Rachel's Profile

Its so cool that a company like this can encourage other companies to behave in a more rational manner. I highly doubt that if this company didn’t exist, Hulu and Comcast would ever get around to working out an agreement that would allow them to realize the benefits of colocation, like your example suggested. It seems like they would argue back and forth, each trying to get into a position to extract more value than their supposed partner and never actually be able to reap any of the benefits. With this company around, it lowers the barrier for collaboration.

Interesting! This industry is so far outside of my old world that the need for this kind of software had never occurred to me, but now that I see it I can think of all sorts of applications where this could be moved to other industries. It would be particularly useful for component/equipment companies trying to sell their items for use in a large engineering or construction project. The companies typically have sales force members who meet with their personal contacts in the office and at trade shows, but pooling the information about those potential projects would definitely be quite useful for forming a cohesive sales strategy and eventually putting together a good bid.

Interesting! I wouldn’t have imagined that so much of their revenue was coming from more traditional bookings than from the mystery price model, because I would have thought that it would be so much easier to extract additional value. Do you think that this is because the consumers of the two different types of services are different (just have different willingness to pay) or because the forum encourages consumers to start with a low WTP and work up from there as needed to get the quality desired?