eBay and Amazon on Collision Course There was a time when eBay created a brand new business model, one of the most successful business models (Auctions) on the Internet, leading to high cash flows (eBay) with a very strong market share in their respective core market and with an image that was superior to any other business in this market segment.

It was possible to make a bargain superior to any other purchase: High quality combined with an excellent price.

Today making a purchase at eBay is no longer the same as it was a couple of years ago. Taking part in an auction has become a more and more frustrating experience resulting in high prices, low quality and an uncertain result - in my opinion it's just wasted time.

But over the time eBay has amassed a variety of products that is superior to that of Amazon. It's good fun to research products and even the most fancy product can be found at eBay. Bargains are still possible, espacially through sellers that offer a fixed price model.

This is at least one reason why the fixed price model is the fastest growing business on the eBay platform.

I found an excellent article on the NyTimes (Amid the Gloom, an E-Commerce War), that describes the current situation and collision of Ebay and Amazon.

And there is at least one other competitor in the market: Google!

• Google eBay Collision after eBay Live!

From a consumer perspective I appreciate this kind of collision competition, because usually it leads to better prices, higher quality and a better customer experience over all.

With the holiday season ahead and the ongoing financial crisis in mind consumers are becoming increasingly web-savvy in the way they look for bargains, as a current survey form Harris Interactive shows:

'Consumers are increasingly turning to the Internet to do their shopping. The majority of online adults (83%) are willing to make online purchases. Of those who make purchases online, the most popular items included:

• Books, 71%
• Music, 62%
• Electronics, 55%
• Gift certificates, 53%
• Clothing, 51%
• Travel, 50%
• Office supplies, 39%
• Health and beauty products, 34%'

'Eighty-five percent of online shoppers use tools or websites to find good deals online. Predictably, 56% of online shoppers are using search engines to find bargains; however, online shoppers have found many other ways to save, including:

• 32% use price comparison websites
• 25% use online coupon websites
• 23% use online advertisements
• 12% use bargain tracking websites
• 5% use shopping-themed social networks'

Assuming that just 7% of all retail purchases are made online there is plenty of room to invest and expand into eCommerce. I still think that eCommerce is moving "full steam ahead" and is years away from saturation.

• Current and Future eCommerce Challenges

Labels: amazon, bizdev, ebay, ecommerce, google

  ¶ 'eBay and Amazon on Collision Course' posted by eA : 2:45 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Passion for Speed: Google Chrome What a sudden surprise, it looks like the world has been waiting for Chrome! Obviously it renders a lot faster than any other browser. A few quotes from their new blog:

'Open source projects like Firefox and WebKit have led the way in defining the next generation of web technologies and standards'.

'Because of Chromium's unique multi-process architecture, the integration of the V8 JavaScript engine, and other factors, we've built a fairly significant port of WebKit on Windows, and are developing the same for Mac OS X and Linux'.

'The cornerstones of the V8 design are:

• Compilation of JavaScript source code directly into native machine code.
• An efficient memory management system resulting in fast object allocation and small garbage collection pauses.
• Introduction of hidden classes and inline caches that speed up property access and function call'

• Download Google Chrome
• Visit Chromium
• Read the Chromium Blog

Labels: bizdev, google, opensource, strategy

  ¶ 'Passion for Speed: Google Chrome' posted by eA : 11:39 PM  1 comments links to this post

  Turning the Wheel - Observing the World

• Leveraging YouTube's Data in the Cloud
• Web-Apps Evolution in the Cloud
• Setting a New Web-Standard with OAuth for Secure API Authentication
• Into the Cloud with Google App Engine

Labels: cloud, google, photos, web2.0

  ¶ 'Turning the Wheel - Observing the World' posted by eA : 9:50 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Leveraging YouTube's Data in the Cloud YouTube dominates the Online Video market with an attractive user audience loving Internet-based clips and videos they can view, listen, interact with and participate when, what and how they want.

YouTube is already among the top 3 global assets in terms of minutes spent online. A recent statistic of Hitwise shows, that YouTube is also current marketleader in terms of visits in the US:

Top 5 Online Video Websites ranked by Market Share of U.S. Visits

Rank	Name	Domain	May-08	May-07	Percent Change
1	YouTube	www.youtube.com	75.43%	59.95%	26%
2	MySpaceTV	www.myspacetv.com	9.01%	16.06%	-44%
3	Google Video	video.google.com	3.73%	7.80%	-52%
4	Yahoo! Video	video.search.yahoo.com	1.92%	2.77%	-31%
5	Veoh	www.veoh.com	1.13%	0.86%	32%

Currently I wouldn't know a better place to search for a video - even the most exeptional content can be found in the cloud. Recently I heared that the IOC will broadcast a selection of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games clips as Video On Demand to countries where digital VOD rights have not been sold.

There is many creative ways to integrate YouTube via API with a site or application:

• YouTube API Case Studies
• YouTube API Forum
• YouTube API Project Wiki

According to Google one can:

• Create a web front end to let people view videos about specific topics.
• Create a desktop application or plugin that plays videos in a customized environment.
• Add related, dynamic video content to your website or application.
• Customise the Flash player to fit the look and feel of your site, device or application
• Add feeds of videos from each of YouTube's international domains
  

Software as a Service (SaaS) has been one of the fastest growing trends in software over the past years. The new Google App Engine makes creating tools quickly and effectively and provides an opportunity for users to leverage the data that live in the cloud:

• Into the Cloud with Google App Engine
• Setting a New Web-Standard with OAuth for Secure API Authentication
• Web-Apps Evolution in the Cloud

Next generation asset YouTube is becoming an increasingly relevant distribution and monetization channel for video enhancing the customer experience distributing video clips and other forms of video over the Web anywhere and anytime, while traditional media have content still embedded making it only consumable at a certain time.

• Looking Forward to See a Mobile Web 2.0 Revolution!

Labels: apis, cloud, google, markets, mashup, web2.0, youtube

  ¶ 'Leveraging YouTube's Data in the Cloud' posted by eA : 1:01 AM  0 comments links to this post

  Web-Apps Evolution in the Cloud
Software as a Service (SaaS) has been one of the fastest growing trends in software over the past years. The new Google App Engine makes creating tools quickly and effectively and applying new Web-standards like OAuth provides an opportunity for users to leverage data that live in the cloud with the purpose to

• take advantage of the new social trends
• lower costs and improve functionality
• embrace innovative new products, services and applications
• increase knowledge and capability

Google with its mission 'to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful' has its strengths in market & brand leadership in online search and in an ever expanding online product portfolio with a great potential in cloud computing and synching services via Gears.

Here some useful GData APIs including YouTube:

• Google Apps APIs
• Google Base Data API
• Blogger Data API
• Google Calendar Data API
• Google Code Search Data API
• Google Contacts Data API
• Google Finance Portfolio Data API
• Google Health Data API
• Google Notebook Data API
• Google Spreadsheets Data API
• Picasa Web Albums Data API
• Google Documents List Data API
• Webmaster Tools Data API
• YouTube Data API

An excellent ressource for mashups, APIs and the Web as platform can be found at the ProgrammableWeb.

