It is no secret that blogs have become a go-to source for topical news and entertainment in recent years. As both print and online media outlets struggle to monetize their products, the targeted insight provided by some blogs has changed the way that many people, including myself, find their news. Below is a review of my favorite industry blogs.
MFP Solutions
The print4pay Hotel MFP Solutions Blog embraces the entrepreneurial spirit and channel-eye-view of its writer and creator, New Jersey area dealer Art Post. I’ve been reading the MFP Solutions blog since I first became gap’s MFP-Copier and Production Analyst and contacted Art for an informational interview as soon as I decided to launch the Gap Dealer Partnership Program. Without even knowing me, Art sat down and answered all my questions regarding the dealer community, what they want, what might deter them, and it certainly helped me nail down a game plan for launching the program. Perhaps the best lesson that he gave me on what motivates dealers ($) came at the end of our conversation when he tried to sell me ad space on his blog! Still mulling that one over Art…
This regularly updated blog provides a variety of content ranging from industry news, product reviews, dealer sales tips, and editorials by both Art and a field of guest writers. Even a few gap intelligence Pico Letters have made it on there. One of the most unique aspects of the MFP Solutions Blog is the level of interaction that it allows. Art regularly creates and posts surveys on major industry events and backs his entire blog with a network of closed message boards. The dealer-only (primarily) P4P Hotel Message Boards allow members to discuss events, compare pricing, share industry beliefs, and rip their vendors in a closed setting. Perhaps most noteworthy, the level of vitriolic posts on the P4P boards is far lower than any message boards that I have ever seen. Backed by his closed message board, Art is provided with an infinite number of nets to capture the pulse of the channel and get early scoops on product and industry news to funnel to his MFP Solutions blog.
This Ain’t Your Father’s Office
There are many qualities needed to run a weekly competitive intelligence service, but two requirements that continue to stand out are establishing a routine and becoming completely immersed into a category. There is no doubt that KMBS rep Neal Petermann applies both of those qualities to his “This Ain’t Your Father’s Office” blog, which is updated each Monday without fail and features very concise overviews of just about everything that happened across the industry that week. It is basically a print-focused New York Times for the twitter age: All the news that’s fit to print, but small enough to read.
The Death of the Copier
Leave it to an HP salesman to create a blog called “The Death of the Copier” right? Readers of The Death of the Copier of course know that this blog is not meant as a condemnation of copier technology (just the sales methods), and is instead intended to tout the benefits of Managed Print Services and selling solutions, not hardware. Through a combination of excerpts from industry news publications, brief insights and editorials, and very heated debates in each post’s comment section, the DOTC provides very useful insight into MPS and the direction of the industry.
With the exception of certain consultant blogs with a vested interest in the success of Managed Print Services, The Death of the Copier is about as pro-MPS as they come. So, depending if you’re drinking the new MPS “Kool-Aid” or consuming the same old hardware-centric “coffee”, opinions of writer Greg Walters can range from being a visionary to being dangerous. Regardless of the various opinions, Greg should at least be commended for finding so many pictures of women with copiers or women with fish (why fish?) to go with each and every post. He’s got to run out some day.
Plus he starts posts in ways that always crack me up. This one is classic:
“A couple weeks back, while off the grid, I had an epiphany of sorts.”
You can’t make that stuff up and I am sure he was serious. I’ve never spoken to Greg, but I can’t help reading that line in a Christopher Walken voice/cadence.
Tough Love for Xerox
I don’t always know what the heck Tough Love for Xerox writer Michael Josefowicz is taking about, but there is no doubt that this 37 year industry veteran is completely focused on the future of production printing. Especially a future where page growth is driven by personalized newspapers, the “Printernet”, expanded connectivity, and ongoing technological innovation. No looking back to the good old days on this blog, unless your talking about the stock prices of the companies in Michael’s “Printernet IRA”.
