Thursday, December 30, 2010

foreclosure listings

Buce:

Underbelly: The Blogger has Questions: They say the Devil has nine questions. Barry Ritholtz has ten; he poses them to the four guys [Peter Wallison, Keith Hennessey, Bill Thomas and Douglas Holtz-Eakin] who didn't finish their term paper:

From 2001 to 2003, Alan Greenspan took rates down to levels not seen in almost half a century, then kept them there for an unprecedentedly long period. What was the impact of ultra low interest rates on Housing, credit, the bond markets, and derivatives?

How significant were the Ratings Agencies (S&P, Moodys and Fitch) to the collapse? What did their AAA ratings on junk derivatives affect? What about their being paid directly by underwriters for these ratings?

The Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000 removed all Derivatives from all oversight, including reserve requirements, exchange listings, and disclosures. What effect did the CFMA have on firms such as AIG, Bear, Lehman, Citi, Bank of America?

Prior to 2004, Investment Houses were limited to 12-to-1 leverage by the SEC’s net capitalization rule. In 2004, the 5 largest investment banks asked for, and received, a full exemption from leverage restrictions (known as the Bear Stearns exemption) These five firms all jacked up their leverage. What impact did this increased leverage have on the crisis?

For seven decades, Glass Steagall separated FDIC insured depository banks from riskier investment houses. Prior to the repeal of Glass Steagall in 1998, the market had regular crashes that did not spill over into the real economy: 1966, 1970, 1974, and most telling of all, 1987. What impact did the repeal of Glass Steagall have on the banking system during the 2008-09 crash?

NonBank Lenders: Most of the sub-prime mortgages were made by unregulated non-bank lenders. They had a ”Lend to securitize” business model, and they sold enormous amounts of subprime loans to Wall Street for this purpose. Primarily located in California, they were also unregulated by both the Federal Reserve and the California State legislator. What was the impact of these firms?

These firms abdicated traditional lending standards. They pushed option arms, interest only loans, and negative amortization mortgages, all of which defaulted in huge numbers. Was non-bank sub prime lending a major factor in the crisis?

The entire world had a simultaneous global housing boom and bust. US legislation such as the CRA or Fannie & Freddie only covered US housing and lenders. How did this cause a worldwide boom and bust — even bigger than that in the US ?

Prior to the 2004, many States had Anti-Predatory Lending (APL) laws on their books (and lower defaults and foreclosure rates). In 2004, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) Federally Preempted state laws regulating mortgage credit and national banks. What was the impact of this OCC Federal Preemption ?

Corporate Structure: None of the Wall Street partnerships got into trouble, only the publicly traded iBanks. Partnerships have full personal liability for their losses. What was the impact of this lack of personal liability of senior management on Wall Street risk management?

Comment: Some of these come close to being purely rhetorical in the sense that (I suspect) Barry feels he knows the answer, and that the answer is damning to the culprits. For every one of them, I suspect somebody over at the American Enterprise Institute will be ready with a memo showing that it was a total non-issue and oh look! There's Barney Frank! Even given AEIs risible record of "research," still a number of these do represent real issues on which I'd love to have a better sense of who is right. Example: repeal of Glass Steagall is part of the standard mantra. Yet wouldn't I be right that the worst afflicted banks (Bear Stearns, Lehman) are the ones least diversified, the ones that took least advantage of Glass Steagall repeal? Can we document that Federal preemption really changed anything?

I know, that's not really his point--his point being to try to shame four guys who seem to have no sense of shame, and who pass on, as an "investigation report," a set of AEI talking points that they could have drafted before the commission was ever appointed.

and, contra to an earlier Post, on “Quants”, these are the ‘Data Jockeys’ to pay attention to–ask Jim Simons, see if he agrees..

curbyourrisk Says:

December 9th, 2010 at 9:12 am

Great tool…….WOW…..Farmingdale is loaded. Funny, when I looked up at the North Shore of Long Island (where all the beautiful people live)…..NONE!!! But then again, they are beter than the rest of us.

rktbrkr Says:

December 9th, 2010 at 9:32 am

Fannie has an online listing of their REOs, only 3% downpayment required with 3.5% allowance for owner-occupied – so essentially nothing down. No appraisal or mortgage ins required. Nothing said about title ins. Special financing for renovations/repairs.

I believe there will be at least one more wave of markdowns in the sand states once the foreclosure train regains momentum, the normal areas might be near bottom now as long as we can hold at 90% employment.

If BB screws up and mortgage rates soar then it’s good night Irene for homeowers even at this level

http://www.homepath.com/

beaufou Says:

December 9th, 2010 at 9:32 am

Can you google map the notes for those foreclosures?

Livermore Shimervore Says:

December 9th, 2010 at 10:33 am

interesting: Click on both the “For Sale” and “Foreclosure” check boxes and then unclick “For Sale”. Very different maps.

curbyourrisk Says:

December 9th, 2010 at 11:28 am

But, but Barry said the bottom was in/near in housing…

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-09/homes-in-u-s-poised-to-lose-1-7-trillion-in-value-this-year-zillow-says.html

Mannwich Says:

December 9th, 2010 at 12:13 pm

This one is a must-read today:

http://www.correntewire.com/why_obama_tax_deal_republicans_insane

louis Says:

December 9th, 2010 at 1:16 pm

Move along, these aren’t the dots your looking for – Que Ostrich.

