Reedge

Wow incredible Blip.tv just deleted 18 webinar videos from my paid account. Because they are not series. Can you believe it?

I was asking something in a ticket and they just deleted them after they saw the content (really just webinars (business videos).

This is great, I am CEO of a Saas company (Convert.com) but closing an account deleting someones content without warning (or in this case without the option to download the original videos) is just wrong. Very very bad example of saas gone really wrong.

Below what http://www.blip.tv wrote in there support ticket...

"Blip is a platform for original, episodic web series. Our terms of service prohibit content that has promotion of a product or service as its primary purpose. From our review of your content, it appeared that it was primarily promotional in nature, and was therefore removed."

The new marketing opportunities for website owners are the new social tools that everyone is using. Thanks to Google +1, Facebook Like, Check-ins from Google, Facebook, Gowalla and Foursquare can all be equally strong as an opt-in for a newsletter. So it seems leaving the market self regulation is taking a natural course and national interference is not needed.<p>Most people outside the tech space do not realize that with a simple Facebook Like or Check-in your giving access to you public profile and all settings your sharing. Website owners can use this information by taking a peek in Facebook Graph API http://developers.facebook.com/docs/api and search specific status update (or keywords) or check-ins for example. It is a very interesting way to build tools on top of these API’s given by Facebook, the several places/check-in apps and hopefully Google +1 API.

For example check out what you’re sharing on Facebook by going to <a href="http://zesty.ca/facebook/">http://zesty.ca/facebook/</a>, you can use your Facebook id or email to find how open you are. Most of use in the tech-space is more informed then the other 550 million users of Facebook so it’s a very interesting opportunity to connect tools like ours to Facebook for example.

Imagine that you could actually start some sort of drip marketing based on nothing more than the Facebook Like your page or App received. It would not be wise to start posting on someone’s wall or push a tweet. But a more subtle as checking if a person check-in in the past, define the sex, age-group, mentions of your product in status updates or location of the person and storing that users profile in a specific segment in Reedge. You could then target these people with a more personal drip-approach every time they come back.

For example Visitor A, checks-in at 9 PM, using Foursquare and the day after clicks the Facebook Like button on you restaurant page or mobile app (Facebook Graph API tell us she is female 30-35 years old). This makes her fall into the segment of “Clients Female Check-in & Facebook Like”. You did not get her email yet, but this should be enough to start targeting when she comes back to one of your sites her using a more personal homepage targeted on returning female clients.

It’s all a big theory; we have not made this yet. Buts it’s an intriguing idea to use the Facebook Like and other social API’s to build an opt-in profile of a person that travels along with them across you sites. Maybe not everything is possible and I would have to check all terms of the API… but my best guess is that building an opt-in profile using the social buttons on your site is something that is very close to reality.

Would you do this as a company to increase your conversion? Leave a comment below.

I am trying to figure out how our startup can accept credit cards. Both founders are not from US and company is incorporated in US. We do not have Social Security Numbers and that seems to be blocking all applications.

I have not found any trustworthy merchant account provider that accepts us (being startup no track records and no SSN).

Any suggestions?

Looking at the end of the beta of or SaaS application, which soon will come soon, O have to think about payment options and marketing channels. We did not start of a lean and agile company like we read about everywhere, but this is rapidly changing now we found out who loves our product. This product market fit quest is not over at launch, it will only start all over again, but with a slightly more focus on business and enterprise, we should have iterations faster if needed.

A payment gateway and merchant account and thinking about how to get more users into out beta and future free trial options, got me thinking about the App Markets that now pop-up up everywhere. How would this benefit the Reedge.com Application?

Comparing apples with apples?

AppDirect and Google App Marketplace are a bit different, Google App Marketplace can be used for any application that integrates with existing Google API’s so for example we could use Google Contacts for multi-user features in Reedge or add a integration with Google Analytics and that would be enough to enter in the Marketplace. AppDirect required a deeper integration including sign-on and billing. But When looking at Google App Marketplace as a more integrated option including Google Billing API and Google Checkout the two services actually are very similar.

