The Not-So-Cheap, but Colorful, iPhone

With Apple releasing a "cheap" iPhone that's $100 less expensive than its flagship model, and with the price gap being even smaller in China, the Wall Street Journal opines that the new iPhone may not be cheap enough for China.

With the cheaper phone, Apple will no doubt gain sales and market share. But it will still fail to reach the majority of city dwellers, according to a projection from the Wall Street Journal based on income distribution data from research firm CEIC Data.

The projection, developed in consultation with analysts, assumes that a working, urban family would be willing to spend, at most, half of its total monthly income on a single smartphone. Working on that assumption, around 260 million Chinese urban residents could potentially be willing to buy the iPhone 5c. That means cheaper iPhone effectively doubles Apple’s addressable market from the 125 million who would be willing to shell out for the more expensive handset.

My guess? Apple will sell iPhone 5c's as fast as it can make them, rendering moot the idea that it would sell more at a lower price. You can only sell your product as fast as you can make it. The new design is visually striking, and I think that's about more than just giving people a variety of colors to choose from. I think Apple designed the 5c with the goal of letting its customers in nations like China telegraph to their peers, "I can afford an iPhone." Given how status-conscious and luxury brand-focused Chinese consumers are reported to be, that's no small consideration.

It also means that an Apple phone is still too pricey to appeal to roughly 430 million people, or 62% of the country’s urban population.

So... only 263 million prospective customers, who happen to be the more affluent members of Chinese society. Apple sold 31.2 million iPhones last quarter, worldwide.

I appreciate the article's assertion that most Chinese consumers are looking for a phone that costs less than half of the price of a new iPhone, with many wanting to pay less than a quarter. But that's not a market that Apple is presently willing to serve, nor would it make sense for Apple to abandon its traditional business model and to start producing iPhones that could be sold at that price level. Will that give Android an advantage among bargain hunters? Yes, as will the array of larger-screened Android phones. But you don't make profits by selling low-quality merchandise at razor-thin margins, which is why Apple and Samsung are the only mobile phone manufacturers who are presently earning a significant profit from phone sales.

Smartphones will eventually become commoditized, a process that is accelerating with the release of attractive Android phones from several of Samsung's competitors. Apple won't be able to sustain its margins forever, although it is positioned to be the last man standing. The trick then becomes, how to leverage your platform into continued, significant profits. Apple has a number of advantages in that respect, including the fact that it has been careful to maintain backward compatibility in its devices. With most iPhones running the latest version of iOS, and with every iPhone built to Apple's standards, third party manufacturers can develop products and services that connect with the iPhone much more easily than they can with Android devices. It can only help Apple if, while Android remains the operating system of choice for bargain hunters, it holds its position as a phone of choice for affluent consumers around the world.

Even as the WSJ article suggests that Apple needs to make cheaper phones, it acknowledges the problem with that position:

Ma Tao, who owns a shop on the second-story of the electronics mall, echoed concerns that have already been voiced by some analysts: that the new phone would lead to a short-term spike in sales, but that it would erode Apple’s reputation as a maker of luxury high-end phones in the long run.

Meanwhile, the phone vendor they interviewed suggests that Samsung sales in China will suffer as customers opt instead for a considerably cheaper, Chinese "equivalent". It may turn out that Chinese consumers opt for the flagship iPhone, in silver, graphite or tacky gold, and those products are also designed to telegraph, "This is an iPhone". I'm taking a "wait and see" position on whether keeping the price "that close" will turn out to be a mistake, but I'm suspecting that for now it's a good move to maintain luxury pricing and to appeal to brand-conscious Chinese consumers, giving them a discount but also a brightly colored excuse to argue, "I picked this one because it's my favorite color, not because I wanted to save money".

I think that the article glosses over one of Apple's significant problems in the Chinese market - the size of its displays. The concept of a phone that you can operate with one hand is great, and Apple should continue to offer the standard sized iPhone. But if you've ever squinted at a small screen, consider what it would by like to read Chinese or Thai characters on an iPhone screen, or to enter text in an Asian script. Then consider the population that wants a bigger screen because it's better for videos and games. Or because they only want one device, and are attracted to the phablet.

If I were Apple... and I admit an uncanny knack for being incorrect in my Apple-related predictions... I would be thinking about releasing a larger-format iPhone no later than a year from now, and ideally in the spring.

Apple and the Decline of Microsoft

If the take-away is that big companies can sometimes lose track of how to compete effectively with smaller, nimbler, more innovative successors, there's nothing new to that story - it bears repeating, it's something companies should try to remember as they get big, and it's something most companies seem to forget given enough time, success, and/or an unfortunate choice of leadership. Paul Krugman argues that Apple could follow Microsoft into decline, and that it's situation could potentially be worse as it sells consumer products and thus isn't as insulated from market forces as Microsoft, which benefits from having lazy IT departments refuse to support Apple products. But that makes Apple more like Hewlett-Packard, a once great and innovative company that produced quality products, then lost its way under incompetent, bean-counting management that slashed its research budget and didn't care about quality. For that matter, you could compare the future theoretical decline of Apple to the past, actual decline of Apple, where bad decisions by Steve Jobs and his successor all-but-destroyed the company before Steve Jobs returned from NeXT with a much improved vision for the company. But for Apple's reinvention of itself, odds are that we wouldn't be fretting over whether the next iPhone will be only incrementally improved over the prior model and that Android would still be a Blackberry clone. Let's recall, Apple's big profits come not from software, but from hardware.

Krugman writes,

The story of how that state of affairs arose is tangled, but I don’t think it’s too unfair to say that Apple mistakenly believed that ordinary buyers would value its superior quality as much as its own people did. So it charged premium prices, and by the time it realized how many people were choosing cheaper machines that weren’t insanely great but did the job, Microsoft’s dominance was locked in.

On the contrary, I think Apple is painfully aware of the fact that many consumers, particularly those at the low end of the market, are choosing Android devices. Although Apple still suffers more than a bit from the Steve Jobs attitude of, "We know what you want better than you do" (an attitude Krugman notes in a blog entry on the subject) - and in fairness to Steve Jobs, at least during his second tenure at Apple he was often correct - they don't market their most profitable products in the manner that Krugman suggests. They're not trying to convince you to buy a $599 iPhone versus a bottom-of-the-market $100 Android phone. They're trying to get you to sign up for a two year contract with your phone carrier, with much of the purchase price being built into your service contract and your nominal purchase price being not much different from a low-end phone.

In terms of quality and pricing, for quite some time Apple's computers have stacked up quite well, feature-for-feature, with the diminishing pool of well-constructed PC's. But it has been my impression from the lack of development of their desktop market that they aren't interested in trying to make a huge - or even a modest - push for market share within that diminishing market. Not surprisingly, they like to manufacture products that are profitable, something that very few cell phone manufacturers do. They and Samsung presently sell cellular phones at a profit. Thanks to the increased quality of competing products, I suspect that Samsung will soon find itself facing a commoditized market for higher-end cell phones and Apple will be the last cell phone company that makes a significant profit from its hardware. Then, barring the unlikely event that we get something as disruptive to the industry as another iPhone, Apple will no longer be able to sell its cell phones for an appreciable premium over the commodity price - and the entire industry will have to glean its profits elsewhere. Apple is trying to establish a reliable ecosystem - hardware and software that work well together, allow most products that remain in service to be upgradable to the current operating system, and are easy and reliable platforms upon which third party software and hardware developers can manufacture apps and iOS-compatible products. Despite Android's quality, the fragmentation of its operating system and the fact that many phone manufacturers don't care if a two-year-old handset can be upgraded will impair its ability to offer the same opportunities. Apple intends to make money, even in a commoditized market, from app sales and licensing fees.

Krugman appears to be focusing on major disruption rather than modest innovation, even as he brings Yahoo! and Marisa Mayer into the discussion. If the resurgence of Yahoo! is a story to be believed... and I'm a skeptic... its resurgence will be the result of improvements at the margins. And that story would not be atypical. The biggest fortunes tend to be made not by the person who comes up with a concept or invents the early version, but with the person who comes up with an upgraded version of the product - something that ships better, something that's easier to manufacture, something that's easier to use. When Steve Jobs saw early versions of a window-based operating system and mouse at HP's then-famous labs, he saw the potential to transform them and turn them into products for a mass market. Jobs wasn't the inventor of the cell phone, display panel or touch screen - but he and his company came up with an innovative way to combine them.