Google Maps adds Foreclosure Results » The Art of Short Sales Says:

December 9th, 2010 at 3:14 pm

[...] interesting find over at The Big Picture, detailing how to use Google Maps to find foreclosures: Google Maps keeps evolving, expanding the ability to drill down into granular detail. The latest [...]

Use a Google Maps Filter to See Nearby Foreclosures [Real Estate] | Berry Live Says:

December 9th, 2010 at 4:02 pm

[...] state of the economy, and for seeing what homes go for when they’ve been left in the wind. Google Map Foreclosure Tricks [The Big Picture via BoingBoing [...]

Foreclosure Listing On Google Maps? « Daniel's Rants & Raves Says:

December 9th, 2010 at 5:24 pm

[...] I know Google Maps can be used to see directions to some place in the area you never been to, you can see street views of places, and so many other wonderful uses for Google Maps but now you can actually check the Foreclosures in a particular area using Google’s Map Service which is crazy, check out this article for more Details HERE. [...]

FMT Says:

December 9th, 2010 at 6:56 pm

Immensely sad to reflect on the family stress and pain many of these dots will represent.

michael Says:

December 9th, 2010 at 11:06 pm

its probably worth noting that even this badly understates the problem. a home across the street from me was short-sold and the family lost all of their equity and the money’s for a major addition they had put into it; they of course aren’t shown. also, the house next to them went through foreclosure. its since been bought and a new family is living there. since its not currently in foreclosure, its not displayed either.

Rob Says:

December 9th, 2010 at 11:07 pm

Been having fun looking at foreclosure properties in my area this morning.

Didn’t know that was even a possibility on GM.

Stumbled upon something that was really cool that I’ve never seen before.

Well sort of. If you look at a property using the “street view” then you

can checkout the area around the property. (yeah, bear with me, I know that

isn’t “new”) But while you looking at it in street view, right mouse click

on the image and select “3D mode on.” Now that’s bad ass.

I use to do mechanical design work and our computer did a similar “trick” as

this. When you were designing a 3D part you could put it in 3D mode and the

part you were designing became 3D (with the glasses of course) While it was

a super nifty trick, it didn’t have much purpose in the design process.

Similar to this street view thing I guess, really nifty but not much

purpose…. yet.

In case the 3D thing isn’t available everywhere, here’s the property I was

looking at.

http://maps.google.com/maps?

Rob

TheCenterLane Says:

December 10th, 2010 at 3:51 am

I wouldn’t get too excited about that unit at 3425 Collins Ave. I used to live right nearby for 9 years.

Even in this depressed market: You get what you pay for.

Caveat Emptor. ‘Nuff said.

zato Says:

December 10th, 2010 at 1:12 pm

These are NOT foreclosure listings. They are FOR SALE listings.

I looked at my neighborhood and ever single house that is for sale is designated a foreclosure according to google maps with “foreclosure” checked. Every single one. Now I know some of my neighbors and they are not in foreclosure.

The data is bad, folks.

Amazing & Staggering – Foreclosure Maps | Roylat.com Says:

December 10th, 2010 at 2:58 pm

[...] out the full article and set of maps – and instructions on how to do it yourself [...]

paulks Says:

December 11th, 2010 at 11:25 am

The data doesn’t represent what we think it does, or what the title implies. I asked a real estate insider about this map. His reply:

“That is a pretty neat system. Unfortunately, it’s not a very accurate or useful system to me, it looks like it just generates hits to foreclosure “sale” websites, which in turn makes my client call me and ask to see a property that was sold weeks ago. The interesting thing is that nobody can actually sell a foreclosure except the public trustee, they only take cash, and they don’t advertise. The news media has done a good job of confusing the public about what a foreclosure really is. All these houses may be in the foreclosure process at some point, or have already gone through foreclosure. Most appear to be bank owned or short sales or distressed sales, etc.

I looked up a couple I know about and the system appears to only be linked to these commercial websites, not the current MLS. 1375 S Vrain is shown on the map as being listed for $145k. I know it went through and completed foreclosure nearly a year ago, and the bank sold it at auction 10 days ago for $74,000 (to my investors)”

Foreclosures on Google Maps | Mapsys.info Says:

December 12th, 2010 at 5:55 pm

[...] The Big Picture has been looking at a number of areas on Google Maps to assess the impact of the downturn on people’s homes. [...]

Matrix » Google Maps Shows Us Our Foreclosure Skeletons Says:

December 12th, 2010 at 7:04 pm

[...] is why Barry Ritholtz’s The Big Picture is a must read – always a trove of cool insight – this time its (via ChartPorn) [...]

America’s Spreading Foreclosure Pandemic — use Google’s foreclosure maps to expose the extent of foreclosures nationwide and in your neighborhood « Dregs of the Future Says:

December 13th, 2010 at 1:17 pm

[...] Amazing US default and foreclosure maps [...]

