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A Candid Conversation with OpenID’s David Recordon (.net)

Posted: 10/08/2009

Six Apart’s David Recordon, co-developer of OpenID, sat down with Oliver Lindberg to discuss his vision for the open web. The web is becoming more social and Recordon emphasizes that critical build-outs must enable users to interact between multiple sites without asking them to recreate accounts requiring repetitive data and tasks. OpenID enables users to sign in to thousands of online services with the same digital identity, which ultimately means users can access and share information from across various platforms. With its focus on user experience and usability, as well as benchmarking successful efforts like Facebook Connect, OpenID is carving a path toward mainstream technology by engaging major stakeholders like Microsoft and Google. A few months ago Recordan announced the Open Web Foundation, whose initial goal is to create open specifications for the web that anyone can implement for free.

Industry: Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications, Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic: Experience & Interaction, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Business, Peer Groups & Communities

Alcatel-Lucent Takes the Plunge Into Mobile Advertising (Information Week)

Posted: 07/18/2009

Redefining the drive-by, Alcatel-Lucent recently announced plans to launch a product allowing cellular carriers to reach millions of mobile customers with location-relevant advertisements. Partnering with mobile ad company 1020 Placecast, the technology will help mobile operators determine the location of the customer with accuracy within a few meters. The new advertising vehicle, dubbed proximity marketing, is poised to reach sales of $10 billion by 2013. So don’t be too surprised if soon it’s more than your taste buds beckoning you into the nearest Starbucks for a cup of joe and coffee cake.

Industry: Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications, Retail & Products, Telecommunications
Topic: Business Intelligence, Content Strategy, Experience & Interaction, Marketing Communications, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Business, Business to Consumer

Apple and Facebook Key Influencers in New Tech Cycle (eWeek)

Posted: 02/04/2010

Apple and Facebook have literally changed the face of mobile internet. With mobile internet users projected to double by 2013, it’s easy to see a "mobile Internet cycle" emerging, a new cycle detailed in Morgan Stanley's "The Mobile Internet Report." Cited as the fifth computing cycle in five decades, the report claims this one is faster and bigger with a wider global net than previous cycles. While Apple, Google and Amazon.com lead the pack, the report suggests that the key influencers from previous cycles won’t necessarily be given the keys to this new kingdom. The analyst team, headed by Mary Meeker, attributes the high level of anticipation for mobile users to five of the most promising IP-based products and services: social networking, 3G network adoption, video, Voice over IP and "impressive mobile devices."

Industry: Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services, Telecommunications
Topic: E-Commerce, Experience & Interaction, Technology Implementation
Region: Global, North America, Asia Pacific
Audience: Business to Business, Business to Consumer, Peer Groups & Communities

Art Meets Internet Commerce, Reality TV, Social Media (Promo Magazine)

Posted: 06/05/2009

Continuing the surge of story-based marketing, Coca-Cola brand Sprite is launching a new European campaign that boldly unites art with multi-channeled commerce. A young, unknown British singer headlines the ongoing YouTube series that follows as she hits the New York music scene. With the prequel getting upwards of 60,000 views on YouTube, the show is also linked to Facebook Connect, creating the first interaction of its kind between YouTube and Facebook. “With this show, Sprite shifts from creating the perfect branded content to content that perfects the brand,” Coca-Cola head of European digital marketing Stafford Green said in a release. “Instead of repeating single messages in traditional media, Sprite supports these new experiences and deep storytelling to communicate our core brand values over time. It’s a fresh advertising model, and everyone wins: the artist, the brands and especially the audience—getting free on-demand, truly interactive content without commercial interruption.”

Industry: Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications, Retail & Products, Telecommunications
Topic: Creative & Design, Experience & Interaction, Technology Implementation
Region: Global, Europe
Audience: Business to Consumer, Peer Groups & Communities

Asian Persuasion – Social Media Marketing In Japan (ClickZ)

Posted: 09/16/2010

Before MySpace and Facebook were even a glimmer in the virtual eye, Japan had Mixi – one of the country’s most popular SNS (social networking sites). While businesses in the U.S. are really only just beginning to tap into social media as a viable marketing tool, savvy businesses in Japan have been on the social bandwagon for more than 10 years, using platforms like Mixi, Gree and 2channel. Japan’s preponderance of social media might even prompt some to say that Japan was the genesis for social media marketing. The country’s rich social media platforms include: general social networking sites; video and photo sharing sites, social bookmarking sites; blog network sites, mini-blogging sites and micro social networking (SNS) sites. With most services available for both PC and mobile (unlike the U.S. where mobile is just gaining traction), mobile is already a key part of the countries inhabitants’ online lives.

Industry: Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications
Topic: Business Intelligence, Content Strategy, Marketing Communications, Technology Implementation
Region: Asia Pacific
Audience: Business to Consumer, Peer Groups & Communities

BI, Best-of-Breed Web Tactics Broaden Scope for Consumer Goods Companies (InformationWeek)

Posted: 11/08/2009

An InformationWeek 500 survey shows that consumer goods companies like Herbalife and E&J Gallo Winery are banking on business intelligence to control cost and boost Internet and mobile sales channels. The study reports that as many as 68% of consumer goods companies plan to make BI readily accessible to employees, compared to 37% for all InformationWeek 500 respondents. Gallo, the largest family-owned winery in the world, optimizes its product packaging, pricing, and channel strategies with SOA architecture, SaaS, and its BI repository. 32% of respondents consider improving Web operations critical to boosting their business globally compared to 26% from other groups. Herbalife, a company that dominates domestically, only attributes 10-15% of their global business to internet sales.