Labels: apis, bizdev, cloud, google, photos, strategy, web2.0, youtube

  ¶ 'Web-Apps Evolution in the Cloud' posted by eA : 4:10 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Setting a New Web-Standard with OAuth for Secure API Authentication Current trends in information architecture, the development of user-provided information and the use and combination of single function focused applications show that the Internet is shifting to a medium that is more and more structured with a decentralized authority.

• TnT 2.0 - Exploiting the Limits of Traditional Media

Instead of using a single site for all online needs users use different sites and services to manage their online experience applying state of the art Data APIs allowing aplications to access their data. Making use of a Web-standard like OAuth for secure API authentication gives your users access to their data while protecting their passwords and other protected areas. From OAuth:

"Many luxury cars today come with a valet key. It is a special key you give the parking attendant and unlike your regular key, will not allow the car to drive more than a mile or two. Some valet keys will not open the trunk, while others will block access to your onboard cell phone address book. Regardless of what restrictions the valet key imposes, the idea is very clever. You give someone limited access to your car with a special key, while using your regular key to unlock everything."

Here is a short demo of what it means to end users:

While reviewing one of the latest Google innovations, Google App Engine, which lets one run Web applications on Google's infrastructure with no servers to maintain I found it worth to mention OAuth as an open standard for secure API authentication - OAuth is now supported on all of the Google Data APIs. Being familiar with UML or sequence diagrams it's easy to understand the Google data API authentication process. More on Google Data APIs blog.


Resources:

• Beginner’s Guide to OAuth – Part I
• Beginner’s Guide to OAuth – Part II
• OAuth Authentication for Web Applications (Google)
  
• Registration for Web-Based Applications (Google)
  

Labels: apis, bizdev, cloud, google, mashup, networking, oauth, security, strategy

  ¶ 'Setting a New Web-Standard with OAuth for Secure API Authentication' posted by eA : 11:23 AM  0 comments links to this post

  Into the Cloud with Google App Engine Managing information becomes more and more important for individuals and corporations that want to use the web strategically to build value - in these days it's trendy to collaborate, share data and information over the Web.

If somebody asked me what kind of Google Apps I'm using regularly, well, there is award winning Gmail, Reader, iGoogle, Blogger, Docs and of course the most important: Search. Without search no information, without information no action. Google's automated search technology enables me to obtain nearly instant access to any relevant information.

One of the latest Google innovations is Google App Engine, which lets one run Web applications on Google's infrastructure with no servers to maintain. Currently it supports the Python runtime environment using Python version 2.5.2 and provides APIs for the datastore, Google Accounts, URL fetch and email services.

Although Python is not my speciality and my time is very limited, I found it quite comfortable to step into cloud computing with no servers to maintain, to follow the examples and create a first App with Google App Engine. It's early stage, but I think this service is very promising. It's not made to host any SAP datacenter, but it's made to extend the Google experience building modern applications on top of a worldclass datacenter with reduced maintenance costs and the purpose to

• create new opportunities for self-expression and collaboration
• complement and compete in products and services
• leverage network effects and monetization

The tool-kit includes the Django web application framework with form validation, version 0.96.1 or newer, supporting Dojo as state of the art AJAX incarnation.

Latest APIs allow to do image manipulation and caching through memcached, high-performance, distributed memory object caching system to speed up dynamic web applications by alleviating database load as I noticed through several blogs.

It encourages to make use of Web-standards like OAuth for secure API authentication, JSON, a lightweight data-interchange format based on a subset of the JavaScript Programming Language and and OpenSocial, to create apps that access a social network's friends and update feeds from Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING.

The rapid adoption of broadband has made it possible to move more and more applications to the Web.

• More on Google

Labels: apis, cloud, collaboration, google, networking, social

  ¶ 'Into the Cloud with Google App Engine' posted by eA : 11:53 AM  0 comments links to this post

  Google Reader Does not Like Special Characters Making extensively use of Google services Google Reader has become one of my favorite applications. But it seems like sometimes even Google launches with bugs :-)

Google Reader represents a big step forward in terms of user friendliness improving one's digital lifestyle and simplifies the personal information management process centralizing and storing information and information history across several website feeds for users and extending reach for distributers.

• Google Reader Blog

Labels: blogger, feedburner, google, reader, xml

  ¶ 'Google Reader Does not Like Special Characters' posted by eA : 10:31 AM  0 comments links to this post

  Vodafone UK Part of Google Checkout Network Now Just before the Q4 shopping season Vodafone UK opted for Google Checkout to see more visitors to their site, higher conversion rates and an increase in the return on investment for their AdWords spendings as well as helping Google’s Checkout service gain new users.

• Google's Integrated Checkout Strategy
• Google UK Checkout Doing Well after 3 Months
• Google Checkout Launched in the UK Today
• Google Authorized for E-Money by UK-Based FSA

I'm just wondering when GC will arrive at Germany, rumors say 2008...

(Via Google Checkout Blog)

Labels: checkout, google, uk, vodafone

  ¶ 'Vodafone UK Part of Google Checkout Network Now' posted by eA : 12:39 AM  0 comments links to this post

  Next-generation Communications and Collaboration with Google Apps
After Documents and Spreadsheets Google added Presentations to Docs. It's possible now to create and share presentations online with co-workers reducing the amount of friction to interact with each other improving communications and productivity.

• Current and Future eCommerce Challenges
• Into the Enterprise with Google Apps Premier Edition

Labels: bizdev, collaboration, google, productivity

  ¶ 'Next-generation Communications and Collaboration with Google Apps' posted by eA : 12:53 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Google UK Checkout Doing Well after 3 Months 3 Months after their UK launch the first success stories from happy customers are available now. Ebuyer.com which offers brand name computer technology and consumer electronics through both, Google Checkout and Paypal's Express Checkout, to it's customers reports in a featured case study:

'We’ve already seen more visitors to the site, higher conversion rates and an increase in the return on investment for our AdWords spend.'

'Our customers just can’t get enough of Google Checkout! The launch promotion drove a lot of the traffic initially but we expect customers to continue to use Google Checkout because of the convenience that it offers.'

DiamondGeezer.com which offers high quality diamond jewellery online shopping including high ticket items far beyond £10.000 reports:

'Checkout has increased consumer trust in our brand and the service that we offer.'

UK stores, that accept GC include ProFilmGear (video and photo gear) partner of Channel Advisor’s ecommerce network, SportsHQ (golf equipment), iFlorist (flowers) and many other sellers in 17 categories.

eCommerce maturing in the US is moving "full steam ahead" and is years away from saturation, with double-digit growth expected for several years. With surpassing PayPal's Express Checkout in the US in terms of Checkout seller adoption and with the further progress of eCommerce Google is more and more tapping into eBay's fixed price business competing in products, customers and business model and has shown that GC is a formidable competitor to Paypal's Express Checkout.

• Google's Integrated Checkout Strategy
• More on Checkout

I'm expecting Google to launch in further European countries including Germany. To benefit from the initial launch promotion it's recommended to be an early adopter of GC.

