Google Commerce is an application designed for retailers, and has been upgraded to feature "Search as You Type," provides instant gratification to shoppers, returning product results with every keystroke, right from the search bar.
"Local Product Availability" helps retailers bridge online and offline sales by showing shoppers when a product is also available in a store nearby, in-line with the search results.
"Enhanced Merchandising" tools allow retailers to create product promotions that display in banners alongside related search queries, and to easily set query-based landing pages (for example, when a visitor types [shoes], they’re directed to a “shoe” page).
"Product Recommendations" helps shoppers make purchase decisions by showing them what others viewed and ultimately bought.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Google Updates "Google Commerce" for Retailers
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Netflix Adjusts Video Quality
Netflix Canada now has adjusted video image quality so that less bandwidth is consumed, allowing users to watch more video while remaining under their usage caps, Netflix says. Users can manually reset image quality to higher levels, consuming more bandwidth, from their dashboards ("Your Account," then "Manage Video Quality").
Where watching 30 hours of video, especially in high definition, would consume as much as 70 GBytes, and about 30 Gbytes in standard definition, now Canadians can watch 30 hours of streaming from Netflix in a month that will consume only 9 GBytes of data, well below most data caps.
Where watching 30 hours of video, especially in high definition, would consume as much as 70 GBytes, and about 30 Gbytes in standard definition, now Canadians can watch 30 hours of streaming from Netflix in a month that will consume only 9 GBytes of data, well below most data caps.
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Smart Phone Sales to Grow 49% in 2011
The worldwide smart phone market is expected to grow 49 percent in 2011 as more consumers and enterprise users turn in their feature phones for smartphones with more advanced features, according to International Data Corporation.
Smart phone vendors will ship more than 450 million smartphones in 2011 compared to the 303.4 million units shipped in 2010, IDC predicts, growing four times faster than the overall mobile phone market. None of those predictions will come as a surprise.
Operating System | 2011 Market Share | 2015 Market Share | 2011-2015 CAGR | |||
Android | 39.5% | 45.4% | 23.8% | |||
BlackBerry | 14.9% | 13.7% | 17.1% | |||
iOS | 15.7% | 15.3% | 18.8% | |||
Symbian | 20.9% | 0.2% | -65.0% | |||
Windows Phone 7/Windows Mobile | 5.5% | 20.9% | 67.1% | |||
Others | 3.5% | 4.6% | 28.0% | |||
Total | 100.0% | 100.0% | 19.6% | |||
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Millennials Much More Responsive, but Overall There is Low Response to Text Message Advertising
Millennials with mobile phones look at texted ads and respond to ads sent by text far more than do other cell phone owners, followed by GenXers, according to the latest data from GfK MRI. Baby Boomers, have yet to warm significantly to text ads.
But the more important finding is that few adults actually have gotten, or looked at, a text ad of any sort. Approximately six percent of adults with mobile phones looked at an ad sent with a text message in the last 30 days (some 12.5 million people), while 2.7 percent of adults with mobile phones used text messaging to respond to an ad or to make a purchase in the last 30 days (some 5.3 million people).
Millennials (born 1977 to 1994) are 57 percent more likely than the average cell phone owner to have looked at a texted ad. Moreover, they are 93 percent more likely to have used text to respond to an ad or to make a purchase.
GenXers (born 1965 to 1976), on the other hand, are only 19 percent more likely than the average cell phone owner to have looked at a texted ad, and they are just six percent more likely to have responded to an ad or to have made a purchase by text messaging. Baby Boomers (born 1946 to 1964) are 40 percent less likely to have looked at a texted ad than the average mobile phone owner and 55 percent less likely to have responded to an ad or to have made a purchase by text.
But the more important finding is that few adults actually have gotten, or looked at, a text ad of any sort. Approximately six percent of adults with mobile phones looked at an ad sent with a text message in the last 30 days (some 12.5 million people), while 2.7 percent of adults with mobile phones used text messaging to respond to an ad or to make a purchase in the last 30 days (some 5.3 million people).
Millennials (born 1977 to 1994) are 57 percent more likely than the average cell phone owner to have looked at a texted ad. Moreover, they are 93 percent more likely to have used text to respond to an ad or to make a purchase.
