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Your complete source for eCommerce news
June 2009 - Posts
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Microsoft’s new search engine is called Bing. It launched on June 3, 2009 and observers have already described it as a dramatic improvement over Microsoft’s previous search engine efforts. Most every ecommerce merchant relies on search engines, and many of them, we suspect, will be interested to learn how Bing affects their businesses. Dave Wascha, Microsoft’s Senior Director of Bing Shopping, joins Practical eCommerce's Kerry Murdock to discuss it all.
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Starting tonight when you click the Following and Followers links from your Twitter account you'll notice some major changes. Twitter has upgraded some of the design of the pages and added multiple new features.
What do you think of the new design and features? Tell us.
When you click on Following you'll notice a new pull-down menu which includes several options which include: @ message, unfollow them or send them a direct message. Below is an example of the new Following page in the new expanded view...
In addition those new features, When you click on Followers, Twitter now shows you a check mark beside the people who are reciprocally following you. Like with the page I mentioned above you can @ message, direct message, follow (if your not doing so already) and the option to block. Below is an example of the new Followers page with the list view...
It should be noted that these features aren't just available on your profile, but on any profile you visit.
Don't worry, if your not a fan of the new expanded view (not sure why you wouldn't be) you can always choose the list view which is very similar to the former layout.
Below is a snippet from the official Twitter blog about the upgrade...
"Instead of a basic list, there are now actions you can perform that provide a better overall experience. For example, you can turn on SMS, unfollow, mention, block, direct message, and more."
With these new changes and updates you'll be able to expand your follower count with minimal effort, now if we could only get Twitter to add a Re-Tweet feature.
What are your thoughts on the new changes? Tell us.
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 The state of legal requirements and protections concerning the accessibility of websites is far from uniform. Many countries have some form of web accessibility laws in place, but the extent of those laws is radically variable. Furthermore, as many websites serve multiple countries, the question of jurisdiction can become a tricky aspect of accessibility law.
It's well beyond the scope of this article to discuss the exact limits of web accessibility law around the globe, but I do aim to discuss the ramifications and philosophies of these laws for your web-based business.
Accessibility Law in the United States
In the United States, there are no laws binding business to conform to any level of website accessibility. Many government an...
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Apple was the top hardware manufacturer site in May 2009, with 55.7 million unique visitors and an average time spent per person of 1 hour and 14 minutes, according to a new report from Nielsen Online.
Excitement surrounding the new iPhone 3GS sent blog mentions up 1,226 percent week-over-week on June 8, the day of the announcement. After the initial announcement, buzz dipped but picked up again after the phone became available on June 19, with blog mentions more than doubling compared to the prior week.
More than a third (37%) of online U.S. adults own a game console, while 10 percent plan on purchasing a new console in the next 12 months.
Game console brands also proved popular online destinations in May. Among game console brands, Nintendo had the largest unique audience with 2.2 million, while Sony Computers Entertainment was the fastest growing, increasing 16 percent year-over-year.
Among the current game consoles, Nintendo Wii was the most popular console owned by online adults, with 14.3 percent. Playstation 2 continues to be the top console owned, despite being an older console, with 17.3 percent of online adults in possession of one.
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What would you say if a company asked you if you’d like to have all of your home, work and cell phone calls, all your text messages, all your conference calls, all your voicemail -- pretty much anything you say or type into a phone -- ALL of it -- go thru their 3rd party service? You, like me, would probably say; Thanks but no thanks.
But wait. What if they were going to give you a bunch of really cool features and capabilities in the process? For free? Oh, and what if the company were Google? Now you might be saying; Oh yeah? Well... what kind of cool features? I would.
Are you Interested in Google Voice? Let us know in the comments.
Google Voice is the new ‘Coolest Thing Ever’ coming out of Google. Basically, what they are doing is allowing you to centralize your multiple phone numbers (work/home/cell etc). In the process they have come up with all kinds of handy tools and features that give endusers more control over their telecom than they have ever had before.
Essentially, here’s how it goes down. You get a new Google assigned phone number. Then, you route all of your other phone numbers thru that number. So, your office phone, your work phone, your home phone - whatever. Google voice will allow your calls to selectively ring thru to any of the destination handsets you choose. It really is a handy idea in concept.
Beyond that, Voice adds all kinds of cool little bonus features for example:
- You can selectively ring calls thru to multiple destinations.
- You can selectively block and screen calls
- You can send, receive forward and store SMS text messages
- Check your voicemail online, read it via email or text (you can even forward it)
- You can create personalized voicemail messages per contact
- You can group your contacts and manage their preferences on a group level
- Conference calling, call recording, call switching, 411 info -- all that kind of thing is in there.
 Now, rephrase my original question and substitute Google for ‘a company’. Do you still flatly refuse? I’m thinking a lot of people will just say “Oh, it’s Google” and after that, “Well sure, that sounds fantastic! Wow. Man, Google is cool aren’t they?” So, my question is: why is that?
