because he *could* get behind the wheel after a few? A person who uses an secure anon service after getting their identity stolen or spammed into submission is assumed a likely criminal because the use such a service? Ridiculous. Most technologies (and devices and fluids) can be used for criminal purposes somehow, somewhere. But that does not mean that are indicative of criminal activity on their face.
Hmmm....I'm often a critic of Mike's "free, free for you and me" but anyone wanting to be successful in their chosen arena has to have an open mind. Freetard is a bit strong, even fore me.
On the surface, and even a few feet below it, this looks like a successful experiment relative to what he was intending to try. I do question whether the $20K sold in business plan review and Insight Community stuff represents income truly directly attributable to the experiment, or whether they were just displaced sales that would have happened anyway. Even disregarding those (which may be unfair), $12K gross isn't bad given the economy, the limits of this community and no outside advertising.
All that said, I do find it very strange that Mike is not disclosing more information about exactly what worked, what didn't, what his predicted results were (and how he calculated them) and how the actuals compare. These are EXACTLY the questions Mike would himself ask of other models. I understand he may not want to disclose the net (especially on the business services that he sells in his "day job") but how about the package sales numbers, distribution, what worked and didn't, and how he will improve the next time.
My hope is that he's working on a follow-up to provide more info.
Mike, thanks for sharing the results. A few questions:
1. What was the number of people who actually make a purchase between $5 and $150?
2. What was the distribution of purchases among the packages/items offered?
3. If you have the means to do so, it would be interesting to know the percentage conversion for those actively expressing interest by email, Twitter, FB, or clicking through. Tough to track in total.
4. Were the business plan review and insight community packages discounted for this offer, or are they basically just your standard services offerings? It appear to me that they were an experiment within an experiment, basically using this marketing event as lead generation.
5. What was your net revenue on this (at least on the $12K portion...not asking you to disclose your margin on standard business services)?
6. You note that the $70 average (within the $12K) was higher than expected. Can you share what your overall expected metrics were for this experiment? Curious as to how you developed those, how accurate they were, and how you would adjust your predictive model going forward.
I'm not a lawyer (though I did spend a good deal of time in law classes in grad school likely misunderstanding half of what I heard...). But I don't think the issue here is proving intent, rather it is to establish whether there is a reasonable inference of intent. I'll admit that I'm mildly uncomfortable with even inferring intent, since, when misapplied, it can smack of thought-policing. But I believe, as does the WSJ piece, that the absence of consideration is causing some real problems. Unfortunately, when a law is written that simply says buying more that 3g of a LEGAL substance within a 7 day period is ILLEGAL full stop, it really doesn't leave room to accommodate easily predictable, perfectly reasonable circumstances that might arise.
I agree that law enforcement should use discretion, but my read is that they are increasing under fire to follow the letter of the law in far too many cases...laws that are ill-formed, incomplete, overly-broad and too often ignore completely predictable unintended consequences. That said, I do agree that prosecutors and judges who just want to make a point, get re-elected, or go all paternalistic are a big part of the problem. So are incompetent or grand-standing legislators who rarely understand the issues on which the legislate.
1. You are assuming that she knew. I am assuming she didn't. Since he has no record prior to or following this incident (according to all the articles I found on this case) and seems stunned by the whole thing, it's pretty apparent that she didn't know. The "Meth Watch" signs the Star-Tribune article mentioned were in place are generic, do not mention the gram limits and do not mention products by brand name. They are of no help. There is every reason to assume that this woman did not know of the specific limit and/or how the two different products she bought 6 days apart factored into any transgression, and/or the time limit specified by the law.
2. You wrote "...legal citation supporting your position that proclaimed ignorance of the law is a legal defense in court." Firstly, as I said earlier, I'm not a lawyer, so I shan't be pumping out any legal citations. Moreover, if you read carefully, or even not so carefully, you'll clearly see that this is NOT my position. I actually note above that ignorance of the law may not be an excuse at all. My POINT is that INTENT should be factored in to the establishment of criminality. This law excludes an intent clause, which is a big part of the problem. If the law had said (as it should) purchase of more than 3g within 7 days "with intent to manufacture or aid in the manufacturing of an illegal substance," then this poor lady would not have had per picture on the front page of the local paper, as she did. My whole point (and the subject of my thread, incidentally) is intent, not ignorance of the law is an excuse.