GenXers (born 1965 to 1976), on the other hand, are only 19 percent more likely than the average cell phone owner to have looked at a texted ad, and they are just six percent more likely to have responded to an ad or to have made a purchase by text messaging. Baby Boomers (born 1946 to 1964) are 40 percent less likely to have looked at a texted ad than the average mobile phone owner and 55 percent less likely to have responded to an ad or to have made a purchase by text.
But it would be fair to note that virtually every type of digital activity, even when much more heavily engaged in by younger users, has also been adopted by older users. That suggests responsiveness to text ads will grow, in the older demographics. But that is likely a secondary consideration. At the moment, few users of any age actually receive, or look at, text message advertising.
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Mobile Payments: Tough Business Case for Credit Card Issuers
Bank of America, Citigroup and U.S. Bank executives do not see a compelling business case, for them, in mobile payments, in large part because mobile payments simply represent a way to defend their existing business.
"There’s just not a business case right now," says Dodd Roberts, Merchant Advisory Group CEO. That perspective is not limited to credit and debit card issuers. Telcos found there was no business case for digital subscriber line, allowing competitors to gain a market foothold. Telcos found there was no business case for widespread deployment of consumer VoIP. Cable companies, on the other hand, easily could justify VoIP as their way to attack the consumer and small business voice business.
Credit card issuers, in other words, might find that mobile payment systems actually represent new cost, but little, if any, incremental revenue. Attackers will find mobile payments a business platform for taking market share away from established players. In fact, a likely early approach for many credit card issuers is simply to tolerate some loss of market share, until a defensive response becomes absolutely necessary.
The reason is simple revenue economics. If one assumes that new mobile payments systems promise retailers lower transaction costs, then a major shift to mobile payments by credit card and debit card issuers will simply lower profit margins across the board. As telcos early found out, revenue is higher if established players simply allow competitors to take some amount of market share, while maintaining higher gross revenue and profit margins as the remaining business that does not shift.
There are limits to the strategy, though. At some point, so much business is lost that a competitive response, even at the cost of lower gross revenue and profit margin, is necessary.
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
How Important are Social Product Recommendations?
People still get most of their information about products and services from friends and other people in face-to-face conversations. Email and voice conversations also are frequently used by more than half of respondents to a Colloquy survey.
Company sites, shopping sites, blogs and Twitter and other micro-blogging sites are much less frequently the source of such information. But that is likely to change as the lead edge of younger users become more nearly representative of the "general" or "typical" user.
Some might argue that socially-influenced product recommendations are not as influential as often is thought. But 56 percent of respondents 18 to 25 already say they share such information on social networking sites.
Company sites, shopping sites, blogs and Twitter and other micro-blogging sites are much less frequently the source of such information. But that is likely to change as the lead edge of younger users become more nearly representative of the "general" or "typical" user.Some might argue that socially-influenced product recommendations are not as influential as often is thought. But 56 percent of respondents 18 to 25 already say they share such information on social networking sites.
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
96% of Marketers Increasing Social Spend
Fully 96 percent of World Federation of Advertisers members polled recently are spending more time and money on social media. However, half of them admitted to being unsure of the likely return on that investment and nine percent believe the outcome will be "poor."
The attraction of social media often seems to be that it can be done without spending much money. But nearly always, organizations find that it takes far more time than originally anticipated. Just nine percent found their social activities took less time and cost less than expected.
Some 27 percent of those who have increased their social media efforts have found running fan pages takes more time and money than they had anticipated. The payoff is additional insight and increased loyalty (85 percent agreed), and the opportunity to increase advocacy (80 percent).
read more here
Some 27 percent of those who have increased their social media efforts have found running fan pages takes more time and money than they had anticipated. The payoff is additional insight and increased loyalty (85 percent agreed), and the opportunity to increase advocacy (80 percent).
read more here
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
-
We have all repeatedly seen comparisons of equity value of hyperscale app providers compared to the value of connectivity providers, which s...
-
It really is surprising how often a Pareto distribution--the “80/20 rule--appears in business life, or in life, generally. Basically, the...
-
One recurring issue with forecasts of multi-access edge computing is that it is easier to make predictions about cost than revenue and infra...
