Online Sports Betting 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (9) comment rss

  • On the post: Cab Drivers Angry About Having To Compete With Free As Well

    Online Sports Betting ( profile ), 26 Jun, 2009 @ 07:06am

    I agree with Coward

    The free model will need to evolve into something different or will die out. Either electricity and maintenance costs will be higher than tips from passengers and advertising dollars or cabbies will bully them out.

    If you just put a sticker on a bumper for advertising - there is no way to measure its impact, and in these hard economic times unless you prove that those ads are working - the ad dollars will dry up fast. One way would be to do more proactive advertising by selling in these free vehicles advertisers products - that could be selling tickets to the shows, exhibitions, etc..

  • On the post: Airport FastPass 'Clear' Shutting Down

    Online Sports Betting ( profile ), 23 Jun, 2009 @ 08:15am

    Additional note

    I would also study busy times at airports and man the check points accordingly to save on labor costs.

  • On the post: Airport FastPass 'Clear' Shutting Down

    Online Sports Betting ( profile ), 23 Jun, 2009 @ 07:59am

    Great idea - bad timing and bad pricing

    Waiting lines are way down from two years ago. Only few big airports still have bottlenecks. With economy on the slump and consumers cutting down on all unnecessary spending, $120 a year is way too much.

    Brill's mistake was getting too big too fast without doing test-measure-scale market research. I would target, price and grow it differently. Generally, people get to airport on time and have time to stand in line. Market niche here is people who are habitually late or accidentally late. Would you rather miss a plane or pay a small $3-$6 fee to make it? I would pay.

    Also, I would have a small joining fee to cover the membership costs and open service in the busiest airports first. The main idea here would be to have users pay per single trip only - you want to use the service cause you late at the airport - quickly sweep your card and pay one time fee, real time testing is needed to find the best price.

  • On the post: Ticketmaster Takes Another Stab At Shutting Down Scalpers With Paperless Tickets

    Online Sports Betting ( profile ), 10 Jun, 2009 @ 06:31pm

    to effectively cut out scalpers...

    This is a dumb move on the part of Ticketmaster and it will not work. Credit cards checks on entering events will present big drops in sales as mentioned above - tickets given as presents to other people, company events, etc.. I bet that scalpers will find a way around this and this measure might even increase profits for scalpers as people will buy less tickets directly from Ticketmaster.

    If Ticketmaster limits number of tickets that can be bought by one credit card - they will hurt their sales plus scalpers will use multiple credit cards to circumvent this. If only credit card is checked at the entrance, credit cards from different people can be used by scalpers. Also scalpers can come to the event entrance, tell check people this is a big group of friends or whatever, flash the credit card and go for the next batch of people.

    There is no cost-effective way I can see that kill the scalping without violating privacy or hurting sales.

  • On the post: Best Selling Author Actively Pirating His Own Book — Finds It Helps Sales Tremendously

    Online Sports Betting ( profile ), 22 Apr, 2009 @ 07:49am

    Re: Re: just a thought

    Labels are evil, I agree, but your argument omits the fact that people steal works of all artists, even from independent artists. Take Nine Inch Nails example. They might sell their sons or albums elsewhere on the internet for a nominal price that they feel is fair; yet on a P2P network people exchange that same music for free without the consent of Nine Inch Nails. Is it fair for them? Of course not.

    What is needed is a revolutionary concept, one centralized online market place where artists can sell their work. This place must be free or based on donations.

  • On the post: Best Selling Author Actively Pirating His Own Book — Finds It Helps Sales Tremendously

    Online Sports Betting ( profile ), 17 Apr, 2009 @ 02:03pm

    This doesn't work for audio/video

    I agree with one of the previous comments that this free distribution type of online promotion works best for books. People might download complete digital copies of books online but if the book is too big it's a lot less strain on your eyes to read it in print.

    With music and movies the situation is different - once people download and listen to the song or watch a movie, they most likely will not buy the original product, unless they absolutely loved it.

    Just my two cents based on personal experience.

  • On the post: Sports Fans On Facebook May Violate NCAA Recruiting Rules?

    Online Sports Betting ( profile ), 13 Apr, 2009 @ 09:06pm

    Easy way around prohibition

    Students can use proxies to appear to be located abroad and fake names and maybe even use the site similar to facebook but hosted abroad, what NCAA could do then? Nothing, zip, nada - oh, no, wait, they could send an Army football team to fight abroad...

  • On the post: I Want My Flying Car

    Online Sports Betting ( profile ), 13 Apr, 2009 @ 08:37pm

    The idea is utopic for the following reasons:

    1. The cost of developing a safe flying apparatus of this size will be huge and materials would be extremely expensive. If built with sub-par materials there would be so many lethal crashes that people would stop using them. 3. If it is produced for mass market like regular cars, imagine all the regulations and rules and training needed for average Joe? This is just off the top of my head, I bet there are dozens of other reasons of why this wouldn't work in the nearest future.

  • On the post: Amidst The Crackdown, New Sports Betting Site Launches In The US

    Online Sports Betting ( profile ), 13 Apr, 2009 @ 08:05pm

    It was doomed from the start

    What I don't understand is how "reneging" a bet constitutes a loophole in gambling prohibition act? It is absolutely unrelated as once the cash transaction for betting purpose takes place, cancel or revoke it, it still took place and broke the law.