Industry: Retail & Products, Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic: Business Intelligence, E-Commerce, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Consumer

Blazing the Broadband Trail Along the East Coast (Internet Retailer)

Posted: 08/27/2009

Akamai Technologies Inc.’s “State of the Internet Report” revealed that U.S. broadband adoption is on the rise, with East coast states tallying the most broadband Internet connections for the first quarter of 2009. Eastern states garnered eight of the top ten slots, topped by Delaware, where 62% of households have high-speed broadband web access, a 6.7% year over-year increase. Based on results from data collected from Akamai’s global server network, the study examined countries and U.S. states that averaged over 1,000 unique monthly IP addresses. The report also states that one-fifth of global internet connections operate at speeds greater than 5 Mbps, up significantly from the previous year. “The implication… is that Internet retailers can continue to add more rich media content to their site... to bring buyers and keep them on the site longer,” says David Belson, editor of the report.

Industry: Retail & Products, Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic: Creative & Design, E-Commerce, Technology Implementation
Region: North America
Audience: Business to Business, Business to Consumer

Breaking Through the Barriers to Adopting Social Media in Email Marketing (New Media Knowledge)

Posted: 09/11/2009

A recent survey by email experts StrongMail cited that 62 percent of firms plan to increase social media spending while 66 percent plan to integrate social media into their email marketing campaigns. NMK sat down with Paul Bates, managing director of StrongMail, to get an insider’s perspective for breaking through the barriers to effectively engage social media. Find out where your customers are hanging out online and observe their behavior there; engage competitive analysis across the social spectrum to find out where your competitors are lurking and determine whether they are or are not enjoying success. The conversation with Bates is packed with stats, insights and tips for marketers to engage customers in meaningful conversation and begin to integrate social media into an email marketing strategy with enormous ROI on their marketing dollars.

Industry: Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications, Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic: Business Intelligence, Content Strategy, Creative & Design, Experience & Interaction, Marketing Communications, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Business, Peer Groups & Communities

Bridging the Gap: JavaFX for Mobile Devices (Info World)

Posted: 07/18/2009

With more than 2.6 billion mobile phones deployed with Java worldwide, Sun Microsystems is heralding the JavaFX extension as a bridge from desktop to mobile device to television. "JavaFX Mobile delivers rich, expressive user experiences and we know that this is what our customers require these days," Sun’s vice president of marketing Eric Klein said recently at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco. Improvements to the new 1.2 release of JavaFX Mobile include optimized performance, a user interface library, and localization. Future plans include building the JavaFX technology into “smartbook” devices that boast Internet access and GPS capabilities on small, hand-held devices.

Industry: Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services, Telecommunications
Topic: Creative & Design, Experience & Interaction, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Business, Business to Consumer

Building A Brand Story Greater Than The Sum Of Its Individual Parts (New Media Knowledge)

Posted: 01/20/2011

Rather than providing a plethora of tactical solutions, today’s abundance of marketing channels may simply overwhelm marketers. Standard targeted marketing used to be a relatively simple game of point-and-shoot at three main channels (TV, print and direct mail) to cover all bases. Now, with the addition of social media platforms, mobile marketing, web, and email to the traditional channels, adopting a successful strategy can get confusing. Aim the same message at all the channels and the results can be downright disastrous. Multi-channel marketing offers marketers a mechanism to “pull all these conversations together and build a brand story that is greater than the sum of the individual parts” so marketers can keep their eyes on the prize: customer engagement and action. The key is to understand and respect the characteristics of each channel and then execute each according to how it works uniquely for your brand.

Industry: Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications, Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic: Business Intelligence, Content Strategy, Experience & Interaction, Marketing Communications, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Business, Peer Groups & Communities

Building Best-Run Businesses With SAP’s Targeted Analytic Applications (InformationWeek)

Posted: 10/14/2010

The demand for domain-specific business insight led SAP to launch ten SAP BusinessObjects analytic applications. The customer-centric, problem solving apps include Sales Analysis for Retail; and Trade Promotion Effectiveness and On-Shelf Availability apps for consumer products firms, whose very names reveal how the development process was led by insight from key constituencies within SAP’s customer and industry bases. "These apps attach the knowledge workers to the action so they can make better decisions and help their company become a best-run business," said SAP co-CEO Bill McDermott. While designed with the SAP core customer segments in mind, the apps do not depend on pre-existing SAP deployments so that they will reach across to non-SAP customers, as well. Backed by Sybase mobile technologies, the apps promise benefits like reports and metrics; rapid deployment and actionable analytic insights. Plans to support the apps with mobile are expected to be fulfilled by the end of 2011.

Industry: Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services, Telecommunications
Topic: Business Intelligence, Content Strategy, Experience & Interaction, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Business, Business to Consumer

Call Me Social: Zingaya Hooks Up Twitter To Telephone (Red Herring)

Posted: 12/01/2010

Ever get the feeling that there’s more to a post than ‘tweets’ the eye? For those tweets that deserve a little elaboration, UK-based VoIp startup Zingaya recently unveiled a new social media application that allows Twitter followers to call the tweeter to get the inside scoop. The service, called zin.to elevates Twitter feeds to conversation status. The company also offers a VoIP service that enables voice calls through any computer right from a web page via a microphone. “Zin.to can be a very powerful tool for businesses,” the company explains on its website. "For example, company can send promotional offers to its followers asking them to call within a certain time to get an additional discount or to win a prize.” It's only available in the US currently but will likely expand as the company develops this capability. While call forwarding is eventually based on purchased credits, the first 30 minutes of the call forwarding service is free. Those looking for a more cost-effective solution with unlimited options can simply use their Skype user name.

