The Teckki Says

Based off of what I am reading about the Apple iPad that everyone wants, I have come to the understanding that I already have much of what it will do based off of owning an iPod Touch. Since the first models coming in March will be wifi only (as Touches are), I have noted some frustration as an owner, and having looked for apps to make up for deficiencies. Here are five things that and iPad won't do:

(1). An iPad won't replace a Windows or Mac-based computer. For all of you iPad droolies looking to ditch the computer or laptop for an experience of bliss, figuring that all computing should be this way, you will find yourself frustrated, if not disappointed. PC's have gotten us used to switching back and forth between applications, and in many cases, sharing files between them. My experience with the Touch has produced a sore spot in this area, having to purchase several applications because the last one didn't do everything I thought it would do. A particular pain was the lack of file sharing between applications. Most of you are used to using Microsoft applications, and if you do any special tricks, like using Excel to edit table data in a Word document, stick to the big box or laptop.

(2). There isn't always an app for that. Apple tightly controls the environment apps run in, and coming from the Palm Pilot world, I found that I was leaving superior applications and settling for serviceable ones. A database program I had on the Palm allowed extensive customization to suit my needs. I didn't bother to get its Apple edition, which for $10 was seriously lacking, and a large trail of reviews loudly bemoaned this. The developer cited the restrictive environment Apple required as the reason it could not carry over many of the features that made its software so popular on the Palm, no consolation for those of us who ditched a pretty good Palm in favor of the iPod Touch

(3). No direct hard-drive access. After thirty or so years of accessing C-drives and folders, this has become innate for most of us. While accessing a drive directly may sound geeky, it had the advantage of allowing you to put ANYTHING there for storage. Apples’ logic appears sound on this one - if an app can't view or use it, it doesn't need to be there. However, when I am archiving files, I am precisely looking for storage, and nothing else. This is actually a step back to my iPod Classic, which I have attached to my Apple Airport network box, and use the hard drive to wirelessly store files for all of my computers to share. Heck, I can even stream iTunes from the Classic by loading the iTunes software on the PC, leaving the music on the device.

(4). Play Flash. You really don't know how much Flash is integrated into the web until you get an iAnything. From animated buttons to slide shows to video, Flash powers most of them, and they don't show up on an iPhone or iPod Touch, and they won't show up on an iPad. I took the opportunity to look up Disney on my computer, then on my Touch. The site knows the difference, shunting my touch to the mobile version. The graphics are beautiful, but they don't come close to the Flash version. You won't be this lucky most of the time, as most sites don't display Flash content at all, leaving wide spaces of website pages white with a plugin symbol in the middle.

(5). Running multiple applications. Sometimes you want to check your email while in the middle of typing a letter. If my touch is any indication of how this is going to work, we’ll be back to the era were we hit the save button every five minutes, or at least when we switch applications. On a Mac, you can type a letter, check your email, play a song, and go back to typing the letter. In the Touch world, and I suspect the iPad world, such multitasking is not allowed. Most applications run one at a time. The music player seems to survive the switch to another app, but if you are responding to an email, you could lose your word processing document.

In many ways, my Touch was a big step forward, albeit some small steps backward. There were some things that were never going to be replicated on the Touch, and I adjusted. My advice to you is to thoroughly check out everything you want to do before you buy this must-have device. $500 is a lot of money to plunk down on a device that won't adequately replace your current device, no matter how much you want it. If you are looking to run some heavy video editing application or downloading your pictures to this device from your camera, forget it, because that's not what this is for. However, it should do much of what you want it to do in style!

This is a multipart series on websites that will discuss what pages common to many websites should contain. This article discusses the Product Presentation.

