Turning Towards Two.Zero eCommerce The most influencing factors for online shopping are still convenience, trust and quality of information.

Characteristics of today's Web 2.0 architecture allow better communications and data exchange resulting in improved social networking technologies, service orientation and cinematic user interfaces based on AJAX and Flash complementing modern SOA's and Web-services. Web 2.0 features increase brand loyalty and customer retention.

• Current and Future eCommerce Challenges

It's a very early stage, but innovative services on the horizon already leverage human intelligence filtering content by trusted friends and community features applying technologies such as the Semantic Web and FOAF which will enrich today's Web technologies and allow even better collaboration online and improved search results for products and services.

It's not the big guys who drive this evolution, it's smaller but smarter social commerce sites like Kaboodle, ThisNext, Wishpot and StyleHive that have triggered an unprecedented social commerce phenomenon 'customers communicating with customers' and a resurgence in the Long Tail economy.

But also the big U.S. retailers like Wal-Mart, HomeDepot, Kroger, Costco and Target, expertise providers like iVillage and WebMD and of course the great online shopping portals like eBay, Amazon.com, BizRate.com, MySimon.com, YahooShopping, NexTag.com, Overstock.com, Shopping.com, Pricerunner.com, PricingCentral.com, MSN Shopping, Shop.com and Shopzilla and B2B eCommerce portals like the Chinese Globaby.com and Alibaba.com have started to apply Web 2.0 features and most of them are known in Germany and Europe, too.

Time for eCommerce to meet two.zero now.

• Targeting Well-defined Audience Segments
• Trends in Online Shopping

Labels: collaboration, ecommerce, markets, Semantic Web, web2.0

  ¶ 'Turning Towards Two.Zero eCommerce' posted by eA : 10:00 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Trends in Online Shopping Keeping myself informed about the American market the Pew Internet & American Life Project is an excellent independent resource to gather trusted, high-quality information. The key findings of a recent publication (PDF) were:

'American internet users have embraced online shopping because they say it is convenient and a time-saver.'
'At the same time, most online Americans have high levels of concern about sending personal or credit card information over the internet.'
'More than half of internet users encounter frustrations and other frictions in the course of online shopping.'

So the most influencing factors for online shopping are still convenience, trust and quality of information. However people's behavior in researching buying related information and decision making has changed during the last months:

• Consumer Recomendations more Influencing than ever
• Current and Future eCommerce Challenges

eCommerce maturing in the US is moving "full steam ahead" and is years away from saturation, with double-digit growth expected for several years. As experience showed easy to use tools do have a huge impact on the way people and companies interact in communications, digital media and business. Web 2.0 features give control to the user, increase brand loyalty and customer retention and can make products and services benefit from a word-of-mouth.

• Brand the most Valuable Asset of a Global Company

Labels: branding, ecommerce, markets, web2.0

  ¶ 'Trends in Online Shopping' posted by eA : 12:08 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Consumer Recomendations more Influencing than ever Trends and consumer reactions in terms of communications and marketing can best be monitored in blogs and other consumer-generated media like web pages, newsgroups, emails sent-to companies, chat lines, forums and message boards.

A recent study from eMarketer showed that consumer opinions are no longer a local phenomenon: Word-of-mouth works worldwide and is more effective than traditional forms of advertising.

'Yet more than three-quarters of consumers surveyed worldwide find that consumer opinions are the most effective form of advertising, according to a Nielsen study.'

Web 2.0 features give control to the user, increase brand loyalty and customer retention and can make products and services benefit from a word-of-mouth.

Here are some more significant success factors:

• Strong brand
• Highly automatized work flow
• Media-compatible staged content
• Low problem cases
• Mastering rapid changes in technology
  
• High stability at payment solutions and CMS

As experience showed easy to use tools do have a huge impact on the way people and companies interact in communications, digital media and business. Putting increasing efforts into successful website operations with a focus on making consumer opinions an essential part of a website can result in making a profit, generating significant online revenues, developing online branding, creating successful online products or attracting subscriptions.

