Disruption Tour --- Run To Survive

Forget Gen Y, What Will We See with Gen Z?

Profy.com

This week has seen a great deal of nattering on about Generation Y: how the interact with the web, how they are going to solve all the world's problems with no coherent business model, and what they expect out of social networks.

To be honest, I'm old. Very old. I'm Generation X. And when someone suggested that Generation X was defined by the Web 1.0 bubble when it comes to tech, I see much of the same "can't happen to us" mentality in Gen Y that we had in the late 90s. Much like we did, Gen Y will have to learn their lessons the hard way, and they, too, will see another generation of users even more tech-savvy than they are come up behind. It's with both pride and terror that I realize I'm raising members of that generation.

Gen Y has been fond of saying that they grew up with computers. While I wheedled my way into as much time cranking out line after line of BASIC on my school's single TRS-80, Gen Y doesn't remember a time without PCs everywhere they turned. But Gen Z takes it a step further: they have instant access to everything everywhere they turn.

My children are growing up in an era of hyper-connectivity. At my son's kindergarten open house today, I saw at least one parent on a Blackberry while taking the tour of the room and the work that the children have done. If I need a phone number or directions, they immediately grab my phone for me. They don't understand why we get phone books delivered once a year, because they've never seen one being used. All photos are digital and sent at the click of a button. When my son surprised us today by reading books aloud to us at school, he thought nothing of my quick video on my phone sent to his grandparents, who are out of town this week. My eight-year-old is already better at social networking than I am; she belongs to more social networks than I do, can move around a new web site much faster than I can, and when I asked her to get her dad for me at work one day, she went right to IM. She wants to know when she can have her own Twitter account (I have no idea WHY she wants one, since I'm sure her friends have no idea what it is), and already understands the allure of the closed beta, lording it over her friends if Mommy gets access to something cool with an invite.

Obviously, living in my household, the kids are probably being exposed to a little more than your average family (my oldest had her own blog when she was three), but even among her friends whose parents share a single email inbox (the thought of having only one inbox myself makes me want to hide under the covers until the nightmare passes), the kids are all hanging out on Webkinz and Disney Fairies and pestering their parents about how old they have to be to get a Facebook account. While I was horrified at the demo for Disney eXtreme Digital, I'm willing to bet that she already wins hands down in a multitasking contest with Louis Gray and his "Continuous Parallel Attention." While most of us are still learning how to manage the firehose, these kids are growing up with it, lapping it up like a baby's bottle. Something tells me they won't be taking the same time we do for the navel-gazing. They'll just want to get on with it. And for all our use of Web 2.0, and analysis of it, to them it will be as outdated as a typewriter.

Image used with permission. All rights reserved.

ON THE GLOBAL FOOD CRISIS

from mashable.com

thegies writes hmmm...175 Billion spend on advertising in the US in 2007 and $165 Billion being thrown in the trash or into landfills due to ineffectiveness.  I wonder what a difference reallocating this money would make to many social issues? Check out http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=323832500

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

The Economist has a timely cover story on the current global food price inflation and resulting unrest.  Here's how they describe the harsh human reality:

"...by almost any measure, the human suffering is likely to be vast. In El Salvador the poor are eating only half as much food as they were a year ago. Afghans are now spending half their income on food, up from a tenth in 2006.

On a conservative estimate, food-price rises may reduce the spending power of the urban poor and country people who buy their own food by 20% (in some regions, prices are rising by far more). Just over 1 billion people live on $1 a day, the benchmark of absolute poverty; 1.5 billion live on $1 to $2 a day.

Bob Zoellick, the president of the World Bank, reckons that food inflation could push at least 100m people into poverty, wiping out all the gains the poorest billion have made during almost a decade of economic growth."

In particular the article does a good job on outlining the myriad market forces than have brought us to this point, and an cogent examination of how market forces may get us out.  As the article points out:

"In the short run, humanitarian aid, social-protection programmes and trade policies will determine how well the world copes with these problems. But in the medium term the question is different: where does the world get more food from?

If the extra supplies come mainly from large farmers in America, Europe and other big producers, then the new equilibrium may end up looking much like the old one, with world food depending on a small number of suppliers and—possibly—trade distortions and food dumping."

But the longer-term answers are not that clear, given the complexity of the many disparate global trends that are coming together at an inopportune time. We need to understand the issues and the problems before we can start to figure out the opportunities and solutions.

Definitely worth a weekend read.

An industry wake-up call

imediaconnection.com

By Terri Seligman

 

for more of the article...

With legislators once again raising consumers' fears about their online privacy, the industry needs to prepare for possible fall out.

For several years, websites, ad servers and marketing companies have been tracking the online activity of millions of internet users. These companies compile and analyze this information, and then use it to help advertisers deliver ads to those most likely to be interested in their product or service. Most consumers may not have been aware that their online activities were being monitored and analyzed -- until now.

