[paullinder]

Hi Luc

Originally Posted by Outta Hand

Hello Paul

Yes i understand that MSN/Google and eBay were like this but the marketplace has shifted a fair amount. I agree that the idea is orginal and that it comes with risk... innovative business ideas always face this. You've got to get people using your stuff first... build a dependancy to it... you know? Making it right the first time is something microsoft couldn't do so i wouldn't take your queues from the "impossible dream".

Good idea with the permission marketing... very Seth Godin of you~! You want to watch the leads that you buy as most will be junk. How are you analysing the data from the permission marketing?... this is a business that i am currently involved in so i am just curious.

Great idea about the affiliate program... how much is this costing you to setup? What are you doing to track this data?

How much will you be spending on the initial email "permission" campaign? Good to hear you are using Adwords and Overture... have you thought about services like adbrite? It's more of an ad broker that allows you to buy space or text link ads?

Who are you using to do the Banner Exchange? Are you tracking this data?

How often does you're "accounting person" report to you? What standards do you have in place?

i understand you want to balance the technical persons with other board members that take a functional role... you'd need to outline these roles specifically to get the best talent for the job. You aren't asking too much... you just aren't being specific and detailed and that could hurt you in the long run. If you'd like to correspond off here i am reachable at lucas[at]commercecubes[dot]com

Talk soon Paul

Lucas

LOL!! You are right about your comment regarding "making it right the first time". But, what we are trying here is to make the system easier to use for the people who visits us and I am afraid, as Daniel said, it gives an outlook of a bit complex one. To make it simpler, we will have to think as the average user, which we are not capable of doing at the moment and hence the Advisory Board.

Regarding the permission marketing, we are going to hire two dedicated staff to do the sending and analysis job. Rather than an automated system creating the marketing email and sending it as bulk, what we are planning is to send one-to-one email for each of these prospects. Hence the replies would also be on a one-to-one basis and hence trackable. The next step will be an automated version, where in the staff would be adding the positive prospects to a database, and the system would be sending the detailed pre-formated email to them consisting of all the details.

We have developed the affliate program from scratch customized to cater to most of our needs. Analysis of the data is automated and payout will be manual.

We feel that AdBrite wouldn't be right for us in the initial stage because the prospective responses that could be generated from it wouldnt be good enough for the investment. This is a general feeling of most of the guys in the team.

The Banner Exchange we are going to use will be based on EBannerX who are offering 3:2 hit ratio (www.e-bannerx.com). They give a powerful control panel to track this data.

We are planning to create a 500 USD Google campaign as well as a 750 USD Yahoo campaign as the first phase. Based on the initial response we will think about how we will be continuing with them.

Yes. The Accounting Person will be directly reporting to the entire team on a daily basis. He will be using QuickBooks Pro 2005 to record the day to day accounts and generate reports.

The Roles of this Functional Person:

1. Have a detailed run of the entire system as a basic user (Like Black Box Testing)

2. Instruct the technical team as what you feel wrong about it

3. Suggest what to do to improve the site in terms of user friendliness

I hope my answers are clear enough.

Best Regards
Paul

[paullinder]

Hello Daniel

Originally Posted by akula

paul, if I'm not mistaken, you guys have a goer :-)

it's more probable than not, that sticking with online video sharing will transform clipsid into a great opportunity, similar to revver.com

as a rainmaker, I can tell you that you really ought to speak to someone about your marketing because you show signs of serious problems

getting SMEs to shoot and upload promotional videos so they can share them with people who have downloaded a special player - is problematic in a very edgio.com sort of way

you're young, you're tech savvy and living in CA. your target prospect is NOT. you haven't done many focus groups and it shows (I'm right aren't I?).

in fact, your product design has so much friction (i.e. hard to use), that even geeks like me will have a hard time buying your pitch

don't worry, I've been through the identical problem with my previous startup. this stuff happens all the time, to everyone.

if you need to speak to some one, I'm telling you that you should; for the reasons I've already mentioned and other important issues like differentiation from youtube.....because I can just use you tube to get the same benefit as you're currently offering with clipsid

overall - I can't say I'm bullish on podcasting and vlogs taking off with SMEs

these are very time consuming marketing ploys with multiple substitutes. In a market where only 50% of SMEs even have basic website, and out of that 50%, over 95% of webmasters fail to generate any sustained traffic growth (i.e. they let the site rot) - it's no surprise that I have yet to find any market validation for podcasts and vlogs (as far as average SMEs go)

if somebody has a different (well reasoned) opinion - I'm all ears

what are your thoughts paul on SMEs adopting video sharing? if you're bullish, what's the proof?