Quora Says:

December 13th, 2010 at 4:09 pm

How to find foreclosing apartments?…

Google provides an interesting solution for this though I cannot confirm if their results are relevant. Basically go to Google Maps, punch in any US address and hit the More button besides Traffic. There is an option for Real Estate, check that and on …

Cogitator Says:

December 13th, 2010 at 5:12 pm

This seems to be for homes that have been foreclosed on. There are many others that are in the process, but have not yet been, as they say, sold on the courthouse steps to make this list. If all of the homes that are in the process of being foreclosed were on on this map, it would look much worse.

Keith Olbermann: 'Fox News Is 100% Bullshit'

Keith Olbermann is anything but hesitant when it comes to a battle with Fox News, and the MSNBC anchor took to Twitter Wednesday to share his views on the TV network he probably wouldn't even call a rival. "Fox News is 100% bullshit," ...

News - Queen Elizabeth Welcomes First Great-Grandchild! - Moms ...

Peter Phillips' wife Autumn gave birth to a baby girl Wednesday.

Larry Kramer: This Is Why Fox News Continues To Roll

People are getting lazy about forming their own opinions.

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Tuesday, December 28, 2010

foreclosure

""A total of 78,955 U.S. properties received default notices (NOD, LIS) in November, a 21 percent decrease from the previous month and a 31 percent decrease from November 2009 — the 10th straight annual decrease in default notices. November’s default notices total was the lowest since July 2007. ""

DEFAULT NOTICES, administrative 3 months mandatory paper trail, properly 'served' to meet stage one Legal Requirements...

November 2010 lowest since July 2007 thats 3 years and 5 months = 41 months

so finally exhausted the continued monthly supply of about 80,000 defaulting type house buyers, 3.28 million defaulters

SINCE THE TAIL END CHARLIES finally 'evicted' is/has been at 95,000 / month...(why MORE..hum) ANYWAY, FOR SURE ALL 100% OF THE DEFAULTERS SEEM TO BE CONTINUING TO NOT PAY..remaining rent free during the judicial cycle from default to final eviction...

How Long on average ? 12-24 months per house rent-free? pure guess.. another guess is therrefore HOW MUCH 'TAKE HOME ADDITIONAL SPENDING MONEY IS IT @ 24 months and say $1500/month (very modest estimate, low end). and 3.28 million 'beneficiaries' over the 41 months thus far...

Well, a NICE SOLID $36,100 per household ....11.75 x 10 (6+4) => 11.75 tens of billions..=>.$117.50 BILLION boost to the USA economy, spread over 41 months, very very good...

Another pure guess is IF the US IRS will make an Administrative Final Decision regards the tax status of the UNPAIDFORGIVEN DEBTS on those mortgages...

You see, of course, that for every Bank Tax deduction for 'written off mortgage-debt', that same EQUAL amount of "DEBT FORGIVEN MUST BE TAXED", against the 'beneficiary...shall it be 'short term' or 'long term' windfall income?,

and under what special payment terms shall the IRS allow the money-due to be paid...probably the short term mode = 35% average for blue collar workers, spread over 2 years of the estimated $36,100 / household finally evicted, about $12,600 'back taxes due'

and for non-citizens, non-payment could result in deportation/refusals to renew VISAs and all THAT...right?

A press release from LPS' Mortgage Monitor Report shows Foreclosure Inventory Rising for 5th Straight Month

The November Mortgage Monitor report released by Lender Processing Services, Inc. (LPS) shows that the volume of loans moving to REO continued to drop as moratoria further delayed foreclosure sales. While the 90+ delinquency category has steadily declined, the number of loans moving to seriously delinquent status beyond 90 days far outpaced the number of foreclosure starts. Nearly 2.2 million loans are 90 days or more delinquent but not yet in foreclosure.

Foreclosure inventories also continued to rise for the fifth straight month as delinquent accounts are referred for foreclosure, but the sale of foreclosure properties continued to decline. When compared to January 2008 levels, the foreclosure inventory of Jumbo Prime loans is nearly seven times higher; the inventory of Agency Prime loans is nearly six times higher; and the foreclosure inventory of Option ARM loans is approaching five times the inventory in January 2008.

The report also shows that one-third of loans that are 90 days or more delinquent have not made a payment in a year; however, the number of new problem loans declined nearly 5.4 percent from October, which is opposite of the seasonality trend that typically impacts new delinquencies this time of year. Self-cures for loans one to two months delinquent increased in November to a six-month high.

In the month of November, 261,153 loans were referred to foreclosure, which represents a 0.7% month-over-month decline. The total number of delinquent loans is nearly 2.1 times historical averages - and foreclosure inventory is currently at 7.7 times historical averages.

As reported in LPS' First Look release, other key results from LPS' latest Mortgage Monitor report include:

Total U.S. loan delinquency rate: 9.02 percent
Total U.S. foreclosure inventory rate: 4.08 percent
Total U.S. non-current* loan rate: 13.10 percent
States with most non-current* loans: Florida, Nevada, Mississippi, Georgia, New Jersey
States with fewest non-current* loans: North Dakota, South Dakota, Alaska, Wyoming, Montana

Charts From The Report

The report is 34 pages long. Inquiring minds may wish to give it a closer look. Here are a few select charts.

click on any chart for sharper image

Delinquent and Foreclosure Rates by Month

Total Delinquency Percent Excluding Foreclosures

Total Foreclosure Percent By Product

Foreclosure Increase Compared to January 2008

Loan Cures

Serious Delinquencies

Foreclosure Starts vs. Serious Delinquencies

While there are some welcome trends in direction, actual foreclosures are lagging. The pent-up need to foreclose is huge.

