21–30 of 38 posts
His idea is good, and will work for the simplest of problems, but I imagine it doesn't work very well when the consumer doesn't know what he wants. A solution to this problem would be much better.
Shorter Scott Adams: Business idea: beat Google at its own game. It's just not going to happen. My approach would be to start with the expensive ad-hoc shopping services that already work for rich people and figure out how to standardize, commoditize and mass market them. Any idea that has an element of "replace humans with ai" to it is ultimately in direct competition with Google. Which means both that your service…
With such a system, nobody is going to want to look at ads because people will come to you when they need to buy stuff and will go elsewhere they want to play a game or watch a movie.
Google can't crush you on this, if customers prefer this model (and they will) - they can only attempt to buy you out which isn't so bad.
If advertisers were able to respond well to the important keywords in his description "easy to clean", "Mediterranean", "amber", "budget", they'd already be doing so with Google ads.
The only problem with broadcasting my info to a vendor for some patio furniture is that next week they are going to call me about some nice tiki torches. Then, I'm going to get some snail mail from their buddy the BBQ salesman, and his buddy the meat vendor will come a knockin' too. Then, one of those guys is going to sell my information to totally unrelated businesses, so I'll start get calls from people trying to s…
I never, ever expected to come across this phrase spoken seriously.
The only problem with broadcasting my info to a vendor for some patio furniture is that next week they are going to call me about some nice tiki torches. Then, I'm going to get some snail mail from their buddy the BBQ salesman, and his buddy the meat vendor will come a knockin' too. Then, one of those guys is going to sell my information to totally unrelated businesses, so I'll start get calls from people trying to s…
What if that related or unrelated business that wants to approach you based on your ad for patio furniture, have to pay for that privilege. That might definitely make those auto warranty guys have second thoughts.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The easiest way would be to require a small payment to submit a "bid". Non-serious sellers won't pay.
And, further, show more prominently the sellers that have the best conversion rates, which you both could monitor via an intuitive analytics package.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What if that related or unrelated business that wants to approach you based on your ad for patio furniture, have to pay for that privilege. That might definitely make those auto warranty guys have second thoughts.
they do have to pay for that privilege usually, and I still get terrible spam.
The issue with Adams' solution (which may work for some) is that customers sometimes don't know exactly what they want, and have a hard time describing it, especially when it comes to things like personal electronics. You are essentially asking them to design a product for themselves, which sounds kind of cool, but will leave a lot of people confused.
The problem of too many product offerings (the paradox of choice / analysis paralysis) is something I'm trying to address with my startup Kallow. The issue with Adams' solution (which may work for some) is that customers sometimes don't know exactly what they want, and have a hard time describing it, especially when it comes to things like personal electronics. You are essentially asking them to design a product for…
I don't want to minimise the problem quoted, but that is not the entirety of it. There is still a problem for people who do know what they want, due to the one thing that is hard to quantify: whether the device performs its function well.
The toaster example is particularly apt. I can start off knowing precisely what I want: Say, I want a white 4-slice toaster with wide (bagel) slots and a defrost function for under $150. Ta da! If that is all there was to it, I could be finished in 3 minutes - it's not actually that hard to find one (though not with Google - you need a real e-commerce site like Amazon).
The problem is that when you do find a few toasters that match your requirements on Amazon, most have reviews like "stopped working after 2 months" "completely uneven toasting" "doesn't pop toast" etc etc. So then you have to wade through review upon review on model upon model in order to find the least sucky toaster. That is when the toaster hunt becomes a time sink.
Now there are sites like consumer reports who are supposed to give you a recommendation based on some actual testing, but of course they are too slow moving - whatever model of toaster they recommended 18 months ago is no longer to be found.