Disruption Tour --- Run To Survive

BBC NEWS | UK | Keyboards 'dirtier than a toilet'

"During the Which? tests in January this year, a microbiologist deemed one of the office's keyboards to be so dirty he ordered it to be removed, quarantined and cleaned. It had 150 times the recommended limit for bacteria - five times as filthy as a lavatory seat tested at the same time, the research found. " Yick. "They also found that, compared to men, on average women have three to four times the amount of germs in, on and around their work area." That is totally weird?

Who's Watching You at Work?

When they put in long hours, workers sometimes begin to see their
workplaces as something of a second home. They decorate the walls of
their cubicles or offices with pictures of loved ones, plants and an
assortment of personal memorabilia. When someone's spending 40, 50, 60
hours a week on the job, that feeling of home-away-from-home can extend
to use of electronic devices.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/62528.html

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.

How to mobilize a TV Audience

An industry poised for an explosion

imediaconnection.com

From the first time home viewers sent text messages via their mobile phones to vote for their favorite "American Idol," they were clearly hooked. The first night, 50,000 votes were cast, and the numbers continue to climb.

Currently users can interact with all kinds of programming, from reality competitions such as "Project Runway," "Dancing With The Stars" and "Hell's Kitchen," to game shows. The current king of participation TV (PTV), "Deal or No Deal," offers viewers a chance to play at home with the Lucky Cases Game. PTV is also being incorporated into new programs and even more forms of entertainment with its addition to fantasy football and the broadcast of NBA games.

It is no exaggeration to say PTV is on the verge of a growth explosion. According to data from Nielsen Mobile, (previously known as Telephia) for the first half of 2007 PTV accounted for retail revenue generation of $56 million in the mobile entertainment industry, with the most popular four or five shows making up 85 percent of the revenue. Currently, there are dozens of shows incorporating viewer participation into program formats.

My company, mBlox, a mobile transaction network, estimates that the market for PTV in the U.S. will grow to $170 million in 2008. Behind the scenes, mBlox, as an aggregator, connects the production companies with the viewers who send text messages. Aggregators act as the intermediary, providing the infrastructure

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.

The New Advertising Outlet: Your Life

By LOUISE STORY

NYTimes.com
Click here for more of the article...

 

STEVE SAENZ used to run a 10K race in 36 minutes. But last spring — 20 years, 2 children and 50 pounds later — he found himself seriously out of shape. A new Web site from Nike, he says, has brought him back on track.

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Multimedia

Graphic

Not Your Everyday Ad

Video

Classic Nike TV Spot With Michael Jordan

Video

Classic Nike TV Spot With Michael Jordan and Spike Lee

Video

Nike Online Ad With English Soccer Player, Wayne Rooney

Video

Nike Online Ad With Brazilian Soccer Player, Ronaldinho

Enlarge This Image

Rob Bennett for The New York Times

“We’re not in the business of keeping the media companies alive,” says Trevor Edwards, Nike’s corporate vice president for global brand and category management.

Since April, Mr. Saenz, 53, has been running with a Nike+, a small sensor in his running shoes that tracks his progress on an Apple iPod he carries. After each run near his home in Louisville, Ky., he docks the iPod into his computer and posts details of his run on the Nike+ Web site. There, he has made friends with other runners around the world who post running routes, meet up in the real world and encourage one another on the site.

Nike’s famous swoosh is there all along. For Nike, this is advertising.

“It’s a very different way to connect with consumers,” says Trevor Edwards, Nike’s corporate vice president for global brand and category management. “People are coming into it on average three times a week. So we’re not having to go to them.”

Print to Web: Changing of the Guard

On a daily basis, we’re too close to really pay attention, but the line between traditional, print media and new, online media is both blurring and becoming more glaringly different.

While Time Warner reports disastrous print numbers, from AdAge, via AlleyInsider.com:

“During the first half of 2007, ad pages dropped 17.5% at Fortune, 18.2% at Fortune Small Business, 25.7% at Money and 34.1% at Business 2.0.”

You read that blogs that started off as one-man operations are becoming more and more akin to the print businesses they are siphoning traffic away.

How Toys "R" Us Tripped Up Its Online Crisis Strategy

Click here for entire article...

My one year old is short on bibs. We threw them all away a few weeks ago when Toys "R" Us pulled about 160,000 vinyl bibs after high lead levels were found in two bibs from one supplier. As it turned out, our bibs weren't at risk. But they came from Toys "R" Us, and that was reason enough to get them out of the house. Fast.

Other parents' impressions of this retail giant have likely changed as a result of this PR nightmare. Toys "R" Us is not the only children's retailer viewed as culpable for exposing kids to a major health risk. September has already seen lead paint exposure recalls by toy makers Fisher-Price and Mattel, and June saw a similar recall by Thomas the Tank Engine maker RC2.

What's a multibillion-dollar corporation to do, aside from better regulating offshore production? Damage control. And these days, that must include the Web.

Veteran Producers Turn To Web...