Moreover, mortgage rates have rising nearly a full percentage point in the last 45 days. This will put a damper on already depressed home sales, making it harder to unload inventory.

Look for months of inventory to soar in the upcoming months with continued declines in home prices. Contrary to what most think, falling prices are a good thing. Home prices need to fall to a point low enough where genuine demand kicks in.

Foreclosure moratoriums are counterproductive and exacerbate existing problems.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

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'NBC Nightly News' Wins 4th Quarter Ratings

"NBC Nightly News" continued its long-running ratings streak in the fourth quarter of 2010, beating its rivals at ABC and CBS by substantial margins. The Brian Williams-hosted program drew 8.72 million viewers in the fourth quarter.

Fox News - Ratings - 2010 | MSNBC - CNN | Mediaite

Fox News will mark 2010 as one of the best years since the network's launch in 1996. The network posted powerful ratings, beating the combined ratings of CNN and MSNBC and marking the ninth straight year as cable's top news network.

Fox News - Ratings - 2010 | MSNBC - CNN | Mediaite

NJ Gov. - AOL News

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Thursday, December 23, 2010

Making Money Tips

Not sure what to make this holiday season? Katie Lee fills you in on some helpful tips, thanks to Betty Crocker!

“The ‘Betty 10 Red Hot Holiday Trends‘ touches on some of the biggest trends I’m seeing this holiday season. The ‘Gifts To DIY for’ trend, a movement towards giving homemade treat as gifts to stretch the holiday budget, is one I truly believe in,” says the 29-year-old chef and cookbook author.

“Some of the DIY baked goods I love to make for gifts include my signature Sweet & Salty Chex Party Mix and my grandma’s Peanut Butter Balls,” she adds.

Plus, “the ‘Mixology Mashup’ trend is hot. Creating dessert-style cocktails is a great way to enhance your holiday party.”

Take a look at the complete Betty 10 Red Hot Holiday Trends list after the cut - and for recipes and how-to videos, check out BettyCrocker.com!

This post was written by the Web Marketing Ninja — a professional online marketer for a major web brand, who’s sharing his tips undercover here at ProBlogger. Curious? So are we!

As online marketers, we often devote a large amount of time to finding ways to attract eyeballs to our online assets. We put such effort into simply get the readers there that we allow the rest to take care of itself. Money will flow, Ferraris will be purchased, and we can all retire nice and young…

Then we discover the concept of sales funnels.

You may already know what a sales funnel is, but if you don’t, let me quickly describe it for you.

A sales funnel is a simple map of your lead-to-sale process.

Let’s imagine you start with 1,000 leads (visitors to your web site).

100 might click on a sales page link for of one of your products.

50 might click your Order Now button and enter your shopping cart.

Ten complete the checkout process and buy the product.

So your sales funnel starts and 1,000 and ends in ten sales—that’s a 1% conversion.

That’s a bare-bones view of a sales funnel, but as you can see it takes four steps, not one, to increase the amount of sales your site delivers. If we put all our attention on attracting new visitors, we’re essentially forgetting 75% of the puzzle—and we’ve all done that.

But that’s not where online marketers go wrong!

It’s not hard to sell people the idea of the sales funnel—it’s simple to understand and easy to quantify. It’s also been around for a long time. Offline sales professionals have been using it for decades.

The problem with the sales funnel is that in the offline world it’s a simple and straightforward methodology, but in the online world, it’s not.

The image below is a quick process map I prepared for a Managing Director of a large retail operation, who’s focusing heavily on online strategy.

As you can see, that organization’s sales funnel is a lot more complicated than the simple four-step process I mentioned above. There are some key points I want to highlight in this map:

Seven different types of traffic that visit the site.

There are multiple behaviors that we need to analyse: what pages visitors view, how long they stay, the navigational path, and their user profiles (locations, browsers, etc.).

There’s a connection outcome, as well as a buy outcome.

A visitor can become a customer in a range of ways.

Now my idea of a funnel resembles something I use to fill my car with oil, and this looks nothing like it. This depiction reminds me more of the tubes game I play on my iPhone. In even more bad news, I made this process map in five minutes. The reality is that this business’s online sales funnel is probably twice as complicated!

The key to sales funnel success

The key to creating a more successful sales funnel is: step away from the keyboard. While I work in an office, I actually have a whiteboard in my house. I actually use it, and it’s better than any online tool I’ve seen for laying out the bare bones of a real, live sales funnel.

I start by detailing every single way people can enter the funnel, identifying where they have come from, what their persona is, and where they’re at in the purchase cycle.

Then, I identify every activity that someone can undertake on the site: read some content, read some more content, subscribe to a newsletter, view a social media profile, buy something, or exit the site.

Finally I detail the measures I can put on each activity: time on page, entry path, exit path, and so on.

Then I start connecting the dots and putting together all the different pathways a visitor can take thought my funnel. The key here is not to change anything about your site yet.

Putting theory into practice

Once the funnel is mapped, and the measures are in place, I start collating reports at every step. What I’m trying to do here is understand how my funnel works in practice, not in theory.