Labels: checkout, ecommerce, google, uk

  ¶ 'Google UK Checkout Doing Well after 3 Months' posted by eA : 9:55 PM  2 comments links to this post

  2007 Year of Third Party Widget Developers As the market dynamics and content delivery systems change 2007 is the year of widgets. I've written already about Current and Future eCommerce Challenges leveraging network effects, Web Widgets as a Distribution Channel, of course Facebook's Open Platform as a Serious Trend for Future Marketing and Facebook Sets Trend for Distributed Networks.

Web widgets bring the Web to you, prominent use is iGoogle (released a set of tools in 2005 called Fusion), Google's personalized start-pages are frequently used as an information resource and a preferred place to personalize trust worth and up-to-date news and services via gadgets.

Inspired by the success of iGoogle, Google introduced a new pilot program dedicated to helping developers create richer, more useful Google Gadgets: Google Gadget Ventures

1. Grants of $5,000 to those who’ve built gadgets we’d like to see developed further. You’re eligible to apply for a grant if you’ve developed a gadget that’s in our Google gadgets directory and gets at least 250,000 weekly page views. To apply, you must submit a one-page proposal detailing how you’d use the grant to improve your gadget.
2. Seed investments of $100,000 to developers who’d like to build a business around the Google gadgets platform. Only Google Gadget Venture grant recipients are eligible for this type of funding. Submitting a business plan detailing how you plan to build a viable business around the gadgets platform is a required part of the seed investment application process.

Recently comScore introduced a new report called comScore Widget Metrix to serve advertisers wich relevant facts:

'“The recent explosion of user-generated content has helped create a worldwide marketplace for widgets,” said Linda Boland Abraham, executive vice president at comScore. “comScore is excited to be providing measurement for this developing content medium.”'

'comScore’s analysis of the top ten Web widgets worldwide revealed that photo-related widgets dominate the top positions. In April 2007, Slide was the top widget provider with a worldwide reach of more than 117 million unique viewers, or 13.8 percent of the total worldwide Internet audience. Other top photo-related widgets included RockYou (82 million viewers), PictureTrail (31 million viewers), and Photobucket (28 million viewers). '

'As more and more sites across the Internet employ Web widgets, the worldwide penetration will continue to grow. In April, widget penetration was highest in North America where 40.3 percent of Internet users visited a Web site with an embedded widget, followed by Western Europe (24.3 percent) and Latin America (17.5 percent).'

And of course there is already applications for the newly released Apple iPhone. I'm excited to watch this development to take off in the mobile space.

Labels: advertising, apple, google, networking, widgets

  ¶ '2007 Year of Third Party Widget Developers' posted by eA : 12:53 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Promoting Google Checkout with AdSense Referrals Just discovered referrals for Google Apps and Checkout:

Google Checkout:

'When a user you refer to Google Checkout has an account in good standing and completes a transaction of at least $10 (before tax and shipping) within 90 days of sign-up, we'll credit your AdSense account with US $1.'More on Checkout

Google Apps:

'You will be credited (US $5) when someone clicks your referral and signs up for Google Apps with a domain that has not already been signed up for the service. The domain must then have one or more Google Apps email accounts in use for four consecutive weeks.' More on Productivity

Labels: advertising, checkout, google

  ¶ 'Promoting Google Checkout with AdSense Referrals' posted by eA : 4:00 PM  1 comments links to this post

  eBay back to Google Advertising When Google announced two weeks ago it would hold a Checkout party that coincided with the beginning of eBay Live!, eBay announced that they would take away all their US ad spending and they did it, but for the purpose of an experiment and treatment to find out how dependent on Google Advertising they are. The timing was just a coincidence. Via internetnews.com:

eBay spokesman Hani Durzy said 'that while eBay was pleased Google canceled the controversial "Freedom Party," the timing of its experiment was mere coincidence.'

Well, if eBay wouldn't need Google Advertising... eBay depends on the traffic from Google namly both, organic and non organic traffic, but Google does not depend on the traffic from eBay - and it's a global marketplace and I'm expecting Google to gain further market share in the search category. Via internetnews.com:

"We are now slowly turning AdWords back on, in a much more limited way than before," eBay spokeswoman Catherine England told internetnews.com in an email.

In a statement emailed to internetnews.com, Google said eBay remains a valued partner: "Over the last seven years, we have worked closely with eBay to drive customers to their site and build value for their business and the business of their sellers. We look forward to a continued partnership."

Google and eBay created the two most successful business models, search and auctions, on the Internet, but expanding into new markets led to an increasing competition in several other products and services (Rebranding into Google Product Search).

Google Base and Google Product Search compete with Craigslist, Kijiji, Shopping.com and of course eBay and the last year launched Google Checkout competes with PayPal, especially with the PayPal Express Checkout, where Google Checkout recently surpassed PayPal Express Checkout in terms of customer adoption, view interesting comments here.

More on Checkout:

• Google Checkout Surpassed PayPal Express Checkout (US)
• Google eBay Collision after eBay Live!
• Google's Integrated Checkout Strategy
• Current and Future eCommerce Challenges

Labels: advertising, checkout, ebay, ecommerce, google

  ¶ 'eBay back to Google Advertising' posted by eA : 8:20 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Google's Next Steps into Personalized Search Some years ago when I decided to extend the personal and professional use of the Internet above the level of exchanging some pretty basic information I was amazed by the launch of a new product or service.

Today, 9 years after and 3 years on Google with an international experience a good knowledge of the consumer market, mobile and Internet industries, well in particular, with an excellent knowledge of interactive Web platforms designed for consumer markets it looks different.

If somebody asked me what kind of Yahoo! services I'm using regularly, I must admit that there is only Flickr left and the recent CEO exchange won't change anything in future. Yahoo! has not really any competitive services to offer, they lack decisiveness and without a clear direction, passion and commitment - weak performers stay, innovators leave - the change that is needed won't come.

If somebody asked me what kind of Google services I'm using regularly, well, there is award winning Gmail, Docs&Spreadsheets, Reader, iGoogle, Notebook, Finance, Blogger, many others and of course the most important: Search. Without search no information, without information no action. A life without search engine just sucks!

Google's automated search technology enables me to obtain nearly instant access to relevant information, it's products and services are numerous and free of charge for me sponsored by my Blogger ads. It's ideal for me to focus on new and innovative challenges.

To stay ahead requires constantly to acquire new information and to carry out and to participate in research and analysis on an international level across the globe. The increasing amount of information made it also necessary to apply new ways to look up existing information and to extract information quickly with precision: Personalization.

Well, I'm aware of privacy concerns related to gathering web history data and to anonymizing the logs after 18 months, but in the end I appreciate a fast and reliable service that searches billions of pages, three times more than its nearest rival and delivers relevant results within milliseconds. I'm excited to experience Personalized Search.