People in the print is dead crowd should add Tough Love for Xerox to their bookmarks.
The Connected Copier
The Connected Copier blog is run by Canon dealer Vince McHugh and features very passionate and lengthy posts on two main subjects, slamming IKON/Ricoh and touting Canon technology. For those at Ricoh/IKON that are trying to gain an understanding of how Canon’s dealers are going about targeting IKON’s Canon MIFs, The Connected Copier is certainly a good place to start. Gap Intelligence’s weekly MFP-Copier Market Intelligence Report is good too. Of course the Connected Copier also covers other major industry events and absolutely makes up for its bias with thorough, insightful, and passionate posts.
Digital Picture Frame Review
Consolidation of digital frame blogs has mirrored levels of digital frame vendor contraction in recent years, making Digital Picture Frame Review the only independent DPF blog in existence. Good thing for industry players and end users, the team at DPFR produces very good reviews. Reviews on this blog go way beyond the press release and spec sheet, as the writers actually use frames and evaluate the device’s core features including design, display modes, menu, memory sources, and overall usability to provide very insightful reviews. Beyond reviews, the site’s content is basically limited to reposted press releases, but it is called “Digital Picture Frame Review” after all… what did you expect?
Bill Simmons / Sports Guys World
My wife likes to remind me that I do not actually know Bill Simmons even though when I quote him I call him “my buddy The Sports Guy”. What does she know. I’ve been reading my buddy The Sports Guy for over a decade and I’ve seen him go from absolutely destroying every deserving 1990s Boston sports personality from his one man blog to becoming today’s most influential sports personality. He is on the front page of ESPN.com, has the number one sports podcast on iTunes, boasts over a million twitter followers, and his new 700-page book, “The Book of Basketball”, is number 14 on the NYT non-fiction list. Unlike other successful entertainers (Dane Cook, Padma Lakshmi, Kings of Leon, Glenn Beck, etc) it is easy to understand why my buddy The Sports Guy is so popular. Bill writes like a fan (not a critic), includes pop culture commentary in his content, and has harnessed the power of lists and footnotes to help break-up his articles and concisely prove points. Simmons may not write about copiers or digital fames, but he has had a greater influence on my writing (at least for blogs) than anyone.
The number of projector models active in the e-commerce channel has rebounded dramatically over the last month. E-tailers increased their inventories steadily from the end of 2007 through the first quarter of this year, before making reductions in the second and third quarters. But now, a glance at the most recent projector report reveals that active models have increased from 655 to 749 within the first five weeks of the fourth quarter!
An increase in the number of active projector models may not directly correlate to a renewed strength of the overall economy, but it certainly proves that the projector market is turning the corner. Falling prices have had a negative effect on margins for manufacturers, but it seems to have also created a significant increase in consumer and business-to-business demand. The renewed demand is significant enough that e-commerce resellers have taken notice and begun adding new models left and right. Manufacturers and their distributors are releasing entire lines of projectors simultaneously and e-tailers are following suit by adding the models to their sites in groups.
The economic downturn initially forced manufacturers to release fewer new products while resellers consolidated to focus on their strongest selling models. But now, with a slew of new projectors released over the last quarter, resellers are making more models available with a wide range of features to choose from. With the holidays ahead, distribution is not expected to slow down any time soon and consumers looking to buy a projector online should have more options than ever before!Peter Ibbetson movie download
Occasionally there are certain public events a company reaches that serve as marks on the timeline when the company took a step from small firm to global powerhouse. In the 80’s Microsoft famously replaced every pillow case in every hotel room in Las Vegas to announce its revolutionary “Windows” operating system at the COMDEX Trade Show.
Apple’s “Big Brother” commercial famously pitted the grass roots computer company against the tyranny of IBM’s personal computer systems. In the same regards, gap intelligence experienced its own “Big Brother” moment just this week…… in a slightly smaller fashion.