Labels: advertising, ecommerce, markets, web2.0

  ¶ 'Consumer Recomendations more Influencing than ever' posted by eA : 12:18 AM  0 comments links to this post

  RSS Reader Trends among Tech-Savvy Users Read/WriteWeb recently conducted a poll among their readers about RSS-Reader usage reflecting the trend among tech-savvy users (extract):

	July 2007	January 2007	Change
Web-based (e.g. Bloglines, Google Reader, Rojo)	59%	52%	+ 7%
Desktop (e.g. FeedDemon, NetNewsWire)	13%	19%	- 6%
Start Page (Pageflakes, Netvibes, etc)	16%	14% (+ 2%)*	no change

The big winners are browser-based RSS-readers and even start-pages became more coveted than desktop-readers.

Since I'm on Google (3 years ago) I'm moving more and more applications online making extensively use of Google services such as Gmail and Google Reader. The fact is that Firefox has become my most coveted application and since the introduction of Google Gears it's even possible to download RSS-Feeds via the Google Reader making them available offline and synchronizing them the while going online again. Cool!

Experience showed that a centralization on behalf of a user simplifies the personal information management process, thus browser-based RSS-readers and start-pages can really improve one's digital lifestyle.

Browser-based RSS-readers centralize and store information and information history across several website feeds for users and extend reach for distributers.

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.

Web-based applications make collaboration easy for users and reduce maintenance costs for suppliers.

Labels: markets, rss, trend, web2.0

  ¶ 'RSS Reader Trends among Tech-Savvy Users' posted by eA : 1:05 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Superior User Interface on Apple's iPhone Anytime, anywhere access to any multimedia services is in progress and addresses current trends in the telecommunications sector. Today's cellphones converge more and more into hybrids combining voice-centric and data-centric services.

Cellphone manufacturers were not capable to offer a convincing user experience so far, there is millions of products and services on every cellphone, but unfortunately beyond SMS nobody really uses them.

Apple iPhone attacks exactly that weakness and provides a superior and clever UI in terms of quality, video, photo and audio capabilities, leveraging a larger screen (320x480), omitting the physical keyboard in favor of a virtual keyboard on a touch screen and providing generous built-in memory (4-8GB).

It will be available on Friday in the US and by the end of the year in Germany. It hasn't been sold yet, but I think is has the potential to become the second iPod. Expectations are high, mobile carriers queue already...

The ability to anticipate consumer needs and to think outside the box are key factors to focus on consumer-centric innovation. The new core competence is creativity and new forms of innovation driving it forward are based on an intimate understanding of consumer culture.

Labels: apple, markets, usability

  ¶ 'Superior User Interface on Apple's iPhone' posted by eA : 3:05 PM  0 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  0 comments links to this post

  Increasing Demand for Online Video and Rich Media Advertising The latest report from PointTopic shows that the world broadband closes in on 300 million subscribers in Q1/2007 with the top 10 broadband nations holding three quarters of the world broadband subscriptions (USA 60,362,830; China 56,258,499; Japan 26,533,000; Germany 16,142,750; France 15,304,900; South Korea 14,102,888; UK 13,953,000; Italy 9,348,250; Canada 8,010,139; Spain 7,185,932) and with the number of broadband subscribers within the OECD increasing by 26% during 2006 further growth is for sure.

Accessing the Internet at high speeds has several positive effects on Internet usage resulting in higher connectivity and new sorts of services. Clickz News reports that 'advertising online will nearly double by 2011 and broadband adoption will increase demand for video and rich media advertising':

"The major source of growth in the Internet area is from advertising budgets being moved from traditional to online media," said Karsten Weide, program director, Digital Marketplace: New Media and Entertainment at IDC. "At the biggest risk are newspapers and broadcast television; every single traditional media will lose revenue to online advertising."

I think the more we zap TV ads, the more important it becomes for brands to integrate products and services into the video programming and deliver an emotional outstanding experience for the audiences.

Video has become one of the strongest growing fields on the Web - Google Video Search recently gave its strategy a new direction towards a more comprehensive video search engine differentiating itself from YouTube incorporating more popular Web video sites.


