Gary Secondino's Weblog

Monday, October 21, 2002

categories: Culture, Biz

Can't buy me love online
Match.com has started charging people to reply to potential suitors who send them an e-mail, a move some subscribers worry could reduce their chances of finding a mate.
The popular online dating service, which is one of the few profitable ventures on the Web, said it implemented the policy as it looks for new ways to make money.

iSay - here is the opportunity for Yahoo to dominate in this field. In my view this move by Match speaks only to greed (they already are profitable). Typically a service company increases prices as the capacity diminishes through higher utilization. As the US and world economy slips closer to deflation (depression) the timing of this move will look worse and worse. Yahoo has the chance now to advertise the differences (be the white hat company) and gather higher mind/market share.

3:46:20 PM Google It! comment

categories: Culture, Biz

Cute anti-telemarketing script

"Telemarketers make use of a telescript - a guideline for a telephone conversation. This script creates an imbalance in the conversation between the marketer and the consumer. It is this imbalance, most of all, that makes telemarketing successful. The EGBG Counterscript attempts to redress that balance."

9:49:19 AM Google It! comment

categories: Financial, Culture, Biz

For Richer

Paul Krugman in NYTimes.

"Over the past 30 years most people have seen only modest salary increases: the average annual salary in America, expressed in 1998 dollars (that is, adjusted for inflation), rose from $32,522 in 1970 to $35,864 in 1999. That's about a 10 percent increase over 29 years -- progress, but not much. Over the same period, however, according to Fortune magazine, the average real annual compensation of the top 100 C.E.O.'s went from $1.3 million -- 39 times the pay of an average worker -- to $37.5 million, more than 1,000 times the pay of ordinary workers."
9:27:42 AM Google It! comment