Microsoft committed some odd, oversized errors over the past couple of decades that have contributed to its downward slide. As Krugman notes, they didn't see the potential of the iPhone, but more than that they didn't see the potential of the Internet. As Krugman noted, a lot of Microsoft's past success was built on its monopoly power, but its best and most profitable products were not major innovations. Windows built upon work that Microsoft performed for Apple, in developing the operating system for the Macintosh. It's office suite built upon software products that offered similar functionality, perhaps with modest improvement (but often without, or with 'innovative' features that you couldn't wait to turn off), and became dominant through bundling. Its browser became dominant through bundling, leading to the decline of Netscape, but it lost interest in developing a cutting edge browser pretty much the moment it no longer perceived Netscape as a threat.

Contrary to Krugman's inferences, having never been a user of Apple products, Apple did not always have a quality advantage over Microsoft or its associated hardware developers. Windows 95 incorporated some features that it took Apple years to emulate, and after Jobs left Apple's hardware quality plummeted. For that matter, for all of its innovative features, the early Macintosh suffered from having too few programs and too little RAM, as well as the odd design compromises that came from Steve Jobs' disdain for internal fans. Microsoft's present plight emerges from its failure to effectively enter new markets as the old ones faded - as operating systems became "good enough" that companies felt no need to upgrade every year or two, and as its Office suite became "good enough" that any changes it made from year-to-year were not likely to bring new sales, and as its customers tired of its game of modifying Word files such that you had to jump through hoops to save a document that would open on an older version of its software. In that sense we're back to the legitimate fear for Apple as a hardware company - that unless it comes up with a remarkable hardware innovation it's looking at a future where its products are commoditized and while, despite some people sticking with the company due to their library of iOS apps, many customers come to see little reason not to change platforms. Apple is trying to look beyond that day, and Google is struggling to convince Android developers to follow standards that will allow it to keep up.

Apple's biggest problems seem to come from copyright law, and entrenched monopolies and oligopolies. It is having difficulty coming up with a television product because of the difficulty of licensing content from media companies. Its products rely on Internet bandwidth, with many customers obtaining that bandwidth from cable monopolies. The iPhone demonstrated how you can create a breakthrough, profitable product in a tired, commoditized market, but without content there's no apparent room for a similar move in television. Also, most televisions these days would qualify as reasonably powerful computers, so it's not clear that Apple could offer a disruptive product that would not quickly be emulated, perhaps less artfully, by its competitors. People talk about an iWatch, and I think it is inevitable that Apple will produce a wearable device of some sort... although I don't think it is likely to be a watch in the sense that we have traditionally used that word, either in how it's worn or what it does, but all we can do at this point is speculate.

Google is, in a sense, playing Microsoft to Apple's iOS, offering a version of highly similar software for free, Microsoft Internet Exploder vs. Netscape's browser. I sometimes wonder if Google will continue to provide free operating system development for the world, or at least if it will be as quick to make its greatest innovations part of the core as opposed to part of a proprietary add-on, particularly as it attempts to spin Motorola up into a dominant manufacturer of Android phones. As with all of this stuff, time will tell.

Don't Trust Addiction Treatment Claims About Success Rates or Not Being a 12-Step Program

When you're trying to find a drug or alcohol treatment center for somebody you care about, you'll likely find yourself at a disadvantage. First, the person who needs treatment may attempt to impose conditions on the treatment center you choose and, even when they sound reasonable, some of those objections may be more about "How do I stay out of treatment or find something more akin to a spa than a treatment center" than about trying to find a good fit. Second, when you call treatment centers for information about their programs, you are trusting somebody at the other end of the phone to tell you the truth. Sometimes that happens, but often it does not - you may in fact be talking to somebody who works in more of a sales capacity than an intake capacity. Also, sometimes they'll share information in good faith but the experience will turn out to be quite different. If at all possible, visit a facility and get a sense of its program and stability before writing a check. Please note, even if the center is suggested to you by a facility that has a strong reputation, you should not trust the recommendation - you need to investigate any recommended facility and, if at all possible, visit the facility and see it for yourself.

One claim that many addiction programs make, that they really shouldn't, is a claim of how many people who complete their program remain sober. First, even if accurate (and it won't be) the statistic is going to be highly misleading - if you focus on treating teenagers who smoke marijuana, you're going to have a much higher "success" rate than if you're treating IV drug users. The same is true if you're counseling people who are concerned that they might be using too much alcohol or using too many drugs, coming to you as self-referrals, as opposed to people coming out of a multi-day medical detox who are not even slightly interested in being sober. Second, the definition of sobriety used by the program may be designed to give a misleading picture of the client's sobriety - focused on the "right now". Third, as responses to patient surveys are voluntary many clients who have relapsed either won't be located or won't respond. Fourth, the questions almost never extend to subsequent treatment - the quack program doesn't care if you had four relapses, completed three IOP's and spent 90 days in Hazelden between your graduation and the present, if you're sober they'll count you as a success. Fifth, the definition of what it means to complete a program can render the statistic meaningless.

One program I saw touted an 80% success rate at five years for patients who completed its program, and while it was a good program what they didn't tell you unless you asked was that they defined their program as being five years in duration, with completion meaning that through those five years you attended weekly meetings (free, or should I say, included in the price of the program) at their facility. If you stopped attending, you didn't complete the program. If you lived in another part of the state or country and thus couldn't attend those meetings, you weren't included in the statistic.

But the claim that makes immediately skeptical of a program is when it presents as a front and center part of its marketing, "We're not a 12-step program". Let me be clear: I am not wedded to the twelve step model. Twelve step program have an interesting history, emerging out of a religious self-improvement program and being transformed into a somewhat secular model for addiction support and recovery. A lot of people have difficulty with the notion of turning their will and life over to a higher power, or with making prayer and meditation part of their daily lives, even if you can do both in a largely secular manner. But as one addiction counselor, who himself had struggled with his fit with the twelve-step model, explained to me, "I tell my clients who have difficulty with the steps that if I had something better, I would send them to it instead, but I don't." Part of that is the fact that AA groups are everywhere, while non-12-step support groups remain relatively obscure. Part of AA's success results from primacy but, whether or not its critics choose to admit it, its success depends on people voting with their feet - the addicts in long-term recovery who go back to AA year after year do so because it works for them.

Through experience, 12-step programs implemented some measures that correspond to certain aspects of addiction and recovery. For example, in active addiction the addict's impulse control diminishes - desire and action become unchecked by rational thought. Twelve step programs attempt to interpose an outside reality check on the addict - if you are craving drugs or alcohol, go to a meeting or call your sponsor. As a period of sobriety expands, the internal mechanism between impulse and action can start to rebuild itself. Similarly, the concept of "90 in 90" - doing ninety meetings in your first ninety days of recovery - is reasonably consistent with the amount of time it takes for the addict's impulse control to start to approach normal levels. The social aspect of the group can be reinforcing - you're dealing with people who have been through what you have, or worse, and they want you to succeed in your recovery. They'll also welcome you back if you relapse. The group's sayings and slogans can give you something to think about, even if you reject the larger program.

It's important to recall, however, that although treatment and therapy can incorporate aspects of the twelve-step model, twelve step programs are not therapy. They're structured peer support, coupled with a structured self-improvement program. Twelve step programs are an adjunct to treatment and, while some people achieve and maintain sobriety without any treatment or participation in 12-step or non-12-step support program, many people need the longer-term peer support and accountability. If you find a program that works for you, be it a 12-step program or one of the lesser-known non-12-step alternatives, it makes sense to take full advantage of the program. There's no reason you can't try more than one program, even at the same time, to see what works.

One of the reasons that long-term participants in 12-step programs can be dismissive of the argument, "I tried a twelve-step program and it didn't work for me," or "The twelve steps are nonsense", or "I don't see why I need to completely abstain from alcohol or substance use to be sober," is that they made those same arguments in their own early recovery. Sometimes they made those arguments for a period of years before they finally did what AA demands, surrendering themselves to the program, and that's when it worked. Again, I'm not arguing that 12-step programs can or will work for everybody, and if you're around addicts long enough you'll see unfortunate cases where a person who had achieved many years of recovery ends up relapsing despite seemingly doing everything right, but there is something to the argument that if you surrender to the program it can work for you.

The primary purpose of a marketing hook, "We're not a 12-step program", is to reach people who either are alienated by the very concept of the 12 steps, or people who find them difficult or intimidating. Were the argument intended to reach people interested in science-based recovery, it would put science front and center rather than a rejection of the twelve steps. To the extent that a recovery program can identify addicts who will or will not benefit from a particular treatment modality and channel them into programs and support groups that are likely to work for them, I'm all for it. But, as much as they may protest otherwise, when they flatly reject the 12-step model in toto they are rejecting approaches to treatment that have been documented to work for many people. If you're going to claim to offer science-based treatment of addiction the science should be front and center, not the rejection of a particular approach to treatment.

L.A. Weekly published an in-depth article about a treatment center that claims to reject the 12-step model,

I tell [a person who completed the program] that despite [the proprietor] Prentiss’ denouncements of 12-step programs, I saw residents’ schedules on the wall that indicated optional A.A. meetings.

“When I was there, we did six or seven [A.A.] meetings a week. Two or three in-house and the rest out,” he says. “And they were mandatory. When Chris wrote his book [The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure],that ended. That’s when he decided A.A. was the villain, because he decided he could make a fortune if he just claimed he had found the cure for alcoholism.”

The business executive continues in an upbeat, almost appreciative tone: “Chris has a brilliant scheme that they have cooked up there. He has the perfect sales pitch.” His voice suddenly drops. “I know. I fell into it. It’s a beautiful sales pitch when someone is at the end of their rope.”

When I tell Stuart I couldn’t find any of the success stories Prentiss brags about, he tells me, “People come in there, they fail and nobody can call him on it. He’s got clients with confidentiality agreements to hide behind.”

How did anybody at all get sober, I ask? The answer, says Stuart, is the ironic one: A.A. I remind Stuart just how adamant Prentiss was with me in mocking A.A.

“Chris was having trouble filling the beds, and the minute he changed the message, they filled to the brim. He created a cash machine,” Stuart [a person who spent $250,000 on the program] says. “After my stay in ’05, I was invited back as someone early in recovery, and I started talking of all the people I had been there with who had relapsed. And my message was, this is a great place, it’s just not gonna teach you anything about staying sober when you leave.”...

[Dr. Jason Giles, former medical director of the center] repeatedly hedges when asked to talk about Prentiss, but finally says, “The interesting part, I think, is how people are vulnerable to charlatans. I think these rehabs are modern-day quackery.”

Then he lowers his voice to a whisper and adds, “I’ve been in contact with a lot of my former patients from when I was there and the data, the data do not come anywhere near what he is quoting as his [84.4 percent] success rate.”

This came to mind when I saw an invitation to submit questions to the medical director of an addiction treatment center on the New York Times website. The center utilizes the 12-step model, so predicably the critics of the twelve-step approach appeared to denounce it. One in particular was pushing an "education program" as an alternative to treatment, sharing this link.

Outside independent professional research firms have certified a long-term success rate of at least 62% for the St. Jude’s Program. This compares to a success rate in the range of 0-20% for conventional programs.

Let's take a look at an example of that "research".

Clearwater consulted with BRI regarding the specific information needed for fielding. Baldwin [the parent company for the education program] and Clearwater mutually agreed to have Clearwater use Microsoft Access to randomly choose names from a list provided to Clearwater by BRI. After the names were selected, Clearwater accessed BRI’s in ‐ house database containing contact information for each participant in the Jude Thaddeus Program to gather specific information that was copied manully into a spreadsheet. The contact information was loaded into our CATI system and the interviewers began to contact designated individuals and complete interviews.

It catches my attention that no claim is made that BRI provided a complete list of people who have completed the program.

Out of a total of 956 records called, 232 resulted in completed interviews with both parties, giving an overall response rate of 26.17%. Clearwater interviewers “chased” members of the sample who were not reachable at the household or telephone number provided by BRI when someone we contacted could provide us with an updated telephone number.

The low response rate should catch anybody's attention, especially given this note:

Many Guests to whom we were never able to speak with were actually back in rehabilitation again. That information was tracked in the attempt messages, but may be something that should be tracked more quantitatively using a specific disposition or answer choice.

First, it's a misnomer to say "again", given that the program being investigated is an educational program, not a therapeutic program. Second, why exclude from the claimed success rate the percentage of people who could not be surveyed because they were in treatment?

Also, the survey appeared designed to maximize the number of respondents who could claim to be sober,

Have you been sober, not using any illicit drugs or alcohol, for at least the last 30 days?

Self-reporting is a relatively poor method of evaluating sobriety. Some of the people contacted had provided a "corroborator" who was independently asked if the alumnus was sober. When reached, the corroborators indicated a lower level of sobriety than the alumni. Yet the program's official website presents a conspicuous pie graph labeled "62.5% sober for the past 23 years", a claim that they know to be at best highly misleading. As I interpret the graph they are deliberately implying that 62.5% of people who complete their program are verifiably sober after completion, when they know that's anything but the truth.

Going back to the website linked from the New York Times, the statistical argument gets worse,

This compares to a success rate in the range of 0-20% for conventional programs. Data published by Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) indicates that its 12 step method has a success rate of no more than 5%. Research also finds that no treatment at all has a success rate of about 30%. This suggests that traditional 12 step programs are less effective than doing nothing.

The "success rate in the range of 0-20% for conventional programs" statistic seems to have been fabricated. No source or context is provided.

In terms of the claim that AA "has a success rate of no more than 5%", if you hear that from any person or entity claiming to be an expert in either addiction treatment or 12-step programs, my suggestion is to run away. The figure being described is a one-year retention rate - how many people who start AA within a particular 12-month period continue to attend meetings. In a survey of people who are attending AA, "35 percent were sober for more than five years; 34 percent were sober from between one and five years; and 31 percent were sober for less than one year. The average time sobriety of members is more than five years." As I indicated earlier, the people who keep going back to AA (and who do the work necessary to pay for meeting space, set up the space, provide coffee, make literature available, etc.) do so because it works for them. If you have to fabricate a 95% failure rate in order to promote your program, the reflection is on your program and not on AA.

According to somebody who reports having twice completed the St. Jude program,

For me, the greatest injustice of all is St. Jude/BRI's CONSTANT slandering of A.A. No, not because I support A.A. (it's a religious cult, with rigid dogma and rituals and little to zero efficacy), but because....well....the St. Jude Thaddeus program IS A.A. I know, weird right? Basically, the St. Jude program is identical to the 12-steps, and its crux (and a "guests" likelihood of success) rests on willingness to "serve others". In A.A. that means make coffee, give away cigs, and **** vulnerable women. At St. Jude it means do dishes, hide candy under your roommate's pillow, and **** vulnerable women. Essentially, instructors act as sponsors who aid in a "guest's" acceptance, surrender (formal surrender prayer said with a sponsor, shit, I mean instructor) a detailing of misdeeds and character flaws, a drafting of an ammends list, and on and on. The only difference? St. Jude insists meetings are unnecessary, it's all about choice, and that after completing the "workbook" you're cured for life!! I just can't believe how much effort they put into distancing themselves from A.A. whilst simultaneously being A.A.

So again we have a program that bashes AA but reportedly adopts or utilizes many of its precepts. The alumnus recognizes the marketing aspect, "St. Jude needs A.A. to exist so they can sell their services based around NOT being A.A.". It's also surprising how some of the most vocally anti-AA treatment centers and programs seem to be owned or operated by people who have no credentials in either behavioral health or addiction treatment.

Somebody who makes a statement along the lines of, "Conventional treatment and 12-step methods of recovery don't work", is being no more true to the facts than somebody who claims "Conventional treatment and 12-step methods of recovery always work". No treatment works for all addicts all of the time, and some treatments that won't work for an addict at one state of addiction or recovery may well be effective when they've reached a different stage in their recovery (or lack thereof).

"You're Not Doing Any Online Marketing?"

For goodness sake, salespeople, do your homework.

I received a "follow-up" call to an email that probably triggered my spam filter, from a major publishing company that was pitching "web marketing solutions". I indicated that I was not interested, which triggered the response, "So you're not doing any online marketing?"

Technically speaking, I suppose, there's something to that. I haven't been trying to recruit legal business online for quite a few years, and my online marketing materials are thus way out of date. But I do happen to run some legal websites that, although not as well-trafficked as those of the biggest legal publishers (with their large staffs and multi-million dollar advertising budgets) do manage to get their fair share of web traffic. When your primary website, through which you market thousands of lawyers, gets roughly three times the traffic of my primary website, you should know that up front and think about whether "You're not doing any online marketing?" is the right question.

When it Comes to Tablets, Microsoft is Overplaying its Hand

Perhaps inspired by a burning desire to do a "gotcha" over the historic "Mac vs. PC" ads, where a guy who needed a shave pokes fun at a pudgy guy in a suit, or perhaps inspired by the increasingly tiresome, "You have an iPhone? Let me show you this cool feature in my Samsung" ads, Microsoft is taking a potshot at the iPad:

The ad makes three basic criticisms of the iPad:

1. 1. It has a relatively bland, traditional desktop whereas Windows 8 uses "smart tiles" that continuously update;

2. 2. It does not multi-task; and

3. 3. Microsoft has dropped the ball when it comes to writing software for iOS.

