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.
Sigh. Mr. Literal AC, you keep adding flourishes to bolster your weak point rather than sticking to the elements of the story. The lady did not know the of the limit on sales, therefore should could NOT have intended to break a law, a law that - say it again - she knew nothing about. Ignorance of the law (as most of us are ignorant of MOST laws on the books) does factor in to intent. We can argue whether it is a legitimate excuse, but it is absolutely material to establishing intent.
Also, your grammatical structure is a mess. By writing "I'm going to violate the law to obtain an illegal amount of a chemical substance in the hopes that I don't get caught" I believe you *intend* to say "I'm going to violate the law IN ORDER to obtain an illegal amount of a chemical substance, WITH the hope that I don't get caught" Your sentence is flawed as is your point.
Once again, Mr. Literal AC, your desire to be snide is leading you astray. In your irrelevant example, the person's intent in robbing the back is to illegally get money. Robbing a bank is illegal on its face, has been for eons across all cultures on the planet that have a concept of banks. This lady's intent was to buy a legally available medicine, paying money for it via a legal transaction. The transaction had every appearance to her of being legal and, in fact, those controlling the distribution of the substance (her local shop) provided her the product in exchange for the dollars.
Someone who says "I am going to rob a bank" - for whatever reason - is de facto intending to commit a crime. Someone who says "I'm going to buy legal medicine" is not intending to commit a crime.
My point, Mr. Literal, is that her intent was not to commit a crime, but to treat a cold. The breaking of the law was inadvertent, not knowing. I have no idea what the law clearly says, because I haven't seen the text of the law...I presume you have? Right. I'm betting this law is not well-advertised in the jurisdiction at all. In my area, you have to ask a pharmacist for the medicine, your drivers license number is recorded with each transaction, and are blocked from purchasing more than the allowed amount per week. Still stupid and burdensome, but it puts the burden on the pharmacist professional, not the cold-suffering lay person. This silly law appears to punish the purchaser, but not the seller. I've never understood laws that allow sale but not possession, or possession but not use. That's a further part of the stupidity here.
Re: It's not just the daft laws - it's the daft police
Here's a highly similar story from the US just today. Luckily, it appears that everyone involved realizes the regulation as written defies common sense and neighborhood goodness.
Absolutely agree, Alex. It's all about the perception of caring and doing something, not the reality. If every criminal law were benchmarked and reviewed for effectiveness in its intended purpose, our system would be much, much simpler, less expensive to operate and much more effective. Sadly, simple, cheap and effective are the antithesis of what politicians and government stand for.
A major factor in this stupidity is that over the last 30 years the notion of intent has been diminished in law enforcement and prosecutorial decisions. I'm not a member of the bar but I kinda recall that our inherited English common law requires the intent to commit a crime as a prerequisite for establishing criminality in many cases. Our modern system of juris prudence has dumbed-down that thinking to where just tangentially, unknowingly breaking even the most inane of laws can land a person in a world of hurt. I'm not saying the ignorance of a law is an excuse (though the fact is that no lay person can possibly understand all applicable law, including the many laws each of us break every day unknowingly), but rather that the intent to break a law once was a factor in establishing guilt or innocence. Except for hate crimes, where the *intention* is actually weighted as heavily as the crime itself (or more heavily), which is stupid in the other, thought police-style direction, intent is too often not a factor.
Unfortunately, in many jurisdictions, law enforcement (police) are being given less and less field discretion to avoid silliness. If the DIDN'T arrest this person, they might be subject to discipline or dismissal. I don't know that to be the case here, of course, but it is the case all too commonly now. As a result, I find less fault with the arresting officers than with the politicians passing draconian laws with tons of unintended consequences, and with the prosecutors who insist on seeing these silly things through to make some kind of political or societal point. The fact is if our politicians were public servants rather than career serial opportunists (hello universal term limits...PLEASE) they might read and think about these things before casting a vote. Alas, we see knee-jerk legislating going on from Congress to the local school board.
Mike, on the study, I think you're oversimplifying AND perhaps not reading the numbers deep enough. They surveyed 118 papers of all sizes - though they don't say which ones. The AVERAGE was 1.3 times the actual size of community served.
First there is the very important question about how those communities were defined. I can tell you living in the DC-Baltimore area that neither Nielson not the Census Bureau understand the points of exclusion or overlap between my areas, as an example. Community definitions, especially the old school SMSA are a real farce in some areas of the country.