Yes, Google Voice is cool. Yes, I have signed up. Yes, I realize using it means everything I use it for becomes more data for Google to ‘organize’. But I might do it anyway and I won’t be alone.
The way I see it, Google Voice users will be made up of three groups of people:
Group 1: Realize how much data the service gives Google access to, but trusts Google enough that it isn’t a concern. These folks also elected Obama and only eat tuna clearly labeled dolphin safe.
Group 2: Realize the data issue but don’t care, because they realize their ‘data’ is all over the place anyway - Google might as well have some (more) too. These are also the people who told their classmates about Santa in the 3rd grade.
Group 3: No idea or thought paid to the matter of their data and who sees it. This the reality TV set. As long as the Bachelorette is still on Monday night... they’re good to go.
Add those guys up and Google Voice will do just fine. Even some of the people that refuse to use over privacy issues will trickle in after a while. Peer pressure and the whole, ‘man I wish my phone did that’ factor is not to be lightly discounted (just ask Apple).
Google Voice does lots of neat stuff... Sure you give up a little in the way of data privacy, but hey... selective call block? How cool is that? I can go to the lake and have my office line ring to my cell? Well that certainly has it’s practical applications. We are, most of us, used to trading a little bad for a little good. So what’s it going to be for you? Are you Pro or Con on the Google Voice thing? If you are, which of my groups do you fit into, or are you a group unto your own? 
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LinkedIn Founder Reid Hoffman is featured in a video from Nokia's IdeasProject.com. He talks about new products being created from the social data that is available on the Internet.
Ideas Project was designed to bring together influential "big thinkers" to contemplate the ideas that matter most to the future of communications. "It is a new kind of conversation platform aimed at uncovering the connections between these thought leaders and their disruptive ideas," Nokia says in a release.
Hoffman certainly knows a thing or two about social data. LinkedIn is an incredibly successful social network focused on business networking.
"Once you have all these piles of data, people will build products out of the synthesis of this information," explains Hoffman. "I think the Web 2.0 platform concerning actual identities and relationships is really just at the beginning stages of its growth--we're not close to even the midpoint of this development."
"As the founder of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman redefined online professional networking, making a seminal contribution to the rise of social media," says Valerie Buckingham, Director of Technology Marketing, Nokia. "Now Hoffman is once again setting his sites on the future, exploring how companies will use the growing base of online social networking information as a foundation for business innovation."
Ideas Project also features ideas from Robert Scoble, Jeff Jarvis, and a number of other influential thought leaders. What do you think of the project? 
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It may have taken the Yahoo property a little while, but Flickr's now fully embracing Twitter. Today, a "Flickr 2 Twitter" feature launched, and Flickr also committed itself to keeping and updating a Twitter account.
Let's start with the Flickr 2 Twitter development. As a Flickr representative explained in an email to WebProNews, Flickr 2 Twitter is "a new way for Flickr members to easily post images to Twitter."
The representative then provided some instructions, continuing, "To use Flickr 2 Twitter, members need to first authorize Flickr to post to their Twitter accounts. Once authorized, members will be able to tweet photos from the 'Blog This' button on their photo page or from their mobile devices. Mobile uploading is possible once members enable their Upload by Email settings (unique Flickr email upload address + '2twitter')."
The sort of tweet that will result can be seen below. Insert your own "worth 1,000 words vs. 140 characters" joke here.
Then there's the matter of Flickr's new Twitter account, which as you might have guessed, is @Flickr. Although its first tweet appeared on the 17th, Flickr only officially committed to the account today. 
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New subscribers to an email list generally have a higher interest level in the beginning, and therefore a higher tolerance for frequent communication. It is important to take advantage of this phenomenon by carefully designing and optimizing the new subscriber experience. Waiting for your regularly scheduled newsletter may be too long. Start communicating right away by sending a welcome message. Then, send a follow-up message the day after they sign up, and another message shortly thereafter.
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Facebook has begun offering keyword suggestions for it's ads. This could go a long way to help advertisers better target Facebook users.
When a user goes to create an ad on Facebook, they begin the process by designing the ad. Here they select the landing page, the ad copy, and an optional image. Then they are presented with the targeting section, which now features the keyword suggestions.
The feature was noticed by All Facebook's Nick O'Neill, who stumbled upon it while testing features of the Facebook advertising system. "While it may not appear to be a big deal, this feature could help significantly increase revenue as each advertisement ends up with a broader reach," says O'Neill.
That's a good point. It could be not only be good for advertisers, but Facebook as well. It could give Facebook advertising more weight and get more advertisers on board as a result. Add that to a possible web-wide Facebook payment platform, and Facebook might be able to make some good money.
The keywords are based on information users list in their profiles like activities, favorite books, tv shows, movies, etc. It can be hard to know what people are listing, so the suggestions could be quite useful.
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paidContent has two pieces of good news for Hulu in the past week—they’re commanding not only similar ad prices to broadcast television, but also 10% of the online video ad market.
