Whither Blackberry?

Samsung and Apple are winning the war of smartphones (through different strategies...Apple through a single elegant phone built on its proprietary OS and Samsung through a rapid launch of a  slew of multiple sized devices built on Android). The chart above is taken from a recent Time article.

In the meanwhile, RIMM (and its Blackberry) are losing traction rapidly. Its share of worldwide smartphone shipments dipped from 13.6% to 6.7% in a year's time! Looks like their attempt to get the general populace into the Blackberry Boys' club has not worked.

Given that most folks replace their phone every 2-3 years, RIMM could quickly lose its installed base around the world.

What should it do now?

I suggest the following options:

1) Open up Blackberry Messenger (BBM) by tying up with Yahoo and Google so that Blackberry users can message any Yahoo Messenger and Google user (and vice-versa). BBM is still the big draw for many die-hard Blackberry fans.

2) Woo VoIP developers (such as Skype) to develop a VoIP application for Blackberry OS.

3) Figure out a way to marry BBM and Blackberry email with the Android platform. RIMM will gain access to the myriad of apps for the Android platform and Blackberry users will love RIMM for it.

4) Sell the company to any leading PC manufacturer (HP, Dell, etc) who are lusting for a position in the smartphones/ tablets space. RIMM has relationships with leading mobile carriers around the world. This is a big asset for any newcomer (or marginal player) in the smartphones business. Though this is a drastic move, RIMM is trading at just 6 times earnings and can get a good premium by selling.

Digital Attribution: Moving beyond last-click attribution

Happy Easter/ Good Friday!

I read a Google Analytics paper  (click here) recently about digital attribution and how most advertisers are unhappy about last-click attribution but yet 54% continue to use last-click attribution.

For the uninitiated, attribution is the process of assigning credit for a favorable outcome (e.g., a sale, click on a request for more information, registration to a mailing list, etc) on a website to the various sources that led the visitor to the website. The complication arises because a visitor may click on a search ad on her first visit, a banner on her second visit, and eventually buy during a visit initiated by an organic search. How would you attribute the sale to these different sources? Last-click attribution is a technique where the last source leading to the favorable outcome gets all the credit. Most people agree that's a dumb way of looking at the digital/multi-channel/ multi-device world (but are doing precious little about it).

Attribution is important because it allows the advertiser to correctly price the value of a keyword (on a particular search engine) or the value of TRPs on a network TV ad or the value of a banner on a particular social media website or the value of an affiliate lead. The accuracy of the value computation will become a source of significant competitive advantage in the emerging digital and multi-channel era.

Some smart folks have moved beyond last-click attribution to give weightage to sources contributing to visits leading up to the favorable outcome. My question is : How do you know that your attribution technique is working?

My suggestion is that the advertiser should test various attribution techniques to understand the pricing of various keyword-engine, banner-publisher, TV TRP-creative combinations using data over recent time periods using these alternative techniques. the technique that yields a statistically stable estimate of pricing should be chosen.

The other thing that an advertiser should do is analyze the contribution (to a favorable outcome) of a first visit, the last visit, a visit in the last n days, etc by type of source (Search Engine, Publisher, Social media website, affiliate, etc) using a decision tree. This will help understand typical patterns of visits leading up to the 'successful' visit.