“The era of social commerce. Starting about two years from now, as social networks become the repository for identities and relationships, they will become more powerful than corporate Websites and CRM systems. Communities will become the driving force for innovation. As a result, brands will cater to communities, resulting in a power shift toward the connected customer.”
— Research Recap » Blog Archive » Social Networks Transforming Marketing, eCommerce
April 29, 2009, 11:32am
“Weinschenk touched on three interesting principles. I’ll begin with the last since it’s the most exciting: the principle of social validation. If a user is uncertain about a decision, he or she will look to other people. Specifically, consumers trust peers over expert reviews or recommender systems. We, as web marketers, can apply this principle in smart application design and social media. Find and promote the community around a product and include credible reviews. Another principle is related to decision making and the number of choices presented. Users may say they want many choices, but the research presented in the book actually proves that the fewer the choices, the more likely a person will click — or better yet, purchase. Too many choices cause the user to freeze and make no choice at all. The third principle presented was the fear of loss. It’s better to begin with all options and then allow the user to subtract. The fear of loss principle means that users are reluctant to remove options and more likely to purchase a product with premium options if that is what is first presented. An example of this principle in play is on Dell’s website. Products begin with more expensive options and the user can subtract these for a less expensive end product.”
— The Neuro Science Behind What Makes Us Want (Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic)
April 09, 2009, 11:41am
Does anyone know the answer to this question?
My gut: Online advertising is more effective at certain things (i.e. driving actual purchase) while television advertising is typically more effective at other things (i.e. driving brand affinity).
Our hope is that online video offers a perfect hybrid of these two, and is ultimately evaluated on both scores. There’s a battle on right now, though, to measure online video as a direct response vehicle. That is, after all, the way most of the rest of the Internet is evaluated. It’s also exactly the wrong way to evaluate online video.
We’re trying to counteract this trend by supporting a new suite of measurement tools for online video that emphasize engagement, brand affinity, brand loyalty and purchase intent.
The following sounds like the next generation of e-commerce and something I truly believe in:
We’re trying to counteract this trend by supporting a new suite of measurement tools for online video that emphasize engagement, brand affinity, brand loyalty and purchase intent.
March 27, 2009, 11:02am
Today we are launching Start@Spark, a new initiative focused on seed stage investments in the New York and Boston areas. - Why are we doing this?
Spark Capital is introducing a new way to start a company in the Northeast.
I’m extremely impressed by a few areas of the announcement and also the detail provided on their About page.
1. Timely turnaround in three weeks. It’s clear that Spark values your time and similarly, entrepreneurs value theirs.
2. Leading legal counsel and open deal structure. Having solid legal advice is something most early-stage companies overlook (not because the advice isn’t valued, but rather, it may not be a top priority to building/shipping your product). In addition, Spark allows other investors to participate in the seed round.
3. Structure of investment. I was surprised to see that Spark was offering the investment in a convertible loan, where the loan will later convert to equity in the event of the company’s next round of financing. The issue of valuation or “pegging a company’s valuation” is relatively moot with this format.
Overall, this is a great step for innovation in the Northeast. Congratulations Spark!
March 25, 2009, 2:08pm
Short post today as I am on BlackBerry only and headed to Hacking Education. I just have a simple question - where is eBay? This crisis ought to be fantastic for eBay as folks are looking to unload stuff they don’t need and buy things for cheap at auction. Instead the WSJ today has one article about women selling their old clothes out of their closets and another about Amazon opening a game trading business. No mention of eBay in either article as even being a possible alternative (Craigslist mentioned in the article on clothes). Or take the ongoing coverage of the auto industry. Cars are piling up unsold not by the hundreds but by the thousands. Again no mention of eBay. They should be all over this, helping move cars through auctions before they rot into the ground. If they can’t get their marketplace strategy right, at a minimum eBay should be doing a much better job at PR.
Well said and something I’ve been thinking about for a while now. I briefly talked about their CEO and CFO expectations while I was at the Goldman Sachs Internet and Technology conference last week, but this is an area where I believe they are under-performing and there is a NEED for a channel of sorts in today’s market.
Albert, I’d love to show you what I’m working on that specifically addresses your post. Let’s connect since you’re right around the corner from me.