If you are an avid a reader of BusinessWeek as I am, then you could not help but notice the back cover ad on this week’s edition:
Xerox’ ColorQube, a revolutionary concept of bringing low cost color to the enterprise workplace, has used gap intelligence’s unique copier contracts data to verify its robust claims. gap intelligence has been mentioned in the *fine print* many times on Xerox’ website, but this week’s BusinessWeek is the first time we have seen our name on the back cover. Mock our fine print if you must, but I ask you: “Is Google on the back page of this week’s BusinessWeek?” I think not.
Though we are small and our marketing budget is limited to the fine print found in millions of magazines across the globe, the message is still loud and clear: Nobody follows the copier industry as comprehensively as gap intelligence.*
*Our MFP / Copier Service is spearheaded by a comprehensive listing of over 13,000 copier cost-per-page service contracts. The Caretaker trailer Our pool of contracts is collected from the public, government, and education sectors as well as hundreds of active service agreements from private dealers. No other company in the world, not even Xerox, has an equal panel of competitive copier contracts.
Microsoft has launched a pretty funny promotional video for its latest suite of Office software – Office 2010.
Fo us, Office Excel 2003 was dream come true – flawless in its design and capabilities – the spreadsheet creator powered countless innovations in our ability to collect, process, and present massive amounts of data .
(Did I mention that we finalize over 750,000 product price points per week!?!?)
Office Excel 2003 was so perfect that we had little choice but to be MAJORLY
dissapointed in Office Excel 2007. It was God Father 3 all over again – little screen space, HUGE menu buttons, bleck. Office Excel 2007 was dumbed down to the novice users just like Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menance was an insult to us hard core Star Wars fans.
gap intelligence still runs Office 2003 in this house and we’ll wait and see about going to the Office Excel 2010 matinee.
A bit of advice to Microsoft:
With the Excel, the mouse is your mortal enemy. The mouse takes your hands away from typing precious data and slows up time and productivity. Office 2003 hatedSmall Time Crooks movieBlack Angel hd
The widget is super easy to apply. Simply copy and paste socialmention’s HTML code, alter the search terms, and viola, I have a real time tracker of “FinePix”.
Here is another rolling “Pixma”
And lastly one that covers the best team in all of sports:
Much has been said about the hardships of the of the hardcopy media industry.Fewer people are turning to printed publications and are instead flocking to the internet to get their news.Boiler Room movie The reasons for the change are too numerous to list.Americans love their news bite sized (USA Today), so demand for elegantly written prose on global events has fallen.The internet is faster, more efficient, and has endless, endless outlets of information.
How can my paper best my Yahoo Hockey blog on sports, Perez Hilton for my Hollywood gossip, and the BBC for news?
Have I told you my newspaper idea?If I bought the Union Tribune, I would license nothing but blog content. Yes, my paper would be noting but updated blog posts – and beat reporters to cover local events.That’s it, no Associated Press, no expensive editorial trips to Washington DC and I would permanently ban Garfield from the comics.
Craigslist has left the biggest scar on newspapers. Gnaw divx
Classified ads were a huge revenue engine for newspapers and it seems absolutely illogical to pay $50 for 30 words and a promise that your item will sell in 30 days.Red Is the Color of dvd I put my 1995 Acura Integra on craigslist and I received my first interested phone call 15 minutes later.Tyrannosaurus Azteca movie
Sunday circulars are also a money maker for newspapers and it seems as if the fliers are going the way of the internet as well.Office Depot announced last week that the chain was going full internet and that its weekly hardcopy publication would be delivered online only.While Office Depot is the first chain to announce such a move, we can’t help but notice that others may be doing the same.This Sunday’s Union Tribune was as skinny as movie star.
gap intelligence continues to collect hardcopy advertisements around the country and we also rely on the internet to gather advertising data from zip codes around the country.Though we won’t miss our fingers turning black from newsprint, I will miss my local paper.