Second, it's an average. So, let's assume (since we don't know) that they included several mega-papers...NYT and/or DC Post and/or NY Post, etc., etc. The number of uniques those guys get is likely far beyond their SMSA "community" population. It would also be the case for, say, a paper in Ann Arbor or Harrisburg to greatly exceed their SMSA in uniques, especially when Michigan or Penn State football season kicks in. There are numerous reasons why a paper's online unqiues would outstrip their local community size, especially when the community size is based upon narrow definitions like SMSA. And, to be sure, there are many papers at the other end that aren't frequented by as broad a group of users. But the AVERAGE still can make sense, in even a little methodological information was provided.
Also, the authors seem to embrace (to use TechDirt's favorite term) the a priori that the newspapers are all lying about their uniques. What is that based on? So, as for Greg's comment that "Common sense will tell you the chance is implausibly slim" that a newspaper's online readership is larger than the community service, I disagree and say it all depends. It is likely true in some cases, but EASILY shown erroneous in others. Where do these assumptions of his come from? He says he studied newspaper site traffic for years. How? Crappy Alexa? ComScore? Did publishers actually let him inside their shops? Judging from his website (http://www.beldeninteractive.com/) they don't exactly look like web geniuses. I'd love to see the details of the study...perhaps it is more primary source data and quality analysis than it appears...I doubt it.
All that said, with regard to the conclusion you reach with weak, weak support, I agree. Any expectation of 10 - 15% conversion from print to online subs, regardless of the basis number, is high. And transient visitors (most likely those outside of the base community) are much less likely to pay. Completely agree. Newspapers need to (and many are, I assure you) take this calculation seriously and in a sober state. But the need to trump up a flimsy charge is not necessary to make the point that the expectation *some* newspapers have is patently and characteristically unrealistic.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Publishers Have Been Selling E-books for Years
Good points. My overarching point is that mag publishers are not afraid of the questions or ignoring them, but are actively trying to figure out how to do this without blowing up their still profitable print editions. I agree that standards will likely have to change. Fact is they haven't and aren't going to quickly, so that is a real problem for the print mag industry.
I also agree that thin formats and such will eventually change the landscape and challenge the need for print at all for many pubs. But that isn't practical yet, and likely won't be for some time. 10 year horizon for the masses, I'd estimate. Remember, consumer mags have aggregate circulation in the hundreds of millions. It is NOT enough to have a cool device that 1 million early adopters have. To really re-make the industry, the technology and devices MUST be essentially ubiquitous.
The present alternative is to hook up with one or more device vendors and do all sorts of things to port your product to their format, only to then NOT be able to monetize it from an advertising perspective. Or, you can work on your own device like Hearst is doing, which, I think, is ill-advised. Industry standards would be nice, but will take time.
Journals are a good partial model, but the type of reader engagement is entirely different than with a consumer magazine. But surely there are lessons to be learned all around.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Publishers Have Been Selling E-books for Years
Tracking circulation is a lot more than just counting downloads. That's precisely the problem. What suffices for tracking in the anemic world on online advertising does not fly (generally speaking) in the print world. An electronically distributed version of a print product basically needs to meet the print guidelines. Now if the electronic product is a totally new and independent work, that's another matter entirely, but it also brings with it licensing and royalty additions, as well as the potential to provide no incremental circ benefit to the print product from a print advertising perspective.
On the post: Attacks On File Sharing Simply Drive People Further Underground
Re: Re: Re: history repeats itself
On the post: Results From Our CwF+RtB Business Model Experiment
Re: Re: Re:
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.
On the post: Results From Our CwF+RtB Business Model Experiment
Re: Re: Re: Thanks
On the post: Results From Our CwF+RtB Business Model Experiment
Thanks
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.
On the post: Shouldn't Intent Be A Part Of Criminal Law?
Re: Not always necessary
On the post: Shouldn't Intent Be A Part Of Criminal Law?
Re:
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.
On the post: The Rule Of Law Over The Rule Of Reason
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Intent
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.
On the post: The Rule Of Law Over The Rule Of Reason
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Intent
Also, your grammatical structure is a mess. By writing "I'm going to violate the law to obtain an illegal amount of a chemical substance in the hopes that I don't get caught" I believe you *intend* to say "I'm going to violate the law IN ORDER to obtain an illegal amount of a chemical substance, WITH the hope that I don't get caught" Your sentence is flawed as is your point.
On the post: North Face Goes After South Butt Over Trademark Infringement
Re: Finally, sophmoric humor is useful!
On the post: The Rule Of Law Over The Rule Of Reason
Re: Re: Re: Re: Intent
Someone who says "I am going to rob a bank" - for whatever reason - is de facto intending to commit a crime. Someone who says "I'm going to buy legal medicine" is not intending to commit a crime.
