What is "value"? An analysis of BlinkSale & FeedLounge

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p>Yeah, I know I just finished a post about saying I want and need value in order to pay for something. This is a follow up.

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I was reading in my Feed Lounge fancy schmancy RSS reader and I saw that another Web 2.0 application, BlinkSale, just launched. The readers digest description of BlinkSale is that it's an "online invoicing" application.

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p>I would like to use this as a case study.

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p>First of all, everyone who runs a business knows that invoicing is a nightmare. Unless you have a fully staffed accounting department, invoices suck. Thus, a problem exists. It is essential that a problem exists because if a problem is big enough, people will pay for it. It is a pre-requisite of value.

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p>Second, open source invoicing applications exist. I've found a number of them (and tried a few) via Freshmeat. They suck. Worse, they are just horrid. I hate each and every one of them. No offense to the programmers that wrote them.

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p>Third, BlinkSale offers a free version. This free version allows a maximum of 3 invoices and 3 clients. Just enough to whet the appetite of any small business owner. The economic model of "try before you buy" is here to stay.

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p>Fourth, BlinkSale is solving a problem that easily communicates value. An entire brick & mortar industry has been built around people not paying their bills on time. This is real dollars on paper. The translation for a invoice that is a week late is easily made.

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p>Ever heard of "2-10, Net 30" terms? Every student of accounting knows that that means and it's impact. Basically, if you pay your bill in 10 days, you get a 2% discount. It might not seem like a huge discount, but 2% on a million dollar order is a cool $20k in cash. Again, translation of value.

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p>As a business person BlinkSale is an easy choice. I can do away with my cranky invoicing system, pay to use a hosted service and access my invoices ANYWHERE, and save millions of stress calories (they DO exist).

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p>Back to Feed Lounge. Feed Lounge is trying to create the same value that BlinkSale is, but they have a harder job. First of all, RSS readers are a dime a dozen. The one I currently use fits me just fine. This makes the market harder to penetrate. But, Apple faced the same problem with the Ipod.

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p>Second, another thing Alex and Scott need to realize is that their app will truly take off when they find a feature that their users need that they don't know about yet. Innovation. Listen to the customer. This is EXACTLY what they are doing right now in the closed ALPHA. Just scratching the itch of a few cutting edge people won't be enough, they need to redefine how someone uses their RSS reader.

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p>I believe they can do it, Alex and Scott are really smart. From talking with Alex yesturday, some of the ideas they are floating around really could redefine RSS readers as we know it. I don't want to give them away thought, they are for Alex and Scott to announce.