typically i do not write about work. this is for several reasons – when i am at work, i am packaging my words and personality in order to present an image of a good employee and teammate. Its not dishonest, but it is a role i play, and role-playing is not why i have the blog. publishing my completely honest thoughts about work, when some of my co-workers have read this blog, is just stupid. Finally, i just don’t wanna think about work when i’m not there — it obsesses my thoughts plenty enough.
but one of the fun things of working for a big-name company is when what we do is all the buzz. Our upcoming Kiosk project, the Olympics, even the Access ManagerPalm scanning product that is difficult to work on but cool to see in action…this is some seriously cool shit and I’ve had an important hand in all of it. 2 years ago i worked significantly on the Ticket Exchange project – a secure, reliable, authorized forum for ticket resale on the secondary market. For all the work the Dev team did on this, it seemed to me that we never got the big splash for it i was expecting. You constantly hear of StubHub and Ebay (which owns StubHub), but rarely heard of our program. I never understood it — completely trustworthy, delivery is a non-issue since we can issue electronic tickets, and guaranteed tickets — seems like we should be a huge hit. The program has grown, albeit slowly and more notably, quietly. A lot of the users — pro teams — don’t loudly announce that their fan resale sites are in fact our site.
Last week, Greg Easterbrook wrote in Tuesday Morning Quarterback that the acceptability of ticket reselling would lead to NFL teams using auctions as a tool on the primary market. Again we were overshadowed by StubHub and Razor Gator. I thought the line he drew from “scalping on the internet is ok” to “we will let market forces determine ticket prices” was too direct. The ability to use auctions on the primary market is another tool we offer customers (and one I also worked on), but you are still talking about primary vs. secondary sales and all the other considerations therein: public perception, guaranteeing income irregardless of upcoming performance, getting your revenu all upfront, etc. Embracing the legitimacy of a secondary market does not come at the expense of the primary market, it only proves that the market will support a higher average ticket price. Easterbrook failed to acknowledge, however, that tickets available on the secondary market in part derive their prices from scarcity. If all tickets are priced higher, demand would fall and many would not fetch the secondary prices that they do.
Meanwhile it was announced today that we have inked a deal with the NFL to become their official secondary market. Woohoo! have to check back next year to see how much biz we take from StubHub!
