1.6m is a lot of money. I would approach this a bit differently if I was Zappos (or a company that cannot financially afford this kind of blunder).
I would send a nice polite email to all people who took advantage of the wrong price saying something along these lines: "Hey, we made an honest mistake and mispriced it, bla-bla. We kindly ask you to click here to cancel your order, but there is no obligation, bla-bla. We would greatly appreciate it if you help us out and cancel it. It is totally our fault and if you would like to keep your order, we will honor the price."
I bet you that by being humble and appealing to the sense of decency will work and a big percentage of people will feel ashamed and cancel the order. I would go out on a limb and say it would be 70-80% and majority of people are decent and see themselves that way.
I think propietary application stores and networks are going the way dinosaurs went...
This good article at engadget reports on 24 big Telecom operators worldwide that unite ot create "Wholesale Applications Community... the goal of the alliance will be to create a viable, cohesive and open industry platform for mobile app developers.": http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/15/twenty-four-telecom-operators-unite-to-form-wholesale-applicatio/
Link to the site itself: http://www.wholesaleappcommunity.com/
Good to note that Nokia, Apple and Google are not amongst them. And with HTML5 coming soon to break more barriers for apps...
Additional note: This particular movie attributes it success to being a hit on Hulu and it was pushed there by some distribution company rather than creator which is still a middleman. But he time of middleman would pass...
So many negative people. Look at the bright side - with distribution channels becoming more accesible to average Joe Indie Film Maker, the good movies will find it's way to the public bypassing the the big boys.
With P2P networks on the rise and piracy rampant in 70% of the countries in the world - the revenues will suffer greatly until the content can be hundred percent protected.
Some argue that fans who distribute copyrighted material are helping to promote it, but this concept is wrong because most of the people who get it for free will not buy the authentic material unless they absolutely loved it. Then some others reason that people will want to buy the original work after testing the free or pirated one, and that this way a lot more people will get exposed to the product and thus sales will increase. But how do they know for sure? What would guarantee that people after testing free samples will not go and get the whole product for free on P2P networks or buy a pirated copy much cheaper than original?
The whole paradigm of how people make money in the entertainment industry is changing. With internet, authors can distribute and promote their work more freely and cheaper than through labels and can charge whatever they deem appropriate but it will not solve the problem of piracy.
The way I see it, in the future some mega-network will evolve which will tie up together physical item sales with performances and on-demand TV over internet where all work is protected and prices are dynamic depending on demand. The big IF is to find a way to protect the work 100%.
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Mixed approach
1.6m is a lot of money. I would approach this a bit differently if I was Zappos (or a company that cannot financially afford this kind of blunder).
I would send a nice polite email to all people who took advantage of the wrong price saying something along these lines: "Hey, we made an honest mistake and mispriced it, bla-bla. We kindly ask you to click here to cancel your order, but there is no obligation, bla-bla. We would greatly appreciate it if you help us out and cancel it. It is totally our fault and if you would like to keep your order, we will honor the price."
I bet you that by being humble and appealing to the sense of decency will work and a big percentage of people will feel ashamed and cancel the order. I would go out on a limb and say it would be 70-80% and majority of people are decent and see themselves that way.
Wholesale Applications Community
I think propietary application stores and networks are going the way dinosaurs went... This good article at engadget reports on 24 big Telecom operators worldwide that unite ot create "Wholesale Applications Community... the goal of the alliance will be to create a viable, cohesive and open industry platform for mobile app developers.": http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/15/twenty-four-telecom-operators-unite-to-form-wholesale-applicatio/ Link to the site itself: http://www.wholesaleappcommunity.com/ Good to note that Nokia, Apple and Google are not amongst them. And with HTML5 coming soon to break more barriers for apps...
Re: The bright side
Additional note: This particular movie attributes it success to being a hit on Hulu and it was pushed there by some distribution company rather than creator which is still a middleman. But he time of middleman would pass...
The bright side
So many negative people. Look at the bright side - with distribution channels becoming more accesible to average Joe Indie Film Maker, the good movies will find it's way to the public bypassing the the big boys.
No matter how you put it - entertainment industry revenues are down
With P2P networks on the rise and piracy rampant in 70% of the countries in the world - the revenues will suffer greatly until the content can be hundred percent protected. Some argue that fans who distribute copyrighted material are helping to promote it, but this concept is wrong because most of the people who get it for free will not buy the authentic material unless they absolutely loved it. Then some others reason that people will want to buy the original work after testing the free or pirated one, and that this way a lot more people will get exposed to the product and thus sales will increase. But how do they know for sure? What would guarantee that people after testing free samples will not go and get the whole product for free on P2P networks or buy a pirated copy much cheaper than original? The whole paradigm of how people make money in the entertainment industry is changing. With internet, authors can distribute and promote their work more freely and cheaper than through labels and can charge whatever they deem appropriate but it will not solve the problem of piracy. The way I see it, in the future some mega-network will evolve which will tie up together physical item sales with performances and on-demand TV over internet where all work is protected and prices are dynamic depending on demand. The big IF is to find a way to protect the work 100%.