Consumer and privacy groups are challenging online targeted advertising, usually claiming that websites and advertisers should not be able to track online activity without providing notice to consumers and getting consumers' consent. Privacy advocates are also worried about the possibility that companies will combine anonymous online data with personally identifiable data, which seems increasingly likely as more marketing and database companies merge. 

Can m-Commerce Kill the Retail Industry?

http://disruptivewireless.blogspot.com/2008/04/is-m-commerce-about-to-kill-retail.html

Dean Bubley

Interesting post here, about the possibility for shoppers to arbitrage pricing while in-store, by texting a numerical product code to Amazon (AMZN) and seeing if they can get a discount.

Funnily enough, I actually registered a bunch of URLs in 2001 such as mobilecomparisons.com, in the expectation that this type of technology would emerge. I got bored waiting in about 2005, and let them lapse.

I can see some big advantages in this particular case - notably that it's Amazon, with whom many people already have an account via the PC (I can't imagine wanting to set up a new account on the phone), and who are also the masters of the logistical side. It's also good that it bypasses the operator (who would otherwise want to add their own margin to the price, probably negating the benefit). And it's certainly good that it charges to your credit card rather than your mobile bill.

On the other hand, even without any knowledge of the retail industry, I can think of numerous ways that this can be circumvented from the retailer's point of view:

• Work out an explicit value for "instant gratification" and make sure the Amazon discount doesn't cover it.
• Negotiate with your suppliers for slightly customised versions of products that aren't available through other channels, and which therefore have a unique UPC code or barcode that Amazon doesn't have access to.
• Put a sticker over the UPC code with a proprietary product tag only recognisable by the checkout system.
• Offer different "Get it now!" and "Free delivery tomorrow" prices for goods.
• Offering complex product bundles described on shelves & assessed at checkout ("Price of camera + memory card = $200", or even just "Buy one get one free").

I also think that some of the notions about always-on ubiquitous mobile broadband are over-optimistic, even though the US is now a bit of a special case because of 700MHz' reach. Verizon's (VZ) C-Block is 2 x 11MHz - and I'll leave it to a more techy-minded reader to work out the likely "Mb/s per square mile" based on density of cell sites, sectors/cell, frequency use & a bunch of other technical innovations like beamforming. But I'm pretty sure it's going to struggle to get to (let's say) an aggregate 1GB/s per square mile, which will then have to service all simultaneous users. Femtocells could help, but probably not in a retail environment.

Sure, the mobile web user experience will get a lot better with improved devices/browsers, and 3G/4G/WiMAX/white-space/band-sharing technologies. I can see evolutions of this technology with barcode (or even just product) photos being interpreted.

However, I can't see m-commerce killing retail, even though it may shake it up a bit, in the same fashion that PC-based Amazon already has.

A New Tool From Google Alarms Sites

Click here for more of the NYTimes article...

By BOB TEDESCH

 Retailers and publishers have fought hard to work their way up in the ranking of Google’s search results and refine the search features of their own Web sites to help users once they arrive. Now, Google is taking a greater role in helping users search within particular sites. And some of the same retailers and publishers are not happy about it.

 

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Andrew Shurtleff for The New York Times

A second box, originated by Google, pops up when a search is conducted for some companies’ Internet sites.

Enlarge This Image

Andrew Shurtleff for The New York Times

Alan Rimm-Kaufman, an Internet consultant, said Google might be asked at times to turn off a new feature.

This month, the company introduced a search-within-search feature that lets users stay on Google to find pages on popular sites like those of The Washington Post, Wikipedia, The New York Times, Wal-Mart and others. The search box appears when someone enters the name of certain Web addresses or company names — say, “Best Buy” — rather than entering a request like “cellphones.”

The results of the search are almost all individual company pages. Google tops those results with a link to the home page of the Web site in question, adds another search box, and offers users the chance to let Google search for certain things within that site.

The problem, for some in the industry, is that when someone enters a term into that secondary search box, Google will display ads for competing sites, thereby profiting from ads it sells against the brand. The feature also keeps users searching on Google pages and not pages of the destination Web site.

Analysts generally praise the

Spotlight Feature: Practicing Safe E-Commerce

Despite the overwhelming success of e-commerce, there are still
consumers out there too terrified to click their cart through a virtual
check-out. Are they just a silly-nilly group, nutty as a bunch of
conspiracy theorists? Or are the rest of us just too naïve to get it?
Neither, it turns out.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/61755.html

Where Do We Go From Here?

from Read/writeweb.com

Open Social from Google is a major step towards opening up web silos. As we have previously discussed here, most companies on the web have been silos. From Amazon to Netflix the companies have held on to the user information that they gathered, turning it into a business advantage. Open Social paves a way to a potentially new kind of web culture. In that culture, companies would recognize that users are entitled to their information. It should be importable and exportable. It should not be locked in.