It then presents an intentionally misleading price comparison between the iPad and an entry level Windows tablet (with a much lower resolution screen¹ and plastic case).

The first two issues are in no small part about power management. I can't tell you the degree to which Apple may incorporate multi-tasking or updating in the next version of iOS, which will include a significant revision of much of the user interface, but history suggests that Apple will continue to favor long battery life over power-draining features that have limited utility. Don't get me wrong - I would like Apple to allow users to have greater choice, even if it means that they will need to recharge their iPads more often. But it's highly misleading to suggest, "Our new mobile OS is really cool" without addressing how that coolness affects battery life and performance.

In terms of iOS not offering Microsoft Excel, well, yeah... Microsoft has delayed producing a version of Office for iOS to the degree that it's difficult to infer any motive but Microsoft's traditional, "Delay upgrading and offer inferior versions of Office for Apple products." Perhaps their next commercial will show some sort of Zune software running on the Windows tablet, with iTunes running on the iPad? My, how turnabout can sting.

Right now I'll admit to having more computers in my house than occupants. One is OS-X, two are Windows 7. And we also have a couple of tablets. The people who claim that tablets are mere toys, or are about to go the way of the Dodo, either haven't used one or aren't paying attention to how they're used. Games aside, a tablet is an incredibly useful tool for consuming online content - checking email, browsing the web, watching streamed or stored video, video conferencing and the like. Responding, "I can do all of that on my desktop or notebook" misses the point - the convenience and portability factor. A few years ago if you went to an airport you would see a lot of people working on notebook computers, trying to scrounge an outlet. These days you see an even larger number of people using tablets to read or otherwise entertain themselves, and notebook users have a lot less competition for those outlets.

But if I'm trying to type or edit a document, work on a spreadsheet, or do any sort of complex or multi-window task, I want to be at my desktop computer with a large monitor and keyboard. It may well be that I would be impressed with the touchscreen UI for Excel. I doubt it, given how unimpressed I am with the touchscreen UI for Windows 8, but Microsoft could surprise me. But what would I do if I actually needed to work on a spreadsheet? I would set down the tablet and use either one of our portable computers or my desktop computer - because they're better designed for that kind of work.

The Samsung ads, in my opinion, have devolved from being cute and funny to, more or less, showing Samsung owners wearing out their own arms by patting themselves on the back.² Oddly enough, Microsoft seems to understand this, even if they don't actually present a reason to buy a Windows phone other than "It's not an Apple or a Samsung".

The difference is this: If I weigh the pros and cons of the various smartphones available today, I can come up with valid reasons why I might prefer a Samsung over an Apple, or vice versa. If I put the two phones next to each other and run various tasks, I am going to see why I might prefer one over the other.

But if I were to recreate the comparison from Microsoft's commercial at an electronics store, putting the Asus tablet next to an iPad and running various apps, I would not have the experience depicted in the commercial. I would immediately see that the Samsung had an inferior build and display. And from the reviews I've read, I would see the Asus tablet slow down or become momentarily non-responsive when multi-tasking. I might notice that the battery has a significantly lower capacity than that of the iPad, and while crediting advances in CPU technology for its reasonably long battery life nonetheless recognize that the battery life is extended by the use of the much lower-resolution screen. Reviews indicate that I would find the cameras in the ASUS to be of good quality, but that I would likely be displeased by the camera software. And while the tablet might perform better if it weren't running a full version of Windows 8, without that you would have to drop the "And look how well it runs Microsoft software" part of the ad.

I'm reminded of the highly effective commercials Microsoft ran, touting the sub-$1,000 entry price for Windows notebook computers. I'm also reminded of how that series of commercials fizzled out when Apple started offering sub-$1,000 notebooks and Microsoft started touting lower price points - instead of comparing computers of reasonably comparable build and performance, getting into a quality of build and performance that no reasonable consumer would find to be a compelling point of comparison to the Apple product.

If Microsoft's goal is to get buzz, the victory goes to Microsoft - here I am talking about their products. But if its goal is to convince consumers to buy Windows tablets, the commercial seems to oversell the product, creating the potential for customer dissatisfaction at a time when Microsoft needs to build a significant user base for its tablets and risks increasing consumer skepticism of its marketing pitches.
---------------------
1. The Asus screen offers 1,366 x 768 pixels, for a pixel density of 155 ppi. The iPad offers 2048 x 1536-pixels, for a pixel density of 264 ppi.

2. Commercials I would like to see:

"Why are you and that other guy bumping your phones together?"
"My phone has this awesome feature that allows me to exchange data by bumping it into somebody else's phone, does your phone do that?"
"Um... my phone has email."

"Hey, you're using an iPhone. Wanna see this really cool feature my phone has that yours doesn't have yet? No? You said 'No?' What do you mean, you wouldn't use that feature? What do you mean, 'pro's and con's to every phone'?"

"You waited in line to buy your phone? I got a phone that nobody waits in line for. Wait, that didn't come out the way I wanted."

Why Girl Scout Cookies Aren't Sold Online

At Marketing Pilgrim, Cynthia Boris is perplexed,

This isn’t the first time we’ve had this discussion, but it’s even more ridiculous now than it was two years ago. eCommerce is a thriving, legitimate means of selling a product. Yet, the Girl Scouts say it doesn’t foster entrepreneurial skills. Really? I think there are several dot.com billionaires that would disagree.

Selling online taps into the same basic business rules as offline selling – customer service, marketing, inventory control, shipping. Meeting the customer face-to-face isn’t a requirement for success, nor is learning to handle paper dollars.

That's the thought I had when somebody told me, way back in the day, about Amway's "Quixtar" online service. You were in effect being asked to sell an interface to online shopping, but you couldn't market the 'product' online. The "why" seems pretty obvious - if you were highly effective at getting people to sign up for the service via your online marketing, you would grab prospects from all over the country (or world). That would undermine the traditional MLM model behind Amway's historic success - building local networks through friends, colleagues, family members, and local networking events.

The Girl Scout cookie sales thing... back when I was young (and in another country) once a year the Girl Scouts would come to your door peddling mediocre sandwich cookies. I recall chocolate, vanilla, and... perhaps a combo back that included both types of cookie. By the time I next paid attention, somebody was showing me the panoply of cookie choices from the U.S. Girl Scouts, with big tables set up outside of stores - a very different product, and I expect much easier to sell. More recently, the manner in which Girl Scout cookies are sold seems to be this: A parent tells you, "Little Jillian is selling Girl Scout cookies again. Would you like to order some?" If you say "Yes," they give you an order form and tell you how you can collect your purchase when it arrives. Other than at supermarket tables, the role of the Girl Scout in this process seems quite small.

What difference does it make if Girl Scouts start selling the cookies online, with nationwide sales? You erode the local aspect of the business, and the funding that the sales produce for the local chapter. I'm not sold on the "it teaches leadership skills and confidence" aspect of sales - door-to-door sales are pretty unusual these days, and they are typically very closely monitored. I suspect it is parents who hand out those forms who have diminished the number of door-to-door sales - in the past you may be planning to buy cookies from your niece, but what's the harm in buying another box from a kid at the door. Now you have an order form from your niece and you'll have six, eight boxes of your favorites coming in, and odds are the kid at the door is only taking orders, so it's "Sorry, I've already ordered cookies." But if you turn this into a website design and marketing contest, you'll end up with a handful of websites raking in the lion's share of cookie sales. "Sorry, Jillian's mom, but I already placed my order."

The national organization is not without sin, here. I've seen "limited edition" candy that uses the Girl Scout brand and cookie flavors on sale in convenience stores. Push hard enough in that direction and you may as well market them like any other seasonal confection found in your local grocery or convenience store.

Netflix Strategy and House of Cards

Seth Godin makes the argument that Netflix made a marketing mistake with its release of the entire first season of House of Cards:

HBO understands this, and used shows like the Sopranos to build subscriptions. The day after each episode, people at work would talk about what happened the night before. Not two days later, or four days later, but the very next day. If you didn't watch or didn't have HBO, you felt left out....

Today, of course, we don't wait for work the next day. We talk about it now. And the mistake Netflix made was that they didn't drip. They didn't queue it up for their viewers, didn't coordinate and sync the buzz. In short: they didn't tell you WHEN to talk about it. If "spoiler alert" comes up too often, then we're afraid to speak and afraid to listen (depending on where we are in the viewing cycle).

While I agree that Netflix might have generated some buzz by releasing the episodes on a weekly basis, and that the buzz could draw in new viewers, I think that they both recognized the different expectations of their viewers and also the difficulty of establishing the required level of viewership and buzz in that manner. For example, I've read a number of reviews in which the writer commented that he didn't really get hooked until the fifth or sixth episode. Also, it's not particularly unusual for Netflix to provide TV content, one season at a time, so it has viewers who are used to the luxury of being able to watch all of the episodes from a particular season over a short period of time.

