Monday, February 15, 2010

Viral growth trumps faux followers


Seth Godin the internet marketing guru (www.sethgodin.com) says that:

"Many brands and idea promoters are in a hurry to rack up as many Facebook fans and Twitter followers as they possibly can. Hundreds of thousands if possible.

A lot of these fans and followers are worthless. Sunny day friends. In one experiment I did, 200,000 followers led to 25 clickthroughs. Ouch.

Check out the graph attached. The curves represent different ideas and different starting points. If you start with 10,000 fans and have an idea that on average nets .8 new people per generation, that means that 10,000 people will pass it on to 8000 people, and then 6400 people, etc. That's yellow on the graph. Pretty soon, it dies out.

On the other hand, if you start with 100 people (99% less!) and the idea is twice as good (1.5 net passalong) it doesn't take long before you overtake the other plan. (the green). That's not even including the compounding of new people getting you people.

But wait! If your idea is just a little more viral, a 1.7 passalong, wow, huge results. Infinity, here we come. That's the purple (of course.)

A slightly better idea defeats a much bigger but disconnected user base every time.

The lesson: spend your time coming up with better ideas, not with more (faux) followers.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Remote monitoring and control

We've just signed a distribution agreement for North American sales with Remmon Remote Monitoring Ltd. Israel (www.remmon.com). Remmon is a major provider of cellular-based GSM remote monitoring and control of automated systems. They make cost-effective cellular-based remote monitoring devices. Remmon's cellular-based devices are installed in more than 22 countries around the world.

We strive to bring unique, high quality electronic products to American engineers, and Remmon's cutting edge remote-controlled products means that both Saelig and Remmon can expand our market opportunities, while at the same time solving engineering design challenges.