Big Data Fail: WalMart

I try to keep things positive here, but this event affected me personally ao I thought I's share my experience. A little while back I had someone fraudulently make a purchase through my account on walmart.com. They bought some RAM and had the order shipped to an address in California.

Identity theft happens and its a huge problem that will only grow. That's not my complaint. Walmart handled the issue OK, but its really my bank that came through to wipe out the charge. Where Walmart failed was in the follow up.

They followed up to find out how
I liked my purchase. Not just once, but twice. The email was sent two
Weeks after the incident was resolved. This big data fail by Walmart

Google "walmart big data" and the first article that pops up is about walmart making Big Data part of its DNA. http://smartdatacollective.com/bigdatastartups/111681/walmart-makes-big-data-part-its-social-media

Walmart has succeeded at making "big data" part of their PR rhetoric. Not a bad thing and alot of companies are doing it. They missed an opportunity to use their big data for damage control. They have the information, but didn't connect data on fraudulent purchases with their email automation systems. One more data field for control would have stopped the email trigger to ask me how I liked the RAM (ie. fraud, if yes, don't email follow up).

USPS Get's Creative With Augmented Reality

Of all the unexpected things fromt he CES show this year, hearing anything related to the USPS is a surprise.  Aurasma introduced a yet-to-be-released app the turns a mailpiece into interactive content.  This Augment Reality application will let mailers connect with the web in ways that QR Codes could not.  The UK based-augemented reality startup has been at it since 2011.

I think an app like this has potential, but has many challenges.  If the USPS is looking for more volume, I am not sure this will get them there (and it won't get them anywhere close to the hemorrhaging volumes).  This is an added expense to a direct mail campaign and mailers will scrub their lists to send this premium piece to a highly targeted audience.



The More You Know Blog where I found this video does not make it clear if the USPS is actually partnered with Aurasma.  I googled a little and found Aurasma's facebook page that posted on January 10th "Great to see our partner USPS getting recognition at CES for their Aurasma powered app that brings your mail to digital life "

Check out more on Aurasma at www.aurasma.com

Next generation of transactional statements?

Is this the next generation of billing statements?

I think two and a half minutes is a little long.  It is an interesting idea and good use of personalizing video.  But it doesn't make it any faster to review a bill.  This is for the laziest of bill readers.

Video probably won't be the thing that makes paper bills obsolete, but it might be just right to move a few customers into eStatements.

Viral Marketing and Red Bull's Mission to Kill Someone

Today I watched a man jump from the highest point ever. Pretty awesome to watch, considering that it was a flawless jump and he landed safely on two feet and walked away. (time passes)

Cool. . . So he landed a little more than a week ago and he has been making the talk show rounds, declared he is retired, and stated that he did not enjoy the fall until his parachute opened.

I remember watch the guy in Vegas on New Years jump a motorcross bike up and down the faux Archtriumph.  It is amazing that guy made it up and down was even crazier.  . . . powered by Red Bull

The Flugtag.  Per google: "Red Bull Flugtag is an event organized by Red Bull in which competitors attempt to fly homemade size and weight limited human-powered flying machines. The flying machines are usually launched off a pier about 30 feet high into the sea."

It is amazing no one has been seriously hurt.  . . . powered by Red Bull.

And there are a bunch of other teams, athletes, and events that are sponsored by Red Bull and they are all high octane, high adrenaline, and high energy.  Red Bull has done a great job of finding the physical manifestation of their product and slapping a logo on it.  The most important part of their marketing strategy is that they are doing more promotional events that have the potential to go viral.  They appeal to short attention spans and are short enough that you want to and will watch them over and over again. . . powered by Red Bull.

I make no judgement about Red Bull's morality or the social effect of their campaigns.  They market their product to adults and adults should be able to know that they can not build their own flying machine and get it flying off the docks of Lake Erie.  They may actually kill someone some day, but they will continue to rack up MILLIONS of youtube views.  When posting this Red Bull had over 27 Million views of the above video.  No Gangnam Style, but pretty effective.

Now what is their cost per impression for advertising?  Well I saw their costs estimated as high as half a billion dollars.  Now that is ridiculous, right?  This message board discussing their marketing budget and estimated it at $900 Million in 2010 on revenue of $4.4 Billion.  So over 5 years, they could have dedicated 20% of their budget to the Stratos program.  Their cost per impression will continue to decline as they get more views, more mentions, and more sharing of their record breaking even.

Bottom line: They know how to get people talking about Red Bull and they know their customer profile.

Why the world needs the cloud -or- Hoarders: Data Edition

The cloud will / should play has a crucial role in the long-term viability of the internet.  Big data has made the crunching of huge amounts of data open source by some.

Cloud is necessary because duplicate data on multiple systems will require an exponential amount of storage.

Data hoarding is something that others have written about: see video

Data hoarding today (pictures, documents, videos, and a record of everything) It has increased the demand for local storage and with lots of competition in the hard drive and storage market, storage has been commoditized.  Data's cyclical pricing as technology is improved and storage becomes cheaper.

There have been times when storage would go from $1000 to $200 in a year.  It will continue to drop in price.  Amazon Glacier has taken storage to a new low at the cost of a penny per gigabyte per month.  

Facebook Stock Prediction: Outsmart the Market

The Pump/Hold/Buyback

Facebook waits to go public.

Early investors make their money by selling stock at the opening IPO price of $40.

Quickly, anyone who purchased at the opening price loses a significant percentage of the stocks value as the media reacts to information on Facebooks relatively low annual profits and projections.  None of this information is new.  But the buzz of the IPO and the strong desire to get in on a potential boom leads investors to ignore the fact that facebook profits are 1/100th of the valuation.

The first date where employee stocks are able to be sold creates an influx in available shares, driving the price down.  Stock hovers around $20 / share.

Peter Thiel dumps his stock, still makes a boat load of money, but doesn't get as much as he could have if he sold his shares at the opening IPO price.  As the first Facebook investor, rumors and speculation that he knows something we don't know further hurts the stock price.  Stock drops slightly.  Thiel remains on facebooks board.  What could he know that we don't?  He shouldn't know anything the public does not know, but that is impossible.

The second date where employees can unload stock comes and shares drop even further.  I predict a low of between $10 and $15 / share.

What is facebook doing?  Monetizing mobile, being more agressive with ads, harvesting more user data, and further targeting.  All equaling higher revenues.  What does facebook need to increase stock price significantly?  Projections of 200% annual profit growth.

Zuckerberg has outsmarted the system by capitalizing on buzz to sell shares at a high price.  Then he waits for them to drop, going as far as referring to it as disappointing.  The public must know about financials and company management, it does not have to know about R&D and upcoming product development (look to Apple as an example of extreme secrecy from a public company).   

New product developments and acquisitions increase revenues.

Zuckerberg and insiders buy back significant shares of stock to "Show Faith" in the future of the company.  What they really did was buy back their company for significantly less while still getting a massive payday.

Because Zuckerberg has majority control and has decision making power that trumps the board, he is able to convert his public company back to private.  His early investors got their exit.  Loyal employees got their reward for low pay and long nights.

Facebook is once again able to focus on making a great platform that people will use without the restrictions of shareholders.  Profits can become secondary again and Facebook has enough cash to run the company on zero profit for many years.

Wallstreet weeps, Nerds rejoice, Zuckerberg outsmarts the market.  

@rynmcmns gets Visual.ly Inforgraphic

@rynmcmns Check out visual.ly  You can't build your own infographic yet, but for companies that want to add some cool to their marketing, this makes it pretty easy.