When you think Dunkin’ Donuts, you think coffee, right? Well, that wasn’t always the case.
Dunkin’ Donuts was known for being the most popular donut business until Krispy Kreme came around and stole its thunder with its sweet treats. Sadly, the Atkins’ carb-free diet gained popularity soon after Krispy Kreme’s expansion to the market, putting both of these companies into troubled waters. Why is Dunkin’ Donuts still found on every block in the East Coast, while Krispy Kreme closed stores as fast as it opened them? Adaptation.
Dunkin’ Donuts transformed its focus from donuts to coffee. By concentrating on beverages and offering them at a decent price, Dunkin’ Donuts came out on top. Rather than accepting the demise of the high-fat and calorie-ridden donut as the end of the company, Dunkin’ Donuts found another area to gain market share and appeal to consumers.
As Charles Darwin once said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” Although Darwin originally created his theory of evolution to the animal kingdom, Social Darwinism applies to society, and in this case an industry’s survival and evolution in the global marketplace.
What do donuts have to do with the printing industry? Demand for paper is on the decline and printing consumables have never received more criticism for their high prices or subjected to so much competition from third parties. While many people predict that the printing industry will fall further down the hole to irrelevancy and eventually disappear altogether, the answer to saving the industry is simply: adaptation.
The challenges facing the printing industry do not discriminate – they range from the consumer market all the way up to the commercial printing space. Among the most wide-spread challenges for the commercial printing market are initiatives such as President Obama’s proposed Electronic Medical Records bill. While the transition to electronic medical records has the potential to greatly improve the way we are cared for, the impact to the printing industry will be substantial. This bill will be the first major initiative to collectively reduce the nation’s printing needs by millions of dollars. Some estimates show that if the US healthcare industry switched from paper to an electronic system, the country could save $30 billion annually.
Another government mandate that is posing obstacles to the commercial printing business is California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s recently proposed Free Digital Textbook Initiative. The proposal will remove all text books from the state’s school system and replace them with digital alternatives. The goal of the initiative is to help California avoid bankruptcy as the state estimates that it spends approximately $350 million annually on text books.
The office printing segment is challenged to find ways to stay relevant as society pushes for the paperless office. Similarly, consumers are shying away from printing every email and note and saving them to hard drives. Even photo printing, which was expected to revive the consumer printing market has declined with the tough economy and the onset of online photo sharing sites.
Within both the consumer and office-focused printing segments, several companies are attempting to find ways to continue to grow print, even when it means changing.
Xerox has commented on the inevitable shift from paper to digital in the office. The company stresses that it is a document company and if documents change so will it. This is exactly the type of behavior that is necessary for the industry to maintain its size and relevance. While the average consumer may think Xerox is a copier company, Xerox defines itself as a document company. Xerox is working to develop tools to help companies with Paperless Document Management, an extension of the increasingly popular and important concept of Managed Print Services (MPS). As demand moves further away from the printed document and closer to digital, software surrounding Paperless Document Management will become increasingly more important and a core advantage of Xerox.
HP is the most recent printer company to take a leap of faith and bring new ideas to the consumer marketplace. Most recently, HP unveiled its latest inkjet printer, the Photosmart Premium with TouchSmart, which is the first printer to directly connect to the web without the need of a computer. The printer is among the most inventive devices to come out of the inkjet printer industry since its introduction in 1971.
The TouchSmart is the first device to offer HP’s App Store, which enables users to print various documents at the touch of a button and without the use of a PC. The open-source HP App Store, very similar to the Apple App Store, will give thousands of programmers the opportunity to create inventive applications and potentially give users new ways to use their printers. And that’s exactly what the consumer printer industry needs in order to survive: bring further ease of use and a fresh face to inkjet printing. Although this first generation product may not become the most popular printer on the block, it is sure to get HP’s competition to think about how they will compete with this latest innovation.