Most websites sell something, whether they are goods, services or ideas. Far too many websites think the web is full of customers looking to buy from them exclusively. If your products and services aren't well presented, you might as well not have a website, because the effect on your sales will be about the same. You are not the only game in town,

Some website owners think that just getting up a site is all that matters, and just good enough will do. Presentation can become a casualty of many budgets, but I'll offer up proof of just how much it matters. Many of us have seen Walmart's print flyers, television commercials and website. You've probably also been in their stores. In my opinion, the presentation of the print, television and website advertisements are much better than the actual shopping experience in the stores. In the store, profoundly low pricing and immediate need overcomes my low expectations of positive shopping experience. Low pricing is their mantra, and bland product presentation, along with tight aisle space and a Spartan store layout, is emblematic of this. They do not replicate this on their website, because if the experience was the same, many visitors might shop elsewhere. They certainly need the reputation they've built up in the stores to make their website efforts work. However, their site presentation is not too far different from their rival Target Corp's website. They are both clean and non-cluttered, but in my opinion, Target's website reminds me a little more of their stores than Walmart's website remind me of theirs. If on the web, Target, Walmart and most online retailers are roughly competitive on price, what makes them different?

Presentation and Expectation Builds Reputation

This brings me back to your website – Pictures can be worth a thousand words, and a thousand dollars. I look at thousands of pictures a year, many from clients. I can get technical, but your eyes know the difference between poorly taken pictures and professional ones. If you plan to sell a thousand widgets at $10 a piece, is it too much to ask for you to spend $500 for a better picture so that the widgets to look better? Is it too much to ask you to spend $125 for a professional writer to produce a great description for a necklace that you want to sell 10 at $500 a pop? Should your customers have to find better written descriptions of merchandise on your competitor’s website, making them wonder if you are selling the exact same product for $50 less? Wouldn't this be better than the $85 you spent on the cheesy yellow and red flashing banner that says "hurry, only two left?"

Is it too much to ask that the services be explained, perhaps backed up by testimonials of REAL customers, rather than self-serving proclamations stating, "I am cheaper than 'competitor.com?'"

The web is all about visuals. The "Low Price Leader" recognizes this, your customers do, and so should you.

Sometimes you get more than a morning jolt when you stop by the coffee shop, although I drink decaf. I did get more than the high octane shot most of you get, and I want to share it with you. A friend stopped by my table, and we talked, among other things, about marketing.

My questions started on the topic of surviving the current recession, knowing that this friend had been through several. He’s been in business over twenty five years, so he's seen downturns in a number of flavors. The jury appears to be in, and the verdict looks like he will survive this one also.

Many of you have heard these before. However, in a downturn, the panic button gets pushed more often, so it's nice to be reminded. Here are the five tidbits I gathered from our conversation:

(1). Contact your customers. Look particularly at those customers you acquired from the last recession until just before this one. If you've been in business for less than five years, this will be everyone you’ve done business with. Rekindle and/or reinforce those relationships

(2). Find out what works. This is easy because right now, almost nothing seems like it does. All editorializing aside, someone is still buying from you, or contributing to your cause. What works with your marketing right now? What types of mail or samples gets kept, what gets thrown in the garbage? Now is the time to ask.

(3). Redeploy your workforce. You will find out just how good your hires are in this climate. If there is less work, there is more time to do other things, like calling current customers, or making sales calls. This is the time to make your organization more customer–focused by perhaps engaging with customers personally.

(4). Set your limits. Not every business survives a downturn, and yours may be one that doesn't. Know this beforehand, so you are not losing the business, your house and personal possessions, your family and everything else because you think the last quarter in the slot machine is going to hit big. For instance, you may have to adjust customer payment patterns, just know what your limits are there, too.

(5). Cut strategically. No where does the reflexive budget cut ax wield so recklessly in many companies as in downturns. All of those "25% cuts across the board" mandates may sound good at department meetings, but if your heart, brain, legs and arms are the heads of those departments, mandates like this will get you one dead person. I like the way my friend phrased this – first make the personal cut, then make the personnel cut.

One of my favorites is to get out of the office. Isolation only solves one problem I know of, and that is to focus on a problem where you need to cut out interruptions and clutter. Holding your face in your hands, while lamenting a poor economy, is not that kind of problem. Besides, you never know who you will see in a coffee shop. It might be someone who could give you five great marketing ideas!

The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is over, and there are always announcements, along with outright speculation, over what will hit and what is hoped. The biggest specualtion right now is for a product that did not even appear at the show, nor did its manufacturer exhibit there. Everyone is waiting for Apple Computer to announce a tablet computing device.