How to pick? Market-size?

Well it’s true everyone likes simple sign-up and sign-on so Twitter and Facebook integration could be an option. But Facebook Sign-On for a business and enterprise focused business does not make sense, so that leaves Twitter, OpenID and Google. Besides the ease of sign-up the market size is important with 2 million active businesses inside the Google App environment and 1.000 daily visitors of AppDirect you can see where I am going. Add the 24 available apps in AppDirect and 300 in Google App Marketplace, the 20% cut Google takes vs. the 35% AppDirect asks… the choice seems too easy.</p><p>

OK if Google App Marketplace it is… what would that involve?

Well going with the idea of Google App Marketplace involves some important changes. Single-Sign On, more integration with Google Contacts, Google Billing API (that’s in beta) and a Google Adwords extension that we wanted, all need to move forward in our planning. So it’s not final choice, but something that seems worth exploring.

Anyone thinking here in Ynews of entering that Google App Marketplace and interested in sharing there ideas and experiences of the impact it had on their business and application?

Hi,

I am working on our future pricing page and looked at 303 websites and came up with a list of best practices for our pricing page.

I wanted to share my finding and hopefully you can add yours?

- Call to action headline that matches the unique selling points mentioned on the homepage

- Subheadline will give details on trial, no credit card needed, amount of users in system (if the over 10,000), sense of urgency using get started in 60 seconds. Product positioning (what does the product do). Value messaging

- Plan that focus on different markets you address

- Website design Features, Pricing & Plans, About, Contact and remove the rest (including login) form the menu so there not to many links.

- Trust element top right (phone-number will work well there)

- All plans above the fold

- Free plan in bottom right of plan (if your bootstrapped, but if you have VC money and Freemium is your strategy, place free as first plan)

- High to low or low to high, 62% of SaaS companies have low-to-high and with lack of research I guess thats the best. (We will go and test these once we add the pricing page)

- Badges (user logo’s) under plans as trust elements (make them gray so there not distracting)

- Communicate the differences not focus on the similarities of the plan

- Scanable (not to long page)

- Clear pricing (good contrast)

- Use color on background of plans to keep focus on each plan. Mouse over background on horizontal is a nice feature.

- Make bigger plan feel bigger using a visual element that becomes bigger with the growing plan.

- Keep in line with website design

- Important features in F eyetracking line (price, plan differences and sign-up button)

- Mention USD not $ (Austrailian and Canadian dollars look the same)

- Testimonial under plans

- Explain how things work billing, 30 days, free under plans

- Mouse over on features

- Little amount of links (you do not want them to click away)

- Impeccable grammar (in my case huge problem :-) with easy fix... let someone check it

- Call to Actions Orange

- Blue color gives trust we might use these on plans that are not the preferred plan (need to test this)

- Green associates with wealth (try to add green check-marks on items that are simular)

- Use full screen width for plans (no right blocks with sign-up or text

- Repeat 14/30 day trial under sign-up buttons so they know what they sign-up for (<button: Sign-Up> for 14 Day Trail)

- Add some credit-cards logo's or payment processor logo to pricing page as trust element if you do not have a lot of well known clients. You can also add SSL seal if your just starting and have little trust elements available.

- Social Proof (twitter accounts, positive tweets, testimonials etc. all help (under pricing plans)

Referrals http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/10/13/pricing-tables-showcase-examples-and-best-practices/

http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/design/pricing-page-trends/

http://www.reedge.com/303-ideas-for-pricing-pages.html

http://blog.reedge.com/best-pricing-practices-or-conventional-wisdom.html

http://www.sixteenventures.com

Love to hear more! Leave you comments below. Thanx

Dennis van der Heijden

Reedge.com (Conversion Rate Optimizer Tool: Tracking, Testing, Funnels and Personalization)