With the introduction of the new HP printer with TouchSmart, the entire way we think of printing may change in a way that is similar to how the iPhone changed the cell phone. The printer’s 4.33-inch LCD screen gives countless possibilities to the types of apps that will soon be available. While HP included such apps as ticket printing from Fandango and maps from Google, programmers will think of things to do with this printer that no one has thought of before. Since users do not need to use a PC to access certain documents, they may be more inclined to print something they may not otherwise. If it takes 25 seconds to pull up a recipe and print it compared to 3 minutes to start up the computer and get to the proper website, printing will be the more desirable action.
The most notable aspect of the innovation that was introduced with this new printer is that it really has nothing to do with the printer itself. The HP App Store does not promise the usual things that new printers bring such as faster print times, new ink formulations, larger paper trays, or the ability to easily fit different paper sizes. The technology HP introduced is not specific to printing, which may seem strange, but is actually HP’s entire strategy. The printer is simply the vehicle to introduce the HP App Store and this new way of making life easier to the general public. HP’s initial $399 offering is not going to appeal to the most basic printer customer, but it will start to make people see what is available and what they will eventually want. HP may make its App Store available on all of its devices in the future.
The Touchsmart is a sign that HP does not plan to lose its spot as the top inkjet printer company in the world. The company continues to bring new products, adapt, and innovate at a time when sales are not at their highest and consumer confidence remains low. The Photosmart Premium with Touchsmart will bring HP an exceptional amount of attention and while it will not be the company’s best seller, the Touchsmart will be the beginning to something great. If nothing else, the Photosmart Premium with Touchsmart is innovation at its best. HP is gambling with its App Store by offering this product first. The product may flop, but most likely it will lead to further innovation and get the industry moving once again.
The printing industry needs to find its sweet spot – it must identify ways to remain relevant in a changing society. The shift to digital format will bring other needs including data management, security, transport of the digital documents, etc. The industry has an opportunity to grow and prosper if it can identify its strengths, rid itself of its weaknesses, and adapt.
These words may have be spoken on this blog a couple of times before but it bears repeating – market intelligence companies don’t get lots of press***.Thick as Thieves divxFay Grim movie downloaddownload August Rush movie Public relations departments view us as the wolves circling the flock of their inside information and act as sheep dog to protect NDA products from getting into our hands.Because of that, gap intelligence rarely gets calls from the media, we aren’t invited to shot location for various television commercial ads, and we don’t ever, ever do product reviews.****
Speaking of product reviews – I really want one of these (Olympus, if you’re reading):
The E-P1 is the industry’s first serious attempt to bring to market a compact DSLR.
Professional and advanced photographers have long yearned for a pocket size camera that had the same shooting qualities as a big DSLR.Even the most expensive compact cameras have two fatal shortcomings – slow focusing speeds via contrast detection systems and small image sensors.While Panasonic was first to deliver a micro-DSLR, based on technology it developed with Olympus – Panasonic’s first two efforts were (adjective here).
With the launch E-P1 Digital Pen, Olympus took a cannon-ball dive into the shallow-end of the DSLR swimming pool.Dodsworth video The Pen is the first “real” micro DSLR that eliminates the shortcomings of compact cameras and brings with them the manual applications afforded by SLRs.The image below was taken by Derrick Story with a E-P1 Pen, which was then taken by Wired.com, and then taken by me (Creative Commons licensing OK).
I want a review unit, please.**
Outside of the above Pen, we don’t do product reviews.The few occasions that our hard work does get exposure is when we are used in fine print.
gap intelligence is usually the muscle behind the asterisks used in marketing materials from a number of our clients.Autopsy dvdPollyanna pspDon’t Come Knocking trailer Our most recent asterisk is also our biggest to date:
Notice that “gap intelligence” is just a few font sizes smaller than the “Xerox” logo itself.Our asterisk relationship with Xerox extends beyond the world-wide-web and we are proudly seen within the fine print of ads located in Business Week and Wired.In Old California dvdripMaster and Commander: The Far Side of the World downloadWhile fine print exposure like this is very, very flattering the devil in the details is something that should be brought to light.