Searchable sites include Yahoo! Video, MySpace, Vimeo, Veoh, AOL Video, Revver, Guba, YouTube, Google Video and more, which make it the most comprehensive video search engine providing best coverage far beyond 50% of the current free online video market making even fancy videos findable without swapping the search engine. Further expansions could include this list of video sites.

A frame on top of the page displaying the video search field including related items and the search result item page below represent the new item page.

With a current Web video market share of 45% 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 experiments with its embeddable player version displaying related videos. It might have the potential to increase the number of delivered web videos with several viral options at the end of the video.


As the market dynamics and content delivery systems change a user doesn't have to care about video standards any more, just upload a film and the website does the rest for one - Blogger in Draft recently got a new video upload feature. More:

• Current Business Models for Free Online Video
• Google Reader Supports Video Now
• Trendy: More Online Video Entertainment in 2007
• Web Widgets as a Distribution Channel for Advertising

Labels: advertising, branding, markets, trend

  ¶ 'Increasing Demand for Online Video and Rich Media Advertising' posted by eA : 4:05 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Web Widgets as a Distribution Channel for Advertising 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.

As the market dynamics and content delivery systems change Web widgets or gadgets, badges, modules, capsules, snippets, minis and flakes, embeddable chunks of code written in Adobe Flash or JavaScript represent an application of a third party with a destination target including social networks, blogs, wikis, personal homepages and even desktops have proven to be an excellent way to distribute the message to the end-user.

With Facebook's new strategy for further expansion focusing on distribution deals 'Facebook as an Open Platform' resulting in an explosive growth for both, the social network and the services benefiting from a word-of-mouth and of course ground-breaking networking technologies and disciplines setting a serious trend for the future, Web widgets as a very successful way to distribute the message to the end-user might be the end of the page view as a metric for measuring a site’s popularity.

comScore introduced a new report called comScore Widget Metrix:

'“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).'

Popular widget platforms include Widgetbox, Clearspring, GoodWidgets, I'm expecting more companies opening up their platform to optimize value, to broaden reach and to attract the attention of niche markets and markets that did not exist before.

Labels: advertising, markets, networking, web2.0, widgets

  ¶ 'Web Widgets as a Distribution Channel for Advertising' posted by eA : 11:35 AM  0 comments links to this post

  Germans Like Web 2.0 Sites and Wikipedia I've written already about YouTube and Wikipedia among top 5 now in global brand awareness and a brand the most valuable asset of a global company, now I'm looking at Web 2.0 sites on a local level.

According to Nielsen//NetRatings 54% (19.7 mio.) of the German online population have visited a Web 2.0 website in Feb/2007 with a growth rate of 32% compared to the year before. The booming online travel sites hold a reach of 53%.


Market share is dominated by by Internet giants like Wikipedia (33% in Germany),YouTube (13%) and MySpace (5%), but local sites like StudiVZ (Social Networking), Clipfish (Video), wer-weiss-was (Knowledge) and Knuddels (Flirting) are high potentials, too.

Web 2.0 features increase brand loyalty and customer retention, easy to use tools have a huge impact on the way people and companies interact in communications, digital media and business. Once connected to their friends it's unlikely to start from new and build another network on another platform.

eMarketer reports that 'consumers continue to flock to social network sites' and 'in 2011, marketers will spend an estimated $1.1 billion on social network advertising outside the US', compared to $95 mio. in 2006.

Characteristics of today's Web 2.0 architecture allow better communications and data exchange resulting in improved social networking technologies, service orientation and cinematic user interfaces based on AJAX and Flash complementing modern SOA's.

Labels: branding, markets, networking, web2.0

  ¶ 'Germans Like Web 2.0 Sites and Wikipedia' posted by eA : 10:27 AM  1 comments links to this post

  Top 5 European Travel Sites and the Long Tail After a quick look into the online travel industry and a quick summary of the German online travel market I'm looking at the European travel market. Europe has a total of 219 mio. European people online >= 15 years, a global broadband market share of ~31% (Eastern and Western Europe, PointTopic 2006) and a broadband penetration rate of ~14% (ECTA, broadband connections/population in Q10/06).