Industry: Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications, Telecommunications
Topic: Experience & Interaction, Marketing Communications, Technology Implementation
Region: North America
Audience: Business to Business, Business to Consumer, Peer Groups & Communities

Chatter Mobile: Saleforce.com’s Answer To Enterprise Collaboration (Intelligent Enterprise)

Posted: 10/14/2010

Salesforce.com recently announced Chatter Mobile, a smart-phone application designed to bring CRM-centric, social-networking-style collaboration to Smartphones by the end of 2010. The Web 2.0-styled consumer app lets Saleforce’s Chatter users collaborate with people at work while on-the-go and in real-time. Similar to following Facebook friends and interests, Chatter enables users to subscribe to and "follow" feeds related to their business, as well as keep tabs on what customers and prospects are saying on public networks like Facebook and Twitter. Partners and customers can also "Chatterize" vertical and custom applications through the Force.com development platform. The free service is featured within the company’s cloud-based sales and service applications, which could help a mobile salesperson stay on top of what matters most as they are heading to meet with their clients.

Industry: Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications, Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services, Telecommunications
Topic: Business Intelligence, Experience & Interaction, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Business, Business to Consumer, Peer Groups & Communities

China: Redefining the Innovation Landscape (Knowledge@Wharton)

Posted: 07/18/2009

Innovation is the golden key to gaining competitive advantage. China is redefining the innovation landscape with its large, adaptable population; affinity for improvisation and reverse engineering; and mature industrial clusters poised to lead the supply chain. The country goes beyond low-cost labor to provide colossal development opportunities for large multinational corporations (MNCs) looking to maximize dollars spent in developing markets. "The culture is very, very good at devising quick and often effective solutions to problems," Marshall Meyer, a Wharton management professor said. The country’s ability to improvise effectively will undoubtedly seal a golden fate in the global economy.

Industry: Retail & Products, Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic: Creative & Design, Technology Implementation
Region: Asia Pacific
Audience: Business to Business

Chinese Company Premier’s World’s First Phone to Run Windows XP (Info World)

Posted: 07/18/2009

Chinese company In Technology recently unveiled the first-ever mobile device capable of running Windows XP. A cool hybrid of mobile phone and pint-sized computer, the device can wake Windows from standby mode to receive calls and text messages and support Wi-Fi, optional WiMax, GPS and next-generation mobile. Other key features include a customized chip from Advanced Micro Devices, pull-out Qwerty board, 120GB hard disk, and a 4.8 inch LCD touchscreen. Battery life averages seven hours while larger batteries can power the device for up to 12 hours. Product release within the Chinese market is scheduled for mid-September with international release slated a bit further down the road.

Industry: Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services, Telecommunications
Topic: Experience & Interaction, Marketing Communications, Technology Implementation
Region: Global, Asia Pacific
Audience: Business to Consumer

Clearasil’s Secrets & Science Of Looking Awesome (B&T)

Posted: 11/11/2010

Achieving clear, radiant skin is the ultimate goal from the onset of adolescence into maturity. Now, Reckitt Benckiser’s Clearasil brand has launched a new website to promote its new ‘Secrets & Science of Looking Awesome’ brand positioning. The Website uses an online magazine to offer practical advice based on user generated content and integrates social media into the campaign by prompting users to share links and “iLike” via Facebook. “The 11 - 24 target market for Clearasil is going through life changing landmarks and with the new online platform we’ve designed and developed for them, Clearasil is acknowledging the journey and forming a deeper bond with the brand’s users,” said Tim O’Neill, joint managing director of Reactive, the digital agency that launched the campaign.

Industry: Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications, Retail & Products
Topic: Content Strategy, Creative & Design, Experience & Interaction, Marketing Communications, Technology Implementation
Region: North America, Europe
Audience: Business to Consumer, Peer Groups & Communities

Closing the Sale: SeeWhy Helps Businesses Put Abandonment Issues to Rest (Intelligent Enterprise)

Posted: 07/03/2009

You’re spending huge chunks of money to drive traffic to your site, you’re bound to close the sale, right? Not necessarily. Businesses today are finding a significant number of visitors abandon their shopping carts before completing their purchases. SeeWhy helps retailers put their cart abandonment issues to rest with the launch of their new software, Abandonment Tracker. The free service is designed to entice customers into upgrading to Abandonment Tracker Pro, a paid service that will be released in a few weeks. While the price for Abandonment Tracker Pro has not yet been disclosed, the advanced software promises to improve sales conversion rates and reduce abandoned shopping carts. SeeWhy will help retailers lure potential customers back to close the deal rather than having sales evaporating before their very eyes.

Delivering Real Business Value… Fast with webMethods 8.0 (eWeek)

Posted: 07/31/2009

Companies looking to reduce time and cost to improve processes, deploy new services and applications, and integrate new systems can now do so even faster… up to 25% or more says Software AG. The latest release of Software AG’s webMethods 8.0 delivers new functionality to satisfy customer demand and innovation to hone the brand’s competitive advantage. New features include CentraSite ActiveSOA, an integrated Business Service Repository to tie business process management (BPM) to service-oriented architecture (SOA), and webMethods Mediator, a new service succedding webMethods X-Broker. A wealth of other features include a unified, Eclipse-based management and administration across SOA, BPM, and Integration and embedded Business Intelligence for document management to deliver real value faster in an ever-changing business climate.

Industry: Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic: Business Intelligence, Experience & Interaction, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Business, Business to Consumer

Developers Build Native Mobile Web Applications With Titanium 1.0 (Info World)

Posted: 04/29/2010

Appcelerator recently released Titanium 1.0, a cross-platform development system for mobile and desktop applications. The open source system is compatible with JavaScript, PHP, and Ruby, which eliminates the need for mobile application builders to learn the Objective-C language for iPhone or Google's Java language for Android systems. A translator enables building mobile and desktop applications that will run natively on different systems. The system supports development for PCs, Macintosh, and Linux while mobile platforms include Apple iPhone and Google Android. Plans include Research In Motion Blackberry support within the year. Scott Schwarzhoff, vice president of marketing for Appcelerator attributes Titanium’s competitive advantage over other cross-platform development frameworks to its ability to “offer native performance as well as native UI (user interface) and access to device capabilities.” Eliminating the barrier of learning Objective-C makes Titanium highly attractive to developers. Appcelerator will also develop a version of Titanium for Apple's new iPad.