Thank you very much for that constructive criticism and wonderful insights.

The basic idea of asking the SMEs to shoot promotional videos and post them with us wouldnt be the right approach to do the marketing. However, wouldnt it be simple for people who already have some kind of promotional video they have shot for other media to upload to ClipsID. It doesnt take much efforts and when it is going to get free publicity when we share the same on our home page. The prospects of making video banners as well as video newsletters out of it would also be a great way to go ahead for them without much additional efforts. What do you think..?

ClipsID has been created with an initial focus of the North American as well as European market. However, we have not done any focus group as of yet, but we really understand the importance of the same. How/What do you suggest in this area?

Another area that you are bang on target is the user-friendliness. Most of the comments received by earlier viewers of ClipsID were in those lines and that is the reason that we are looking to have our own Advisory Board who will be able to direct the team in restructuring and redesigning parts of the system to make it better.

Youtube works on a concept of public video sharing for anyone to watch anything, where in ClipsID is a concept where we are much more focusing towards the individuality of the video uploaded. For example if you have uploaded in YouTube, your video is lost in the jungle of the other videos. How can you share it with someone else over telephone for example. ClipsID is more like an email id for your video, that is an unique number which you could share with anyone around the globe. Youtube does not allow you to create Video Banners, Video Newsletters or they dont allow you to link your business/ecommerce systems to your video. ClipsID allows you to link your websites/emails ids/online auction items/blogs/profiles etc to your video. So when you are sharing your ClipsID you will be sharing all the other related items.

You are also right about PODCASTs and VLOGs. For ClipsID, this is just a minor addon that does not work on the key focus.

Daniel, the focus is on SMEs posting their already developed promotional contents for some free advertising and marketing.

Best Regards
Paul

[Outta Hand]

Yeah i think Daniel has some good points about usability in particular... "remember your audience". I will say that, yes, it does look hard to use and i am confused in general to specifically what it and why i'd use it. Hmmm... well i think you should get on top of the whole "Simple" thing first... i am still unsure as to what the advisory board is going to help with... perhaps if you defined roles within this structure it would be much easier to recruit people and they'd know what they are doing too.

Do you already have an initial list of people you are planning to market too? or are you trying to recruit new people to use your system? If so will it be free for them to try? and also what are you allocating in terms of funds for doing this?

Respond back about the rest in a bit... Talk soon

Luc

Originally Posted by paullinder

Hi Luc

LOL!! You are right about your comment regarding "making it right the first time". But, what we are trying here is to make the system easier to use for the people who visits us and I am afraid, as Daniel said, it gives an outlook of a bit complex one. To make it simpler, we will have to think as the average user, which we are not capable of doing at the moment and hence the Advisory Board.

Regarding the permission marketing, we are going to hire two dedicated staff to do the sending and analysis job. Rather than an automated system creating the marketing email and sending it as bulk, what we are planning is to send one-to-one email for each of these prospects. Hence the replies would also be on a one-to-one basis and hence trackable. The next step will be an automated version, where in the staff would be adding the positive prospects to a database, and the system would be sending the detailed pre-formated email to them consisting of all the details.

We have developed the affliate program from scratch customized to cater to most of our needs. Analysis of the data is automated and payout will be manual.

We feel that AdBrite wouldn't be right for us in the initial stage because the prospective responses that could be generated from it wouldnt be good enough for the investment. This is a general feeling of most of the guys in the team.

The Banner Exchange we are going to use will be based on EBannerX who are offering 3:2 hit ratio (www.e-bannerx.com). They give a powerful control panel to track this data.

We are planning to create a 500 USD Google campaign as well as a 750 USD Yahoo campaign as the first phase. Based on the initial response we will think about how we will be continuing with them.