Labels: google, personalization, search, yahoo

  ¶ 'Google's Next Steps into Personalized Search' posted by eA : 9:24 PM  0 comments links to this post

  FedEx Shipping Discount for Google Checkout Merchants Nearly a year ago (June 2006) Google Checkout launched in the US, surpassed PayPal's Express Checkout already and announced already the next step: Google Checkout and FedEx teamed up to save Google Checkout merchants money through the FedEx Advantage program:

• Up to 21% off on FedEx Express® U.S. shipping
• Up to 13% off on FedEx Express® international
• Up to 12% off on FedEx Ground® shipping
• Up to 10% off on FedEx Home Delivery® shipments

From FedEx:

'You know you can count on FedEx to deliver expertise, great service and great value for all your shipping needs, virtually anytime, anywhere. And there are no enrollment fees and no minimum shipping-volume requirements, so you can start saving quickly with the FedEx Advantage program!'

Google and eBay created the two most successful business models (Search and Auctions) on the Internet and became market leader in their respective core markets, but expanding into new markets led to an increasing overlap in products, customers, and business models.

Google tapped into eBay's fixed price business competing in products, customers, and business model leveraging cost-effectiveness, checkout adoption and lots of room for further expansion.

Excellent market entry, just after one year Google is the winner on the checkout front!

• Google Checkout Surpassed PayPal Express Checkout (US)
• Google eBay Collision
• Google's Integrated Checkout Strategy
• Current and Future eCommerce Challenges

Labels: checkout, ecommerce, fedex, google

  ¶ 'FedEx Shipping Discount for Google Checkout Merchants' posted by eA : 11:36 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Google Checkout Surpassed PayPal Express Checkout (US) Checkout as a very integrated experience from initial advertising to final checkout targeting eCommerce platforms to advertise at Google both, consumers and eCommerce platforms can benefit, because it simplifies the checkout process, builds trust and tracks all orders and shipping in one place.

• Current and Future eCommerce Challenges

Recent analysis conducted by Cowen and featured by ZDNet has shown that GC has proven to be a formidable competitor to eBay's PayPal Express Checkout.

'Cowen surveyed the top 200 e-commerce Web sites and found that alternative payment platforms are catching on. Among the top e-commerce sites, Bill Me Later commanded 28 percent market share with PayPal and Google Checkout representing 26 percent and 13 percent, respectively.'

Google Checkout with 13 percent 'has surpassed PayPal Express Checkout, which was offered by 10.5 percent of the top 200 e-commerce sites,' Mr. Friedland from Cowen noted.

The major reason preventing Google Checkout from taking off is privacy concerns, but it's not really a show stopper it's more a delay.

'Negotiations between Google and the legal teams at large retailers have been protracted, resulting in delayed adoption.'

Places to shop with Google Checkout include major brands like BlueNile (diamonds), Toys R Us (toys), Starbucks (coffee), Dick's (sporting goods) partner of GSI eCommerce, a leading provider of outsourced e-commerce solutions having 25-30 partners live with Google Checkout and RitzCamera (electronics) which has repeatedly reported to benefit from GC. More stores:


With surpassing PayPal's Express Checkout and with the progress of eCommerce the recent Google eBay collision could opt for Google now tapping into eBay's fixed price business competing in products, customers, and business model.

• Google eBay Collision after eBay Live!

Labels: checkout, ecommerce, google

  ¶ 'Google Checkout Surpassed PayPal Express Checkout (US)' posted by eA : 4:00 PM  3 comments links to this post

  Google eBay Collision after eBay Live! Both, Google and eBay the two most successful business models (Search and Auctions) on the Internet, created brand new business models leading to high cash flows (Google, eBay), a very strong market share in their respective core markets, Google US with 49.7% search queries (comScore) in April 2007 within the search category and 120.010.000 unique visits overall in May 2007 (comScore) and eBay US with 94% visits (Hitwise) within the Auctions category in May 2007 and 79,428.000 unique visits in May 2007 (comScore) with an excellent brand awareness in their respective field and overall Google is the No. 1 brand worldwide and eBay No. 43 worldwide according to the 2007 BRANDZ Top 100 Most Powerful Brands report.

It's nearly a year ago (June 2006) that Google Checkout launched in the US, recently Google Payment Ltd. became authorized for e-money, launched in the UK and I'm expecting Google to launch in further European countries including Germany with the option to differentiate itself incorporating more payment methods respecting the local payments preferences. A clear collision course of Google and eBay.

• Google's Integrated Checkout Strategy

Market	Google	eBay
Classifieds	Google Base	Craigslist, Kijiji
Product search	Google Product Search, Google Base	Shopping.com, eBay
Payments	Google Checkout	PayPal
Communications	Gmail/Talk	Skype

'According to Hitwise data, last week (week ending 2/3/07) the market share of visits to eBay was 844 times greater than the share of visits to Google Base.'

'Paypal's market share exceeded Google Checkout's by 71 to 1 in the same period.' (LeeAnn Prescott/Hitwise Feb 2007)

On the one hand Google and eBay have a business relation, Google drives traffic to eBay and eBay buys Google's AdWords, on the other hand expanding into new markets led to an increasing overlap in products, customers, and business models today. When Google last week announced it would hold a Checkout party that coincided with the beginning of eBay Live!, eBay announced that they would take away all their US ad spendings.

I'm not sure whether this was a good idea, although eBay partnered with Yahoo! promoting PayPal. Google is the absolute leader in search and both Yahoo! and Microsoft admitted some weeks ago, that they lost the battle against Google. I'm expecting that Google will gain further market share in the search category, I think eBay depends on the traffic from Google, but Google does not depend on the traffic from eBay - and it's a global marketplace, not just the US. Google redesigned its product search experience - Rebranding into Google Product Search - just add a few more products...

The Economist titled it's Google Checkout - PayPal comparison 'A battle at the checkout': Here some quotes:

'Checkout has already signed up a quarter of the top 500 online retailers'

'Google is prepared to run Checkout at break-even, or even at a loss'

'A survey in January found that only 18% of Checkout users rated their experience as good or very good, compared with 44% for PayPal.'

'“The way we think about Checkout is not as a standalone business, but as a driver of the Google network,” says Ben Ling, Checkout's boss.'

Google's market entry strategy always starts like that, but as they a gain better understanding of the markets they act more savvy.

Digital business is quickly becoming the method of choice for any enterprise to offer products and services on-demand to their market. Competition is the natural evolution in the way we will interact with, share and purchase products and services within the fastest moving market in the world today.

• Current and Future eCommerce Challenges

Communications, content, commerce and search are the challenging activities today, simplicity is the most compelling competitive advantage and different business models associated with them lead to a natural segmentation of the marketplace.

Labels: checkout, ecommerce, google, markets

  ¶ 'Google eBay Collision after eBay Live!' posted by eA : 8:12 PM  1 comments links to this post

  Google Developer Day: Going Offline with Google Gears
Just announced on the Google Developer Day in Australia Google Gears (in Beta) can already be experienced via the Google Reader if you use Mozilla Firefox. Just click on the Offline Link in the top right navbar of your Google Reader and follow the installation instructions.

While going offline Gears downloads the latest 2000 posts and synchronizes the Reader while going online again. Fine!

From Google Gears Blog:

'Gears is an incremental improvement to the web as it is today. It adds just enough to AJAX to make current web applications work offline.