Try this on your blog. Once you’ve collated enough information to start making decisions, I guarantee there will be obvious points of failure in your process, and they’re likely to arise in two main areas:

a page that does a great job at encouraging a secondary behaviour (that is, rather than keeping someone in the sales funnel)

a page that fundamentally fails to move a customer to the next step in the funnel.

Initially, you’ll probably feel like there is a lot to do, so you’ll need to prioritize the changes you want to make. Focus on the areas that are costing you the most sales (which might actually be at the bottom end of your funnel).

With time, effort, and focus, you could see huge improvements in the performance of your site, without your having to attract one new visitor to your site. Sounds good to me!

Have you tweaked your sales funnel recently? What changes have worked best for you?

Stay tuned from most posts by the secretive Web Marketing Ninja—a professional online marketer for a major web brand, who’s sharing his tips undercover here at ProBlogger. Questions? Suggestions? Email him.

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Obama news conference: liveblog – CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs

Washington (CNN) -- President Barack Obama held a news conference Wednesday to discuss the lame duck session of Congress and plans for the upcoming year.

WarioWare D.I.Y. games cover 2010 news | Joystiq

WarioWare D.I.Y. games cover 2010 news | Joystiq

Rihanna joins the Dance Central Xbox 360 News - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net

Read our Xbox 360 news of Rihanna joins the Dance Central.

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Wednesday, December 22, 2010

about internet marketing

That slide above is no joke -- it comes from a marketing webinar put on by two companies that count Verizon, AT&T and Vodafone as clients, and it describes a system that identifies customer internet activity and charges a different rate for using Facebook than watching YouTube, while allowing access to Vodafone services for free. Yes, that's basically the nightmare scenario for net neutrality advocates. The two companies behind the slide are Allot Communications and Openet, which sell subscriber-management tools to carriers around the world -- tools that Allot's director of marketing says can scan even encrypted packets to determine what service customers are using and charge accordingly. We're not making this up -- here's the direct quote from the webinar:

They call these their LEAP Data Centers. LEAP stands for Learn, Experience, Architect and Plan. These are the equivalent of a showroom that gives the customer access and the ability to do hands-on work. The data centers are fully functioning with a full-time staff. Customers use the data center to learn what is required to build a data center environment.

So what could have been a real expense has become a way to market virtualization.

Turning to Virtualization

To create the LEAP centers, Westcon drew from what it learned when deciding to build its Cincinnati data center.

For instance, they looked at the considerable costs that go into play when virtualization is considered. Depreciating technology is a common issue when virtualization is explored as an option. Westcon learned that the chief financial officer needed to have direct involvement in the technology adoption.

They learned that it is not just the CFO but the CIO, too, who is affected when writing off tens of millions of servers. Savings and optimization are critical but they come at a certain cost when existing technology has to be shelved.

The process required conversations in executive management for the strategy to be fully realized. It turned the context of the discussion as the subject became one about building the LEAP centers and not just building a new data center for internal operations.

Making Choices

Westcon chose VMware for virtualization. This was two years ago and VMware was about the only game in town.

With the context changed, Westicon started looking at its infrastructure. They asked themselves the question:

"What are the tools that do not add a competitive advantage?"

Westicon decided that messaging, IT development and CRM would be better outsourced to the cloud.

The company then decided to virtualize everything else. In particular, that meant its ERP software.

Westcon had used JD EDwards ERP software and Oracle database and SQL servers. They turned to SAP and IBM DB2. They chose Cisco UCS for its servers and networking. They used EMC Clarion technology for storage.

They also used Amazon Web Services for storage.

Westcon CTO Bill Hurley said to us in an interview that they learned how networks become critically important in a virtualized world. In the past, data centers have had a three-tier architecture. Now networks need higher speeds. They need the Internet and other ways to penetrate the network. Zero latency is the goal.

"There is a lot more intelligence that needs to be put into the network because with virtualization you are moving from a virtual perspective back and forth from physical devices with no down time even though you are traversing from one machine to another," Hurley said.

The flexibilities that come with elasticity also affect the data center and how it operates. Machines are moving around all the time, sometimes with robots doing the work.

Westcon took the experiences of how it made its decisions with its internal operations to create the LEAP centers. Hurley and his team learned through developing its own data center that customers would benefit from doing it themselves, too. That's the premise behind its LEAP program.

"It's a full data center with truly a classroom feel," Hurley said.

The Westcon experience shows how much data centers are changing. Virtualization is leading the way.

Now as we head into 2011, it's evident networking is a hot topic. The network is flattening. The proof is in the data centers.

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News Conference by The President | The White House
News Conference by The President. South Court Auditorium, Eisenhower Executive Office Building. 4:16 P.M. EST. THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody. Good afternoon. I know everybody is itching to get out of here and spend some time with ...
CBS News airs fake, typo-ridden cover of Bush's 'Decision Points ...
During a Sunday book special, CBS News aired a misspelled, mocking cover of Bush's memoir Decision Points.
Facebook Makes News Feed Filters Available To All
It looks like Facebook has made its revived news feed filters available to all users, after initially made them available selectively last week.