If Netflix releases the entire second season of House of Cards at once, I'll agree with Godin - they don't "get it". But if, as I suspect, they start releasing their original material on a week-by-week basis, I think it's fair to say that the release of the complete first season was a strategic move. While Godin may be correct that an HBO-style strategy would have been better from the outset, I think a compelling case can be made that Netflix needs to establish itself as a producer of high quality original programming and get its members hooked on its original, streamed content before it shifts to a more traditional schedule for releasing new episodes.

The Problem With the Paywall

CJR offers the case in favor of newspaper paywalls. But as the article indicates, " A paywall is not a magic solution". Newspapers have experienced a drastic change in the way news is distributed and consumed, and although a well-designed paywall may help make up some of the lost revenue there's no going back to the way things were.

The problem is, people don't have unlimited time, attention and money. If you put content behind a paywall you reduce your audience, and if you don't get enough people to subscribe you can reduce or lose your relevance. With free online news, many people have become accustomed to obtaining information from sources they would not have consulted prior to the rise of the Internet, and many of the local sources of news coverage have crumbled or collapsed. But the person who might have once purchased a newspaper subscription may think twice about buying subscriptions to multiple online news sources, even if the net cost is lower. It's not just that the nature of the expenditure is different, and irrational though it may be it can feel different to have somebody deliver a tangible newspaper to your doorstep as opposed to browsing a newspaper website. It's that people can only process so much information.

Also, once behind a paywall the experience of reading news online is changed. If you use news aggregator sites, you are apt to favor the sources that are free or to which you already subscribe. If you try to change reader behavior - "Start at our site", or "Get your news through our app" - you're likely to trigger more frustration than satisfaction.

I have a ridiculous number of channels available as part of my cable subscription, most of which I never watch, don't care about, and wouldn't miss. If cable subscribers had to subscribe to them individually, many would go out of business. But the companies that sponsor those channels get a small fee each month, so that I can read their content. That seems like a sensible model for media companies - work through internet service providers, or perhaps through operating system developers, and work out a licensing scheme. Let people pick the media packages they want, paying a single fee to the provider, and thereby get access to "behind the paywall" content for the news companies in their package.

When I look at the few successful paywalls at large media companies, I can't help but think of the handful of cable channels that were once able to profit from individual subscriptions. I suspect that the future lies in packages.

And it Should Walk on the Water - And Be Free!

Consumer expectations like this lead me to believe that, should Apple produce a 7" (or so) tablet computer, it will be sold as an iPod.

Update: Upon reflection, I would consider branding the mid-sized device the "iPad Reader" - to attempt to position it as something other than a budget iPad, and also to provide clear notice up-front that the functionality will be a bit different because it's primary purpose is for reading.

The End of Google Shopping as a Price Comparison Service

Back in the earlier days of the Internet, a clever guy came up with an idea for a directory made up of nothing but ads, based up a pay-per-click model with advertisers bidding against each other for prime placement. The website and associated patents were acquired by Yahoo!, and were licensed by Google shortly before its IPO for... a ton of money. Google's subsequent history suggests that, as much as it paid, it got the better half of the bargain.

Now it seems that history is coming full circle, with Google transforming its frequently renamed and reinvented price comparison service into what amounts to a directory or search service for ads (and nothing but ads). I have to say... I'm a bit disappointed. Not because I don't see Google as having a right to charge merchants to promote themselves through a shopping service, or that I think such a service is free or easy to run - in fact, I can see how paid inclusion could help ensure that merchants keep their listings current and accurate, diminish the number of fraudulent and misleading entries, and make the service much easier to manage. My disappointment is that I use the product to comparison shop, and if merchants choose not to participate or those offering better deals don't have the budget to compete with better capitalized but more expensive competitors, the service won't fill my needs. Not even close. Not even in the same ballpark.

I don't mind paying a premium for a better product or service, but I don't want to have the good deals hidden behind mediocre vendors with large advertising budgets. I hope that Google's reinvented service turns out to be a lot more sophisticated, and useful, than the announcement and present commentary suggest.

Ever Since Charleton Heston Gave Soylent Green a Bad Name....

It was healthy, nutritious, and people seemed to like it, but then Heston got all bent out of shape about it....

In the New York Times, Philip Boffey asks what would happen if "pink slime" meat were called something other than "pink slime". You know, like the industry's preferred "lean finely textured beef", but certainly not an objectively fair name such as "ammonia-washed meat scraps". He argues,

At first consideration, lean finely textured beef is admittedly not all that appetizing. It is derived from the fatty scraps that remain after steaks and roasts are carved out of a beef carcass. The fat is spun off and any pathogens in the remnant are killed off with that small amount of ammonia. But the truth is this product does not differ greatly from the rest of ground beef, which is also mostly scraps and remnants.

As for how it tastes, we conducted a test at the Times cafeteria and in my home kitchen of ground beef patties, some in which pink slime made up 15 percent and others without it. Four of our testers, including me, preferred the burgers with pink slime. I found it more tender. Three others preferred the burgers without. No one found any of the burgers slimy.

The first part of the argument is not unreasonable, but it's fair to ask how contaminated, fatty, and meat-free a scrap should be before he would argue that it should no longer be considered appropriate for having the fat "spun off", being rinsed in ammonia, and being mixed into other food of less ignoble origins. But for the fact that repurposing that near-waste material for people is more profitable than other uses, it would likely be used in animal feed or pet food. And when you look at the origins and processing of "pink slime" meat, the answer of those who advocate its (preferably secret) inclusion in human food products would presumably be "never" - as long as the ammonia rinse were sufficient to kill the pathogens, they are fine with its inclusion in products intended for human consumption.

The question of how it tastes is peripheral to the reason people object to its inclusion in their food. As some have pointed out, there are products that are part of foods we often eat that are every bit as disgusting, and in some cases much more disgusting, than ammonia-rinsed, finely ground beef scraps. Mechanically separated chicken comes to mind - and has a taste and texture that is harder to hide. The author's implication that at a 15% mix, most people won't notice the inclusion of "lean finely textured beef" in their burgers, and might even prefer it, is fair, but that's not really why people object. When people learn that offal-tainted cutting room scraps are being ammonia-washed and put back into their food, the reaction of disgust comes from that part of the brain that tries to keep us safe and healthy. "But some amount of dung makes its way into all ground beef, and the ammonia wash makes this safer," isn't the sort of argument that is apt to overcome the natural revulsion. A more likely reaction is, "How about we try to clean up the production so that don't need to have this discussion about comparative levels of dung contamination in our food supply," or perhaps just, "Ew."

Frankly, in terms of the preservation of the species, I think that the natural reaction people have to "pink slime beef" is a more healthy one than "As long as the ammonia wash kills off the E. coli it's fine by me."

"He Said 'Pad'... Huh huh huh huh"

A surprising number of media outlets seems to be going into "Beavis and Butthead" mode over the Apple iPad. Either repeating or "covering" the "joke":

Then there are the jokes bouncing around the Web about the name's suggestion of a feminine-hygiene product. A headline in the Winnipeg Free Press reads: "The iPad Is a Really Bad Name. Period."

You know, there's just nothing particulary funny or taboo about the word "pad".

If Steve Jobs declares a larger version, branding the two options as 'mini' and 'maxi', I'll concede that it would be a bad branding decision. (But guess what - he hasn't.)

Watch Ads and Earn...

Apple received a bit of media attention recently for a patent that describes hardware-based verification that somebody has watched an ad on their computer or mobile device. There was some speculation at the time that the goal might be to give away free hardware, with users watching ads in order to keep (for example) a free iPod or iPhone unlocked and working. Then Apple acquired a music streaming service - ten cent songs. Then it acquired Quattro Wireless, a firm specializing in mobile ads.

Some have speculated that Apple may use its aforementioned patent to offer free or steeply discounted hardware, requiring people to watch ads to keep it unlocked. That's possible, sure, but I am not betting on it. I don't think it's much fun to have to keep unlocking your hardware, nor do I think it's particularly sensible to give away hundreds of dollars of hardware in the hope that people will actually watch ads as opposed to dumping it in a drawer, while also diminishing any sense of exclusivity among those who have (and would continue to) pay for the same hardware without the ads.

