Package Research: Making Money With Options

Counterfeiting is an arm’s race to nowhere. An endless struggle, with both sides trying to out-wit the other. While treasuries all around the world try to find new ways to make counterfeiters sweat, and ultimately unable to make fake money, the counterfeiters in the world just need to figure out how those individuals are making new money, and copy it. There have been plenty of options in the past, like watermarks, ink that never dries, holograms, and colors that can’t be copied. But, they’ve all been figured out in one way or another. But now, thanks to thin-film transistors, it may be almost impossible for counterfeiters to get the job done.

The new technology, which is still being fleshed out, is designed to literally wrap around paper money. The thin-film transistors are made out of gold, organic molecules, and aluminum oxide. The transistors are then set into a patterned mask, and laid on top of the money. How would merchants be able to tell if it’s the real deal? Once the film is in place, there would be about 100 different organic and invisible transistors on each side of the paper note. Thanks to a small 3 volt current, the note would seem to turn “on and off.”

So instead of having to use a special marker, a person would just pass the bill over a sensor, and if it manages to generate the required voltage, the bill is real, and they can buy whatever it is they intended on purchasing. There’s no doubt that this seems like a huge step to fight counterfeiting, but let’s face it: it’s necessary. Will it solve the problem? We can probably hope it does for a long time, but it’s probably not a permanent fix.

[via TG Daily]

Making the Pay-What-You-Want Business Model Work

Pay-what-you-want has become an interesting alternative business model online, with bands like Radiohead demonstrating that it can be an even more successful than traditional pricing. The key to success, however, may be the amount of attention you can generate for your campaign. Pay-what-you-want is often a trade-off between a making small number of full-price sales and a large number of sales at what's likely a far lower price. One of the games in the bundle Machinarium, for example, normally sells for $20. But by being part of the Humble Bundle, certainly it sold many times more copies than normal.

Of course, not everyone can generate quite the buzz of Radiohead or Humble Bundle for that matter, and a recent study pointed to another option for helping make pay-what-you-want endeavors successful: combine it with a voluntary payment to charity, and people then tend to give more. Indeed, Humble Bundle customers can flag some of the money to go towards charity - either Child's Play or the EFF - and some of it towards a tip for the Humble Bundle itself.
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Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Making Money With Options

Making the Pay-What-You-Want Business Model Work

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