Web Strategy Micksup

Hodi - Karibu, originally uploaded by bigmick.

I love the little Flickr tool which shows me two pics from my whole collection on my personal blog. Better than the flash one that isn’t random.

Ones like this pop up and I go "Ahhhhhhh".

Would I pay for it?

Nope, I’d rather go without. But it adds a little to the value I pay for Flickr.

It’s one of the things that is a big challenge for new apps. The product may be free, but the marginal utility is very low. This means that the real value of a single use of a product is a few cents or less. If the product has a non-monetary cost, like a registration form or a slow load or something else that sucks, then even though the product is free, it still costs too much.

Like that little photo widget. Each time I see it, if I had to pay 1c for it, then the actual cost is crazy high. But Flickr didn’t start with that. They started with something simple, but bigger. In fact they started free and bigger. Great online photo albums. And slowly grew out the value.

To be continued….

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