(Excessive plugging our MFP / Copier Service)
gap intelligence MFP / Copier service includes a database that details over 13,000 copier cost-per-page service contracts.
Our warehouse of information is collected from the public, government, and education sectors but also includes active contracts through private dealers.download The International movie Simply put – nobody (not even Xerox) has our level of competitive copier contracts.*
If you are a copier company *, you’ll should call us (619-574-1100).If you’re a dealer who would like to participate in our information exchange panel (you can see all 13,000 contracts): analyst@gapintellgince.com.
*nobody has 13,000 purchase, maintenance and service copier contracts.Ours include Canon, Konica, Xerox, Kyocera Mita, Oce, HP, Ricoh, Savin, Lanier, Gestetner, Ikon, Toshiba, Panasonic, Sharp, Copystar and focus from segment 1 to 250-duplex pages per minute segment 6 systems.
Every single week, the gap intelligence team emabarks on a journey deep into the trenches of retail. We study every aisle, peak around every corner, and collect every price point while we are there. In addition to routine data collection, we rub elbows with store personnel, fight through the crowds around the X Box demonstrations, and notice the various displays merchants use to draw attention.
A couple for you this week that I thought were pretty neat:
We spotted an aquarium holding a very bored Beta fish at Best Buy. The aquarium was on display with an assortment of waterproof cameras from Olympus and FujiFilm. Turn your camera on, take a picture of the Beta fish, throw the camera at the Beta fish, and pull the camera out of the aquarium with absolutely no damage done.
Waterproof, rugged, durable cameras are the new rave and manufacturers are going to “flood” (ha!) the market with waterproof models in the near future. WIth that, interactive displays like this one at Best Buy will become far more common and as a result we expect to see a sharp increase in Beta fish job opportunities in the long term.
HP has made a huge investment in its business inkjet line of printers since their launch earlier this year. Outside of big (and expensive) magazine and newspaper advertisements, HP has dominated end-cap space at all of the major retailers. The running theme of HP’s message to customers is that its inkjet products are over 50% less costly to operate – in terms of both associated supplies and energy consumption.
While Kodak’s boastful low cost ink claims have filled headlines and reality television shows nationwide, few ripples have been made about HP’s assertions. Just for fun, we ran HP’s $499 Officejet Pro 8500 Premier against the company’s own $499 Color Laserjet CM1312NFI MFP and quickly realized that HP’s claims are absolutely, 100% true.
Officejet Pro 8500 Premier – $1,340.71
Color Laserjet CM1312NFI MFP – $2,791.70
(51.9%!)
From the infamous gapTCO.com calculator (clicky makes it biggy):
Merchandising is a tough business. Thousands of hours are spent on brainstorming and creating displays that make products stand out on shelves. Then, of course, a company has to rent that space from a retailer (which is not cheap) and hire a small army of merchandisers to install, set up, and maintain those card board stands, billboards, stickers, and tear sheets. There are countless examples of great merchandising – as we mentioned in an earlier post about Beta Fish @ Best Buy – and there is bad merchandising.
….and then there is Micro Center. Behold, Micro Center’s toner aisle!!!!
Toner is small, expensive, and very, very, very, profitable. The margin that Micro Center could earn by selling a shoebox size toner cartridge is quite comprable to any desktop PC or television (or the acutal printer).
Organize. Group by manufacturer and then series and for goodness sake – stick a price on there!
HP has made a huge investment in its business inkjet line of printers since their launch earlier this year. Outside of big (and expensive) magazine and newspaper advertisements, HP has dominated end-cap space at all of the major retailers. The running theme of HP’s message to customers is that its inkjet products are over 50% less costly to operate – in terms of both associated supplies and energy consumption.