Diaspora Code Released Publicly; May Improve Framework For Businesses (CIO Magazine)

Posted: 10/27/2010

A new project, called Diaspora, was recently released to public developers in hopes of bringing the project to fruition as a new social network – defined by community – that promises “the benefits of Facebook without the privacy concerns.” The project’s creators are at a standstill, stating, "We began the summer a list of technologies, and a few bold claims and the goal to make an intrinsically more private social network. The overwhelming response that we elicited made us realize that technology wouldn't be enough." The Diaspora project could prove useful in providing businesses with a framework for implementing proprietary, internal social networks without running the risk of divulging trade secrets or sensitive materials. With the goal to integrate Diaspora into Facebook, businesses also won’t have to sacrifice giving up the social network’s huge audience.

Industry: Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic: Business Intelligence, Content Strategy, Creative & Design, Experience & Interaction, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Business, Business to Consumer, Peer Groups & Communities

Digital River Is Getting Social With Ecommerce (Electronic Commerce Guide)

Posted: 12/16/2010

Digital River, a global ecommerce service provider, recently launched SocialStream, a new social media tool. Using the tool, Digital River customers can rapidly set in motion new e-store promotions and then manage them over different Facebook and Twitter accounts. Ecommerce-Guide.com reported Jim Wehmann, senior vice president of global marketing for Digital River saying that “Social Stream lets marketers and e-store owners optimize social media campaigns with just a few clicks from within the standard Digital River interface they already know and use.” While SocialStream is certainly not the first ecommerce service offering of its kind, the package’s most significant advantage is that it provides e-store owners with access to social analytics. The ability to report critical commerce data relating to social media activities like unique clicks, conversions and revenue generated for each social campaign for each social account allows companies to validate the success of each campaign.

Industry: Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications, Retail & Products, Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic: Business Intelligence, Content Strategy, E-Commerce, Experience & Interaction, Marketing Communications, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Business, Business to Consumer, Peer Groups & Communities

Discover Technology’s Next Big Star At South By Southwest Interactive Festival (CNET News)

Posted: 04/29/2010

The competition is on to see who emerges as SXSWi's (South by Southwest Interactive Festival) biggest technology star. This year’s hottest ticket? The rivalry brewing between Gowalla and Foursquare, competing “geolocation” mobile applications which let users "check in" from their smartphones, share locations, and compete to earn Gowalla virtual goods and Foursquare "badges". With round-the-clock parties, panels, meet-and-greets and apps like Foodspotting, which uses GPS to help users locate specific menu items at local restaurants, the festival is poised to take over the entire city. Other geolocation start-ups want in on the action: Sunday night’s "Geobash" is co-hosted by SimpleGeo, HotPotato and Yowza, Loopt is launching a revamped, events-based iPhone app and Powered’s iPhone app "Snark It" earns users “liquidity” points to use toward free drinks.

Industry: Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications, Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic: Creative & Design, E-Commerce, Experience & Interaction, Technology Implementation
Region: Global, North America
Audience: Business to Consumer, Peer Groups & Communities

Doritos iD3: Unveils the Mysterious Flavor of London’s Underworld (Digital Arts)

Posted: 10/08/2009

Dubbed iD3, Doritos’ newest flavor plays on the mysteriously hard-to-identify flavors often found in packaged foods. To launch the savory snack, Doritos tapped rehabstudio to build an interactive advergame set among the grit and grime of London’s seedy crime world. The hook? Identify the exact flavor for the chance to win £20,000. Rather than going straight to the masses, Doritos engaged rehabstudio to design an interactive experience using elements of film and narrative to lead gamers through a suite of ‘choose your own adventure’ options. Utilizing a sophisticated back end system, the game pushes its cutting-edge technology to the max and extends beyond Doritos’ website. The 3D game uses the Facebook Connect app, allowing developers to create a personalized advergame that draws content from and links back to a user’s Facebook profile.

Industry: Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications, Retail & Products, Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic: Creative & Design, Experience & Interaction, Marketing Communications, Technology Implementation
Region: Europe
Audience: Business to Consumer, Peer Groups & Communities

Expanding the Mobile Web (MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Posted: 03/08/2009

Microchip maker, ARM, has partnered with Adobe to bring more Adobe software capabilities to more mobile phone users. Until now, many videos that run in Adobe Flash Players could not be viewed on cell phones due to software incompatibility. This new partnership is good news for users as well as programmers who will now have the tools necessary to build content that can work across many devices. In addition, Adobe has teamed with mobile phone manufacturers Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Qualcomm and others to standardize Adobe Flash on mobile devices. Adobe is counting on its removal of licensing fees to encourage integration of its Flash Player. Some industry insiders claim the move is a reaction to Microsoft’s comparable Flash Player, Silverlight. Possible. But, if it gets Flash to more mobile users, that’s enough for us.

Industry: Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications, Retail & Products, Telecommunications
Topic: E-Commerce, Experience & Interaction, Marketing Communications, Technology Implementation
Region: North America
Audience: Business to Business, Business to Consumer, Peer Groups & Communities

Facebook Gears Up For Major eCommerce Drive (BusinessWeek)

Posted: 03/03/2011

In an effort to convert more of the social network’s 500 million users into regular online shoppers, Facebook is now wooing big business. Facebook has added e-commerce features designed to “attract users, keep them logged-on longer, and generate higher advertising sales,” thereby attracting major brands to sell their products and services through the social networking site. Helping with the effort are companies like Minneapolis-based Alvenda and San Francisco-based Payvment, whose technologies have allowed the company to integrate a retail component into Facebook pages and facilitate payment. David Fisch, who runs the newly formed commerce partnerships group at Facebook, hopes the effort may turn the company into an online shopping alternative. More than half of the top 25 retail sites, including retail competitors like eBay and Amazon, have linked their sites to the social network in the past year, Facebook says.

Figuring Out the Tools of the Social Trade: How Intuit Benefits from Social Media (BusinessWeek)

Posted: 09/11/2009

For many companies it may seem impossible to get measurable results from social media campaigns, but Intuit (INTU) appears to be profiting from its new social community, Quickbooks Live Community. Intuit’s secret to success? The accounting software maker aggregates tried-and-true users into a live community where they can exchange meaningful information. For customers, that means quicker responses to troubleshooting while the company is relieved of providing more paid technicians. The live community is immediately accessible to users opening QuickBooks 2009 on a PC or Mac. Since launching the new social element, the company has enjoyed multiple benefits from decreasing costs for tech support and enhancing customer service to tripling its channel traffic and increasing market share by 4 points, to 94%.

Industry: Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications, Retail & Products, Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic: Business Intelligence, Experience & Interaction, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Business, Business to Consumer, Peer Groups & Communities

Filling The Gap With Enterprise-Wide Business Intelligence (CIO Magazine)

Posted: 04/29/2010

With multiple clothing brands to manage, including Old Navy, Banana Republic, The Gap and online retailer Piper-Lime, senior vice president of IT for The Gap, Michael Jones understands what it takes to operate a successful business intelligence project. Jones recommends that organizations adopt a single enterprise-wide data warehouse rather than operating separate data marts for each individual project. With one single system, Gap managers can mine data and reports across all of its brands and 3,100 globally dispersed stores. "Our challenge is to try to provide information across an entire enterprise," Jones said. With ten years of experience in enterprise-wide BI, the company has aligned data from all of its units into one data warehouse which allows it to answer a total of 96 questions, significantly more than if it operated single silos. While the cost of setting up a comprehensive data warehouse is higher, Jones claims the added flexibility is well worth the extra cost.

Industry: Retail & Products, Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic: Business Intelligence, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Business

Filtering The Noise: Discovery Personalizes The Online Experience (Tech News World)

Posted: 11/11/2010

The internet abounds with buzzwords. Now, there’s new buzz about “discovery,” the real-time aggregation and personalization of content as it is applied to an online experience. Take Amazon for example, an online retailer that makes purchasing recommendations based on your past buying behavior and others that match your browsing and purchasing habits. True discovery, however, elevates this concept to the next level: It will tie together what you have liked, purchased, viewed, discussed, and browsed, into a real-time aggregator that provides recommendations on any category of your choosing. For discovery to be completely revolutionary, it must have both an online and mobile interface. From websites like Yelp to smartphone applications like mobile GPS, several discovery platforms are in the works, including Ping, a music discovery engine launched by Steve Jobs in September.

Industry: Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications, Retail & Products, Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services, Telecommunications
Topic: Content Strategy, E-Commerce, Experience & Interaction, Marketing Communications, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Consumer, Peer Groups & Communities

Finding Common Ground: Insights on Engineering and Design (BusinessWeek)

Posted: 06/05/2009

Microsoft Research Principal Scientist Bill Buxton is calling for engineers and user-experience designers to find some common ground. Faced with ongoing questions from well-intentioned engineers regarding design, Buxton acknowledges the answers are more complicated than becoming a designer themselves or simply learning to “do” design as many engineers suggest. First, Buxton counsels that professional competence equal to the task must be added to your team. While the UX and engineering tasks certainly go hand-in-hand, expert proficiency is difficult to come by for each discipline, making it often impossible to jump seamlessly between the two. Buxton advises a four-layered approach: Design awareness, Design literacy, Design thinking, and Design practice to achieve results and solutions worthy of your customers.

Industry: Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications, Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services, Telecommunications
Topic: Creative & Design, Experience & Interaction, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Business, Business to Consumer, Peer Groups & Communities

Following the Digital Footprint with Google Friend Connect (eWeek)

Posted: 08/15/2009

New technology is making it easier than ever to follow your friends’ digital footprints as they trek across the web. Footprints, a gadget for Google’s Friend Connect service, was created by a Japanese programmer to reveal who’s visiting your Web site and when. The gadget displays the following information for up to ten visitors: the visitor’s name, time of last visit, and photo, which links to his or her personal profile. Users will have a reasonable degree of control when using Footprints, including the ability to erase their footprints each time a particular site is visited. The privacy controls also enable visitors to hide their profiles from the sites they visit. Further safeguarding privacy, visitors’ information will only appear if they are signed in and registered users of Friend connect.

Industry: Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic: Experience & Interaction, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Consumer, Peer Groups & Communities

From Business Revolution to Evolution in 15 Minutes (Harvard Business)

Posted: 12/17/2009

Struggling to create a breakthrough in your business strategy? The solution is as simple as turning the revolutionary into the evolutionary. It may sound like a slow process, but with the “15 minute competitive advantage” individual progressive steps occur quickly. As you build your business, each new lesson learned and experience gained (every 15 minutes) evolves into a step toward progress. Scott Cook, founder of Intuit, advises business owners “to turn business concepts into hypotheses to test fast.” Akin to rapid prototyping, this kind of “hypothesis testing” doesn’t require radical change when based on success markers like: Trial-able, Reversible, Familiar and Congruent with future directions, among others. The process gently leads consumers to the next level of business evolution without forcefeeding revolutionary new ideas before they are primed for mass consumption.

