tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5512311610334754148.post2379018403128110643..comments2023-04-20T12:46:11.858-06:00Comments on The Ancestry Insider: Eric Shoup, of eBay, now Ancestry.com VP of ProductThe Ancestry Insiderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02490682912125335188noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5512311610334754148.post-36236597684283851032008-09-20T19:51:00.000-06:002008-09-20T19:51:00.000-06:00In response to the post by "Anonymous" o...In response to the post by "Anonymous" on 18 Sept 2008 at 2:02 pm:<BR/><BR/>>I've never been able to find anything on Ancestry<BR/>>that I couldn't find for free somewhere else online.<BR/><BR/>I find that hard to believe because although there are some records on ancestry.com that can be found for free elsewhere (eg: SSDI, some censuses and a few others), most of what I find on ancestry.com I cannot find for free anywhere and I have searched high and low.<BR/><BR/>> I'm beginning to think that Footnote is worth the money.<BR/><BR/>Money? But you pointed out in your first sentence that free is priority. I find Footnote are way too expensive ($69.95 annual) for the too little information they provide on their site at this time. Maybe in the future when they bring in more databases they might be worth it. At this point I would rather pay the $155.40 US annual membership fee at ancestry.com and get tons and tons of information than pay $69.95 US at Footnote and get very little, if anything. But then either one is cheaper than paying for flights and hotels to get to the actual locations to find the information.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5512311610334754148.post-91302478183449518112008-09-18T14:02:00.000-06:002008-09-18T14:02:00.000-06:00I've never been able to find anything on Ancestry ...I've never been able to find anything on Ancestry that I couldn't find for free somewhere else online. Very disappointing. I didn't renew. I'm beginning to think that Footnote is worth the money.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5512311610334754148.post-80245566136399636942008-09-18T09:04:00.000-06:002008-09-18T09:04:00.000-06:00Insider,You must have missed the part of the bio t...Insider,<BR/><BR/>You must have missed the part of the bio that says what he knows about genealogy and genealogists, and same for the other whiz-bangs hired from other companies. Also, how is ebay doing these days?<BR/><BR/>Education and general marketing experience tends to get treated as a commodity these days which can be applied to any product with the thought that if you "listen" and survey the customers you can quickly learn. Which could be true except that Ancestry is not good at listening and one has to ask the right questions, which might actually take industry/product specific knowledge *in advance*.<BR/><BR/>One of my refrains here in your blog this year and in the Ancestry blog, is the fact that by Mr. Sullivan's figures, Ancestry spends 4 to 1 on marketing over data acquisition. Which they justify by saying such data is now a commodity where one cannot gain a competitive advantage. But that is only true for broader datasets like census records. Being the first to acquire other more narrow datasets still carries a competitive advantage because the competitor is now better off just acquiring something else.<BR/><BR/>Now of course I speak as a more advanced customer, what I call type #1s. It is clear most of Ancestry's marketing staff doesn't understand our needs and doesn't want to. They would rather sell the newbies on sluggish web maintained trees. <BR/><BR/>BTW, I wonder what Ancestry's customer retention rate is, i.e. how many renew their subscriptions?<BR/><BR/>MikeAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com