I suspect that what we're going to see is a set of products aimed at people who might otherwise be inclined to get their music through unlicensed sources. Rather than trying to find an mp3 file online or through P2P services, they can watch an ad on their iPhone or iPod to get access to the song, or possibly even access to a streamed library of music otherwise available by subscription. Advertisers are happy because the demographic they're targeting can be confirmed to be watching their ads. Record company executives are happy because they get more revenue. Apple is happy because it sells more hardware to people interested in 'free music' - and those customers are happy because, although they have to watch ads from time to time to access everything they want, they don't pay anything out-of-pocket. Meanwhile the very broad patent language warns other manufacturers (such as you known who) that they aren't allowed to implement the same feature on their products.

And for people who are happy with the status quo, nothing changes.

Then again, based upon my track record of trying to anticipate moves by Steve Jobs, I'm probably completely wrong. ;-)

Wow, Google's Fast....

Not so many years back you would put content up on the web, wait for evidence that a search engine had spidered your site, then wait a few months for it to start showing up in search engine results. Google put an end to all that, and has brought us something close to instant gratification....

That post I put up earlier today (on Legal Media Relations) sorta poking fun at a web PR guy and his "authoritarian" web presence? It's presently showing up for "legal media relations" in Google - in the number three spot, behind that guy's principal sites. You heard it here first, folks: The stopped clock is now displayed in five or more first--page, top-10 results (although I'm still not sure what that means).

The lesson of the day: Don't suggest that there's skill involved in ranking for a search phrase for which you have no competition.

Update (Sept. 29): Easy come, easy go. There's apparently still a "freshbot" phenomenon in Google, which makes sense, giving a temporary boost to the newest content its spiders find. I still rank for the phrase "legal media relations", but now on page two of the SERPs.

Update (Oct. 4): Easy go, easy come? I'm back in spot #3 for "legal media relations" in Google.

Legal Media Relations

I followed the author of the law firm website marketing article I just discussed to his own site:

Richard Lavinthal's authoritarian Web search appearances stem from decades of public, private and NGO legal media relations for some of the biggest legal cases in America.

Maybe, just maybe, the word he was looking for was "authoritative"?

That relates to the following claim:

If you search Google, Yahoo or Bing, the three top search engines delivering nearly 94% of all U.S. searches. Richard Lavinthal, and his legal PR service, PRforLAW, LLC will be displayed in five or more first--page, top-10 results.

If I search the major search engines for what? If I just keep hammering in random search terms, or assign ten thousand monkeys to the task, I'll eventually find five search phrases for which his site ranks?

He gives one example of his ranking, for the term "legal media relations". Given that there's no appreciable competition or demand for that term, that's not much of a surprise. I rank really well for "demockery in action" - without even trying. (But nobody's searching for that phrase.)

Update: The language quoted above has been rephrased,

Top search engines Google®, Yahoo®, Bing® or Ask® deliver nearly 99% of all U.S. searches. Richard Lavinthal, at PRforLAW, LLC appears in more first-page, top-10 "organic" results. These are unpaid authoritative links, There are thousands of PR practitioners in agencies of all sizes in the United States who would be pleased to appear in just one top-ten search "hit."

I am still not sure what the first assertion is intended to mean - he appears in more top search resorts than whom? (And if I were to nitpick, a comma is substituted for a period.) But it is otherwise much improved.

Hey Gold Miner - Need a Pick Axe?

Looking over law.com's rss feed, I saw,

Web Sites on the Case

Pervasive Web search tools have opened the door to a valuable new marketing opportunity for law firms: the litigation or case-specific Web site. Unlike a firm's legacy site or blog, these case sites can allow smaller firms to catapult their reputations and compete against Big Law.

I had the instant suspicion that this article would read like an infomercial, pitching the serviced of the author as opposed to the merits (and disadvantages) of a case-specific website. I've commented on this before. In my opinion, law office blogs (and similar microsites) should be part of the main website.

Now don't get me wrong - there's nothing wrong with looking at the web as a medium for advertising and marketing, just like any other. You can get a ton of PR and marketing benefits from materials you post to a website owned and controlled by somebody else. But if it's going to be your content on your site, most of the time you're better off putting all of your content under one (virtual) roof. From the strategy of building a strong website and strong online reputation, I think the claims in the second paragraph below are just about... entirely incorrect:

The pervasion of Internet search has opened the door to a valuable new marketing opportunity for law firms: the litigation or case-specific Web site. Unlike a law firm's legacy Web site or its blog, case-specific Web sites can allow smaller firms to catapult their reputations and compete against larger practices.

Litigation Web sites should not be confused with conventional Web sites. They must stand apart from firms' legacy sites with unique domain names and IP addresses.

First, a good website has existing links, authority, and reputation. It's in your existing marketing materials. It has existing traffic. When you add content to your existing site you leverage all of its existing resources to the benefit of that new content. If you start a new site, no matter how great it's content, you start from scratch.

Second... a unique IP address? Users don't know anything about the IP address. There are individual IP addresses that host dozens upon dozens of domains. The search engines will only "care" about an IP address if it's suspect - such as being the source of a great deal of spam. If I'm pitching web development services to you and I tell you that, "You need to host your new site on a different IP address", odds are my primary goal - and quite probably my only goal - is to get you to give me the hosting contract.

The following suggestions are more relevant, but do more to highlight the weaknesses of some law practice websites than the benefits of having a separate "case-specific" site:

Best-practice, case-specific sites should embrace the text concept and not be glitzy or highly animated. Splashy colors, clever design elements or professionally produced Flash movies should be limited to the firm's regular Web site.

If your law firm website is highly animated, has audio or video that autoplays when somebody loads the site, has a Flash splash page (even one users can skip) before they see the site's real content, is all-Flash (making it really hard to deep link or open portions of your site in new windows), etc., you have a problem. You were probably sold snake oil by your original web designer, and need to consider if all of that glitz is attracting people and making your site more "sticky" (keeping people on your site longer, and encouraging them to 'convert' by contacting you), or if it's causing some prospective clients to abandon your site before they even know what it's about. And you also need to be concerned that some of your actions (e.g., Flash-based navigation or a spash page of any sort) may be reducing your site's prominence in the major search engines. So to the extent I agree with the KISS (keep it simple, stupid) principle of web design, and I largely do, I think it applies to all sites.

Adding case-specific material to your website can generate traffic - and it can pay off to be the first (or at least one of the first) websites to address a particular topic or issue. But as far as search engines go, they direct people to the most relevant page of content, not to the top of a site. If somebody enters a search for specific information that brings up your site, it doesn't matter to them whether the site's on your website or on a brand new specialized website - they'll follow the link. If your law firm site has a lot of search engine authority, there's a strong chance that the content you host there will appear above that from any new site. It may also be indexed first, bringing in the desired traffic more quickly.

If your website doesn't have much authority, it may be much better to partner with an authoritative site to host articles or other content that highlight your expertise, and to lead people to your practice or your firm's site through that off-site content. You know, like promoting your PR business by publishing an article on law.com. But if you go with an entirely new site for a new practice niche you're leaving a lot more up to chance -and the more you do that (perhaps even the from the very first time) you're not following a good long-term strategy for building both the content on and reputation of your principal website.

No, I won't argue that it will never work, as sometimes a niche site will attract a lot of attention or by good luck happen to come up well particularly for "long tail" search terms (unusual search phrases, usually four-, five-, six-words and longer). I will say that in my experience, both with sites I control and site's I've seen, the odds weigh heavily in favor of putting content on an established, reputable site, and with investing your resources in building a single, solid site to promote your firm.

Case-specific Web sites must avoid overt law firm marketing. It is appropriate to identify the attorneys of record along with their bios, but don't include a form for potential clients to fill out. All-out marketing should remain on the firm's legacy site.

I'll twist that a bit. Many pages that you intend to use to generate new clients will benefit from being primarily informational, presenting you as an expert by virtue of strong content, as opposed to screaming "hire me!" But there's no reason you can't post information in this manner on your primary law firm website (many firms already do exactly that), as opposed to starting a separate site. In terms of a signup form, there are a lot of options you can consider and tailor to your reader. Sometimes it is appropriate to have a "new client signup form" alongside or below an article. Other times you might offer a link to a free download or newsletter offering more information on the subject, so you can start generating a mailing list. (Be careful to get authorization to send additional emails, and I suggest always using a confirmation email with a confirming link that must be clicked before you add somebody to an email newsletter or marketing list). Sometimes you'll want to offer a "share this article" feature allowing readers to easily share a link to the article. There's no "one size fits all" approach, although generally speaking if your purpose is to establish subject matter expertise with a particular page of content your direct client outreach will be more subtle.

