Recommended

Consumer Taste Sharing

Came across an interesting but unusally titled paper from Harvard on the subject of consumer to consumer recommendations in the online music business. This is essentially things like online playlist sharing and other community style recommendation technology.

They predict that within four years 25% of online music transactions will be driven by consumer recommendation technology.

Our research shows that with stores like Amazon are already driving 26% of their sales through technology based recommendation systems. Download our free music sales paper

A Tale of Two Games

Imagine these two games.

The first a violent mix of car chases, guns and mafia. Launched with a massive TV campaign, huge press coverage and a storm of controversy.

The second, a game where you get to run a farm with horses. No advertising budget, probably zero media attention and absolutely uncontroversial.

Both launched just over six months ago. Which do you think sells more?

It's the second one.

The games in question GTA:San Andreas the PC version and Pippa Funnell's Stud Farm both launched  within a month of each other last year. GTA: San Andreas had a huge advertising campaign and created a lot of controversy over adult content which can only have helped boost its sales. Pippa Funnell's Stud Farm had none of this.

Yet over on Amazon, Stud Farm has a sales rank of 137 compared to GTA's rank of 953. (Think of sales rank as the top 1000 list, the lower the number the more you're selling). And because we know the long tail isn't a linear thing we can guess that Stud Farm is currently outselling GTA by at least a factor of seven.

What's driving this? Amazon recommendations. Amazon has found the niche market for Stud Farm and is selling a huge number. What's happening on the stores that don't use recommendations technology? I'd be suprised if they'd sold anywhere near the amount Amazon has.

I'm not suggesting for one moment that over the past year GTA:SA was outsold by a game where you get to remove stones from horses hooves. GTA:SA is a multi-platform title and had an incredible advertising budget. There's no question that it's sold a huge number of questions. But right now it's loosing out to a game about horses.

And it's interesting that recommendations technology allows you to achieve a comparable success for a game with next to zero advertising budget and based around purchasing saddles.