Gears today covers what we think is the minimal set of primitives required for offline apps. It is still a bit rough and in need of polish, but we are releasing it early because we think the best way to make Gears really useful is to evolve it into an open standard.'

The next live stream from the London Developer Day takes place today at 12.00 BST (British Summer Time).

Developer Resources:

• Gears Homepage
• Gears API Homepage
• Gears API Blog
• Gears Groups
• MashUp Editor
• Google Web Toolkit

More Google Apps:

• Centralizing Information with new Google Reader
• Into the Enterprise with Google Apps Premier Edition
• Into the Air with AJAX

Labels: apis, bizdev, google, productivity

  ¶ 'Google Developer Day: Going Offline with Google Gears' posted by eA : 11:28 AM  0 comments links to this post

  Google's Integrated Checkout Strategy It's nearly a year ago (May 2006) that I asked myself 'Why not Using Online Payments to Checkout?'. That time far and wide there was no Google Checkout on the horizon, but suddenly GC launched first in the US, then Google Payment Ltd. became authorized for e-money, launched in the UK and I'm expecting Google to launch in further European countries including Germany.

Time to look at Google's Integrated Checkout strategy presented at the Pindar retail event:



I personally think that Google Checkout is a healthy thing for the eCommerce market and with the progress of eCommerce it is a big step forward in terms of user friendliness. Besides financial incentives incorporating more popular payment methods respecting local payments preferences beyond the credit card would be a good differentiator especially in smaller countries where it's competitor PayPal does not.

The Economist titled it's Google Checkout - PayPal comparison 'A battle at the checkout': Here some quotes:

'Checkout has already signed up a quarter of the top 500 online retailers'

'Google is prepared to run Checkout at break-even, or even at a loss'

'A survey in January found that only 18% of Checkout users rated their experience as good or very good, compared with 44% for PayPal.'

'“The way we think about Checkout is not as a standalone business, but as a driver of the Google network,” says Ben Ling, Checkout's boss.'

Heather Hopkins from Hitwise shares some statistics about GC:

'PayPal received a 67x larger share of US Internet visits last week compared with Google Checkout.'

'PayPal attracted a 53x larger share of UK visits last week than Google Checkout.'

Labels: checkout, ecommerce, google, payments

  ¶ 'Google's Integrated Checkout Strategy' posted by eA : 1:00 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Major Rebranding into iGoogle Google's Personalized Homepage has proven to be one of the most successful products since it's initial launch in 2005 under codename Fusion. After rebranding Froogle into Google Product Search this is the second major rebranding within a short time. It's iGoogle now, no longer Google's Personalized Homepage or Fusion.


Personalized start-pages are frequently used as an information resource and a preferred place to personalize trust worth and up-to-date news and services and iGoogle just sounds better on an international level.

With the rebranding also an innovation has been introduced, it's possible to design one's own widgets (Google calls them Google Gadgets) for iGoogle without programming knowledge and share them with friends. The Google Gadget Maker provides seven different templates: Framed Photo, GoogleGram, Daily Me, Free Form, YouTube Channel, Personal List and Countdown. Check them out.

Widgets and gadgets also represent an innovative (viral) way for marketers to reach the user directly and advertise their products and services.

Seen overall this approach to a personalized start-page improves usability and has the potential to improve search relevance incorporating data provided by the user.

Labels: branding, google, markets

  ¶ 'Major Rebranding into iGoogle' posted by eA : 6:08 PM  1 comments links to this post

  Brand the most Valuable Asset of a Global Company Just received the 2007 BRANDZ Top 100 Most Powerful Brands report established by Millward Brown Optimor. As businesses go global and information becomes more and more critical it's the brand that leads the most valuable assets of a company, well and of course it's Google to lead the list:

Brand | Brand Value | Change from year before
1 Google | 66,434 | 77%
2 GE (General Electric) | 61,880 | 11%
3 Microsoft | 54,951 | -11%
4 Coca-Cola | 44,134 | 7%
5 China Mobile | 41,214 | 5%
...
22 Vodafone 21,107 -12%
42 Yahoo! | 13,201 | -6%
43 eBay | 12,927 | -2%
67 Orange | 9,922 | 5%
77 T-Mobile | 8,047 | -32%
92 Amazon | 5,964 | 0%

Hottest topic in technology:

• Convergence of different services (voice, data, GPS, music, Internet, email, etc) delivered over different devices

in mobile communications:

• Saturated markets and price competition in mature markets erode margins, companies are moving into non-traditional services

Managing information becomes more and more important for individuals and corporations that want to use the web strategically to build value. Easy to use tools will have a huge impact on the way people and companies interact in communications, digital media and business.

• Rebranding into Google Product Search
• Global Brand Awareness: YouTube and Wikipedia among Top 5 Now

Labels: bizdev, branding, google, markets

  ¶ 'Brand the most Valuable Asset of a Global Company' posted by eA : 4:35 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Rebranding into Google Product Search To get a better understanding what it is, it's Google Product Search now, no longer Froogle and can be found as a vertical search option under the 'more' link on Google.com.

The results page initially sorted by relevance got a more user friendly outfit moving the products and the filter for Google Checkout to the top of the page and the other refinements to the bottom, thus Google Product Search promotes Google Checkout.


Since people tend to start their web search from the main Google site the newly branded Google Product Search got a prominent position on top of the web results page:


Overall it's a step into a more serious product strategy. Of course, there is also competition from other comparison engines like Yahoo Shopping & PayPal, who might follow this strategy pushing the paypal checkout button and Shopzilla, Shopping.com (eBay), Dealio...
From Google:

• Back to basics

Labels: branding, ecommerce, google, markets

  ¶ 'Rebranding into Google Product Search' posted by eA : 11:18 AM  0 comments links to this post

  Google Checkout Launched in the UK Today 9 and 1/2 months after initial launch in the US and 3 weeks after being certified for e-money by the UK-based FSA Google Checkout launched as expected within Europe of course first in the UK.

• Google Authorized for E-Money by UK-Based FSA
• Clever Checkout for eCommerce Platforms: Google Checkout (US)
• More on Checkout
  

From initial advertising to final checkout it's an experience that reduces costs of Google AdWords campaigns through clever financial incentives providing free transaction processing until 2008. It's also a good base for strategic partnerships.

• Releasing My Current Skill Set

Centralization into a single online payment method provides many practical benefits for citizens, I'm thinking of travelling, buying goods and services abroad, particularly when coupled with the progress of e-commerce it is a big step forward in user friendliness.

Main Competitor is PayPal.

Labels: checkout, ecommerce, google, payments, uk

  ¶ 'Google Checkout Launched in the UK Today' posted by eA : 11:56 AM  0 comments links to this post

  Google Authorized for E-Money by UK-Based FSA Well, payments is one of the most regulated businesses online, but it's also a very innovative way to differentiate one's business by new payments models. Customers like to buy what they want wherever they are and it is just a question of time that Google will expand into the European payments market.