Industry: Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic: Content Strategy, Experience & Interaction, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Business

From Buzz to Buy: Social Commerce and Word-of-Mouth Marketing (ClickZ)

Posted: 04/01/2010

There’s a new buzz in town: social commerce skilfully links customers to customers online and then bridges them into commercial connections... driving customers to transition from "buzz" to "buy." The ultimate goal for delivering a meaningful and measurable social commerce program is to integrate all marketing activities into one streamlined campaign, blending social programs like Facebook, Twitter and company blogs with more traditional programs like in-store, direct marketing and mobile advertising. Building a social commerce program entails the following: (1) give your customers a venue for creating user-generated content; (2) expand your customer-voice from the outside-in and (3) leverage customer feedback in all your marketing initiatives. The challenge then is to deliver meaningful products and services that meet your customers’ needs.

Industry: Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications, Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic: Content Strategy, Experience & Interaction, Marketing Communications, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Business, Business to Consumer, Peer Groups & Communities

Fuel Your Facebook Fan Page In 4 Easy Steps (Ecommerce Times)

Posted: 07/22/2010

Marketers may successfully be racking up the fan numbers on their Facebook Fan Pages, but they are ultimately failing to establish long-term relationships with customers in the process. Companies shouldn’t lose hope, however, because the code to successfully reaping rewards on Facebook lies in four critical steps. According to an E-Commerce News article, in order to retain customers, marketers need to “1) develop a strategy; 2) create a solid presence; 3) motivate [their] fans to take action; and 4) use Facebook to amplify other campaigns, promotions and marketing activities.” Committing to the management of their Facebook walls after business hours, considering brand contribution cadence, and asking if they are doing what their fans want will also aide companies in amping up their fan totals.

Industry: Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications, Retail & Products
Topic: Content Strategy, Experience & Interaction, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Consumer, Peer Groups & Communities

Get Rapid Results with Lightweight Code Review (TechWeb, Dr. Dobbs Portal)

Posted: 03/31/2009

Ready to learn everything you need to know about peer code review in the shortest amount of time? With so many code review techniques available, your team can weigh the pros and cons of each method to discover an effective solution that matches the team's existing culture and the goals of your organization. Eliminate the vulnerabilities of your code by implementing these proven, time-saving tips to uncover those tricky little bugs that often escape even the most thorough peer reviews. This simplified, modern approach to code review removes cumbersome steps from traditional review processes to help you achieve measurable results that ultimately improve the integrity of your code.

Industry: Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications, Retail & Products, Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services, Telecommunications
Topic: Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Business, Business to Consumer, Peer Groups & Communities

Get The Most Out Of User Experience On Your Website (New Media Knowledge)

Posted: 07/22/2010

Are you aware of what users really experience on your website? Monitoring your website performance has hit a new level of complexity since Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) are more frequently being incorporated into Web pages. Knowing how your browser interacts with RIAs is crucial to discovering how fast your Web page renders. To get an accurate result, use a real browser. Why is this important? Browser emulators are far less sophisticated at interacting with Web pages than real browsers and only real browsers can accurately track information in various situations. Real browsers also accurately capture client time – when actual page element execution is taking place. Ultimately, using a real browser with RIAs lets you know that your end-user is getting the best experience possible on your Web page.

Industry: Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications, Retail & Products, Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic: Experience & Interaction, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Business, Business to Consumer

Get The Scoop: Ben & Jerry’s Launches Sweet Twitter Campaign (Promo Magazine)

Posted: 09/16/2010

This summer there was a new way to get the latest scoop, and this time it wasn’t breaking news – it was free samples of ice cream from Ben & Jerry’s. Led from destination to destination by consumer tweets via Twitter, the “Scoop Truck” went on a sampling tour of New York City in June and July. While the initial campaign plan left one weekday open to a virtual “see-which-way-the-tweets-blow-the-truck” kind of spontaneity, by the end of the nearly two-month tour nearly half of the sweet stops were those requested by the 3,000 local followers the tour handle @benjerrytruck amassed. Responses to outgoing tweets yielded anywhere from five to 100 responses. Although followers will still be able to get the latest scoop through Twitter and view images of the happy samplers on Flickr, the next tour is aimed Boston, where stops will be announced primarily via Facebook.

Industry: Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications, Retail & Products
Topic: Business Intelligence, Experience & Interaction, Marketing Communications, Technology Implementation
Region: North America
Audience: Business to Consumer, Peer Groups & Communities

Getting Social with Adobe Flash Platform Services (InformationWeek)

Posted: 10/22/2009

Adobe partnered with Gigya, a social media management platform, to launch Flash Platform Services, to add more sociability and measurability to developers creating Flash applications. The service’s three core principles: Distribution, Collaboration, and Social, aim to take Flash viral and social in the online distribution of Flash applications over platforms like Web, desktops and mobile devices. Available later this year, users will be able to “Flash” forward with the service that enables them to share, collaborate and facilitate real-time application distribution, tracking, and monetization to get one solid application that can ultimately deploy over 70 social networks and services. 98% of PCs with Internet connections are equipped with Adobe's Flash software, but applications are not always installed.

Industry: Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services, Telecommunications
Topic: Business Intelligence, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Business, Business to Consumer, Peer Groups & Communities

Global Spending on Mobile Advertising to Rise Exponentially by 2013 (Marketing Vox)

Posted: 11/08/2009

New data from Gartner predicts that global spending on mobile ads will rise 74%, reaching $913.5M this year, escalating to more than $13B by 2013. The report claims that location-based targeting and bigger gains in GPS technology, along with wide adoption of smartphones, 3G network data plans and downloadable applications will incite the growth as early as 2010. Parks Associates reports that advertising revenues in the US and Canada will grow from $208M in 2009 to $1.5B by 2013, with smartphone sales accounting for 45.5% of all mobile phone sales that year. JiWire reports a 79% increase in the use of mobile devices at public Wi-Fi hotspots in North America in the first half of 2009, and while research from MRI shows early consumer disapproval with mobile ads, 20% of that same audience would like to watch live TV via their cellphones.

