Pricing & Monetization Blog: Page 2

It has become very fashionable to tell folks to avoid competing on price. I've heard this at networking events, in entrepreneurship articles - even over business lunches. I hope you've been ignoring this advice and all those who offer it. They say that competing on price will lead to your company going broke. They say that... [read more]

Debates are common when figuring out what to charge for a good, but I think it's far more interesting to hear folks ague about how pricing effects their decisions to buy. I have a confession to make. I love loss leaders. Unlike "door buster" which is a meaningless marketing term, a loss leader is a bonified deal. Merchants price their loss... [read more]

The message is clear: there is a shortage of qualified programmers. News reporters repeat this message over and over. Politicians cry out for a solution. Businessmen are stating that their businesses are being hurt. But the problem isn't a shortage of qualified developers, the problem is that none of these folks understand simple... [read more]

Creating Valid HTML Is a Waste of Time, But It Shouldn't Be HTML is a relatively straightforward markup language. As the primary language of the world wide web, its use is everywhere and its rules are known to the masses. That being said, the masses aren't particularly careful coders. In fact, at the time of this post, even tech giants... [read more]

Alert the press! I made a recent discovery worthy of the Nobel Prize for Economics (which unfortunately doesn't exist - it's actually the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, but I digress). I attended a business networking... [read more]

I've been thinking about appliances lately, and I keep noticing their energy star ratings. Devices bearing the energy star seal are more energy efficient than other devices. Buyers can do a bit of reading and quickly determine how long it will take for the savings in energy costs to offset a possibly... [read more]

A lot of people think that pricing products is easy. Oh how wrong they are! Let's take the classic example of a library. Here in America, we've been spoiled by libraries that provide borrowing privileges at no cost, but libraries used to work very differently. A few hundred years ago, libraries required paid memberships. Administrators... [read more]

I recently enjoyed a great lunch at one of my favorite restaurants. The entire experience was good. The food was tasty, and served in reasonable portions. The staff was attentive and made sure that we were seated promptly. The premises were impeccable and beautifully laid out. All in all, it was a great outing, with one glaring exception: the... [read more]

One of the cheapest and most effective ways to connect with your users is via the old standby of email. I am certainly not talking about spam, but rather what it called "permission-based marketing". There are forms of very useful communication that you can provide via email. There are many ways that email can be used - you can learn all about... [read more]

I spent years as a software developer and project manager. Now I'm ready to begin yet another career: fortune teller. That's right. Thanks to my magic crystal ball, I can see into the future and am ready to report back on the state of software engineering. Long story short: the future isn't bright, and it's only going to get worse. The writer... [read more]