March 30, 2010
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Wanda Cadigan
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According to Juniper Research, Mobile Web 2.0 can be characterized by the evolution of the following services:
Presence – SMS-based presence (alerts) and server-based presence services (think mobile Instant Messaging). Juniper suggests that the value of presence based Mobile Web 2.0 services will increase to more than $6 billion by 2012.
Geolocation – location based services that enable users to share details with other users, third-parties or applications, collaborate with those nearby, and exploit local knowledge. If rumours are true that Facebook plans to turn on geolocation f...
March 26, 2010
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Posted by
Melany Gallant
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Social commerce offers an exciting new way to attract customers, offer customer support and increase purchasing opportunities for your brand. However, unless you look at implementing social commerce in a strategic way, convincing key stakeholders on its value may not be easy.
Sam Decker at Clickz.com offers some sound advice on getting the buy-in you need, and he states that success requires the involvement of three different groups: C-level executives, employees, and your customers.
Each group will want to understand the value of social commerce participation from their own perspective ...
March 25, 2010
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Wanda Cadigan
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Bing has announced that it will integrate data from the location-based network into its Maps product, with a set of features that will debut later this year.
Rest assured, it’s not gawker for the common man, and won’t broadcast your location on Bing Maps. Rather it will feature user-generated content such as tips and comments that Foursquare users give to a certain venue or business. This data will be pulled into Bing Maps via a new Silverlight-based tool.
The signals the growing importance of location based services through the use of rich local data to improve the online experience. ...
March 18, 2010
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Wanda Cadigan
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In the retail world, merchandising is crucial to maximizing sales through proper design, display, pricing and discounting. Online retailers have had many years of experience in testing and refining merchandising for e-commerce.
With the proliferation and adoption of smart phones, retailers are now faced with the challenge of once again adapting merchandising for the mobile experience. Not an easy task when you consider the limitations presented by the smaller interface.
The launch of new devices with improved form factors such as the iPad or Microsoft’s recently announced Courier pr...
March 17, 2010
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Posted by
Melany Gallant
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Last week, ReadWriteWeb cited some findings from a recent study on smartphone use conducted by Web analytics firm Compete. The study indicates 74% of smartphone owners use their phones for more personal than professional reasons. The study also concluded that a large number of smartphones don't even leave owners' homes. When these smartphones are taken out of the home, the majority of owners use them to perform comparison shopping and read product reviews. Compete also discovered that: ...more than 35% of consumers with smartphones would be interested in receiving coupons on their de...
March 11, 2010
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Melany Gallant
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According to a new data released by Forrester Research, the combined percentage of online and web-influenced offline sales will grow to 53 percent of total U.S. retail sales by 2014 (up from the current 42 percent). This information is part of Forrester's five-year forecast of e-commerce sales in the U.S. and Europe. TechCrunch provides an overview of this forecast (including charts) highlighting that "e-commerce sales in the U.S. will keep growing at a 10 percent compound annual growth rate through 2014." This steady growth is a huge indicator of the impact online sales have on o...
March 9, 2010
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Wanda Cadigan
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Details published in a Fast Company post today reveal foursquare continues the quest to make their location based service more than just a fun social networking game. The addition of analytics will increase its relevancy to businesses that may be interested in the service to drive cross channel traffic.
With recent announcements from foursquare such as the deal with Bravo, location-based content agreements with Zagat and HBO Deals, and now the introduction of an analytics dashboard, the service is positioning itself to be an highly targeted customer engagement tool.
Check out our previous...
March 3, 2010
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Posted by
Wanda Cadigan
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With the Olympics now over and many left wondering what to fixate on, one thing is certain – the Vancouver 2010 Olympics were the ‘digital games’.
Statistics released by NBC and the Canadian Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium (a Cactus Commerce client) indicate that many viewers experienced the games across multiple channels. According to a blog post over at www.fiercemobilecontent.com, NBC announced that that mobile page views across its WAP site and iPhone application reached 87.1 million over all 17 days of the games-- that's 52 million more mobile views than the Beijing Summer Olympic...
March 2, 2010
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Posted by
Melany Gallant
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Many people conduct extensive product research online prior to making a purchase decision, and product videos play an increasingly important role in this research process. Since product videos provide a visual demonstration of your products' features and benefits, they can be a great addition to a product page to help to influence conversion rates on your e-commerce site. What you may not have considered is the value of placing your product videos on video hosting sites such as YouTube, Vimeo, Metacafe, etc. As ReelSEO.com founder and creator, Mark Robertson, states: The huge availabi...