On the post: The Rule Of Law Over The Rule Of Reason
Re: This is nothing new
On the post: The Rule Of Law Over The Rule Of Reason
Re: Re: Intent
On the post: The Rule Of Law Over The Rule Of Reason
Re: It's not just the daft laws - it's the daft police
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090930/ap_on_re_us/us_baby_sitter_backlash_mich
On the post: The Rule Of Law Over The Rule Of Reason
Re: Benchmarks
On the post: The Rule Of Law Over The Rule Of Reason
Intent
Unfortunately, in many jurisdictions, law enforcement (police) are being given less and less field discretion to avoid silliness. If the DIDN'T arrest this person, they might be subject to discipline or dismissal. I don't know that to be the case here, of course, but it is the case all too commonly now. As a result, I find less fault with the arresting officers than with the politicians passing draconian laws with tons of unintended consequences, and with the prosecutors who insist on seeing these silly things through to make some kind of political or societal point. The fact is if our politicians were public servants rather than career serial opportunists (hello universal term limits...PLEASE) they might read and think about these things before casting a vote. Alas, we see knee-jerk legislating going on from Congress to the local school board.
This ain't the way it's supposed to be, folks.
On the post: The Lies Newspapers Tell Themselves About Their Traffic
Damn Lies and Statistics
First there is the very important question about how those communities were defined. I can tell you living in the DC-Baltimore area that neither Nielson not the Census Bureau understand the points of exclusion or overlap between my areas, as an example. Community definitions, especially the old school SMSA are a real farce in some areas of the country.
Second, it's an average. So, let's assume (since we don't know) that they included several mega-papers...NYT and/or DC Post and/or NY Post, etc., etc. The number of uniques those guys get is likely far beyond their SMSA "community" population. It would also be the case for, say, a paper in Ann Arbor or Harrisburg to greatly exceed their SMSA in uniques, especially when Michigan or Penn State football season kicks in. There are numerous reasons why a paper's online unqiues would outstrip their local community size, especially when the community size is based upon narrow definitions like SMSA. And, to be sure, there are many papers at the other end that aren't frequented by as broad a group of users. But the AVERAGE still can make sense, in even a little methodological information was provided.
Also, the authors seem to embrace (to use TechDirt's favorite term) the a priori that the newspapers are all lying about their uniques. What is that based on? So, as for Greg's comment that "Common sense will tell you the chance is implausibly slim" that a newspaper's online readership is larger than the community service, I disagree and say it all depends. It is likely true in some cases, but EASILY shown erroneous in others. Where do these assumptions of his come from? He says he studied newspaper site traffic for years. How? Crappy Alexa? ComScore? Did publishers actually let him inside their shops? Judging from his website (http://www.beldeninteractive.com/) they don't exactly look like web geniuses. I'd love to see the details of the study...perhaps it is more primary source data and quality analysis than it appears...I doubt it.
All that said, with regard to the conclusion you reach with weak, weak support, I agree. Any expectation of 10 - 15% conversion from print to online subs, regardless of the basis number, is high. And transient visitors (most likely those outside of the base community) are much less likely to pay. Completely agree. Newspapers need to (and many are, I assure you) take this calculation seriously and in a sober state. But the need to trump up a flimsy charge is not necessary to make the point that the expectation *some* newspapers have is patently and characteristically unrealistic.
On the post: Google Working On Micropayment Scheme To Help Newspapers Commit Suicide Faster
Non-starter
On the post: Facebook Ordered (Again) To Turn Over Source Code
Re: Anyone Who Has Ever...
On the post: Publishers Lashing Out At eBooks
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Publishers Have Been Selling E-books for Years
I also agree that thin formats and such will eventually change the landscape and challenge the need for print at all for many pubs. But that isn't practical yet, and likely won't be for some time. 10 year horizon for the masses, I'd estimate. Remember, consumer mags have aggregate circulation in the hundreds of millions. It is NOT enough to have a cool device that 1 million early adopters have. To really re-make the industry, the technology and devices MUST be essentially ubiquitous.
The present alternative is to hook up with one or more device vendors and do all sorts of things to port your product to their format, only to then NOT be able to monetize it from an advertising perspective. Or, you can work on your own device like Hearst is doing, which, I think, is ill-advised. Industry standards would be nice, but will take time.
Journals are a good partial model, but the type of reader engagement is entirely different than with a consumer magazine. But surely there are lessons to be learned all around.
On the post: Publishers Lashing Out At eBooks
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Publishers Have Been Selling E-books for Years
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