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News Conference by The President | The White House
News Conference by The President. South Court Auditorium, Eisenhower Executive Office Building. 4:16 P.M. EST. THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody. Good afternoon. I know everybody is itching to get out of here and spend some time with ...
CBS News airs fake, typo-ridden cover of Bush's 'Decision Points ...
During a Sunday book special, CBS News aired a misspelled, mocking cover of Bush's memoir Decision Points.
Facebook Makes News Feed Filters Available To All
It looks like Facebook has made its revived news feed filters available to all users, after initially made them available selectively last week.

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News Conference by The President | The White House
News Conference by The President. South Court Auditorium, Eisenhower Executive Office Building. 4:16 P.M. EST. THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody. Good afternoon. I know everybody is itching to get out of here and spend some time with ...
CBS News airs fake, typo-ridden cover of Bush's 'Decision Points ...
During a Sunday book special, CBS News aired a misspelled, mocking cover of Bush's memoir Decision Points.
Facebook Makes News Feed Filters Available To All
It looks like Facebook has made its revived news feed filters available to all users, after initially made them available selectively last week.

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News Conference by The President | The White House
News Conference by The President. South Court Auditorium, Eisenhower Executive Office Building. 4:16 P.M. EST. THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody. Good afternoon. I know everybody is itching to get out of here and spend some time with ...
CBS News airs fake, typo-ridden cover of Bush's 'Decision Points ...
During a Sunday book special, CBS News aired a misspelled, mocking cover of Bush's memoir Decision Points.
Facebook Makes News Feed Filters Available To All
It looks like Facebook has made its revived news feed filters available to all users, after initially made them available selectively last week.

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News Conference by The President | The White House
News Conference by The President. South Court Auditorium, Eisenhower Executive Office Building. 4:16 P.M. EST. THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody. Good afternoon. I know everybody is itching to get out of here and spend some time with ...
CBS News airs fake, typo-ridden cover of Bush's 'Decision Points ...
During a Sunday book special, CBS News aired a misspelled, mocking cover of Bush's memoir Decision Points.
Facebook Makes News Feed Filters Available To All
It looks like Facebook has made its revived news feed filters available to all users, after initially made them available selectively last week.

bench craft company scam
News Conference by The President | The White House
News Conference by The President. South Court Auditorium, Eisenhower Executive Office Building. 4:16 P.M. EST. THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody. Good afternoon. I know everybody is itching to get out of here and spend some time with ...
CBS News airs fake, typo-ridden cover of Bush's 'Decision Points ...
During a Sunday book special, CBS News aired a misspelled, mocking cover of Bush's memoir Decision Points.
Facebook Makes News Feed Filters Available To All
It looks like Facebook has made its revived news feed filters available to all users, after initially made them available selectively last week.

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News Conference by The President | The White House
News Conference by The President. South Court Auditorium, Eisenhower Executive Office Building. 4:16 P.M. EST. THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody. Good afternoon. I know everybody is itching to get out of here and spend some time with ...
CBS News airs fake, typo-ridden cover of Bush's 'Decision Points ...
During a Sunday book special, CBS News aired a misspelled, mocking cover of Bush's memoir Decision Points.
Facebook Makes News Feed Filters Available To All
It looks like Facebook has made its revived news feed filters available to all users, after initially made them available selectively last week.

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News Conference by The President | The White House
News Conference by The President. South Court Auditorium, Eisenhower Executive Office Building. 4:16 P.M. EST. THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody. Good afternoon. I know everybody is itching to get out of here and spend some time with ...
CBS News airs fake, typo-ridden cover of Bush's 'Decision Points ...
During a Sunday book special, CBS News aired a misspelled, mocking cover of Bush's memoir Decision Points.
Facebook Makes News Feed Filters Available To All
It looks like Facebook has made its revived news feed filters available to all users, after initially made them available selectively last week.

bench craft company scam
News Conference by The President | The White House
News Conference by The President. South Court Auditorium, Eisenhower Executive Office Building. 4:16 P.M. EST. THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody. Good afternoon. I know everybody is itching to get out of here and spend some time with ...
CBS News airs fake, typo-ridden cover of Bush's 'Decision Points ...
During a Sunday book special, CBS News aired a misspelled, mocking cover of Bush's memoir Decision Points.
Facebook Makes News Feed Filters Available To All
It looks like Facebook has made its revived news feed filters available to all users, after initially made them available selectively last week.

bench craft company scam
News Conference by The President | The White House
News Conference by The President. South Court Auditorium, Eisenhower Executive Office Building. 4:16 P.M. EST. THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody. Good afternoon. I know everybody is itching to get out of here and spend some time with ...
CBS News airs fake, typo-ridden cover of Bush's 'Decision Points ...
During a Sunday book special, CBS News aired a misspelled, mocking cover of Bush's memoir Decision Points.
Facebook Makes News Feed Filters Available To All
It looks like Facebook has made its revived news feed filters available to all users, after initially made them available selectively last week.

bench craft company scam
News Conference by The President | The White House
News Conference by The President. South Court Auditorium, Eisenhower Executive Office Building. 4:16 P.M. EST. THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody. Good afternoon. I know everybody is itching to get out of here and spend some time with ...
CBS News airs fake, typo-ridden cover of Bush's 'Decision Points ...
During a Sunday book special, CBS News aired a misspelled, mocking cover of Bush's memoir Decision Points.
Facebook Makes News Feed Filters Available To All
It looks like Facebook has made its revived news feed filters available to all users, after initially made them available selectively last week.