The idea of putting all case information, filings and pleadings on the website is interesting, and may at times be beneficial, but for most sites it provides a level of complexity and obscurity that won't interest the average reader. In my opinion, strongly written, easy-to-understand content that a layperson will understand will generate more interest than posting links to the latest motions and briefs filed on a case. That latter approach seems better suited to advocacy sites than to sites intended to promote the lawyers as subject matter experts or to generate new clients. Granted, if the case has media attention, offering up all court documents the moment they're filed may keep reporters coming back to your site as a reference (but that could, again, as easily be done on your own law firm's principal site as on a new website.)

I don't have access to the site's logs, but I take this claim with a grain of salt:

Qui Tam: What law firm wouldn't like 20,000 additional Web site visitors in a year? The three firms that secured a major settlement in a novel federal False Claims Act, qui tam whistleblower case in 2008, have received that much recognition with their case-specific Web site, which went live after the U.S. Department of Justice announced the settlement.

There are sites that offer free metrics for websites. When I look up that site in compete.com, I get an apology and am told that they have no profile for the site. When I look up the site in Alexa, I get no indication that it's had any appreciable traffic in the past two years. When I go to the site itself, despite the author of this article cautioning against contact forms, I find that the site is copyrighted by "PRforLAW, LLC" and I am instructed,

Contact PRforLAW, LLC

Use this form or call 215-736-0198.

I guess overt law firm marketing is out, but overt PR firm marketing is a-okay.

"Tips" for Driving Traffic to Legal Websites?

Law.com offers up a set of "tips" for generating traffic to law firm websites. I find myself questioning most of the suggestions.

The first thing I'll note is that I have no problem with telling lawyers that they need to hire an outside professional to develop and market their law firm's website, or that the professional should be paid for those services. In the alternative, a law firm may be able to identify a member of its staff (perhaps a lawyer, perhaps a non-lawyer) who has the skill and aptitude to do a lot of website development and marketing in-house, or to hire a full-time developer.

But let's admit up-front that, for most lawyers and firms, this isn't a do-it-yourself project. I don't think it's much of a favor to offer "tips" that either suggest otherwise, or which could not effectively be followed (or might be costly and perhaps even counter-productive) in the hands of a novice. Also, to the extent that tips include suggestions that should best be outsourced, it would be helpful to have at least one tip addressing how to select an outside professional. (Hint: If they approach you with the claim, "We'll put you at the top of Google" (i.e., "We'll buy some ads"), or "We'll deliver 10,000 'hits' to your site in 30 days", they're almost certainly not a firm you want to consider.)

In terms of offline ideas, I agree that a law firm's marketing materials should include URL of its website. I question the usefulness of a "stand-alone" business card simply touting a website. If you're handing out the card to people you are trying to recruit as clients, how is that better than a brochure or other, more complete marketing materials in which you market yourself and also direct them to your website? If you're not targeting the recipient of the card, what's the point? Stick the website information on the back of your card, which is probably blank anyway.

A business card has the advantage that somebody can take it out of his pocket, look at your URL, and type it into a computer, but for the most part conventional print marketing isn't very efficient at generating web traffic. If you do try special business cards, consider using (or having your expert use) analytics software to try to track the amount of traffic they generate. (You can use special tracking URLs as well, but when somebody's asked to type the URL into their computer that makes things more complicated for the recipient of the card.)

The article fails to distinguish between types of legal consumer, and how your target audience will affect your web marketing strategy. If you're making a presentation to a group that includes potential clients, and whose members will benefit from the information on your website, by all means mention it. If you're conducting free seminars for prospective clients (e.g., "How you will benefit from a living trust") you can promote your website to them as an adjunct to the seminar - a source of more information, and (if they don't sign a contact sheet) a means of drawing them back to you and your firm after they leave the room. If your practice depends upon people who have a special legal need arise - a personal injury claim, a divorce, etc. - marketing your website at live events is of limited value.

In terms of running a stand-alone print ad for your target audience, I again question how this is effective (or at least cost-effective) marketing. If, for example, you're a personal injury attorney and you run a special ad, "Go to the following address on my website where you can download and print out a list of things to do after a car accident", you're creating a barrier between yourself and your prospective client. They're supposed to go from the print ad to their computer, type in the URL you provide, download the document, print it on their own printer, then put it into their car? Here's an idea - include your list of things to do right in the ad - so they can cut it out and put the pre-printed list in their glove compartment. Or perhaps even better, use your print (and online) advertising to try to make sure that yours is the first name they think of after an accident, rather than expecting that they'll remember about your list, and find your list buried in their glove compartment and call you because your name's at the bottom.

Marketing your firm through microsites? Give me a break. If you want to have a URL devoted to a specific area of your practice, you can buy and use such a URL, but you're better served by having it redirect to content on your main site. Why? Because that way when people in the online world link to your "microsite" content, the links help boost your main site. And when your microsite is no longer useful (as can happen in a tort area, such as a defective drug case, or in the event of a change in the law) the links continue to bring traffic to your site rather than leading to a dead URL. Further, when you host the new content on your firm's website you benefit from the links and authority you've already created for that site. If you want to generate free traffic from search engines, that's what you should prefer over starting from scratch with a new site.

Also, after marketing and promoting your primary URL as a valuable resource to prospective clients, other lawyers, or whomever else you're trying to reach, it makes no sense to send your readers off to other websites to find the information they want, even if you own them. Would you do that with your physical offices - market multiple, neighboring office addresses for each area of your practice, or market a different phone number for each practice area or subspecialty? Or is it better to have a central reception area where all callers and visitors can be guided to the correct location?

I don't want to sound cynical, but let's say you have an existing website and your designer says "You need a five or ten page microsite on subspecialty X" - ask, "How much will the new site cost, and how much will it cost to simply add those pages to my existing site?" For that matter, "Why don't I have a CMS (content management system) that lets my lawyers quickly and easily add new pages to my current site without involving you?"

Entering contests? Many years ago, contests were all the rage. But most of them generated little traffic, while the "winners" proudly added icons and links back to the contest site to celebrate their awards. That's to say, most did far more for the promoters of the contest than for the winners. Not all contests work like that, and I'm not against entering website contests, but why am I skeptical that a highly effective but inexpensive design is going to win over a splashy site that cost five or six figures to develop, regardless of its performance? Whatever it's traffic, do you think your small firm site is going to beat the 2009 "Your Honor Awards" winning entries from Akin Gump, Wilmer Hale, and McMillan LLP?

As for the tip to "Send your extensive mailing list an e-blast" announcing your new site or "microsite", that's great if you have a huge, verified audience that has opted in to your mailing list and will be interested in your message. But do you have an "extensive mailing list" to eblast?

In general, I agree with the suggestion of trying to have a URL "that conveys what you do and is easily remembered", particularly for law firms directed at consumers. This, of course, is easier said than done. To get a URL that's reasonably related to your practice area you'll probably have to buy it, perhaps along with a website. If you're trying to buy URLs or websites you'll probably have to approach a great many sites before you find one that has both an acceptable URL and an acceptable price. In terms of a big firm that markets its primary URL through its firm name using communicative, easily remembered URLs for its microsites, again easier said than done. Of the examples given in the article, "eb5immigration.com" isn't that bad (although it's not very memorable, so it could blur into "Was that 'eb5lawfirm.com'? 'eb5laywers.com'? 'eb5visas.com'?), but "worksite-compliance.com" could be easily confused with "worksitecompliance.com", "workplace-compliance.com", etc. Incidentally, worksitecompliance is for sale at buydomains.com for $5,788. If I were developing the hyphenated version, depending on my budget, I would be making an offer or buying that URL before my competitor did.

The example provided in the article, trial.com, is a good URL. It's not great for branding, but it's a real word, short and memorable. If you find somebody with a similar URL and want to buy it, expect bidding to start in the six to seven figure range - plus, if it's a developed site, the value of its traffic. Obviously you need to carefully consider how well that work works for your business, and whether you're better off using the money to try to build a brand (Google, Yahoo and Amazon tell you nothing about what they sell, but they're powerful brands. "Trial" suggests that the site has something to do with... trials? Maybe it's a place where you order trial sized merchandise, or get free sample coupons from manufacturers?)

Of the articles online ideas, the first suggestion isn't really an online idea. Yes, writing in clear, understandable language, in plain English, also applies to the online world.

In terms of optimizing your website for search engines, yes, by all means. But any web designer should be developing your website to incorporate the basic concepts of search engine optimization. And if you're not attuned to SEO issues, all this tip is doing is reminding you of the importance of having some professional assistance in designing and implementing your website. Some of the tips are a bit dated - "Make sure most of the site's content is visible to the search engine crawlers, meaning the text is not stored in graphics or Flash technology" - although there are other reasons to object to flash pages or splash pages or regard them as interfering with SEO, a text layer can be included in a flash site, and flash can be used instead of graphics on an HTML site. No, you don't want to present your website's text in image files, but is anybody using graphics instead of text content these days? If you think that's a good idea and you don't recognize that you need help from an outside consultant, you probably didn't get this far in the article.

