What Media Companies Can Learn from Walmart
Posted: September 15, 2011 Filed under: Digital, Retail Leave a commentWhat Media Companies Can Learn from Walmart – GigaOM
“As reported in a number of places, Walmart has acquired OneRiot: a startup that originally tried to do social search before pivoting to focus on social advertising. OneRiot joins a unit called Walmart Labs, which the giant retailer created earlier this year with the acquisition of a company called Kosmix. Why should media companies (or anyone else, for that matter) find this interesting? Because what drove Walmart to make these acquisitions and create Walmart Labs is the same thing that plenty of other companies, and particularly media entities, should be interested in: making sense of all the data coming in from users on social networks and their sharing activity.”
New Trends Tilt Toward Niche Sites
Posted: September 15, 2011 Filed under: Digital Leave a commentNew Trends Tilt Toward Niche Sites – NY Times
“It was a rough week for the big guys on the Web. Yahoo unceremoniously dumped its chief executive, Carol Bartz, and AOL faced a mutiny from TechCrunch, the Silicon Valley news site it bought last year.
Apart from the specific business issues feeding those travails — sinking traffic and profits at both — they provided yet another lesson of the Internet age: as news surges on the Web, giant ocean liners like AOL and Yahoo are being outmaneuvered by the speedboats zipping around them, relatively small sites that have passionate audiences and sharply focused information.”
New Retail Strategies: Offering a Better Fit for Today’s Careful Consumers
Posted: September 15, 2011 Filed under: Retail Leave a commentNew Retail Strategies: Offering a Better Fit for Today’s Careful Consumers – Knowledge@Wharton
“In many ways, it’s a retail story that never changes, says Wharton marketing professor Leonard Lodish: ‘Retailers that really solve problems and delight consumers in ways that other retailers can’t … do very well.'”
iPad No Longer Just for All the Young Dudes
Posted: August 29, 2011 Filed under: Digital Leave a commentiPad No Longer Just for All the Young Dudes – AllThingsD
“No surprise that iPads initially sold particularly well with people who were both young and not women — who else is going to camp outside an Apple store? Also not a surprise that as Apple sells more and more of these things — nine million in the last quarter alone — its customer base has become much broader.”
The Importance of Jobs
Posted: August 29, 2011 Filed under: Other Leave a commentThe Importance of Jobs – Wall Street Journal
“When the history of the past 40 years is written, who will be seen as the more consequential figure—the average American President, or a college dropout who built the first personal computer in a garage and went on to lead the most important company of the early 21st century?”
What Netflix and Hulu Users Are Watching… and How
Posted: August 25, 2011 Filed under: Digital Leave a commentWhat Netflix and Hulu Users Are Watching… and How – Nielsen Wire
“Streaming video online is on the rise in the U.S., and how consumers tune in differs greatly across services. According to a recent Nielsen survey, the majority of Netflix users report watching on a TV screen. In fact, half of all Netflix users connect via a game console (Wii, PS3 or Xbox Live).”
Another Reason Facebook Wants Identities: Commerce
Posted: August 5, 2011 Filed under: Digital, Retail Leave a commentAnother Reason Facebook Wants Identities: Commerce – TechCrunch
“Last week, Facebook’s marketing head, Randi Zuckerberg, caused a stir when she asserted that online anonymity has to go away. But the reason large, powerful networks are pushing for a world in which our verified and authenticated identities exist online isn’t simply to stop cyber-bullying and to create incentives for users to behave more nicely. This is about money. Part of the company’s drive is also to help users leverage their online identities to transform and accelerate online commerce.”
Even Marked Up, Luxury Goods Fly Off Shelves
Posted: August 5, 2011 Filed under: Retail Leave a commentEven Marked Up, Luxury Goods Fly Off Shelves – NY Times
“Nordstrom has a waiting list for a Chanel sequined tweed coat with a $9,010 price. Neiman Marcus has sold out in almost every size of Christian Louboutin “Bianca” platform pumps, at $775 a pair. Mercedes-Benz said it sold more cars last month in the United States than it had in any July in five years.”