If Open Social is implemented on the broader scale, there is likely to be a cultural shift. Consumers are going to recognize that if their social graph is portable and if their attention information is portable in social networks, then it should be portable at large. People are going to demand that their Amazon purchasing history and Netflix rental history is accessible via open API. If that happens, we will effectively enter the age of the attention economy.

Now tell us what you think of Open Social and its implications. What companies would you like to see join this initiative? What do you think about Facebook's play, will it join the initiative or remain closed?

The Crowd Finally Gets It: They Can Group Up And Manipulate AdSense

techcrunch.com

Since the beginnings of AdSense, I wondered how much time will have to pass until people start abusing the system en masse; be it for fun, or profit.

Today at Reddit we have proof of such behavior. Redditers are calling everyone to click on Rudy Giuliani’s paid ads simply because they cost him money. Think about it: a mass of people which is Reddit or Digg can actually create quite an AdWords bill for poor Rudy if they all start clicking like madmen; at the very least, Google will have problems evaluating the campaign and determining the “false” from the “real” clicks.

The thing is, AdSense is just too easy to abuse. Click an ad, and there goes a couple of dollars. Turn it into a meme or a viral joke and thousands go down the drain, together with the entire idea of click-based ads. In any case, what seems like a fun idea for a bunch of Ron Paul or Barrack Obama supporters is Google’s entire business model, and I wonder what are they going to do about it.

Vat19: Online Retailing via SKU-level videos

rimmkufman.com click here to learn more

• Alan Rimm-Kaufman

In the earliest days of web retailing, simply having an image for each SKU online was a big deal. Expectations evolved quickly, and now multiple images, image zoom, and color swatching are now must-haves in many categories.

The next step will be video: consumers will expect to see a specific video for each product. Video showing the product moving, in use, with narration.

SKU-level video will require a huge amount of effort for retailers, but should significantly increase conversion rates and decrease return rates.

Vat19 sells “curiously awesome products” . These are under-50$ novelties, high-tech desk toys, etc. Vat19 offers video descriptions for almost every SKU they sell. Funny, edgy, useful videos that show you exactly how the gadget looks and what it does. Videos made by Vat19 themselves.

I’d wager that these videos are essential to selling their unusual products, and that’s why they’re working to get video for each SKU.

Video won’t matter in all categories, but will rapidly become essential for online retailers selling clothing, gadgets toys, and vacation travel.

Kinset software to provide look and feel of a real 3-D Virtual store, retailer says

Brookstone to launch 3-D online store

Kinset software to provide look and feel of a real store, retailer says

Linda Rosencrance    

computerworld click here for more...

 

November 16, 2007 (Computerworld) -- If you're dreading making the trek to crowded malls this holiday season, but you're not a big fan of the static Internet shopping experience, Brookstone Inc. is offering a compromise -??? a 3-D virtual store that it say looks just like its physical stores.

The 3-D store, set to launch before Thanksgiving, will give shoppers an in-store, interactive experience right from their own homes.

Brookstone is using Boston-based Kinset Inc.'s 3-D Store technology to create what it calls an online 3-D store that provides the same look and feel as its physical stores, said Greg Sweeney, vice president and general manager of direct marketing at Brookstone in Merrimack, N.H.

"Kinset approached us with the idea of taking 3-D technology and applying it to retailing on the Internet because as a multichannel retailer, one of the things we really pride ourselves on is the in-store interactive experience," Sweeney said. "And this felt like a great technology to bring the Internet experience, which tends to be two-dimensional and a little too task-oriented, to more of an experiential Internet shopping experience. Our hope is it brings a little more discovery and a little more fun to the experience."

"Powerful personal computers and fast broadband Web connectivity allowed us to build the first software technology that can present realistic online stores in 3-D," said John Butler, CEO of Kinset, in a statement.

By using Kinset software, retailers can build virtual stores that look like real store floor plans, Butler said, and can track and analyze shoppers' activity. Determining whether a shopper takes a left or right when entering the virtual store can also help retailers better plan the layouts of their virtual stores, Butler said. The software also allows retailers to make small changes to the site almost immediately.

In Brookstone's 3-D virtual store, shoppers will be able to browse through virtual aisles looking for products such as games, electronics, furniture, and home and bath accessories. Sweeney said the ability to gather customer data provided by the Kinset software is important to Brookstone.

Currently, Brookstone is the only retailer using Kinset's technology, but consumer electronics retailer Tweeter is also in talks to launch its own 3-D virtual store, said Mark Stearns, director of e-commerce for Canton, Mass.-based Tweeter.

Butler said he is also talking to other retailers and expects more to sign on for the 2008 holiday season.