Industry: Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications, Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services, Telecommunications
Topic: E-Commerce, Experience & Interaction, Marketing Communications, Technology Implementation
Region: Global, North America, Asia Pacific, Europe
Audience: Business to Consumer

Google and Bing Prepare Real-Time Searches to Compete with Social Media (BusinessWeek)

Posted: 12/03/2009

In a socially-driven market it’s tough even for the big dogs like Google and Microsoft to stay relevant. Harder still when Web surfers turn first for information to the sites they spend the most time on like Twitter and Facebook. Google and Microsoft will soon feature information plucked from social media sites on search pages. Microsoft users can perform searches for tweets and eventually status updates posted to Facebook. Google will add Twitter updates in search results and offer a search tool that delivers feeds posted by the searcher’s friends on social sites. Traffic to U.S. search engines grew 15% in the past year while traffic to Twitter exploded tenfold and tripled on Facebook. Considering those stats, Microsoft and Google are hoping to diversify their offerings by adding the new features and functionality searchers expect and capitalize on new ad revenue generated through targeted advertising.

Industry: Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications, Retail & Products, Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic: Content Strategy, Experience & Interaction, Marketing Communications, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Consumer, Peer Groups & Communities

Google Goes Fashion Forward (CRM Daily)

Posted: 12/16/2010

Google is going fashion forward with the debut of Boutiques.com, which offers shoppers a personalized shopping experience. The launch is as much about technology as it is e-commerce. Using computer-vision and machine-learning technology, Boutiques.com visually analyzes consumers' fashion tastes in order to match them to other styles they might be drawn to. "These days, bloggers, stylists and everyday fashionistas are expressing their sense of style online. We invited them to create boutiques so people could shop their diverse styles," Google Product Management Director Munjal Shah said. "But you have a unique and independent style, too, so Boutiques also lets you build your own personalized boutique and get recommendations of products that match your taste." The site offers a variety of search options, allowing consumers to filter results by genre, silhouette, pattern, color families, and sizes, or even view matching outfits when they search for specific items.

Industry: Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications, Retail & Products
Topic: Business Intelligence, Content Strategy, Creative & Design, E-Commerce, Experience & Interaction, Marketing Communications, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Consumer

Google’s Real-Time, User-Driven Display Ads (Ecommerce Times)

Posted: 01/21/2010

Google is paving the way toward revolutionizing online display advertising. The search engine leader’s acquisition of startup Teracent promises to significantly boost Google’s display ad prowess by tapping into machine-learning algorithms able to produce and personalize the ads in real-time. The user-driven ads can be optimized based on influencers like location, time, language, Web-specific content and past performance of similar ads. Proving that what’s good for Google is good for online display advertising in general, the new technology combats the somewhat antiquated, inflexible packaging of display ads and makes them more dynamic and customizable. Giovanni Calabro, vice president of user experience at Siteworx, told the E-Commerce Times, "Instead of merely selling a package, Google can offer a product based on an understanding of who is coming onto a site.”

Industry: Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications, Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic: Business Intelligence, Content Strategy, Creative & Design, E-Commerce, Experience & Interaction, Marketing Communications, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Business, Business to Consumer

Great Expectations-Delivering Web Site Performance to Even the Most Discriminating Connoisseur (Internet Retailer)

Posted: 08/15/2009

Don’t expect to elude the connoisseurs’ expert judgement when it comes to your own web site’s performance-especially during the holiday rush. Dotcom-Monitor’s suite of externally hosted network and I.T. monitoring services helps companies like K&L Wine Merchants combat the annual holiday ambush. The wine merchant uses a robust e-commerce navigation system to enable shoppers to sort through the massive inventory of specialty and rare wine selections by variety, country, sub-region, price range, critics’ scores and special designations. No. 356 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, K&L relies on critical services like uptime verification, multi-page transaction monitoring and site performance monitoring to deliver an enjoyable and hassle-free experience to please even the most discriminating shopper.

Industry: Retail & Products, Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic: Business Intelligence, E-Commerce, Experience & Interaction, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Consumer

Hooked on Location: Skyhook Plug-In Delivers with Pin-Point Accuracy (Information Week)

Posted: 07/03/2009

Building on the recent wave of location-centric applications, three leading Web applications–MapQuest, Flickr, and WeatherBug–are using Skyhook Wireless’s Loki plug-in to determine the precise location of any Wi-Fi enabled device that permits it. With a database featuring more than 100 million Wi-Fi access points, Skyhook triangulates signals from GPS and cell phone towers to deliver precise locations. The app can be seamlessly added to any Web site with a few simple lines of JavaScript. Companies utilizing the technology include Glympse, T-Mobile and Apple’s iPhone App Store. For example, T-Mobile G1 phone users can now download free software from Glympse that enables them to establish local links with other phones to track users' changing locations with pin-point accuracy.

Industry: Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services, Telecommunications
Topic: Business Intelligence, Content Strategy, Experience & Interaction, Marketing Communications, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Business, Business to Consumer

How Big Is Big? The Rise Of The Mobile Advertising Market (Marketing Vox)

Posted: 12/01/2010

eMarketer recently revised its assessment of the mobile ad market, predicting it will grow 79% to over $743 million this year alone – growing to more than $1.1 billion in 2011 and more than $2.5 billion by 2014. Based on these numbers, it’s safe to say mobile has been elevated to mainstream status. The report indicates that SMS is still the largest format, with an estimated tally of $327 million for 2010. Companies like Phizzle and Skycore are further enhancing their service offerings to engage audiences and allow increased functionality to their users, including enabling mobile marketers to run applications such as movie trailers sent with tickets or sports videos sent with tickets. eMarketer predicts that display formats will increase. Apple’s iPhone remains the top choice with 82.7% of marketers, but Android’s 9% increase since last quarter indicates it is quickly gaining traction. Other services new to the market include Opera Software’s Ad Marvel, Sprint’s Sprint ID and Burstly.