Yes. The Accounting Person will be directly reporting to the entire team on a daily basis. He will be using QuickBooks Pro 2005 to record the day to day accounts and generate reports.

The Roles of this Functional Person:

1. Have a detailed run of the entire system as a basic user (Like Black Box Testing)

2. Instruct the technical team as what you feel wrong about it

3. Suggest what to do to improve the site in terms of user friendliness

I hope my answers are clear enough.

Best Regards
Paul

[paullinder]

Hello Luc

Originally Posted by Outta Hand

Yeah i think Daniel has some good points about usability in particular... "remember your audience". I will say that, yes, it does look hard to use and i am confused in general to specifically what it and why i'd use it. Hmmm... well i think you should get on top of the whole "Simple" thing first... i am still unsure as to what the advisory board is going to help with... perhaps if you defined roles within this structure it would be much easier to recruit people and they'd know what they are doing too.

Do you already have an initial list of people you are planning to market too? or are you trying to recruit new people to use your system? If so will it be free for them to try? and also what are you allocating in terms of funds for doing this?

Respond back about the rest in a bit... Talk soon

Luc

Hmmm.. The initial target of the advisory board is to make the system user-friendly or "SIMPLE". Hence the key role would be to advice the developers to change whatever that needs to be changed to make the system more simpler.

I dont have a list of people to market. As I have told earlier, the marketing plan outlined will take care of bringing in people to the the site. However, the people who comes in should be retianed and that is the focus here. The Advisory Board will make all the suggestions to make the site much more attractive to the first time visitor to go and explore much more and finally makes them register.

There is a Free Account for the users to try and use it whenver they want. We are also giving a one month free trial for the Personal and Business Accounts too. Please click here to know more about the plans offered.

I have already told you that we have a marketing fund ready for the first quarter of 2007, which is around 35K USD.

Best Regards
Paul

[Outta Hand]

Hello Paul,

Okay i think i understand better about the role you are looking for. Who do you currently have to help you in this and also it is my understanding that these people simply "advise" the developers, correct?

So the main areas of need are people familiar with Human Interaction Design and UI (User Interface) types? Sounds interesting and if you don't mind i'll throw my "hat in the ring" if the offer still stands and i have the correct understanding of the role? Talk soon Paul,

Lucas

Originally Posted by paullinder

Hello Luc

Hmmm.. The initial target of the advisory board is to make the system user-friendly or "SIMPLE". Hence the key role would be to advice the developers to change whatever that needs to be changed to make the system more simpler.

I dont have a list of people to market. As I have told earlier, the marketing plan outlined will take care of bringing in people to the the site. However, the people who comes in should be retianed and that is the focus here. The Advisory Board will make all the suggestions to make the site much more attractive to the first time visitor to go and explore much more and finally makes them register.

There is a Free Account for the users to try and use it whenver they want. We are also giving a one month free trial for the Personal and Business Accounts too. Please click here to know more about the plans offered.

I have already told you that we have a marketing fund ready for the first quarter of 2007, which is around 35K USD.

Best Regards
Paul

[paullinder]

Hi Luc

Originally Posted by Outta Hand

Hello Paul,

Okay i think i understand better about the role you are looking for. Who do you currently have to help you in this and also it is my understanding that these people simply "advise" the developers, correct?

So the main areas of need are people familiar with Human Interaction Design and UI (User Interface) types? Sounds interesting and if you don't mind i'll throw my "hat in the ring" if the offer still stands and i have the correct understanding of the role? Talk soon Paul,

Lucas

Thanks for the mail. The offer still stands (Advisory Board members will get 10% of the first year profit equally splitted among them).

Daniel has joined the Advisory Board, but has not yet started involving himself actively. Other than him, the Advisory Board has some empty chairs waiting to be filled up soon.

The current and primary role is, as you have correctly mentioned, "simply advise the developers" on making User Interface designs cater to the public need.

Luc, if you are interested, we will be glad to have you in the team. Would you please join the Yahoo Group mentioned in the footer to be a part of ClipsID.

Best Regards
Paul

[Outta Hand]

Just joined up... see you there soon!

[paullinder]

Hi Luc

Originally Posted by Outta Hand

Just joined up... see you there soon!:D

Great to have you with us. Welcome!!

Best Regards
Paul