If you aren't familiar with these companies here's a few good places to get the highlights: Shopatron & Clickbank. 

What I find so appealing about this companies is the network effects they have built into their business models, the business processes they act as outsourcing agent for, and the win-win-win they have found.

Let's take Shopatron for example. They help manufactures eliminate channel conflict and encourage retailers to stock more of the manufacture's products, all which creating a Consumer to Manufacturer relationship. It's really brilliant. It actually gets even better- Retailers get new customers without even trying (they qualify for orders if they stock the manufacture's inventory), move inventory, in some cases enable in-store pickup and returns which provides an opportunity for cross-selling, and provides the retailer with aggregated visibility into how a manufacture's products are moving through out the country.  Consumers get to create a relationship with the manufacturer (I am told the post sale satisfaction surveys have a completion rate near 25%!!) and have the opportunity to purchsase online and pick-up at a local retailer (ok, this depends on the item and how wildly it's distributed). So, how does Shopatron make money? Well, they charge the manufacture a small (single digit thousands) setup fee and take a small commission (2-5%) of the Retailers margin for forwarding the order.

Clickbank is similar but they focus on digital downloads and instead of 'retailers' they have an extensive affiliate network. Clickbank is said to have north of 100M$ in revenue. IMHO there is a lot of slime in certain corners of the digital publishers market and while Clickbank is profiting from it they still enjoy a solid reputation as a trusted sales agent and affiliate payer.

These businesses are two examples of business process outsourcing with added leverage and virality. If I were still in the enterprise software business I'd be looking to acquire companies like these.

One big surprise however was the requirement for a UPC/EAN on items that a company wishes to list on Amazon. As of August 2008 Amazon now requires such codes. This requirement will certainly shut out a lot of eBay sellers from using Amazon as a channel. The cost of sales is simply too high for the enthusiast sellers of collectibles and spare-time entrepreneurs. 

Note to Amazon - announce this fact prior to sign-up.

Note to online sellers - it's call a Pro Merchant account for a reason.

It has been interesting to learn about the UPC aftermarket. Apparently, UPCs used to be sold rather than leased as they are today. Something smells fishy...(pun intended)

I wish there there was a screenshot of the SMS I just recieved, it reads like this:

TechChrunch: Jesus twitter sucks

Tip: Reply with 'leave TechCrunch' to turn off updates from this person.

One of my recent favorite wines is Novy Family. I was introduced to Novy while wine tasting at Suduri. Suduri is the Pinot Label and Novy is everything else. Here’s what Robert Parker had to say about them:

NOVY FAMILY WINERY            

2006 SYRAH                                          SANTA LUCIA HIGHLANDS      90

2006 SYRAH GARYS’ VINEYARD           SANTA LUCIA HIGHLANDS      94

2006 SYRAH ROSELLA’S VINEYARD     SANTA LUCIA HIGHLANDS      92

“These are three of the finest wines that the Siduri team (Novy is their Rhone Ranger operation) has yet produced.  Even the generic 2006 Syrah Santa Lucia Highlands is a full-bodied beauty offering up notions of tapenade, crème de cassis, black cherries, forest floor, and damp earth.  This dense, supple-textured effort is a glorious, fruit-driven Syrah with plenty of personality.  Enjoy it over the next 3-4 years.  Ratcheting up the level of complexity, density, and richness is the 2006 Syrah Rosella’s Vineyard.  A beautiful bouquet of spring flowers, blackberries, cassis, and lead pencil shavings is followed by a deep, pure, forward, opulent Syrah that should drink well for 5-6 years.  The finest of this trio is the sensational 2006 Syrah Garys’ Vineyard.  It boasts an inky/ruby/purple color in addition to a sumptuous perfume of blackberry liqueur, charcoal, incense, and spring flowers.  With fabulous fruit purity, a full-bodied, voluptuous texture, and a long, heady, 40+ second finish, this is a compelling Syrah to drink over the next 7-8 years.”

I'm not a big Parker fan/follower but it's nice to see this talented wine-making team get recognized. We recently drank the vineyard specific wines and agree; Garys' trumps the Rosella's.

Guy trying to pick up a woman via voice mail.

James Ray Twittered this link to Rik Reppe's latest blog post about how the airline industry business model is in need of change in the face of rising oil prices.

"...maybe there's an airline out there with the stones to actually charge based on lbs. per customer (defined as the human's weight, the weight of checked baggage, the weight of all carry on items)...but I doubt it. So...who's more expensive for you to carry...a 120lb woman with a 50lb checked suitcase and 15lbs of carry on crud? Or a 200lb guy with a 25lb carry-on and 7lb briefcase? Do the math. So...who would you market to? Think about it..."

This morning I was reviewing Circos' web analytics when I noticed an interesting referring URL linking to our site. The link was from Roper's Ribs in St. Louis.  The folks at Roper's added a Circos link to their 'press and awards' section. Roper's is a top result on Circos for those looking for the best BBQ in St. Louis. Congratulations Roper's on your 'A' rating!

This envirnomental cleanup and consulting firm has been a consistant performer through the years but it's valuation may be getting abit ahead of itself considering the debt they carry.  A bright spot in the portfolio no less with a respectable 25%+ gain this past year. 

My wife and I are just finishing a bottle of this wine now.  These guys say it best,

Only think missing was a rack of lamb to eat with it. 

I'm looking forward to the 2006 vintage as Parker gave it a 94. It's not that I follow Parker's suggestions but on this wine he nailed it.

1 - The click-through rate on nearly a million ad impressions was 0.02%. I'm told that's comparable to Google's content network.

2 - The average CPC we paid was 0.87$ and the average CPM 0.15$

3- I liked that fact that the text ads could include an image.

4- When setting up an ad the expected demographic targeting is there plus the keyword/interests targeting. What was fascinating though is when you target by company name you can see how many people from that company have FB accounts. 

5- The more targeted our ads were the lower our average CPC (head scratch) was and as expected the CTR and CPM averages were higher. One ad had a 3.5% click-though rate.  Here's the ad copy in case you're wondering (targeted at people who work for Wynn Resorts) with a click through to this page:

Granted this was a small experiment with a low daily max and a CPC bid never higher than 1.02$. The hyper targeting is really cool but with hyper targeting comes hyper ad creation. Managing all the ads and their copy (strict rules regarding CAPS and punctuation) and appropriate landing page URLs is pretty annoying but well worth it.

Oh yeah, check out www.circos.com to find a hotel in one of their 7 destinations.

Circos.com now has hotels from 29,000 cities around the world in search index.

It isn't hard to find decent food in Orlando but decent wine that's a different story.  Here's a list of the top restaurants as rated by their customers' comments regarding the wine.

Have fun at Sapphire 2008.