According to ComScore European travel sites experienced 108 mio. visitors in March 2007, a traffic plus of 6% compared to March 2006 spending 37 minutes browsing travel-related content online, where online travel agencies got 19 minutes on average, followed by airline sites (17 minutes) and hotel sites (15 minutes).

'Expedia Inc. led the European travel category with 18.5 million European unique visitors aged 15 and older during March. The second most-visited European travel site was ViaMichelin, with 13.5 million European unique visitors, followed by the TUI Group’s 12.5 million European unique visitors, then Lastminute.com sites with 9.8 million European unique visitors and Priceline.com Incorporated with 8.9 million European unique visitors.'

The main revenue still comes from commissions, but advertising generates a significant revenue stream, too. The European online travel market is predicted to experience a further double-digit growth during the coming years.

On a European level the UK represents a European market share of 32%, followed by France 23%, then Germany with 20%, Scandinavia with 10% and Spain with 5% in online leisure travel sales according to eMarketer. European online leisure/unmanaged business travel as a percentage of the total travel market will approach 25% in 2007 according to PhoCusWright.

'Planning and purchasing behavior is undergoing significant change, evidenced by travelers who are now taking control and finding/creating the perfect trip, not just the cheapest trip. Customers communicating with customers has triggered an unprecedented social networking phenomenon and a resurgence in the Long Tail economy.'

• eCommerce Fueled by Fast Broadband

Labels: ecommerce, europe, markets

  ¶ 'Top 5 European Travel Sites and the Long Tail' posted by eA : 3:25 PM  0 comments links to this post

  eCommerce Fueled by Fast Broadband Actually I discovered this trend already more than two years ago, but it's always a pleasure to publish good news. Current broadband statistics from the OECD show that 'the number of broadband subscribers in the OECD increased 26% from 157 million in December 2005 to 197 million in December 2006', ergo there must also have been substantial growth in online sales.

An actual study from Forrester published by Yahoo! shows that in the US 'E-commerce is moving "full steam ahead" and is years away from saturation, with double-digit growth expected for several years'.

Unfortunately an other study published by CNET reports that 'sites that sell movies and TV shows such as Apple's iTunes will likely peak this year and then lose popularity as more content becomes available on free outlets supported by ads', eMarketer reports that 'between 2007 and 2011, US ad spending on social networks is expected to increase 180%, to $2.5 billion'.

Participating in a social network centered on user-generated content has become one of the most exiting trends today. No matter wether sites like MySpace or Facebook, targeted niche sites or video sites, 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.

In brief: further double digit growth for retail sales, but maturing in the US, content sales go down, ad spending on social networks up!

• Google's Integrated Checkout Strategy
• Quick Look into the Online Travel Industry

Labels: ecommerce, markets

  ¶ 'eCommerce Fueled by Fast Broadband' posted by eA : 9:33 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Booming German Online Travel Market After a Quick Look into the Online Travel Industry on a global level here a quick summary of the German online travel market. With more than 40 mio. people online, a share of 59% of broadband connections and with an average of more than 30 vacation days per year Germany has excellent premises for further growth.

According to the annual trend study Web-Tourismus 2007 presenting the state of the eCommerce in on-line tourism (leisure trips) in Germany, Germans love to travel and it turns out that further growth will mainly come from online-sales and the online-distribution channel has won and will win further market share from offline channels over the next few years.

'The whole branch achieved 40.57 bn. euros (2006) in the same period and shone once more with a growth, which was based almost without exception on the Internet tourism. Compared with 2005 the gained on-line turnovers grew about 36%.'

'The good development once more was driven by the web-sales of flights. Furthermore, tour operators had a tremendous on-line growth in sales - with a growth of almost 54% compared to 2005.'

The forecasts into 2009 are positive as well, 2007 43.38 bn. Euros and 2008 45.47 bn. Euros driven by online sales.

On a European level the UK represents a European market share of 32%, followed by France 23% and then Germany with 20% in online leisure travel sales according to eMarketer.

Interesting is that due to longer established supplier brands Germans and French prefer to book directly at online travel suppliers including low-cost airline online bookings while the other citizens prefer online travel agencies.