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Sunday, December 19, 2010

Making Money Ideas

Case Study: How Shpongle Went From Yelling At Fans To Embracing Fans

from the a-case-study dept

Over the last month or so, things have been quite busy at Techdirt, and we haven't had time to add to our case studies section, even though we have a few more lined up. However, Bas Grasmayer, sent over the following case study (also posted on his blog), which is a part of his thesis (which we've mentioned before). The case study is about Shpongle, a much respected group of musicians in a very specific niche, psychedelic chill-out, but it has attracted many fans of other genres too and is generally categorized as 'electronica'.

A while before they released their latest album 'Ineffable Mysteries From Shpongleland,' it leaked onto filesharing networks and fans of Shpongle started discussing the new album on the internet forum of Shpongle�s record label, Twisted Music. Obviously, Simon Posford, the main person behind Shpongle and owner of the Twisted Music label, was very unhappy about this and lashed out:

"So some fucker has released the album on the internet already.... thanks a lot, whoever it was... Maybe twisted will still recoup, maybe not... all i know is that we are teetering on bankruptcy, and are seeking deals elsewhere.... the 12 loyal fans on this forum are not enough to sustain a record label.... How much do you think Twisted has in the bank account? Have a guess? More than $10,000 ? More than $20,000 ? Well it is actually less than $1,000..... Raj and i haven't even been paid our advance for this album.... All the artists on twisted are seeking deals with other labels now... We can't pay a label manager, and we can't pay the artists.... always putting our hope in 'just ONE more release'.... "We'll be ok if the DVD sells"...."Surely the Shpongle CD will sell, right?"

This sucks, for Twisted, for myself and Raj who have spent 3 years working on the album.... Just as i started looking around and posting on this forum again, i remembered why i shouldn't bother.... I'm outta here... Soon to be followed by Younger Brother [another project by Simon Posford] and probably Twisted...

Enjoy."

He got understandably emotional, but misdirected his anger towards perhaps the most dedicated fans: those who really cannot wait until the release and decided to preview it. After all, Shpongle hadn't released an album in four years and their following is quite fanatical about their music. Later in the same forum topic, he adds some more thoughts, which are also relevant to this case study:

"It's all very well to speculate, but i can tell you as a fact, we made more money before file sharing... we could survive... now not so.... and i think you will find it the same all over the music business... the argument that "file sharing is promotion" is probably valid.... in fact, i agree...in a way it serves a similar purpose to radio.... but the argument that "file sharing is promotion and therefore you will sell more CDs" is clearly absolute bollocks, otherwise the music industry would be booming right now!

Also i'm sorry that "And if it weren't for the internet, I would have given up on music entirely".... for me, the internet makes me want to give up music wink But i guess i'm from a different generation.... I started making some of the trance that probably fills your 100Gigs hard drive before i'd even heard of the internet... and i didn't need the internet to find a deep love of music... the rush of buying a new vinyl, of collecting every release/picture disc by my favourite artists�. discovering new music i liked, all underground, no radio-plugged mix CDs or whatever... ALL without the internet!"

Later on in the topic, which currently carries over 600 replies, fans started to suggest ideas to Simon. They encouraged each other to buy more merchandise, to replace old t-shirts or hoodies, to buy an extra album to give to a friend and they came up with ideas to help out Simon Posford, Shpongle, and Twisted Music.

And it seems Simon has also learned from the fact that you indeed will not sell more CDs even when filesharing is good promotion, as he noted. Being a fan myself, I was very delighted to receive a newsletter, one year after the leak, which featured some interesting new business models and experiments. It does a few things very well and I'll highlight this bit by bit. The opening paragraph is as follows:

"Dear Twisted fans,

The new Prometheus album has been doing very well on Beatport with 4 of his tracks reaching the Top10 of the electronica charts. If you haven't got your copy yet then Benji and Twisted would be happy if you could get onto Beatport and purchase at least the electronica tracks. We'd love to see him get to Number 1!

Ott is beginning his 6 date tour of the USA starting tonight! You can see and buy tickets to all his tour dates at the bottom of this newsletter. You can also join his Facebook Fan Page here.

We've also got two new tracks of Younger Brother and Shpongle available as a free download, keep reading to find out how to get hold of them."

What a dramatic change of tone, compared to the rants on the forum. This is how you connect with fans! First of all, it acknowledges fan support in terms of chart positions and makes a polite request (as opposed to lashing out or guilt-tripping fans, like on the forum). Also, it tries to unite the fans and give them a purpose; a mission. People love accomplishments, individually or in groups, if only for the little dopamine rewards our brains release.

They then give the fans more information and ways to connect with one of the labels artist's and finally reward fans with free music. That's a great way to open a newsletter.

As for the free tracks, the newsletter featured two images with links to the place to download the song. Once on the page, the page showed a download button, which when clicked, becomes a box in which people must enter their email address (as seen on the left). So actually, they can see which email addresses support which artists, but also, when people choose to use one of the share buttons, they help Twisted Music get more email addresses than just the ones they already had for the newsletter.