I haven't heard yet an official statement from Google, but on a blog post from Linkdump on Payments I found a quotation of an FSA register search:

• Google - 462517 - Google Payment Limited, authorised, also for issuing electronic money (Mar/19/2007)
  
• Paypal - 226056 - Paypal (Europe) Ltd, authorised, issuing electronic money (Feb/13/2004)
  

where PayPal has about 35 mio. customers across Europe. I did a bit of research out of my head and searched for German-based Click&Buy (~7 mio. customers ww) and UK-based Moneybookers (~2.8 mio. customers ww):

• 454127 - ClickandBuy (Europe) Ltd, authorised, issuing electronic money (Nov/29/2006)
• 214225 - Moneybookers Ltd, authorised, issuing electronic money (Feb/05/2003)

Both are authorized for e-money, too. The e-money license allows to offer a variety of financial services online including to send money worldwide to anyone with an email address, which has a very strong viral character and international transactions can be offered cheaper than by banks and traditional money transfer companies.

UK is the best place to acquire the e-money license across Europe and being certified by the FSA means to meet the highest standards in the financial world online.

More on Google Checkout

Labels: bizdev, checkout, ecommerce, google, payments, uk

  ¶ 'Google Authorized for E-Money by UK-Based FSA' posted by eA : 6:15 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Adding a Theme to Google Homepage Using Google Start-Page as an information resource it's possible now to customize its appearance selecting a theme. Entering your zip-code it even promises to change its look and feel according to current sunrise and sunset times: Lovely.

'This theme will dynamically change to match your time of day, including local sunrise and sunset times.'

For the instant there is just six themes available, but I think over long term it might become a new playground for creative designers.

• Fusion - Approach to a Personalized Google Experience
• Consumer Internet into the Office

Labels: branding, google, homepage

  ¶ 'Adding a Theme to Google Homepage' posted by eA : 11:30 AM

  Building Trust with Google Checkout To get onto a path the Web can really improve one's life a payment technology should address fair pricing, safety and convenience of payment.

From Google Checkout Blog quoting a happy customer:

'We've never seen one product or promotion have the tremendous positive impact that Google Checkout had for Ritz Interactive in the fourth quarter of 2006, helping us grow over 30 percent during that period of time.'

Checking out with Google Checkout eCommerce and online shopping became an experience that centralizes and stores payment information and purchase history across several merchants for buyers and extends reach and enhances security for sellers, it even reduces costs of Google AdWords campaigns through clever financial incentives accepting Google Checkout.

The newly styled checkout button makes eCommerce AdWords campaigns even more visible and helps a potential customer to better find a store that accepts Google Checkout.

More about Google Checkout:

• Clever Checkout for eCommerce Platforms: Google Checkout
• New Revenues through Google Checkout
• No Google Checkout for eBay Sellers

Labels: checkout, ecommerce, google

  ¶ 'Building Trust with Google Checkout' posted by eA : 10:52 AM  0 comments links to this post

  Looking Forward to Read from Goethe and Schiller Online On their journey towards digitization the Bavarian State Library and participating publishers cooperate with Google now to digitize copyright-(free) books and make them available through Google book search.

Besides famous German literature the library also comprehends books in Italian, French, Spanish, Latin and English language. I'm really excited about never before seen rarities.

The digitization will enrich Google's search index, offer a rich online experience for interested book lovers and represent a step forward in an open web-world respecting copyrighted books.

Of course there is also a commercial and non-commercial aspect resulting in sharing advertising revenue through a partner program established between Google and participating publishers. Publishers decide which books to exclude. In case of a copyrighted book just title author and a 'snippet' will be shown.

Interested buyers can click through and buy the book at the participating publisher. I remember something similar at another place another time...
News from Heise

Labels: google, markets, publishing, web2.0

  ¶ 'Looking Forward to Read from Goethe and Schiller Online' posted by eA : 6:59 PM  0 comments links to this post

  New BBC/Google-YouTube Media Deal As the worlds of TV, entertainment, computing, and communication go digital the trend has shifted towards digital media and an online lifestyle. With a current market share of 54% Google/YouTube dominate the Online Video Market with an attractive user audience loving Internet-based clips and videos they can view, listen, interact with and participate when, what and how they want.

With the potential to attract new audiences in and outside the UK BBC's media marketing is shifting to a new format, online video. From BBC: BBC strikes Google-YouTube deal:

'Three YouTube channels - one for news and two for entertainment - will showcase short clips of BBC content.'

'YouTube is a promotional vehicle for us.'

Producing a contoversial discussion BBC also takes advantage of a new revenue-sharing mechanism that would "reward creativity" announced by YouTube founder Chad Hurley in January:

'The deal is likely to be controversial with other media companies, who have accused the BBC of straying from its licence-fee funded public service remit and moving too far into commercial web ventures.'

More:

• YouTube's Rewarding Creativity soon
• Google Reader Supports Video Now
• Trendy: More Online Video Entertainment in 2007
• Current Business Models for Free Online Video

Labels: bbc, bizdev, google, TV, youtube

  ¶ 'New BBC/Google-YouTube Media Deal' posted by eA : 3:12 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Consumer Internet into the Office Personalized Start-Pages are frequently used as an information resource and a preferred place to personalize trust worth and up-to-date news and services.

As a result of user demand more and more gadgets are developed for this very competitive portal market. A recent deal between IBM and Google introduces more than 4000 Google Gadgets to the users of IBM WebSphere.

From Reuters:

'SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - IBM (IBM.N: Quote, Profile , Research) has reached a deal with Google Inc. (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile , Research) to bring the consumer Internet into the office by piping YouTube and thousands of other Web programs into IBM software used by millions of office workers.'

With this approach Google's Gadgets fuse in the IBM WebSphere Portal, converge in customer interactions and represent a further step towards a personalized customer experience.

More from Reuters:

'IBM WebSphere is the global market leader for portal software with a roughly 30 percent share, according to Gartner and IDC surveys. It competes with SharePoint from Microsoft Corp.'

'Customers such as German airline Deutsche Lufthansa and Disney hotel operator Starwood Hotels will now be able use Google Gadgets.'

Also:

• Into the Enterprise with Google Apps Premier Edition
• Into the Air with AJAX
• TrendSpotting: New Technologies First in Consumer Markets

Labels: bizdev, google, homepage, ibm, productivity

  ¶ 'Consumer Internet into the Office' posted by eA : 6:20 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Into the Enterprise with Google Apps Premier Edition It's always been messy to collaborate on projects created with MS Office products and to share them with co-workers. The better that Google launched Google Apps Premier Edition with new administration APIs aimed at businesses for the next-generation communication and collaboration.

• TrendSpotting: New Technologies First in Consumer Markets

Those applications are already out for a while, however the new thing is a premier edition option including:

• 99.9% uptime guarantee for email
• APIs for your existing infrastructure: Single sign-on and provisioning
  
• 24/7 assistance, including phone support
  

Google Apps are excellent AJAX-based communications tools reducing the amount of friction to interact with each other and to improve communications.

The rapid adoption of broadband has made it possible to move more and more applications to the Web and it's a step further to a Web-based collaboration-suite with drastically reduced maintenance costs with an option to buy further premium services.

