" Sxx Jobx " : Notes from the last meeting, with a pinch of seasoning
Ux DESGN
Manager Byun Chan-soo
Two months before Sxx Jobx launches... a prototype has come out.
After being briefed on the rough direction of the BM (business model) and the schedule, I'd like to organize and share what I felt about it.
[ Perception ]
1. Revenue model
Searching for a revenue model is the most natural thing in the world,
but I think it is equally natural for today's consumers (myself included) to take it for granted
that most B2C services are free.
What's more, given that the concept is unique to me — no matter what others think —
and is meant to be small, modest, and woven into everyday life,
asking people to buy something just for fun feels a bit out of balance.
If the concept is one where you can buy something for a small amount
and through that purchase experience something distinctive,
then before that service can be built, the friction and overhead of payment
need to be addressed first — that's my personal view .
So, in my limited opinion, instead of the hassle of going through payment,
(developers face development overhead, consumers face the burden of input, authentication, and place),
we could provide
unique services based on what users do.
For example, open a single page on Facebook,
and run a performance-based system based on the number of comments, posts, or likes — something like that —
first drawing out their voluntary actions
and then making it possible for them to keep doing those actions, I think, would be a good direction.
2. Positioning
To gather today's unique users, I understand that you have to either prepare an event from the start
or seed the service with a certain amount of intentionally fake posts written by the service provider.
To do that, you'll need people to manage and check things.
On top of that, I'm worried about the probability of failure and the costs that come with it.
So my thought is, why not narrow down the positioning of the customers who will use the service?
For example,
the reason Facebook, unlike MySpace, was able to spread quickly with little marketing budget and few staff
was, I believe, that it was simple to use and a service in which people could immediately participate.
Rather than a service that an enormous, undifferentiated mass logs into,
a service rooted in their own round (one's own turf, "nawabari")
— the way Facebook went (Harvard -> Boston, Yale -> the general public -> other countries) —
seems to me far easier to approach as a starting point.
---> (1+2)
In short: what if Facebook hadn't started inside the small fence of a college campus, but had launched on a global basis from day one?
What if you could buy Facebook's Like button for $0.9,
and every time you did, you could see the contact info or schedule of friends you know?
This may well be a hasty generalization, but services built on top of people
are, I suspect, all of a piece — and that suspicion is the entire reason I'm laying this out.
Below is the alternative I came up with after pulling these thoughts together.
Of course, I'm not saying we shouldn't use the current service.
It's just that, while we're securing today's various features and the users who will use them (or in order to secure them),
I think it would be good to expand the scope and the role step by step.
>> What follows is what I came up with for an early-stage business inside Sticker Jobs, with that narrowed-down positioning and feature set.
[ key : voluntary customer inflow, building an internal ecosystem ]
To reduce the depth (number of steps) and the hassle of customers paying or settling fees one by one,
the stickers are bought by indie bands or artists.
Once they purchase and register stickers,
they pick a date and post 5–10 staff postings (one-day jobs — varied and offbeat),
and they're officially registered.
When the date arrives, the indie band's profile, album info, and concert info are pushed out.
A One-A-Day-style (branding) page is featured on the homepage's main section.
On top of that, separately, you can buy concert tickets, listen to music, buy the album, sign up for events, and so on.
Staff who are selected after beating out heavy competition complete the day's job mission,
and depending on the work, receive a gift from the registrant (money or an album or a ticket, etc.).
[ + key ]
a) Monthly outstanding staff and outstanding postings (especially quirky jobs)
b) Turn the staff (the customers participating in Sticker Jobs) into stars (i.e., brand them).
[ Revenue model: not a model that monetizes participating customers, but -> B2B advertising / sponsorship-based revenue ]
Minimize the obstacles (cost, hassle, features) in the customer-acquisition flow.
=> Register sponsor links.
Based on the banner's position, size, and click count,
we pick and register banners that match the artists' categories.
(e.g., Hongdae clubs, large companies that organize cultural events, etc.)
[ Boosting it: linking with various services ]
Tie this in with social-network comments, social-network games, and the services we're already building.
[ Implementation ] This doesn't deviate much from the UI development standards already in production.
If anything, the depth could shrink or the feature set could be trimmed down.