3. As for your grammar, it's not ad hominem when it goes directly to the point of the argument. The example you gave was so poorly constructed that it is easily misconstrued and would completely confuse the base of the discussion. As written, your sentence actually means that because someone hoped they wouldn't get caught, they violated a law which requires them to obtain illegal amounts of a chemical substance. Their motivation was the hope the wouldn't get caught, and the law the violated was the "law to obtain an illegal amount." Huh?!?! Adverbs, objects, antecedents and punctuation matter. We all have typos and misspellings, to be sure. I sure do. But yours was a misconstruction resulting in you unknowingly confusing your point. If it was deliberate as you say, then you deliberately intended to confuse your own point.
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Re: I got caught by Amex / Hertz tag team (as BobinBaltimore)
I lived the same problem in the late 90s. The point you are missing (with apologies) is that corporate travel agreements with carriers, rental car companies, hotels and such are NEVER about getting the lowest price, especially when the industry you're in allows for billing travel expenses back to clients. They are also rarely about getting improved on-the-road benefits for the folks doing the work. These agreements are complex cashflow arrangements wherein the company receives "benefits" from the vendors...might be cash, might be discounts or free travel for senior execs, might be rebates on total spend. Certain rental groups, hotel chains and airlines live on this stuff. It's very confusing and counter-intuitive until the whole agreement is disclosed. Which almost never happens.
Re: Claim Google Is Illegal,,,? (as BobinBaltimore)
I agree with your sentiment, but never forget the inconvenient truth: internet advertising revenue for most sites is peanuts in both absolute terms and when compared to print ad revenue. That's a big part of the problem.
Re: Re: You're all misunderstanding Murdoch's strategy (as BobinBaltimore)
Wha? Look, I agree that these lawyers (and Murdoch) are getting into territory that is murky, dangerous and overly dramatic, but it is simply nuts to say that Murdoch (NewsCorp) is insignificant, and his sites are a blip. Have you LOOKED at what he owns outright, or has a substantial stake in? Forget fox.com and foxnews.com, even wsj.com and all his Sky news services, how about MySpace and Hulu? How about his HarperCollins book division, one of the world's largest publishers (including of some very interesting economics and digital culture titles)? NewsCorp puts out a HUGE amount of content (which is, of course, not the same as information. I agree with the general sentiment of the thread here, but that sentiment is only undermined by trying to erroneously belittle the scope and impact of this massive media house.
Re: Re: Re: Re: To simplify (as BobinBaltimore)
You're spot-on. Some of what I react to on TechDirt is what appears at least to me to be this black and white notion of smartness versus stupidity (as Mike likes to say). "Paywalls are bad." "Free is good." "It's smart to do xxx." "It's dumb to do yyy" I think there is a lot of gray area, and many valid and valuable hybrids yet to be tried or even invented. Thanks for your thoughtfulness.
Re: Re: (as BobinBaltimore)
*Some* people want to support their artists. Many people are perfectly happy taking the free music. The question becomes the constant search for how to make *some* into *enough.*
Re: Re: To simplify (as BobinBaltimore)
Blaise, thanks for your patience. Your last few lines make a lot more sense to me, though I think they are at odds with what is often espoused here on ol' TechDirt: "No one's saying "don't sell music." I'm just explaining why you don't need to rely on selling digital audio files (since that's risky business)."
Re: Re: Re: Re: You won't read the WSJ anymore? (as BobinBaltimore)
Derek, I do see your point. The complication here is that many news and content sites aren't self-sustaining from monetization of free traffic today. The true risk is in doing not. I think we can agree on that. Certainly putting up a paywall is a risk, no doubt. But it is a risk that tends toward the known for businesses like WSJ, where subscription models of various sorts have sustained the business for decades. And those models have evolved, BTW.
I am not advocating paywalls. I am saying that paywalls CAN and may very well need to be PART of a strategy of either continued revenue success or a return to revenue success for businesses that had somewhat indiscriminately been giving their content (not information, which is ubiquitous) away free without seeing commensurate monetization with prior approaches. There has to be a balance between "potential future monetization" and being able to sustain the business with real cash flow between now and then. Paywalls may not be an end point, but they are a legitimate (meaning: not dumb) method to consider when trying to dig a content business out from the revenue abyss.