Before using Google Apps one should read the GOOGLE APPS PREMIER EDITION AGREEMENT carefully and think of questions about privacy, ethics, security and technology support. It might also be interesting what happens in case of an outage or data losses.

• Into the Air with AJAX

Labels: apis, bizdev, collaboration, google, productivity

  ¶ 'Into the Enterprise with Google Apps Premier Edition' posted by eA : 11:58 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Google Reader Supports Video Now
To take advantage of the Google Reader all one needs to do is to follow these little sbscription buttons: or and to make a Google Account.
More:

• Centralizing Information with new Google Reader
• Checkout what's Possible on a Global Level
• YouTube's Rewarding Creativity soon
• Trendy: More Online Video Entertainment in 2007

Labels: google, homepage, reader, rss

  ¶ 'Google Reader Supports Video Now' posted by eA : 1:25 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Checkout what's Possible on a Global Level Participating in a social network centered on user-generated content has become one of the most exiting trends today. Free and easy interaction, staying in touch with friends, finding long lost friends, and meeting new people encourages users as well as visitors to share comments, photos and videos, read and write blogs or just hang out. Today's users interact already on a global level.

• Global Brand
• Global Mash Up
• Global Checkout

Labels: google, lifestyle, mashup, videos

  ¶ 'Checkout what's Possible on a Global Level' posted by eA : 11:05 AM  0 comments links to this post

  Global Brand Awareness: YouTube and Wikipedia among Top 5 Now An active creator today can enhance brand visibility and credibility, achieve customer intimacy or just simplify the process to find the latest information about new products and services allowing visitors to subscribe to blogs via RSS and be notified when posting something new.

Well, Google followed by Apple is leading the global brand awareness study conducted by brandchannel.com, but 2006 is the first time that brands centered on user-generated content entered the global top list: YouTube (3.) and Wikipedia (4.).

Global Top 10:
1. Google, 2. Apple, 3. YouTube, 4. Wikipedia, 5. Starbucks, 6. Nokia, 7. Skype, 8. Ikea, 9. CocaCola, 10. Toyota

More:

• YouTube's Rewarding Creativity soon
• Innovation Counts: Social YoUser Networks on Top of 2006 Google Zeitgeist
• Design and YoUser-centric Innovation
• Social YoUser Models in 2007
• Bye Bye German 1&1!
• Huge Market for Google Checkout in Europe
• Reaching People from 36 Countries Speaking 16 Languages

Labels: apple, branding, google, wikipedia, youtube

  ¶ 'Global Brand Awareness: YouTube and Wikipedia among Top 5 Now' posted by eA : 3:25 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Custom Search Module for AJAX Libraries and Toolkits Having a passion for AJAX I did a bit of research on AJAX libraries and toolkits mostly based on free OpenSource technology and updated my Custom AJAX Search Engine to extract information quickly with precision.

AJAX is based on open standards like JavaScript, HTML, CSS, DOM and DOM Events, XMLHttpRequest, XML and SVG, highly available in most modern Web-browsers and compatible with existing Web development technologies allowing a smooth transition to next generation Web-Apps with a strong ROI.

Currently it searches more than 30 top libraries and toolkits:

Libraries: ActiveWidgets Aflax Amberjack Reflection.js Yahoo UI Dojo MochiKit.Animator Lightbox 2 Jquery JKL.ParseXMLparse remote XML file into JavaScript object (JSON) Liquidx Mapstraction Mochikit Openlayers Openrecord Openrico Osflash Prototype Rialto RobGonda Script.aculo.us Tacos Technicalpursuit Trimpath Xajax

Toolkits Aptana Backbase Bindows G Webtoolkit ATF RAP Activemq XAP Nexaweb OpenJakob Openlaszlo Opensymphony Taconite Tibco Zapatec Zimbra ZK1

Developing rich user experiences with RIA technologies such as AJAX makes Web-based applications response quickly and intuitive like a typical desktop application. Instead reloading a page after the old click-wait-refresh model the AJAX application stays on a page continuously while the AJAX engine handles data exchange with the server.

Building the case, AJAX Web-applications provide enormous advantages compared to conventional Web-applications, they avoid slow response times and scrolling after the page has reloaded thus improve end-user productivity, lower bandwidth consumption and costs by partial page updates and reduce the time to wait for the next page.

Applied to eCommerce systems AJAX even increases revenues making new applications easy and intuitive reducing the amount of friction for end-users.

• AJAX Libraries and Toolkits Search

Labels: ajax, google, mashup, opensource, web2.0

  ¶ 'Custom Search Module for AJAX Libraries and Toolkits' posted by eA : 12:58 PM  0 comments links to this post

  3D Panoramic Spheres in Google Earth As processor, imaging and data communication technologies become more powerful and cost-effective over time including emerging cinematic experiences and immersive technologies to create a compelling 3D model becomes more exciting. I just discovered these panoramic views in Google Earth:
Blurring the virtual and physical worlds just makes me think of how many business opportunities and of course challenges will occur.

• Web Vision of a World in 3D

Labels: 3D, google, visualization

  ¶ '3D Panoramic Spheres in Google Earth' posted by eA : 12:38 AM  1 comments links to this post

  Innovation Counts: Social YoUser Networks on Top of 2006 Google Zeitgeist Well, Google is the leader in search overall and guarantees for innovation, but with focusing on one or two products it's a lot easier to innovate and to compete and the upstarts have beaten Google and of course Yahoo in some of the hottest topics on the Web: Blogging, video sharing, social networking.

Google.com Zeitgeist 2006- Top Searches
1. bebo, 2. myspace, 3. world cup, 4. metacafe, 5. radioblog, 6. wikipedia, 7. video, 8. rebelde, 9. mininova, 10. wiki

To take advantage of the business opportunities in 2007 a transformation of the traditional creative and business processes enabled by digital technology has to take place to create solid online communications, to serve the community with outstanding services, to ensure further developments and last but not least to hook in some of the best social turntables are some reasons.

• Design and YoUser-centric Innovation
• Social YoUser Models in 2007

Labels: bizdev, google, markets, search, web2.0, zeitgeist

  ¶ 'Innovation Counts: Social YoUser Networks on Top of 2006 Google Zeitgeist' posted by eA : 5:50 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Huge Market for Google Checkout in Europe Experience showed that centralization into a single European currency provided many practical benefits for citizens, I'm thinking of travelling with a single currency and buying goods and services abroad, particularly when coupled with the progress of eCommerce it fostered significant growth in trade within the euro area and seen overall it's a big step forward in user friendlyness.

For most German retailers offering a web shopping cart means trying to follow and copy the Amazon model - tschibo.de, otto.de, quelle.de, weltbild.de, neckermann.de, conrad.de, buch.de - their number is endless, a shopping cart is a shopping cart with or without customer reviews and customer experience seems to be a foreign word for them although they should be able to form an attention loop to gather continuous feedback and establish an environment to optimize value.

On top of everything most of them don't even care about the critical areas where their shoppers drop out. Checkout and payments technology should address convenience to get onto a path the Web can really improve one's life.

