Description: We’re one of the few ecommerce companies that gets to connect with each of ourcustomers in person. They tell us where they will be at a given date and time, down to the exact seat location. So enhancing the event with geosocial is a cool part of the evolution of the experience and part… Read more »
Posts Categorized: M-commerce
Best Buy Gets Amazoned: Is It Doomed?
Description: Is it plausible to expect that Best Buy’s sales clerks will offer better advice than the many expert reviews on the Internet, augmented by the hundreds or thousands of customer reviews for Best Buy’s bread and butter products? Source: Forbes .com. Date: Sept 15, 2011 My friend, Paul Carroll, is peeved at Best Buy. … Read more »
How Large Companies Tackle Big Data with Hadoop
Description: Wal-Mart Stores, struggling to translate its brick-and-mortar success to the Web, is using free software named after a stuffed elephant to help it gain an edge on Amazon.com in the $165.4 billion U.S. e-commerce market. Source: BusinessWeek .com. Date: Sept 7, 2011 With its online sales less than a fifth of Amazon’s last year,… Read more »
Swiping Is the Easy Part
Description: Instead of swiping a plastic card at the checkout counter, consumers would merely wave their phones. Source: NYTimes.com Date: March 23, 2011 Mobile phone carriers, banks, credit card issuers, payment networks and technology companies are all vying to control these wallets. But first, they need to sort out what role each will play and how each… Read more »
Data Mining: How Companies Now Know Everything About You
Description: There is now an enormous multibillion-dollar industry based on the collection and sale of this personal and behavioral data. Source: Time.com Date: March 10, 2011 Google’s Ads Preferences believes I’m a guy interested in politics, Asian food, perfume, celebrity gossip, animated movies and crime but who doesn’t care about “books & literature” or “people &… Read more »
Credit Card Transactions for Everyone
Description: New smartphone applications let almost anyone take payments electronically Source: Cnn.com Date: March 1, 2011 Questions for discussion: What are the implications for small business as a result of the increase of mobile payments? What industries and application can you predeict will beneifit from this technology?
Publishers of digital content face uphill battle
Description: The publishing industry has not been having fun in the last few years. Newspapers, magazines and books were hurt by competition from the Internet and the changes caused by consumers choosing digital content rather than traditional ink on paper. Source: Globe&Mail.com Date: Feb 25, 2011 Will Apple or Google (or someone else) end up… Read more »
Telcos battle tech, bank titans for mobile payments
Description: Paying for your morning coffee and newspaper by swiping your mobile phone instead of fumbling for cash or debit card could be just around the corner. Source: Globeandmail.com Date: Feb 14 , 2011 The telecom companies have suffered for years from the “dumb-pipe” phenomenon whereby operators spend billions building the networks on which data… Read more »
Of Canada, Caps, and Clouds
Description: To protect their businesses from the cloud, ISPs north of the border won data caps on broadband usage. Source: Businessweek.com Date: Feb 3, 2011 Last week Canadians got the unwelcome news that their Internet Service Providers could cap their broadband access to downloading as little as 25 GB per month, or the equivalent of about 12… Read more »
EBay Says Big Growth Is Not Over
Description: EBay was growing so fast early in its history that Meg Whitman, its former chief executive, liked to joke that “a monkey could drive this train.” Source: NYTimes.com Date: Feb 6, 2011 But while eBay’s marketplace revenue grew just 8 percent to $5.7 billion last year, eBay is still losing market share to its rivals, as global… Read more »