Re: Re: You won't read the WSJ anymore? (as BobinBaltimore)
Okay, touche on the smarminess...I probably overstated. But you often use an implicit "smart-dumb" dichotomy which admittedly bugs me.
On "Are you a subscriber here? No. I have receive no revenue at all from you then. Should I block you from reading Techdirt? That seems pretty dumb to me. There are lots of ways to monetize your presence, even if I'm not getting you to hand me cash directly." Again, the "smart-dumb" thing. But anyway...your business model (an entirely business, actually) is DIFFERENT than WSJ. TechDirt is almost exclusively derivative content and comments on it...and I mean that appreciation and respect. The point of TechDirt is the commentary, so the driver for you to remain open and free is obvious. The WSJ produces original content targeted at a predominantly business audience. And the scale, cost structure and audience are wildly different. Totally different, so I think your strawman doesn't quite fit.
As for how much communities matter to revenue for the B2B WSJ, you say "But they sure will be tomorrow." Okay...that's your guess, with your a priories. Do communities take only one form and must they be free? Certainly not. Why can't Murdoch explore a different approach to the same challenge? Free is, perhaps, one means to the end of revenue. There are certainly other means and many hybrids yet to be explored.
"You assume that those "freeloaders" can't be monetized. You're in the news business, aren't you? Do you really need a map on how to monetize "freeloaders"?" Yes, you know my IP reveals that I am in the middle of some of this. I am not assuming that freeloaders can't be monetized. But I can give you 30 examples live today that show that it is extremely difficult to monetize freeloaders to the degree necessary to support a business as a going concern, even partially. I agree that this will change (Hulu, in many ways, gives us all hope). But we have to get from here to there, and business that have dozens, hundreds or tens of thousands of employees need revenue along the way. A leap of faith is generally not regarded as a solid business strategy.
And I do agree that the loss of prestige and virality (is that a word?) is a problem for any business using a paywall. But it is much more of a problem for pubs that are purely consumer focused. Either way, it is something that needs to be carefully measured and managed. And measuring and managing that is a helluva difficult task.
To simplify (as BobinBaltimore)
I'm really trying to get my mind around this stuff...but I'm a simple guy, so let me see if I can summarize this simply: In the case of music, I pay $0 for the song, which I value (the song which I "connect" with and "embrace") because it is not scarce as a result of easy means of distribution and reproduction. Yet in order to support the artist, I pay $10 for a tote bag, autograph or T-shirt, which I value not nearly as much as the song, because they are scarce? Basically, as a result of this support-by-proxy-purchase, I am still paying a higher price for the thing I value - the song - but I have to get crap in the mail to do it.
I'm not trying to be smarmy, but so much of these conversations seem to boil down to paying nothing for the thing people actually want, and instead buying something you don't necessarily want in order to support the artist who produced the thing you actually value. Again, I KNOW I'm oversimplifying, but that's tough for markets and businesses that aren't driven by some kind of personally connected fandom. Explain to me how that would work for a B2B?
You won't read the WSJ anymore? (as BobinBaltimore)
Mike, I get your points above and agree that this needs more consideration. I - as always - take issue with your subjective labeling of things you like as "smart" as it's kinda smarmy.
That said, you make the comment above "If they stop allowing that [free access to expensive content], then I won't read the WSJ any more..." And to that I say, "so?" Assuming you are not a subscriber today, you are of little to no revenue value to WSJ today. You not coming to the site means nothing to the WSJ. The inconvenient truth is that online ad revenue is peanuts and Murdoch is right: advertisers don't want to pay for fleeting eyes. Your further comment that "and the community of readers and commenters here will never hear from the WSJ again." is true to some degree...some communities (namely those who don't subscribe and represent little to no revenue value to WSJ) will self-exclude, true. But those communities are largely of no value to the business of the Wall Street Journal today. For some businesses that might be suicide. For the WSJ, I doubt it. It thrives on unique and uniquely targeted content (not information, which is ubiquitous, but content) for predominantly business-oriented readers. In this regard, it is more akin to a B2B publication than most newspapers out there, even the biggies.