The single personal Google Checkout provides an experience that centralizes and stores payment information and purchase history across several merchants for buyers and extends reach and enhances security for sellers, it even reduces costs through clever financial incentives accepting Google Checkout as a payment method.

Experience showed that a centralization on behalf of a user simplifies the checkout process, leads to more sales and returns customers thus Google Checkout is a wonderful new thing that really can improve one's digital lifestyle. I'm expecting Google Checkout to enter the European Market in 2007.

Labels: checkout, europe, google, lifestyle, markets, payments

  ¶ 'Huge Market for Google Checkout in Europe' posted by eA : 12:19 AM  0 comments links to this post

  Creating Customized Applications via Mash Ups In these days it's trendy to collaborate, share data and information over the Web. It seems to me like the Web has quickly morphed into a giant global operating system which allows to remix the Web via mash ups.

Over a period of nearly two years I posted more than 200 entries on my personal blog. The increasing amount of posts made it necessary to apply new ways to look up existing entries and to extract information quickly with precision.

Applying the state of the art Google AJAX Search API this combination of Web-based applications across different sources offers a useful, cheap and easy way to create a customized application solving this issue.

I found it easy to integrate and a fast way to search several blog posts without leaving the site and the quality of search results for my blog improved a lot applying the GblogSearch module. Reason enough to give the search box a prominent place on top of the page now.

Extracting information quickly with precision inspired me recently to create two customized search modules featuring AJAX and Video. I'm thinking already about leveraging a mash up including groupware and collaboration, information management, knowledge management, content management, work flows, multi channel facilities and single sign on. Mash ups put more power in the hands of end users.

Labels: ajax, apis, bizdev, google, mashup, search

  ¶ 'Creating Customized Applications via Mash Ups' posted by eA : 7:47 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Hourly Work Activity in New Product Development Planning and leading comprehensive marketing and technology strategies in support of business goals and objectives requires expertise in directing the creation of marketing tools and steering the execution of technology programs on the one hand, on the other it requires constantly to acquire information and to carry out and to participate in technology research and analysis on an international level across the globe.

Using Google Search as research tool No.1 the hourly search activity in the the personalized search statistics reflects also activity to develop new products and services.
Isn't that a bit different from an average employee? Germany: 40.9 h/week, 29.1 payed holidays, free weekend :-)

Labels: google, planning, product, search

  ¶ 'Hourly Work Activity in New Product Development' posted by eA : 2:57 PM  0 comments links to this post

  New Revenues through Google Checkout Potential credit card fraud and identity theft do still prevent many users from buying online and before one had to maintain several accounts across several merchants.

With the new single personal Google Checkout online shopping becomes an experience that centralizes and stores payment information and purchase history across several merchants for buyers and extends reach and enhances security for sellers, it even reduces costs of Google AdWords campaigns through clever financial incentives accepting Google Checkout.

Experience showed that a centralization on behalf of a user simplifies the checkout process, leads to more sales and returns customers thus Google Checkout is a wonderful new thing that really improves one's digital lifestyle.

• Between Initial Advertising and Final Checkout
• Clever Checkout for eCommerce Platforms: Google Checkout
• Why not Using Online Payments to Checkout?

I think introducing such a service to the European countries makes sense, too.

Also here experience showed that centralization into a single European currency provided many practical benefits for citizens, I'm thinking of travelling with a single currency and buying goods and services abroad, particularly when coupled with the progress of e-commerce it fostered significant growth in trade within the euro area and seen overall it's a big step forward in user friendlyness.
Get the turbo in here.

Labels: checkout, google

  ¶ 'New Revenues through Google Checkout' posted by eA : 11:29 AM  0 comments links to this post

  No Google Checkout for eBay Sellers Can't beat them - exclude them: 'eBay bans sellers from using Google Checkout' thus looks pretty concerned about the impact it could have on its own PayPal payment service and admits that Google Checkout is a potentially significant competitor to PayPal.

Google offers financial incentives to merchants for accepting Google Checkout: 'For every $1 you spend on AdWords, you can process $10 in sales for free through Google Checkout' ergo targets merchants to advertise at Google, which is a pretty clear motivation and a clever stratey to attract new merchants, not to exclude any merchants.

eBay is using its market dominance in online auctions to limit competition in the online payments market although a growing number of consumers are skeptical of using PayPal. I'm pretty convinced that there is a huge consumer demand for new payment technologies and from a consumer perspective I don't understad why they do it.

• Clever Checkout for eCommerce Platforms: Google Checkout
• Why not Using Online Payments to Checkout?

Once the NYTimes wrote: 'More than 37 percent of bills are paid by check; 35 percent are paid online. The remaining 28 percent are paid with cash, debit cards or other payment methods'.

It's time to get onto a path the Web can really improve one's life.

Labels: checkout, google

  ¶ 'No Google Checkout for eBay Sellers' posted by eA : 11:25 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Clever Checkout for eCommerce Platforms: Google Checkout When I made this post I was talking about a differentiation by a new payments model.

'Conception for such a payments technology should address a fair pricing, safety and convenience of payment to get onto a path the Web can really improve one's life.... Consumers like to buy what they want wherever they are and it's just a question of time when Google will enter the payments market'.

They entered and rolled out across the US Google Checkout is a very integrated experience from initial advertising to final checkout targeting eCommerce platforms to advertise at Google.

'For every $1 you spend on AdWords, you can process $10 in sales for free through Google Checkout. If you exceed your free transaction processing for the month, or you don't advertise with AdWords at all, you'll only be charged 2% plus $.20 per transaction'.

Both, consumers and eCommerce platforms can benefit, because it simplyfies the checkout process, builds trust and tracks all orders and shipping in one place. Here's a list of participating stores and a great promotion including 10$ GC's.
I'm wondering when Google MicroPayments will come...

Labels: checkout, google, payments

  ¶ 'Clever Checkout for eCommerce Platforms: Google Checkout' posted by eA : 4:02 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Why not Using Online Payments to Checkout? I'm really surprised, Americans still pay their bills by check, they love the good old US mail! A recent poll conducted by Harris Interactive and featured by the NYTimes indicates:

'More than 37 percent of bills are paid by check; 35 percent are paid online. The remaining 28 percent are paid with cash, debit cards or other payment methods'.

I'm pretty convinced that there is a huge consumer demand for new payment technologies, including cash, checks, credit cards, debit cards, stored value cards and Internet banking. Conception for such a payment technology should address a fair pricing, safety and convenience of payment to get onto a path the Web can really improve one's life.

Well, payments is one of the most regulated businesses online, but as recent facts and rumors show: PayPal, Amazon, Google and Yahoo! like to differentiate their business by new payments models. Consumers like to buy what they want wherever they are and it's just a question of time when Google will enter the payments market.

Handling your every online transaction, the potential revenue from Google's payments of each purchase would make AdSense look like penuts and PayPal's market value wuld drop by several billion $'s. For now it's just speculation, but I'm expecting more services like this in the future, there is too much inefficiencies in the market.

Labels: checkout, google

  ¶ 'Why not Using Online Payments to Checkout?' posted by eA : 10:45 PM  0 comments links to this post