Industry: Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications, Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services, Telecommunications
Topic: Business Intelligence, Content Strategy, E-Commerce, Experience & Interaction, Marketing Communications, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Business, Business to Consumer

HP Closes the BI Gap with Informatica (Intelligent Enterprise)

Posted: 11/08/2009

HP recently advanced its partnership with Informatica to round out its business intelligence portfolio by offering a host of new “solution bundles,” including: HP Neoview, HP Master Data Management Services and HP Information Quality Management Services, all with Informatica Data Integration Platform. Informatica upped the ante of its own services portfolio with its recent acquisition of complex event processing (CEP) vendor Agent Logic to isolate events and patterns of events within high-volume, fast-moving data. Shipping, e-commerce, utility and IT are among CEP’s real-time applications, and HP will likely combine the new technology with Informatica's identity resolution capabilities to drive even more e-commerce applications like as real-time rewards, cross-selling and up-selling.

Industry: Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic: Business Intelligence, Content Strategy, E-Commerce, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Business

In a Flash: Time Saving Tips for Creating Animation with ActionScript 3.0 (.net)

Posted: 07/03/2009

Pulling another all-nighter to meet tomorrow’s looming deadline? Download Paul Wyatt’s article unveiling time-saving tips to producing keyframe animations and motion tweens in a flash. Rather than wasting hours of effort creating similarly-styled animations from scratch, Wyatt’s clear-cut tutorial will teach you how to copy Flash animation to ActionScript 3.0 code by reusing code that can be applied to any movie clip across the platform. Eventually, you’ll even be able to compile your own unique master document of signature animation styles. Once you learn Wyatt’s simple, practical techniques, you’ll be delivering client creative with time to spare.

Industry: Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications, Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic: Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Business

InterContinental Hotels Group Offers Hospitality With A Technical Twist (InformationWeek)

Posted: 10/14/2010

It’s easy to chalk IHG's, InterContinental Hotels Group, ubiquitous success up to one thing: customer loyalty. Tom Conophy, IHG's CIO, said the company’s core focus is on making customers "the center of our universe," and customer loyalty is vital to growth in the hospitality industry. The ever-growing hotel group, which owns seven hotel chains, including Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, and InterContinental Hotels, keeps its guest doors swinging by making business intelligence one of their core competencies. 200 million guest profiles currently occupy the company’s 25 TB database, with detailed information on 43 million loyalty plan members. The company currently receives 30 million availability requests per day, supported by its own proprietary search technology, the Bottom-Up Optimum Search Strategy(BOSS). "Search is the killer app for us," Conophy says, and with IHG’s iPhone app as the industry’s most downloaded, adding mobility is another success factor with a concept the group has named “Virtually Me.”

Industry: Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications, Retail & Products, Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services, Telecommunications
Topic: Business Intelligence, Content Strategy, Creative & Design, E-Commerce, Experience & Interaction, Marketing Communications, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Consumer

iPhone App Enables Paying with Plastic (CNN Money)

Posted: 03/18/2010

Operating businesses remotely just got even better. While credit card transactions were standardized in traditional business settings long ago, paying with plastic was only a pipe dream for those conducting business on the road. Now, a host of software is on the market allowing mobile businesses to process credit card payments on their cell phones. From Apple's iPhone applications to Inner Fence, which developed the first iPhone app for processing credit cards, there are a slew of applications out there that allow proprietors to issue refunds, review sales, and email electronic receipts for transactions.

Industry: Retail & Products, Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services, Telecommunications
Topic: E-Commerce, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Business, Business to Consumer

Is Real-time Internet Worth All the Buzz? (New Media Knowledge)

Posted: 08/27/2009

You may be wondering what’s behind all the real-time Internet buzz. Before you determine the real worth of real-time Internet, consider Dell’s success with their @DellOutlet platform on Twitter, the front-runner in the real-time game. The company has experienced real financial gain (to the Tweet of $3 million dollars in revenue) from real-time marketing, “Tweeting” followers a mixture of exclusive content and time specific discount incentives. According to Joe Hughes of Yomego there are two key elements to real-time Internet: (1) practically no delay between composition and publishing and (2) the ability for users to discover content in real-time. With an estimated three to four hundred million people currently using some version of real-time Internet (across platforms like Facebook, Friendfeed, Yauba and jabber), the numbers are too large to ignore as merely a fad.

Industry: Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications, Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic: E-Commerce, Experience & Interaction, Marketing Communications, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Business, Business to Consumer, Peer Groups & Communities

J.C. Penney Makes Mobile Holiday Move (Internet Retailer)

Posted: 01/04/2011

J.C. Penney Co. is initiating a major multichannel mobile push with holiday retail plans that include the launch of an m-commerce site, enhancements to its mobile applications, location-based app promotions and an iAd campaign. Along with the full suite of m-commerce functionality such as browsing, searching and buying—the mobile site also includes a Find Near Me button and updated applications for iPhone and Android users that lets shoppers browse the weekend sales circular; create portable shopping lists; find the nearest store to either their current GPS location or to a ZIP code or city name; and sign up for mobile coupons. Location-based services Foursquare, Brightkite and Facebook Deals also play a role, allowing shoppers to cash in for $10 off a $50 purchase when they check in at one of the retailer’s 1,100 stores. In addition to its ongoing mobile coupons program, the campaign will also include mobile display ads on Apple’s iAd network, featuring a treasure hunt through a variety of J.C. Penney gifts as shoppers search for a $10 off $50 coupon.

Industry: Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications, Retail & Products, Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services, Telecommunications
Topic: Content Strategy, Creative & Design, E-Commerce, Experience & Interaction, Marketing Communications, Technology Implementation
Region: Global
Audience: Business to Consumer, Peer Groups & Communities

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