From a Bloomberg report, paidContent shows that, for some shows, CPMs on Hulu are actually greater than they are for broadcast TV. And when I say broadcast TV, we’re talking primetime, new episode, time-slot-leading network television. (None of that cable syndicated rerun stuff!) Bloomberg’s example:
Marketers typically pay $20 to $40 per thousand viewers for a prime-time ad. On Hulu, which began offering shows to the public in March 2008, an ad on the animated series “The Simpsons” costs $60 per thousand viewers, Michael Nathanson, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. wrote in a June 18 report.
How can the Internet, with demonstrably fewer viewers (another example, the NCAA basketball championship game, drew 17.6M TV viewers and 7.52 Internet viewers), command such high CPMs?
A couple factors: first, that the Internet is so measurable. As CBS’s chief research officer put it:
“The reason people are paying such a high premium for these ads on the Internet is they do have a captive audience,” Poltrack said. “You know you have eyes on the screen.”
Plus, Bloomberg says, there’s an extremely scarce inventory. A typical Simpsons episode on Hulu carries only 37 seconds of advertising, versus nine minutes on television. But that also means that their overall revenues per-episode are far lower, even with more dedicated viewers. Many analysts and networks worry about television companies “cannibalizing their core business.” But maybe their core business should be shifting online.
Justifying those high CPMs, Hulu commands 10% of the online video advertising market place. Hulu is a distant third in online video viewership, after Google’s properties and Fox’s properties (including MySpace and Fox News). They have only 2.4% of the overall video market and 2.3% of the Internet’s total unique video viewers. So 10% of the online video ad market is pretty impressive.
Screen Digest’s report states that broadcasters direct control 44% of the ad market, while cable operators command 22%. “Other” controls 15% of the market, Hulu 10%, and portals 9%.
Let’s look at that again—Hulu is the only website singled out there. It commands 10% of the market by itself, while the rest of the categories listed are just that—entire categories of sites.
So where does YouTube fall in there? Screen Digest says:
In contrast, third party platforms such as YouTube, Joost and other portals, which have no direct vertical affiliation with major rights holders, nor direct access to premium content rights, will struggle to aggregate ad-supported movies and TV shows. The Hollywood Studios and major rights holders will continue to limit such deals, instead preferring to build their own syndicated ad-supported online video services – such as Crackle, developed by Sony Pictures, and the CBS Audience Network.
What do you think? Is the Internet, specifically Hulu, the future of television and video advertising? Will YouTube ever be able to catch up to Hulu in terms of monetization?
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 (UPDATED) News began to trickle out in the wee hours this morning that The Pirate Bay has been sold to Global Gaming Factory X AB for $4 US million in cash plus an equal amount in stock. GGF develops gaming software and operates internet cafes and gaming centers in Scandinavia. Details are vague, but the original team will still stay involved and promise to keep the site much the same.
Ownership of the Pirate Bay had been transferred away from the individuals being sued in 2006 according to an interview (translation via Techdirt) with co-founder Peter Sunde conducted on Twitter. Neither Sunde or his fellow pirates are the beneficiaries of the sale according to a PirateBay blog post, but rather "into a foundation that is going to help with projects about freedom of speech, freedom of information and the openness of the nets."
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Those tiring of the growing restrictions put by rightsholders on video on You Tube and elsewhere may eventually find a home at The Video Bay. Currently in "beta extreme", the site is the latest brainchild of the folks behind the Pirate Bay; and if their mounting problems in Swedish courts weren't already enough, this is sure to add to their legal bills.
"Both Live And Drunk Coding"
"Don't expect anything to work at all". reads the simple front page, and a test drive shows that almost nothing does. But the plans are ambitious.
"To stay in the spirit on which TPB was founded and using the Latest Technology™, TVB aims to use the new HTML5 features, more specificly the <video> and <audio> tags with the ogg/theora video and audio formats. This site will be an experimental playground and as such subjected to both live and drunk (en)coding, so please don't bug us too much if the site ain't working properly."
One audio and one video demo are up on the site, but to view any audio or video clips on the site you need a browser that can handle the HTML5 <video> and/or <audio> tag including:
- Firefox 3.5 beta 4
- Opera 9.52 preview
- Google Chrome 3
- Safari 3.4 & Safari 4
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 Microsoft launched Bing, its new search engine, on June 3, 2009. The company is heavily promoting it in hopes of gaining ground on Google, the industry leader. Bing's revenue comes from pay-per-click advertising, which many smaller ecommerce firms utilize.
We asked a leading pay-per-click management firm, The Search Agency, what sort of initial results it has seen on behalf of its clients who advertise on Bing. Frank Lee is senior vice president of client services for The Search Agency.
PeC: The Search Agency has placed pay-per-click client ads on Bing. Could you tell us about the size of the advertising there?
Lee: "We manage over 100 million keywords on behalf of our clients across all the major search engines. We have about 50 c...
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