Social E-Commerce is More Marketing Than Commerce

It isn't clear yet whether social commerce sites such as Groupon.com, Buywithme.com, Lifebooker.com and livingsocial.com are a fad or a permanent trend in e-commerce. These sites offer discounts to groups of buyers that may or may not depend on how many people respond to a specific offer.

Typically, a group coupon site operates in multiple cities and features one merchant's discount per day per city in an e-mail to subscribers.

Merchants set a minimum number of customers who must sign up for an offer to work.

If the deal doesn't get enough interest in the allotted period, would-be buyers get their money back. But some 90 percent of Groupon deals do go through. So shoppers may feel they need to rush to sign up before the quota fills, which generates a marketing buzz for the stores and sites.

But the social commerce deals might be seen primarily as marketing campaigns, more than a way to move merchandise. The websites typically give retailers half the money they get selling the deals. That means there is little to no profit from a deal.

What the deals succeed in doing is creating an opportunity to attract new customes, though.

A half-off coupon, for instance, typically brings the retailer just one-fourth the price it usually charges for a given item and could end up costing the business money.

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Bandwidth and Revenue: Something's Gotta Give

Fully 73 percent of industry executives surveyed by Telcordia expect to see either network-enforced hard limits, tiered services or a combination of both to manage data traffic.

The survey of industry professionals across more than 75 countries by Telcordia simply confirms that data traffic, and therefore network cost, is increasing faster than revenue to pay for supplying that bandwidth.

"CSPs need to insert themselves in the mobile broadband value chain and leverage billing and charging assets to manage network costs and to add innovative value-added offers and services to both subscribers and over-the-top content third parties," says Pat McCarthy, Telcordia VP.

"All-you-can-eat data plans are not a sustainable business model, and policy-based bandwidth management and real-time charging provide CSPs and their subscribers with the necessary flexibility to try new services while keeping costs in line," says McCarthy.

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HTC Evo Running Android 2.2

Some people are going to find the HTC Evo's "massive screen" annoying, to the extent that it makes the device bigger (slightly bigger than the comparable Verizon HTC Incredible, but it has some advantages.

The Evo doesn't use the OLED screen found on the Nexus One, but instead uses a TFT display which means the Evo will be easier to use in daylight.

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What is Yahoo's Strategy?

I admit I'm not sure I describe, with certainty, Yahoo or AOL strategies. To be sure, I'm not sure I could adequately describe Google's fundamental strategy, either. Maybe it doesn't matter whether I understand it. But it typically does matter when a company is a bit fuzzy about telling its own story. You can be the judge of whether this is clear enough.

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New Skype for the iPhone

A new version of Skype for the iPhone supports voice calls over 3G. I don't know about you, but I still find voice over 3G a challenging and non-predictable experience.

A recent call I was on was flaky enough that we reverted back to the public switched network.

New Skype 2.0 app for the iPhone allows voice calls over 3G -- Engadget:

WiMax 2: 100 Mbps Downstream Bandwidth

A second-generation standard for WiMAX now under development by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers promises 100 Mbps downstream bandwidth.

The 802.16m standard will significantly boost first-generation WiMAX speeds. Sprint's Xohm network generally supports speeds between 3.7 Mbps to 5 Mbps.

Significantly, the speed boost will be possible over the same distances WiMAX now operates over. WiMAX covers about 31 square miles from each access point.

WiMax vs LTE: What WiMax 2 promises - Feature - Techworld.com: