Buy a bestseller from Amazon. End up turning left into a lake thanks to your trusty GPS system (don't you hate when that happens?). Grab some new music from iTunes. Watch someone make an ass of himself on YouTube. Perhaps most of us take it for granted, but we truly work (and play) in an...
I’ve been getting a lot of questions about Amazon Dev Pay recently. On the surface, it seems like a great idea and a cost effective way to start a web-based service. After digging a little deeper, I found several red flags and one BIG game stopper if you plan on growing your business. Read the...
Recently, after 4 + years of using Aria for their customer management needs, our first customer Seawave (www.seawave.com) was acquired by one of their competitors: Globe Wireless, and has transitioned their billing to Globe’s existing system. This transition provides an excellent case study for those concerned with ownership and transition of customer data at the end of...
A recently completed purchase in the new Amazon music store reveals what we here at Aria call an "open loop" in their ordering and "entitlement" process.
Our friends (and industry peers) over at Softrax recently conducted a survey of 267 companies about their billing processes. They shared their results with us. Not surprisingly their research confirms a lot of what we have seen during client engagements and learned through conversations with prospects. In short the survey indicates:...
As the VP of Marketing here at Aria, I spend a lot of time determining how to best convince our prospects that they really do need a superior billing solution to run their business. We work on catchy phrases. The team draws cool graphics. We try to make billing look exciting. But every now and...
A few weeks ago, Jason Corsello pointed out how messy pricing has become with SAAS providers. For us, the hardest part about maintaining a consistent pricing model in this industry is attempting to match the business models of our clients. Our goal at Aria is to be an enabling technology to our clients. If our...
As I was reviewing our web stats today I noticed an HUGE spike in traffic. I thought it was a mistake at first, but it looks like quite a few web design galleries have added us to the mix. So big thanks to Webcreme, CSS Mania, and Most Inspired for recognizing the site....
In a recent post, Guy Kawasaki does a great job of distilling key distinctions in Chris Anderson's new book, The Long Tail into a few tactical items necessary for Long Tail success. He gives a few examples of companies providing long tail products like ring tones, iTunes and iStockphoto which led me to think about...
As the SaaS marketplace hype kicks into full gear, the online media and marketing communications folks are having "field day". Not a day goes by that there aren't more conflicting articles published about the benefits vs. risks of the Software as a Service model. Obviously, it always helps to consider the source of the article,...
The purchase and implementation of a "billing system" can make or break your game, product or service. In most cases, billing and related processes are an afterthought. Product teams tend to focus on the underlying magic of the core offering: user experience, scalability, and playability. While the underlying technology is an important piece of the puzzle, getting paid is the mission.
The new BusinessWeek Cover Story: My Virtual Life, describes a rapidly growing trend in gaming and online entertainment: making real cash selling virtual goods. RMT or Real Money Trades have been around for a long time according to this recent post on Terra Nova. Edward Castronova has been a pioneer in analyzing this new economy...
Software as a Service extends the scope of the customer relationship and puts customers in consistent contact with vendors. In other words, what was once a "transaction" is now an "interaction." The same can be said for Aria.
The tactical monetization of services is often an afterthought in the development of products and services and – as a result – is rarely well integrated into the customer experience. Product teams tend to focus on “the technology� whether it be software, a game or a new service, while leaving the “getting paid� part to sink low on the list of priorities.
While at first-glance it may seem like throw-away marketing jargon, Revenue Process Automation is in fact something that every business should be interested in. After all, isn't it widely accepted that getting money is a good thing for a business? And wouldn't it be even better to get money (aka: monetize) faster?