What's next?

Hi all,

I'm currently searching for a 5 months mission (January to May) in a Internet company as Google, Myspace, Yahoo! or smaller company as Intermix Media, Wikio...

My way is to work with passion on product & marketing management in or for business units (new products conception, business planning, performance marketing management...). This almost for free as i just need to finance some stuff for my current school year. Let me try!

To know what i've done before and what i'm trying to do, contact me (talongregory at yahoo.fr) or simply visit my website :

> www.gregorytalon.com (updated)

The update concerns :
- HP
- PROFILE
- EXPERIENCE (Yahoo! added)
- CONTACT (new email address...)
- New resume uploaded

If you have any needs, comments, advices... Please go on!

Revenue goals VS "budget goals"

Yes this title is quite "bizarre".
I used to not understand :
1. why some companies are most of time destroying value with ROI negatives actions instead of use just ROI positives actions to create value.
2. why they don't want calcul the ROI of each action.
3. why they don't care about it some time...

After one discussion with Guillaume Le dieu de ville (www.ledieudeville.com) i understand better the work problematic of big company managers.

In a start-up, you just can't do ROI negative things... cause you don't have the money. You must monitor hardly the performance to survive.

In a big company you have more tools to do it, but many of web-marketers don't calcul the ROI, they don't control it and by experience it means ROI negative results most of the time.

Now i understand more this fact.
When you're in a big company, the company attributes (annually or quarterly) a budget to each activities (marketing, communication...) in a forecast approach. If the prevision are not relevant or simply wrong, you can't reallocate a part of activity A budget to the activity B. So when, as manager, you have a budget, you're pushed to spend it even if you do ROI negative Job. This because you don't have revenue goals...

I think it's not relevant to work in that way most of the time. First give me revenue goals, let's estimate together the budget we need to achieve them. The dream case is when you've done similar actions in the past with financial performance analysis. Then the ROI objective is known.

One exception : You're launching a new product.
When you need to take the market shares ASAP.
If you got the money, you've got to spend your budget, to deploy your product /service ASAP in order to make profits of your advance against future competitors.
Don't care about ROI in your plan cause you can't know. Make your plan with affinity optimization. Let's test your subjective opinion. Then you'll optimize when you get first results. It doesn't mean you'll not be ROI positive at the end. :)

Myspace VS the poor WAT and Friendset

Let's do a quick post on myspace progress in france in September 2006.

Myspace FR :
1 022 000 UV (1 month after the FR launch) and a 0$ marketing budget.

WAT (TF1) :
123 00 UV (2-3 months after the FR launch) and with big marketing budget.
The traffic is almost buy with campaign ads, sem...

Friendset (Superlol) :
not enought volume concerned in the panel to estimate correctly the audience...

Skyblog :
4 354 000 UV

This to answers to business guys that told me few months ago :

"Myspace isn't beautifull, it will never succed in FR"

"Myspace need to buy skyblog"
"Myspace has no chance in FR"

This guy is going fast... so fast!

Interview of one of You Tube Founder : Karim Jawed.
Please look at his site : www.jawed.com
I don't know what to say. It's huge. Congratulation karim.

Google buys You Tube!

It’s over. Google bought YouTube. All the details were as reported this morning : $1.65 billion in stock, with $100-$200 million going to each of the founders. The announcement is on google news.

Source :
http://mashable.com/2006/10/09/confirmed-google-buys-youtube/

I think the value is justified by the you tube effective growth and potential.
But let's remember that myspace, which is bigger and form my side, has more potential, is now a News corp company, acquired for 580 million dollars... Yes intermix was undervalorised. Good job Rupert Murdock!

I think the deal Yahoo!/Facebook will follow shortly. If Yahoo! don't move, a media group will do... Facebook is the last big player as social network...
It will be also good for yahoo!'s stock wich is actually very low after Panama delays announces.

Milgram Experiment about human obedience

Have you ever heard of Milgram experiment?
It's a huge experiment of 1962... and it reveals some dramatical facts.

Reconstitution in a french movie :

Maybe we can link it to the way some managers make their choices. They believe in something cause they've heard information from respected administration about it, wich justify their current choice. So they deploy the solution and if it doesn't work, they continue to invest on it because they need justify what they have already done until now and they can't accept that it might be wrong.

Other example, many times managers don't assume their responsabilities accross partners selection. They took the leader by default only to limit the risk, because if there are problems, they can says : "how could i knew? they're the leaders!"