I agree that limiting the near revenueless eyes hitting the pages will likely result in a loss of prestige, if not carefully managed, but this is not the same as loss of revenue. As a for-profit business, is it better to have 100,000 revenue generating pairs of eyes, or 1,000,000 freeloaders? It differs business to business, but the tendency is probably toward the former, not the latter. THIS is the challenge of print to digital migration.
I know that you and TechDirt spend a lot of time talking about everyone "embracing" everything and "connecting" all too often in very nebulous, warm and fuzzy paragraphs. I'll shock you by saying that I AGREE that those strategies are useful, even very useful in consumer markets especially where fandom is a big factor in the purchase decision. But connecting in a more B2B context is often (not always) a different beast. People don't subscribe to Bloomberg and Westlaw so they can giggle in the forums and speculate the universe. "Connecting" in the B2B context is being relevant, useful and constructive toward the business at hand. WSJ is, in my opinion, more along those lines, than fan-based consumerism.
Re: Murdoch's master plan? (as BobinBaltimore)
Strongly agreed.
Mike has a great point (though FoxNews Buzztracker is dead, as far as I can tell...Mike had to grab and old link on origin2.foxnews.com). Murdoch definitely has some major inconsistencies to deal with.
That said, he is no one's fool and has turned crap into gold many, many times before. It is silly and historically inaccurate to portray him as quixotic, out-of-touch or stupid. Doesn't mean he hasn't and won't again make a bad call, but it does mean that there is a definite (and most often successful) method to his madness.
Re: 2 seperate issues (as BobinBaltimore)
Agreed, it is two separate issues.
On the broadcasting from inside the courtroom front, it's just not as simple as broadcasting is allowed or isn't. Certain areas and events in court need to be blacked out in order to protect jurors, witnesses, confidential or embarrassing information. With a court operated TV feed, they can manage that relatively easily and reliably. But if everyone has a laptop or smartphone, there is NOTHING to prevent someone from broadcasting names, information, even juror descriptions. Hell, why not pictures, video and audio? Clearly this is a problem for any court proceeding open to the public, even before technology was a factor. But in-person activities can be managed to a degree and are not realtime and don't carry the recording risk. But now, the means to record and broadcast realtime are nearly ubiquitous and only traceable after the fact...once the damaging bell is rung. Most devices which can Twitter can also capture rich media.
There has to be a balance between the rights of those attending court and those involved in the case - plaintiff, defendant, jurors, witnesses.
I know in my county courthouse, no cell/smart phones or PDAs are allowed at all, except for court officers.
Re: Re: Re: history repeats itself (as BobinBaltimore)
Really, really bad logic, AC. A licensed locksmith is now a likely criminal because he has a set of lock picks that COULD be used illegally? The owner of a car is a likely drunk driver because he *could* get behind the wheel after a few? A person who uses an secure anon service after getting their identity stolen or spammed into submission is assumed a likely criminal because the use such a service? Ridiculous. Most technologies (and devices and fluids) can be used for criminal purposes somehow, somewhere. But that does not mean that are indicative of criminal activity on their face.
Re: Re: Re: history repeats itself (as BobinBaltimore)
Sorry: AC's can't criticize other ACs for trolling. Bad form.
Re: Re: Re: (as BobinBaltimore)
Hmmm....I'm often a critic of Mike's "free, free for you and me" but anyone wanting to be successful in their chosen arena has to have an open mind. Freetard is a bit strong, even fore me.
On the surface, and even a few feet below it, this looks like a successful experiment relative to what he was intending to try. I do question whether the $20K sold in business plan review and Insight Community stuff represents income truly directly attributable to the experiment, or whether they were just displaced sales that would have happened anyway. Even disregarding those (which may be unfair), $12K gross isn't bad given the economy, the limits of this community and no outside advertising.
All that said, I do find it very strange that Mike is not disclosing more information about exactly what worked, what didn't, what his predicted results were (and how he calculated them) and how the actuals compare. These are EXACTLY the questions Mike would himself ask of other models. I understand he may not want to disclose the net (especially on the business services that he sells in his "day job") but how about the package sales numbers, distribution, what worked and didn't, and how he will improve the next time.