The creative minds behind such TV shows as ''Thirtysomething'' and ''My So-Called Life'' are launching a Web-based show, hoping to find the artistic freedom online that they say is lacking on broadcast networks.

The show, called ''Quarterlife,'' will debut Nov. 11 on MySpace.com and will also be paired with its own social networking site that will include story extras as well as career, romance and other information for the show's young audience.

Centered on a group of recent college graduates, the show started as a pilot for an ABC series called ''1/4 Life.'' It aired once in 2005 and was pulled because of creative differences between the network and creators Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick.

With the explosion of online video and the migration to the Web of such well-known artists as Will Ferrell, Harry Shearer and Bill Murray, Herskovitz and Zwick decided to resurrect the show and give it a cyber twist.

The TV veterans were also attracted by the chance to have full creative control of the project and retain ownership, which could produce greater profit for them if the show becomes popular.

''It's a gamble,'' Herskovitz said. ''We want to prove there is another way to independently create and distribute content.''

The show's 36 episodes will air exclusively on MySpace, which has more than 110 million users worldwide. Additional content, including character profiles, will also appear on MySpace, which is owned by News Corp.

Each episode will be about 8 minutes long with two episodes debuting each week. The producers and

From Technologyreview.com

MySpace will share revenue from ads that will run in the video. Additional revenue will come from product placement deals, Herskovitz said.

In a new wrinkle, the show also will have its own social networking site called quarterlife.com.

Sending viewers in a loop back and forth from episode to the site could help build an audience, Forrester Research analyst Josh Bernoff said.

''If you create a place where your fans can gather and talk, then you reinforce their coming back and make it possible for them to recruit other people,'' Bernoff said.

Bernoff said there is room for professionally-created content online. But the Internet is still decades away from commanding the audiences, and thus the profits, that TV can.

''Making the big time still means being on television,'' Bernoff said.

Whole Foods is Watching You...

Click here for enire article...

For some time, I’ve been a HUGE fan of Whole Foods Market. With their headquarters in Austin, I eat lunch in their awesome cafe three or four times a week. That being said, I rarely do my grocery shopping at Whole Foods, simply because it is so much less expensive to go to a competing grocery store. Today, I decided that I’d change pace and do my weekly shopping at Whole Foods.

Wow! The Whole Foods Market in Austin has a digital pricing system. Every single product in the store has a digital display below it on its shelf (similar to a calculator face) that gives the product’s current price. At first glance, you might assume that this is Whole Foods way of simplifying the rather tedious process of replacing price labels on a daily basis. But, I think these digital price displays are a little smarter than first look might render.

While walking up and down the herbal tea isle, looking for “my brand” I noticed that several of the price displays changed as I looked at them. WHAT!? Yes, the price of three herbal teas dropped as I walked past them. This got me thinking, how complex is the pricing system that Whole Foods is using? Are product prices rising and falling as I shop? If I stand around the store long enough, will I end up saving money, or is it possible that I take an item off the shelf at one price, but find it to be a completely different price upon checkout? Or was this just a glitch in the system, that I happened to experience first hand?

Regardless, I think that Whole Foods has a winner on its hands. I would imagine that these displays are intrinsically linked to a much more advanced system that logs consumer behavior. Being that Whole Food prides itself on selling only the freshest of fresh, I’ll assume that shelf life goes into the end price that is displayed digitally. The longer a product is on the shelf, the more of a discount is given off the retail price. This allows them to move products off the shelf that will expire soon. But, I wonder if they don’t also consider consumer buying habits? If a particular brand of herbal tea is selling really well, will Whole Foods lower the price, or make it higher? Will I save more money shopping on a Wednesday than shopping on a Sunday? These are all questions that I’d like to learn the answers to in regards to this digital pricing system.

Whatever the answers, I love Whole Foods. Their Animal Compassion and Whole Planet Foundations alone are reason enough to enjoy Whole Foods. But, let’s face it, they just offer a superior shopping experience and I think these digital displays are designed to heighten that experience. Whole Foods is basically taking consumer tracking techniques from the internet and applying them to real life, like many other retailers are doing. So, go visit a Whole Foods, enjoy the experience (impossible not to) and let me know whether you think those digital displays are designed to help increase your shopping experience, increase Whole Foods bottom line, or a pleasant blend of both?

Is your company’s pricing system designed to fluctuate from day-to-day or month-to-month, depending on market conditions? Do you give incentives to frequent clients or consumers? How are you making your customer’s shopping experience more efficient and pleasant? What are people saying about the new technology that you’ve recently implemented?

JG adds...But are you really feeling comfortable walking through the store without being asked for your permission to be tracked? Did you give the company this level of digital permission? How hard would it be for Whole Foods to ask all its store customers for this level of permission? Would this/could this blow up in their face if it got out what exactly they were doing with the data behind the scenes. Who they are sharing it with or worse selling it too. Yesterday Apple got in deep do do over its pricing policies on the IPhone and do you/we really feel comfortable that you could be paying a higher price than your colleague behind you because your household income is higher than you buddy in the other isle?