Big Companies That Defy Gravity

[brooke]

i think we all know how hard it is to make money through the internet, i have a few business ventures and most of them are miserable failures really xcept my core busainess. My question is twofold, first, how is it some companies can defy gravity, that is continue trading when their business model is crap, and the second part is can you think of other examples?

I was thinking of directory sites like Scoot and Ask Alix, as well as the Touch group. I have experience with customers that have brought these types of services and when analysed they clearly dont work. I think they convince people that dont know better to purchase their services by using girls in call centres. I have seen people with services from these companies that have delivered 0 hots over a year. And when you speak to them they always have a reason.

I think there are loads of directories that fit this model, but can anyone think of others? and how is it that they defy gravity?

Another example is all these strange adds you get on my space ands google saying you won a prize, or twinkies girls or the smilies that keep saying HEELLLOOO...

what convinced me to make this post was looking at flash ads for companies like Nokia. I find it hard to believe that hey have real humans sitting around doing nohing other than writing that stuff. But more to the point, all these 'dating agencies', theres hundreds of them. Surely a prime example of gravity defying economics? Do people use them? Really? When places like MySpace are free? Surely you need a critical mass of customers to bloat one of those boats? I find it hard to believe.

[Brian Turner]

I think gravity is defied by using aggressive marketing techniques that ensure some degree of momentum.

I've thought about this myself on how companies renown for poor products/services keep operating, and each time, they had a dedicated telesales team.

Of course, any kind of investment funding to keep them running through the lean times also helps, I guess.

[bumfluff]

Branding and marketing, basically. It doesn't matter how crap a company or product is, what matters is how they're perceived.

Low running costs help to keep some companies running, especially things like directories. They're pretty cheap to set up and run, so you don't need to make a huge amount of money to keep covering your costs. I don't know, but I'm guessing date sites would also fall into this category. As I understand it, software makes the matches by sorting through submitted info about members. If all that had to be done by hand, the costs would be higher and less sites of that sort would survive.

[brooke]

agree, but who uses date sites? No one. Not saying they never ever get used but it must be so obvious that 99% are very dodgy. For example, I run a directory and not once have i had a paying customer. And I do get a couple of hundred hits a day.

im not trying to argue or proove a point, but i just cant believe that alot of those companies are legitimate. Maybe they are money laundering?

[harding125]

Hi,
This is mostly down to marketing and viable competitors. After-all in a sane World would Microsoft still be in business? Their products are amongst the least reliable in the World. That does not stop them making massive profits.

The best business model should be based on good products that meet or exceed customer expectations and have a reasonable marketing strategy to go along side the products.

Gary

[Startup03]

Putting a little more spending into Marketing definitly is key...especially the direction business is heading. People are hit everyday with millions of advertisements but if you put some time into it and have something good for people to use you should be able to 'defy gravity' with or without a good businessmodel.