• Brand the most Valuable Asset of a Global Company

As of PhoCusWright the top 5 European online travel agencies are lastminute.com, Expedia, ebookers, Opodo and Travelocity representing 60% of the entire online travel agency market in Europe.

Tour operators such as TUI, Thomas Cook, MyTravel and Rewe are challenged by the low-cost carriers and online travel agencies offering dynamic packaging.

Labels: ecommerce, europe, markets

  ¶ 'Booming German Online Travel Market' posted by eA : 7:11 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

  Second Life Casinos in the Headlines According to eCOGRA people say 'the best things about Internet gambling are ‘convenience and accessibility’ and ‘fun and excitement’, while ‘losing’ and ‘financial implications’ came top of the worst things.'

• Betting and Gambling Safe Online with eCOGRA

According to Reuters it seems like 'wannabe casino-style operators' have invaded SL and attracted the attention of the FBI probing Second Life gambling casinos. From Reuters:

'Hundreds of casinos offering poker, slot machines and blackjack can be found in Second Life.'

• In legal limbo, Second Life poker rakes in profits
• FBI probes Second Life gambling

Immersive environments like Second Life create an even more exciting 3D experience and people are using them as a platform to meet, communicate and shop, to participate in virtual 3D events and to conduct gambling on a level of interaction they have never experienced before.

• Second Life
• Areae
• There

Labels: 3D, entertainment, markets

  ¶ 'Second Life Casinos in the Headlines' posted by eA : 7:24 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Quick Look at the Q4 2006 American CSI, eCommerce Sector The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) is a highly respected economic indicator developed to show how satisfied consumers are with products and services. For the sector eCommerce, that contains the following industries: auctions, brokerage, retail, travel it's released once a year in February. Here some excerpts from Q4 2006:

'The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) continues its upward climb. For the fourth quarter of 2006, the Index reaches a new record high of 74.9 - an improvement of 0.7% over the previous quarter.'

'American consumers continue to spend money as if there is no tomorrow.'

'Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com continue to be among the highest scoring companies in the ACSI, regardless of industry, at 87 and 88 respectively.'

'eBay continues to lead among auction websites, although the company drops (insignificantly) this quarter, down 1% to 80.'

'Brokerage is up 3% from a year ago to 78.'

'Travel websites lose ground this quarter, dropping 1% to 76.'

Q4 2004:

• Dramatical Fall of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI)

Labels: ecommerce, markets, trend

  ¶ 'Quick Look at the Q4 2006 American CSI, eCommerce Sector' posted by eA : 10:19 PM  0 comments links to this post

  Continued Growth in UK eCommerce Markets, Ikea's Coming Running eCommerce operations in Germany, Sweden, France and the US, Ikea quietly added a checkout to it's UK website for the instant restricted to certain shipping areas and entered the newly released Top 50 list of UK online retailers. From InternetRetailing:

1. Amazon UK
2. Argos
3. Tesco.com
4. Play.com
5. easyJet
6. Expedia.co.uk
7. Amazon.com
8. Thomson Holidays
9. British Airways
10. Apple Computer
...
49. Ikea

Nothing new in the top rank..., more than 50% are existing bricks-and-mortar retailers, half of the UK top 50 companies sell travel and tickets to their audience.

Labels: bizdev, ecommerce, europe, markets, uk

  ¶ 'Continued Growth in UK eCommerce Markets, Ikea's Coming' posted by eA : 8:28 PM  0 comments links to this post

  New Deal: Berlin in 3D on Google Earth After the Bavarian State Library and participating publishers announced to cooperate with Google to digitize copyright-(free) books and make them available through Google book search it's now Germany's capital Berlin to make a 3D model available to the global audience on Google Earth.

For the instance it can be seen via this link (requires Google Earth) or as a wmv video (Windows Media Player).

From Berlin 3D:

'The model consists of some 44,000 buildings in the centre of Berlin shown in rudimentary detail (level of detail - LOD - 1). Of these, about 500 particularly significant buildings have been assigned photos of their respective façades.'

From Google Earth Blog:

'Buildings that are further away automatically disappear (so they don't use too much memory, and so you see more detail when you are closer to the buildings).'