March 06, 2009, 12:58pm
Phew. That’s my first breath I’ve taken since I landed back in New York City on Tuesday morning at 3AM EST. For nearly a week, I was in San Francisco for the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference 2009 and other meetings throughout the Bay Area. You can take a look at the agenda [PDF] on their site (although it was nearly impossible to find online without an invitation to the conference - which, fortunately, I received).
I’m going to take more of a 50k foot Jason Calacanis approach to this piece, as there’s been a lot on my mind since setting foot back on the East Coast. In no particular order:
March 05, 2009, 11:45am
“Hunting for a bargain may be rooted in the American shopping experience, but haggling is not. Now that even big department stores such as Nordstrom will listen to customers trying to cut a deal, however, haggling is becoming more accepted, at least for as long as the recession grinds on.”
—
The rise of haggling | Let’s make a deal | The Economist
It’s an exciting time to be watching the face of shopping channels and means change during these times. The Economist highlights the potential of haggling (as I wrote about a few days back via a piece in The New York Times).
Flash back three years to this article on tuangou from The Economist and you can see the potential power that can be placed in the heart of the consumer.
February 06, 2009, 10:58am
“The saleswoman, tall, slim, a little hungry in the eyes, said it was not, but that she could give me the same 20 percent “to the trade” discount that she extends to decorators and architects. That brought the price to $5,158 before tax. At this point, I took a breath and steeled myself for something I had never tried before, or even thought to try, in a high-end furniture store: haggling.”
—
Haggling for Furniture at New York’s High-End Showrooms - NYTimes.com
As I briefly wrote about on Saturday, there’s a movement occurring online and offline (increasingly offline) to get a better price on various products - particularly in a difficult economy like we are in now. However, it’s not as widely knows as it should be.
The NYT offers an interesting perspective into haggling within the furniture setting here in Manhattan, a movement that has taken a while to catch on here in the US, but it’s certainly starting to come full circle. We’re looking toward the Asian cultures around the idea of tuangou, collective purchasing power transgressed in the US.
February 02, 2009, 11:19am
“So Web startups are having to do the unthinkable: come up with a business model that brings in real money while they’re still young.”
—
The Economics of Giving It Away - WSJ.com
Interesting piece from Chris Anderson today on WSJ on the aspect of the “free” biz model. The quote above sparked my interest to write a side comment to his theory that startups must look at models that make money or at least be cash-flow positive at the onset of opening. Something that we (currently undisclosed) have been poking around at is the network effect of free, such as the waterfall consequence of connecting interested parties that can eventually convert to a sale. More to come….
January 31, 2009, 2:55pm
The last time I put my head down to write was on September 16 - a day that in many ways changed my outlook. I’ve spent the last four months involved in something I consider a revolution, radical innovation and passion that (I think - in some shape or form) matters to everyone. The project should be launched in the next month, but until then I wanted to share a reply to an email I drafted this afternoon that represents portions of the project’s operating tenets.
Business Model Changes: It’s changed and has changed for quite some time. Granted that the WSJ published a piece on the power of Web 2.0 marketing yesterday from a few college professors who contributed, it exemplifies the reality that even the bigger players in the game are coming to the party late. (Side note: If you read the comments on that article, it’s quite an interesting perspective the readers offer around the WSJ brand and new media. “5 or 6 years late,” one commenter wrote.) Media companies, for this example’s sake, are losing market share to the people – the people who read/watched/listened to their content for the last few decades. The effectiveness of the linear news distribution model crumbled after Web technologies started to become ubiquitous in developed countries. What happened? The big guys are going under (NYT, WSJ) or have already drowned (Chicago Tribune). I don’t think it’ the business model that needs to change, rather it’s the companies and industries themselves that need to reinvent their DNA while learning from the past, listening to the present and applying it to the future.
Consumer-Centric Approach: We can’t succeed in a down economy by banking on either advertising over PR or PR over advertising. It’s a marriage of both, as IBM’s Beyond Advertising study found. But something I didn’t see and truly believe is the power of grassroots organized ambassadorship. The giants of the past business game always operated on a two-dimensional, symmetrical scale around tall and flat organizational design schemes; today, the agile businesses are running in a three dimensional and asymmetrical scale – in many ways, a very controlled core set of values that spreads through their potentially interested or passionate consumers to deliver the desired message.
Learned DNA + Asymmetrical Scale = New Reality. I’m looking forward to starting it with you in the coming weeks.
December 17, 2008, 6:26pm