My hope is that he's working on a follow-up to provide more info.
Re: Re: Re: Thanks (as BobinBaltimore)
Sorry. The above AC comment was from me. Forgot to sign-in.
Thanks (as BobinBaltimore)
Mike, thanks for sharing the results. A few questions:
1. What was the number of people who actually make a purchase between $5 and $150?
2. What was the distribution of purchases among the packages/items offered?
3. If you have the means to do so, it would be interesting to know the percentage conversion for those actively expressing interest by email, Twitter, FB, or clicking through. Tough to track in total.
4. Were the business plan review and insight community packages discounted for this offer, or are they basically just your standard services offerings? It appear to me that they were an experiment within an experiment, basically using this marketing event as lead generation.
5. What was your net revenue on this (at least on the $12K portion...not asking you to disclose your margin on standard business services)?
6. You note that the $70 average (within the $12K) was higher than expected. Can you share what your overall expected metrics were for this experiment? Curious as to how you developed those, how accurate they were, and how you would adjust your predictive model going forward.
Re: Not always necessary (as BobinBaltimore)
Agreed!
Re: (as BobinBaltimore)
I'm not a lawyer (though I did spend a good deal of time in law classes in grad school likely misunderstanding half of what I heard...). But I don't think the issue here is proving intent, rather it is to establish whether there is a reasonable inference of intent. I'll admit that I'm mildly uncomfortable with even inferring intent, since, when misapplied, it can smack of thought-policing. But I believe, as does the WSJ piece, that the absence of consideration is causing some real problems. Unfortunately, when a law is written that simply says buying more that 3g of a LEGAL substance within a 7 day period is ILLEGAL full stop, it really doesn't leave room to accommodate easily predictable, perfectly reasonable circumstances that might arise.
I agree that law enforcement should use discretion, but my read is that they are increasing under fire to follow the letter of the law in far too many cases...laws that are ill-formed, incomplete, overly-broad and too often ignore completely predictable unintended consequences. That said, I do agree that prosecutors and judges who just want to make a point, get re-elected, or go all paternalistic are a big part of the problem. So are incompetent or grand-standing legislators who rarely understand the issues on which the legislate.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Intent (as BobinBaltimore)
Dead thread, but I'll bite because you annoy me:
1. You are assuming that she knew. I am assuming she didn't. Since he has no record prior to or following this incident (according to all the articles I found on this case) and seems stunned by the whole thing, it's pretty apparent that she didn't know. The "Meth Watch" signs the Star-Tribune article mentioned were in place are generic, do not mention the gram limits and do not mention products by brand name. They are of no help. There is every reason to assume that this woman did not know of the specific limit and/or how the two different products she bought 6 days apart factored into any transgression, and/or the time limit specified by the law.
2. You wrote "...legal citation supporting your position that proclaimed ignorance of the law is a legal defense in court." Firstly, as I said earlier, I'm not a lawyer, so I shan't be pumping out any legal citations. Moreover, if you read carefully, or even not so carefully, you'll clearly see that this is NOT my position. I actually note above that ignorance of the law may not be an excuse at all. My POINT is that INTENT should be factored in to the establishment of criminality. This law excludes an intent clause, which is a big part of the problem. If the law had said (as it should) purchase of more than 3g within 7 days "with intent to manufacture or aid in the manufacturing of an illegal substance," then this poor lady would not have had per picture on the front page of the local paper, as she did. My whole point (and the subject of my thread, incidentally) is intent, not ignorance of the law is an excuse.
3. As for your grammar, it's not ad hominem when it goes directly to the point of the argument. The example you gave was so poorly constructed that it is easily misconstrued and would completely confuse the base of the discussion. As written, your sentence actually means that because someone hoped they wouldn't get caught, they violated a law which requires them to obtain illegal amounts of a chemical substance. Their motivation was the hope the wouldn't get caught, and the law the violated was the "law to obtain an illegal amount." Huh?!?! Adverbs, objects, antecedents and punctuation matter. We all have typos and misspellings, to be sure. I sure do. But yours was a misconstruction resulting in you unknowingly confusing your point. If it was deliberate as you say, then you deliberately intended to confuse your own point.