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.

• Web Vision of a World in 3D

Labels: 3D, markets, visualization

  ¶ 'New Deal: Berlin in 3D on Google Earth' posted by eA : 7:40 PM  1 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

  YouTube's Rewarding Creativity soon The new Me-, My-, You-sites give control to the user and benefit from a word-of-mouth spreading through blogs and social networking resulting in an explosive growth. Competition has now generated new models to capitalize on knowledge and popularity: Sharing (ad)revenue.

As the BBC reports:

'YouTube founder Chad Hurley confirmed to the BBC that his team was working on a revenue-sharing mechanism that would "reward creativity".'

Shaping a business model based on the idea of a community means to balance the divergent interests of users, artists, the entertainment industry and technology.

• Current Business Models for Free Online Video
• Trendspotting Media Transformation

I think that sharing (ad)revenue is a good way to keep communities going. Producing a good video as well as a good site means a lot of work and should be honored.

To take advantage of the business opportunities in media and entertainment industries 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.

Labels: lifestyle, markets, trend, youtube

  ¶ 'YouTube's Rewarding Creativity soon' posted by eA : 9:30 AM  0 comments links to this post

  Fascination of Immersive 3D Experiences Immersing oneself in scuba diving is not only a passion or a lifestyle, it's a great opportunity for self improvement, to meet a lot of great people, to share that experience with others and to help to preserve that experience for the future.

Immersing oneself in virtual worlds to explore new places and opportunities is an exiting new trend and engagement that may represent the next steps in the evolution of the Internet complementing that of ubiquitous computing.

• 3D Panoramic Spheres in Google Earth
• Web Vision of a World in 3D
• Online Multiplayer Games - Expanding the Market

Currently there is about 12 mio people who participate in and with MMOG's regularly, every second is involved in WOW and assuming that an average player is about 30 years old and spends more than 20 h a week participating in his favorite experience immersive 3D experiences represent attractive new business opportunities.

Why I'm fascinated? Because I like diving...

When I started scuba diving more then 10 years ago I remember my motivation was to explore new places and experience a different world with new colors, shapes, textures and creatures in clear, tropical water staying underwater for periods of time greater than human breath-holding ability allows. I followed several PADI courses and 100 dives later I passed the instructor level with the leading organization Euro Divers Worldwide.

Labels: 3D, entertainment, lifestyle, markets, visualization

  ¶ 'Fascination of Immersive 3D Experiences' posted by eA : 4:50 PM  0 comments links to this post

  TnT 2.0 - Exploiting the Limits of Traditional Media Exploiting the limits of traditional media hot, trendy and ground-breaking technologies, disciplines and platforms let information structure emerge instead of imposing structure, filter, sort and prioritize the information (flood) and set a serious trend for the future.


Light-weight collaboration techniques, user-suggested tags, bottoms-up approach are just a few expressions to name in a 2.0 context.

• Innovation Counts: Social YoUser Networks on Top o...
• Design and YoUser-centric Innovation
• Social YoUser Models in 2007

Labels: markets, strategy, tnt, web2.0

  ¶ 'TnT 2.0 - Exploiting the Limits of Traditional Media' posted by eA : 2:50 PM  0 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

  What Users Motivates to Engage Online In today's attention economy where infinite media choices offer numerous products and services to a limited amount of users it's even more important to deliver an outstanding experience to a coveted, but limited audience.

Experience showed that there are certain points that drive a rich online user experience. To become a rich online user experience, a product or service must address a user's interactive demand to connect with other people, to be as compelling to be worth to be memorized and shared, to extend one's horizon to make better decisions and to become smarter or to improve one's digital lifestyle and to look out for people with same interests.

Directing the creation of marketing tools, steering the execution of marketing and technology programs and successfully driving growth in targeted markets through implementation of key projects becomes more and more challenging as understanding rich user experiences is critical to success.

• Dedication and Competitive Drive Required
• Sketching Early Stage Designs with AJAX
• Ruby on Rails with TnT 2.0

Labels: markets, networking

  ¶ 'What Users Motivates to Engage Online' posted by eA : 12:45 AM  0 comments links to this post