Apple does not comment on speculation regarding product releases, and has been known to announce products that no one knew was coming. A lot of us are waiting for the "Apple Tablet", a device that is rumored to be a larger, non-cellular version of its iPhone product. Since Apple is extremely successful in guarding information about new products, we really don't know. Even if we did, should we rush out to go buy one?

We should remember the launch of the iPhone. It was cool back then, but we quickly forget that iPhones weren't selling for $99 or $199 with a two year phone contract. These 1.0 versions were selling for $499 and $599. They were no where near as capable as their successors today. One thing that seemed to be better back then than today was that no one was complaining about AT&T's data network and the drag it is on Internet browsing

If Apple does produce a tablet product, there is no doubt will it be drop gorgeous cool! But Apple also has a reputation of charging at the higher end for that cool. It won't mainstream at that higher price for some time. It is also rumored that it won’t be part of a wireless carrier's data plan, opting to be a wifi device, meaning there's no AT&T or Verizon to subsidize the cost. This is the biggest single reason that $99 iPhones exist. Certainly, Mac desktops and laptops aren't dropping as fast in price as iPhones did.

The question is how much are you willing to pay for cool that happens to be first generation? Cool wears off after use, and hardware doesn't have upgrade pricing like software. One thing I've learned about the tech industry is that it usually takes about three tries to get something right. Microsoft Windows didn't mainstream until version 3.0, and iPhones are flying off the shelves at 3.0. If Apple announces a tablet, I want one, but I don't get paid to be cool, I get paid to make sure my clients have the widest reach on mainstream Internet platforms, and the tablet won't satisfy this requirement just out of the gate.

Will you buy one if it is released? Will you be the leaders that show us the way, buy one for the eye-candy effect, or really make this device catch fire?

Let me know.

The Internet has revolutionized the way we do business, that's cliche. It has also ravaged the way others have done business, primarily the media business. The ones who are surviving want to charge to view content. What might the world look like if they succeed?

Should content be free?

If you are old enough to remember, automated teller machines (ATM's) used to be free. While there wasn't one on every commercial block, you could pull up to any machine and get cash. We got used to the convenience. Then the banks said that's enough. You were going to be charged to use an out-of-network machine. You might now have to do a little more planning, but if you had a Cash Station or Sirrus affiliated card, you weren't too inconvenienced. Then, the banks said that's enough. Now, the ATM had to be from YOUR bank. Still it didn't slow people down, because the charge, around $1 to use an out-of-bank-network fee, was nominal. Then the banks said that's enough. They began to raise prices on out-of-network cards, and then YOUR bank introduced fees for processing out-of-network transactions. Now we're paying currency exchange rates for a quick $20!

Media sites are feeling the pressure to charge. Will this work? I think not.

Unlike ATM machines, which allow us to get OUR OWN money, the Internet let's me get someone else's information. The music industry is a wreck because too many people don't value the content enough to pay for it. The movie industry would have suffered the same fate if not for the telephone and cable companies trying to cash in on increased download traffic by charging more for it.

At some point, content is going to start generating revenue. When that happens, the first thing to go will be search. I don't foresee search being useful when content becomes a profit center, exempted from an unsubscribed view. One of the formulas for search is the popularity of a page, or how many times it is accessed. Start charging, and the page and site popularity goes down. If that site is trying to generate ad revenue, it's limited to the subscribers, which will make it a niche publication. No matter how super-targeted your audience is, or how well-defined it is, advertisers will still pay for quantity, not just the quality. When free search results go down, so will the usefulness of the Internet.

The Internet used to be an information affair, until several refinements enabled secure shopping. While the commercial aspect of the Internet is most often talked about, many forget that surfers RESEARCH products and services BEFORE THEY PURCHASE! Charge surfers for the information they need to make a purchase, and there goes the cost advantage of the Internet. Sellers can't just set up free sites with loads of information. It's the independent, free sites that validate the transactional ones. Often, this information comes from FREE media sites.

I'm not sure what model will emerge that allows informational sites like the print media to begin acquiring revenue from their Internet sites. Maybe we as sellers need to pay for the privilege of selling. It would make online selling more expensive, but I'm not too sure that we will be doing any different than what we are doing today. We pay more for larger audience reaches now.

We might want to keep it that way.