Younger Brother's page was a little more complex (see screenshot on the right), with more information, but basically boils down to the same thing.

The newsletter then continues with another exciting way of dealing with the reality created by the internet, which is crowd-funding:

"Many of you have already pledged on the Younger Brother album 'Vaccine'. We're working with pledge to raise money and to set up the best possible foundation to promote and release the record next year.

We're calling on the loyal and faithful to help. In exchange we're offering loads of interesting things from studio time with the band to limited artwork and access to rehearsals."

Again, a great way to involve fans and to offer them something exciting. It basically offers them a reason to do it for themselves, instead of telling them to please buy a CD because the label needs it (see forum post). Some of the 'items' on the list for people that pledge: signed CD (£15), new album and entire back catalogue (£25), coming to one of their rehearsals (£40), studio workshop (£300), being in one of their videos (£150), a unique personal remix of your favourite track of the album (£600), and much more.

The newsletter closes with more standard stuff, such as tour dates and the like.

RECAP

The strategy here is simple, yet complex. First of all, the label releases some very unique, high-quality music, which has given them a fanatical and evangelical following (Seth Godin would call this a tribe). Secondly, this following, together with the label, has turned into an ecosystem; when things were not going well, the ecosystem started figuring out ways in which it could survive as a whole. Thirdly, Simon Posford started paying close attention to his tribe and started catering directly to their needs. When reduced to a communication and business strategy, it becomes the formula of CwF (Connecting with Fans) and giving fans a RtB (Reason to Buy).

Giving away free songs is a good example of connecting with fans by rewarding them. The clearest reasons to buy in this mailing are the mission to get one of the label's artists to number 1, as well as all the rewards for pledging money for the new album.

It is important to note that this should not be done to generate profit, but should genuinely be done to please the fans and to give them what they want. I thoroughly believe that if you betray your fans' trust, you will lose them and your (potential) income.

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By Nigel Bradley

“Knowledge is Power” is a quotation that dates back to 1597 and is attributed to Sir Francis Bacon. And there lies the reason to conduct market and social research. Surveys, focus groups and observation allow us to build gaps in our knowledge, to identify demand and thereby supply what is needed (or wanted). Research information minimises risks in decision making, it saves money, increases productivity and is generally valuable.

The Labour government recognised the importance of information and directed thousands of pounds of money into research projects. Tax payers’ money was used and so this research was made largely available to the public in the name of transparency. The Office of National Statistics and the research institute IPSOS MORI both have numerous examples of such studies. We have some indications of the amounts spent on research – the Central Office of Information alone spent more than £27m in 2009/2010. The numerous satisfaction surveys for the NHS, the Police, in transport and other areas give food for thought.

The next government came along in 2010 and immediately implemented spending cuts. The BBC summarised these as follows:

– £81bn cut from public spending over four years

– 19% average departmental cuts

– £7bn extra welfare cuts

– 7% cut for local councils from April next year

Research was also cut heavily, we see the impact in government departments – the COI shed a third of its staff, posts in research agencies serving the sector were lost.

Tony Blair’s government was criticised for over using research. Sometimes it seemed that decision makers would refuse to make decisions without results from focus groups or surveys. Decisions would be postponed until research was made available. Sometimes there was “information overload” and a sort of decision paralysis.

In 2004 Oxford City Council commissioned a market research agency to find out how residents thought it should spend its budget in the next year. A method was proposed which led to interviews with 28 people and involved a day of “community discussion”. The fee was £15,000. The agency described it as a “powerful day”, but angry taxpayers, who funded the project, called it a waste of money. One councillor said: “We could all have written this report in 30 seconds, and for free.”

Under the new government the tables seem to have been turned. Decision makers have been given back their skills of using instinct, intuition and persuasiveness. Some would say their integrity and raison d’être have been restored, others would say they have been stripped of up to date information.

The recent Student Fees issue is a good example. In an ideal situation the policy would have been tested with different people: 16 year olds, parents, academics, undergraduates, postgraduates, school teachers, union representatives. Individual depth interviews and questionnaire analyses would have identified the good and bad points.

Focus groups would have sensed the frenzy that we have seen on our streets that results from person triggering another person into action. Careful consultation would have identified the best ways to communicate unpalatable ideas; indeed this would have guided the package. All of this was missing and so we saw an attack on Prince Charles, the hospitalisation of demonstrators and police alike. We saw dignity and common sense stripped away. Penny pinchers will have seen an unnecessary expenditure on policing, medics and repairs. This is an amount of money that surely exceeds efficient pre-testing research.

Perhaps that research took place? If so, something went terribly wrong. We can only wait to see similar mistakes.

Meanwhile the new government have decided to pump research money into a continuous study which will monitor “well-being” of the British public (we are told not to call this happiness). Cameron said: “It’s time we admitted that there’s more to life than money, and it’s time we focused not just on GDP but on GWB – general wellbeing.” Measure for Measure not a good start methinks.

Nigel Bradley is a senior lecturer in marketing at the University of Westminster in London and a Fellow of the Market Research Society. This year Oxford University Press published the second edition of Nigel’s textbook: Marketing Research – Tools and Techniques. He has previously written this post for OUPblog.

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