Rob Grady » Business

Facscinating paper: Spamalytics: An Emperical Analysis of Spam Marketing Conversion

Rob — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 04:02:29 +0000

Thanks to High Scalability for publicizing a very cool paper on Spamalytics.

The paper Spamalytics: An Empirical Analysis of Spam Marketing Conversion is a fascinating (academic) read about spam conversion. I’ve always assumed that spamming must be profitable at least for the anti-spam industry. This paper not only outlines the underlying economics but the Storm Netbot spam system as well. In fact these guys actually hacked the spam system to carry out their experiments.

Highlights:

It took 12.5 million emails to generate 1 sale
After 26 days the botnet had sent out over 350 million emails and 28 generate a transaction
Extrapolating the figures, they believe the network generated $3.5 million a year in revenue
Researchers gained control of 75,869 hijacked computers
One in 10 people clicked on links that normally download malware to turn their computer into a bot
Between 3500 and 8500 bots are created daily

Great Quote from British Economist Paul Ormerod

Rob — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 02:25:40 +0000

Here is a great quote from British economist Paul Ormerod’s book Why Most Things Fail, “The tendency to overemphasize successes and to rationalize them ex post is chronically endemic amongst business historians and management consultants. The latter group are particularly prone to the temptation of claiming to have found the unique formula of business success. Books proliferate, and occasionally sell in very large numbers, which claim to have found the rule, or small set of rules, which will guarentee business success. But business is far too complicated, far too difficult an activity to distil into a few simple commands, be it the ’set price equal to marginal cost’ of economic theory, or some of the more exotic exhortations of the business gurus. It is failure rather than success which is the distinguishing feature of corporate life.” Awesome.

Andrew Chen’s Renewable Online Audiences

Rob — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 23:34:26 +0000

Here is a presentation that Andrew Chen delivered at OATV that I’ve found very relevant. The presentation talks to the need for websites to grow a core audience that returns and returns again. Organizations that are chasing or counting on spikes in traffic for success are ultimately chasing ‘Fools Gold.’ In short, you can’t build your business on highly variable traffic. This certainly emphasizes the need to learn ‘what happened’ (Quantitative) but the ‘Why’ (Qualitative) as well.

Growing Renewable Audiences (presented at OATV)

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

Dan Roam’s book ‘The Back of the Napkin’

Rob — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:32:06 +0000

I’ve been reading Dan Roam’s book The Back of the Napkin and it’s been a great read. While I picked it up based on the recommendation of a former colleague it not only does a great job providing a framework for identifying problem components but provides a framework for ‘visual thinking’.
It’s a good and relatively quick read that you can can probably finish over a weekend or couple plane trips. I can see its application for consulting and marketing firms looking to grow their teams capabilities but as with any process and methodology implementation, adoption and standardization is always the challenge.

Books

Dave McClure’s Great SXSW presentation on Start-Up Metrics

Rob — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 00:01:00 +0000

I was lucky to sit through this presentation from Doug McClure and his great panel.

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Web sites as Art Projects and Hype 2.0

Rob — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 15:11:57 +0000

Jeffrey Zeldman, one of the ‘web brat pack’, has written an interesting article for A List Apart that talks to the challenges of web design. While I can’t speak to the metaphorical aspects of his essay, he hits on a few topics that resonate with me.Over the years, I’ve seen too many web site designs developed as an art exercise, with an award in mind or even as a ‘technology for the sake of technology’ exercise. As Zeldman writes, “creators of winning entries see the web as a vehicle for advertising and marketing campaigns in which the user passively experiences Flash and video content.” It is understandable that many agencies apply the technologies in the context they know, display advertising and the awards they strive to receive. I believe the historical excessive use of Flash illustrates the continued perspective that web users are a passive audience. I’m surprised at the number ’skip intro’ buttons I still need to press today.Another gem from the article was the reference to the hype 2.0 Mark Zuckerberg statement . “It’s true. Look back over the last millennium or two, and you’ll see that every century, like clockwork, there’s been a big change in media. Cave painting lasted a hundred years, and then there was smoke signaling, which also lasted a hundred years, and of course there was the hundred years of yodeling, and then there was the printing press, which was invented almost precisely 100 years ago, and so forth and so on up to the present day — the day that Facebook picked up the 100-year torch and ran with it.”Yodeling. Awesome. Way to go Mark, keep ‘em coming.

Great post by Jeffrey Zeldman on Web Divisions

Rob — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 02:07:02 +0000

Great post by Jeffrey Zeldman on the “void on the org chart”.

Problem Solving and Problem Setting

Rob — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 08:06:35 +0000

I’m currently reading Sketching User Experience by Bill Buxton and he does a great job illustrating the critical difference between problem setting and problem solving in the product design process. He points out, “problem setting can be characterized by the question, ‘What is the right thing to build?’ and problem solving answers the question of ‘How do we build this?’”

Too often we find ourselves, clients and colleagues in the position of problem solving when we should be problem setting. Especially in the process of developing websites, you’ll find folks on a ‘technology high’ and dazzled with new technologies. You’ll hear quotes like “We would like to make it web 2.0″ or “It would be cool if we could use ajax.” While this can be amusing and cause for jest (SC), it’s actually backwards. As Buxton says, “get the design right and the right design.”

The rise of the Web Strategist

Rob — Sat, 26 May 2007 09:13:51 +0000

Jeremiah Owyang has a good podcast discussion with Steve Gehlen Steve Gehlen on the state of the Web Strategy Industry about the growth of the web strategist role. While I don’t think anyone who is a “decision maker and stakeholder of a website” is a web strategist, it is interesting to consider the lineage of the role. As noted in the podcast, the role has grown from both IT and marketing disciplines depending on the organizational, most professionals got their Today, the web strategist is generally a hybrid who may have started their career from a number of different disciplines including:Business Analyst, Project Manager, Product Manager, Developer, Visual Design, Advertising among many others.In my career I’ve formally and informally been a project manager, technology product manager, front-end developer, business strategist as well as a user experience architect. While it may seem somewhat schizophrenic it’s been educational, fun and it’s made me a generalized specialist on the web side. While I openly admit that I lean toward software product management and user experience design, I’ve gained an understanding and appreciation of multiple disciplines and their interaction. One of the biggest challenges today is finding web strategists.Given the required breadth of knowledge for a web strategist, it is often easier to grow them than find them. If you can find an individual who has a background in one of the core areas and is passionate about technologies and has a desire to learn, you may be better off. While most folks won’t excel in all areas, providing the right people with different areas for growth keeps them interested and helps grow the organization. Having people with multi-discipline experience can help bridge the gap between disciplines.As Jeremiah and Steve discussed, the great divide between IT and Marketing is slowly being bridged as ‘Web Groups’ are beginning to emerge as core organizational departments. Organizations and the role of the web strategist will continue to evolve as web technologies continue to grow and take on increasingly important functions.

Reading: The Myths of Innovation by Scott Berkun

Rob — Tue, 22 May 2007 10:38:14 +0000

I am currently reading Scott Berkun’s ‘The Myths of Innovation‘ and while I have only begun, the preface actually made me laugh out loud. More to follow.