pieces of plastic » everything

Netflix and Customers that Won’t Shut Up

mtai — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 07:35:33 +0000

About a year ago, I remember hearing someone make the comment:

Netflix doesn’t need a marketing department. They just have millions of happy customers that won’t shut up about them.

Well, those millions of customers still won’t shut up about them…except now they’re not quite so happy.

The sad part is the 14-year-old Netflix managed to achieve this in less than three months – first by raising prices, then by altering the business model in a way that severely, and negatively impacts the customer experience. It didn’t help that Reed Hastings, the CEO, tried to disguise the announcement as an apology. As of the time of this post, Hasting’s apology had roughly 26k comments, almost all of them negative.

Everyone in business knows that positive word of mouth is the holy grail of advertising. Whether it’s a friend, family, or another customer that’s spent their hard earned cash on a product or service, people listen to people they trust. A company can spend hundreds of millions – billions – on advertising and marketing and never acquire the goodwill Netflix had. You can’t buy it. You can’t simply put up a Facebook page or create a Twitter account to get it. It grows organically. It grows with happy customers that won’t shut up.

The Eloquence of Engrish

mtai — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 21:27:47 +0000

This was printed on a box of Farm House Multi-layer Radish Pies (which taste better than they sound):

Preparing me chicken and rice, old friend,

You entertain me at your farm.

We watch the green trees that circle your village

And the pale blue of outlying mountains.

We open your window over garden and field,

To talk mulberry and hemp with our cups in our hands.

…Wait till the Mountain Holiday….

I am coming again in chrysanthemum time.

Mellifluous, hilarious, AND delicious.

UPDATE: This is apparently a poem by Meng Haoran (689-710 A.D.) A better translation can be found here.

Downtown

mtai — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 18:52:58 +0000

I had a dream last night that I was driving through downtown Fremont in a Flintstone’s-like foot powered car. The place looked nothing like how I remembered and yet everything was familiar to me, as often the case in dreams. People from my past lined the street – friends, people I went to school with, people I worked with, people who I’ve seen once in my lifetime and never gave a second thought to. As I drove down this street in my foot powered car, I waved to these people but nobody waved back. I rounded a corner and saw someone from high school who I had not seen since. I gave him a slight poke to the sternum as a way to say “Hey, what’s up?”. As I did this, I tried to drive away quickly, but my foot got stuck in a rut. There was a brief period of awkward silence – the someone from high school looked at me as if to say, “Why did you poke me for?” When he finally recognized me, his bewilderment turned into nostalgia and the street errupted in laughter as did I. I freed my foot and continued my drive, leaving downtown and the crowds behind. The people slowly became specks in my rearview, the sound of their laughter gradually fading in the distance.

my annual blog post

mtai — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 07:56:13 +0000

I do it every year. Every year. Like clockwork, I start a new blog around this time with the resolution to blog more (among other unfulfilled resolutions). In my most prolific year, I believe I had four posts. Will this year be different? I don’t know, but it wouldn’t be a new year without this entry. Happy New Year!