Also, in my opinion, out of date is this suggestion in relation to link-building:

How do you get a link on another site to point to yours? You ask the owner of the site to place your link on the Web site. The owner will probably ask for something in return, such as a fee or, more likely, a link back, called a reciprocal link. You can place the reciprocal link somewhere on your site, such as a resources page, but it is not necessary that the link be prominently displayed.

There are individuals and companies that offer link-building services. Google "link ninja". (Seriously.) If you hire a responsible person they'll work on getting you high-value links from good sites, and ideally your site will benefit both from traffic driven by those relevant links and eventually as search engines recognize your site as meriting those links.

Less ethical services will engage in spamming of forums and blog comments, spamming webmasters with link requests (you can also buy software to spam webmasters, not that I recommend it), or even engaging in dubious, sometimes criminal activities to inject your link onto other sites by exploiting weaknesses in their software. Some services principally work through their own network of sites - you pay, they add you; you stop paying, they delete you. I've also heard horror stories about firms that sabotaged former clients' link-building when their contracts weren't renewed, although I expect that's a very unusual outcome (and would never happen with a responsible, ethical service provider).

Link-building is time-consuming, and abuses of link-building have made it enormously more difficult. If I get a request for a link that is software-generated, I delete it - assuming it even makes it past my spam filter. If it's the usual "We can benefit each other if you link from your popular site to my invisible site" email, that's a joke - we both know that the primary benefit will flow to you, and you won't win links by treating me like I'm stupid. If it says "I've added a link but it will be deleted in two weeks if you don't link back and confirm the link to me," it goes in the trash. If it's an "I've added a link to your site, and would appreciate a link back," but the page with the link on it is buried, presents a garbage heap of poorly edited, poorly organized links, or the link to my site is nofollowed, the request again gets treated like the garbage that it is. And that eliminates close to 100% of requests.

What if you request a link, and the webmaster writes back with "As long as you link back to me"? That's not so bad, provided you're not just adding each other's links to a link page or, worse, you're giving the other site a quality link on a quality page and they're adding you to a link farm. But you still need to be cautious - if the search engines conclude that pretty much all of your links are reciprocal - that you're primarily or exclusively getting links by trading for them instead of 'earning' them with good content - you'll find the value of your links devalued in their algorithms.

What if the webmaster says, "Pay me, and I'll add your link"? The form of link building that involved secret deals to buy links from other sites is dying out. Why? Because (in simplified terms) Google decided that if you pay for a link it should be treated as an advertisement, and started both devaluing the link to the person who acquired it and in some cases imposing a penalty on the site that was secretly selling links. Google's Matt Cutts explains Google's rationale here - that was written almost two years ago. Any "tip" that suggests buying links that aren't clearly indicated as ads should be accompanied by a warning that the search engines disapprove of link-buying and, if they detect it, will devalue the links and may also punish one or both of the sites involved.

The final tip involves buying ads through Google AdWords or similar services. That, when done correctly, can be an excellent revenue-generator. You can track clicks, conversions (as you define them) and the amount of new business the ads generate. You can take advantage of highly granular data, to determine which keywords or ads return the most business and which should be dropped from your campaign. But this is advertising, not SEO - you can expect that the traffic you generate will last only as long as your ad campaign lasts.

Although these services offer tools that help people develop and manage their own campaigns, particularly if you're intending a large ad buy you need to consider bringing in a specialist to help you draft your ads and select keywords. It's easy to burn through a lot of money without much of a return if you target the wrong keywords, or assume that the most popular or expensive keywords will return the greatest amount of business or the best quality of customer. Beware anybody who promises to generate "traffic" for your site, without defining what that means - you want conversions, defined by a measure that includes the reasonable prospect that they'll become clients. (If a person from your state visits your site and completes the 'contact me' form, that may be adequate. If the person's in India, that's probably not something you would want to count unless you're an immigration law firm or it's an exceptional case (e.g., an international custody dispute) and those leads are actually generating clients.

Cash Gifts Are Still Better

I know, you're still not convinced by the dead Circuit City gift card in your desk drawer, or that old email notice telling you that a friend gave you Flooz to spend at your favorite online stores. So let's add to the pile:

A company that sold gift certificates to businesses and individuals around the U.S. has shut down, leaving thousands to wonder if unredeemed certificates for restaurants and stores are worthless.

CertifiChecks Inc., which operated in 47 states, says it is filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and hasn't made clear whether it will honor the unredeemed gift certificates.

It's a Chapter 7 bankruptcy... I think that makes it pretty clear that most, and quite probably all, of the certificates won't be honored.

It was an amazing feat to convince people that cash gifts somehow lack class or thought, but that forcing somebody to spend money with a particular merchant or to hope that a third party lives up to its guarantee of payment.

"We're Almost Full"

I enjoyed this observation by Seth Godin, in relation to the overwhelming amount of data that's not just available to us, but is directed to us each and every day: "The internet isn't full, but we are."

You can't keep up with the status of your friends on the social networks. No way. You can't read every important blog... you can't even read all the blogs that tell you what the important blogs are saying.

That reminds me of advice I see directed at law firms - that they start blogs ("blawgs") and that they can generate clients and referrals through social networking. But that's simplistic.

The blogging advice typically goes along the lines of, "Pick a niche subject, start a blog, post regularly, and make yourself an expert." Blawg of dreams. I'm reminded of Orin Kerr's brief departure from the Volokh Conspiracy to start his own blog. He did all of that, and what? Went back to the much more eclectic, much less scholarly atmosphere of the group blog because it had the traffic. That was two years ago, and the marketplace is now far more crowded. Sure legal blogs can generate business or make people think of you as an authority, but so can a other approaches such as posting online articles, traditional networking, teaching CLE courses, or writing for traditional publications. You may find that, when costs and time are considered, those other approaches offer a far greater return on your investment.

It's amusing to me to read a typical article about the glories of legal blogging, as there seems to be remarkable overlap between the bloggers who are interviewed about their experiences, and they almost always also rely heavily on quotes from people who design and support legal weblogs. You may not get rich mining for gold, but that doesn't mean you can't get rich selling pickaxes to the miners.

Meanwhile, if you look at the ABA's top 100 blogs, how many of them are actually focused on client generation for practicing lawyers? I suspect that if you looked at the blogs that are the most successful at generating business from the public at large, I doubt you would conclude that many of the authors were leading experts in their fields (although they may say that they are on their blogs), and I doubt that you would add many (perhaps not any) to your blogroll. Creating a blog that establishes your expertise to other lawyers such that they refer you cases? That's a lot harder, as you have to get them to notice your blog. And follow it. And, as much as possible, to link to it.

That brings us to social networking. An article I read recently described a lawyer who was active on multiple social networks, and that his combined efforts on his networks generated about $100,000.00 in business for his firm over the prior year. The article conceded that he's an outlier. But it's more than that. It's safe to say he's a younger lawyer, and that his network primarily revolves around younger lawyers. Telling an older lawyer (and no, I don't mean "old" - just old enough to find social networking bit alien) "Find a social network, create a profile, connect to your peers, and learn to use it", will often not be a good use of that lawyer's time, as many of his peers won't be participating in the network, and of those who are many will be passively participating - they will have created a profile that they may or may not check on occasion, and that they may or may not update on occasion, but they're not actively using the network or the service's features.

As for a younger lawyer who is active in five or more social networks, keeps his profile up to date, responds to his friends, and generates referrals, let's not miss this: The emphasis is still on social. I doubt you'll find a person who is that active in social networks who joined and participates primarily for business purposes; but you'll find a lot who participate for social purposes, with a business element growing out of that social involvement. The importance of social networking is likely to rise, as more and more younger lawyers emerge from a generation that is heavily invested in social networks. But unless you're going to be an active social networker, it's unlikely to become a significant source of clients and revenue.

A big part of the problem is the information overload. There are too many blogs (and "blawgs"), and too many social networks. There will be an increasing tendency toward monopoly - just as there used to be many search engines and now there are really only three that matter, one of which is dominant, eventually there will be similar consolidation among social networks. Because even people who can afford to spend hours each day maintaining their profiles on five networks, few of whom work for law firms, will exhaust at six, or seven, or twenty. People who aren't into social networking don't want to be advised to pick between five or more options and hope that their participation leads to more business. They want to be told, "Use this one," and not have to worry about the others. Many would probably perfer a simple, specialized tool - e.g., an enhanced ABA membership that provides simple tools for members to connect to their peers, track practice areas, perhaps follow legal news and weblogs, and refer cases.