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| Shoptiques Lets You Shop Boutiques Like a Local | | Friday, March 30, 2012 11:48 PM | Lauren Indvik |
|  The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. Name: Shoptiques Quick Pitch: Shop local boutiques online. Genius Idea: Brings an offline industry online; lets you shop by neighborhood. It all began with Paris and a shoe. While shopping in France's capital four years ago, Olga Vidisheva stumbled across what she describes as a "tiny, one-location wonder boutique with the friendliest, most stylish owner." There, she found a pair of suede sandals unlike anything she'd ever come across in a department store, which she promptly purchased and packed into her suitcase home. Vidisheva says she has wanted to go back to that boutique ever since, but has never been able to. Since that time, she's discovered some fantastic boutiques stateside, picked up a MBA from Harvard Business School and is now on a mission to make the experience of browsing and buying from boutiques available to everyone everywhere through her newly launched site, Shoptiques. The sites lets you buy clothing and accessories from 50 boutiques with one flat shipping and return fee. Shoptiques isn't the first business that's attempted to bring the boutique industry online. London-based Farfetch.com, which raised $18 million in January, has made the inventories of some 200 boutiques available for online purchase. Backend solutions like Shopify have also made it easier for small businesses to set up storefronts on the web. So what makes Shoptiques different? The biggest differentiator is product. Farfetch focuses on upmarket brands and products with pricetags not infrequently in the high hundreds and low thousands. Brands aren't a focus on Shoptiques, and products are priced between $50 and $300. Shoptiques also invites you to shop differently: that is, like a local. Shops are organized by neighborhood, so you can pull up all the inventory from Brooklyn, for instance, or West Hollywood. From there, you can filter by color, price, size and style. You also have the option to browse across cities by category, just like any other apparel retail site. Shoptiques is a recent alum of Y Combinator's accelerator program and has raised an initial seed round from Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock Partners, Benchmark Capital, General Catalyst and SV Angel, among others. The startup takes a "healthy cut" of each sale made on the site, Vidisheva tell us. Everything sold online is brought in and photographed by Shoptiques. Once a sale is made, the boutique is responsible for shipping it to the customer and keeping track of remaining inventory. Inventory and sales growth are top priorities for Shoptiques going forward, as are further curation and personalization features, Vidisheva says. "If your style is classic, and mine is edgy, we should experience the site in a different way," Vidisheva says of Shoptiques's plans for personalization. "Perhaps we'll start shoppers with a quiz, recommend that they follow a few boutiques and go from there." Mobile is also on the roadmap, with an emphasis on bridging the online and offline shopping experience. "We want to become a destination for boutique living and shoping," Vidisheva explains. "If you're on the streets of Nolita, we want to tell you which boutiques near you have stuff. We really see our boutiques as partners, and we want to drive traffic to their offline stores as well. We benefit because they'll be in business a long time, and we want to work with them for a long time." All that's very promising, but we still feel one element is missing from the shopping experience: the interaction with that friendly, stylish boutique owner Vidisheva met in Paris. Phone numbers for each of the boutiques are provided on the site so that shoppers can ring when they have a question about styling or fit. But we'd love to be able to jump in a video or even an SMS chat with boutique workers while we were shopping, or see how a particular piece has been styled on a store mannequin. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Alija Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark
The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today. |
| How to Enchant Your Audience With Social Media [VIDEO] | | Friday, March 30, 2012 8:47 PM | Mashable Video |
|  Guy Kawasaki is arguably one of the most recognized names in social media. He is a former Apple evangelist and currently a best-selling author, angel investor and entrepreneur. Behind the Brand host Bryan Elliott talked with Kawasaki about his latest book Enchantment, in which he describes how businesses should "enchant" their customers to achieve their goals. Kawasaki said it's about more than gaining people's dollars. "You have to gain people's hearts, minds and actions." "The three things you need to have to enchant people are likability, trustworthiness, and a great product," said Kawasaki. Kawasaki also said that if businesses are enchanting, the customers will come. He advises to pursue customers before worrying about big-name coverage. "I believe nobodies are the new somebodies. If you get enough nobodies to embrace, use and love your product, then the A list has to notice," he said. Kawasaki hopes his book is helpful to people -- as helpful as How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnagie. He said his dream "enchanting" project would be working for Google helping bring people over to Google+. Take a look at the video and tell us what you think in the comments. You can also tweet at @BryanElliott with any questions. More Recent Episodes of Behind the Brand: How to Defeat the Social Media Skeptics in Your Company How Brands Are Tackling Social Issues With Social Media/a> How Ford Put its Social Marketing Strategy Into Overdrive/a> |
| Keith Olbermann Takes to Twitter After CurrentTV Departure | | Friday, March 30, 2012 7:09 PM | Stephanie Haberman |
|  Keith Olbermann's latest fallout with his employer is playing out all over social media. The news came out Friday afternoon that Olbermann has been replaced at Current TV by former NY Governor Eliot Spitzer. Olbermann tweeted his full statement before posting it to Twitlonger. In an open letter to viewers on Current TV's website, founders Al Gore and Joel Hyatt wrote that Current was founded "on the values of respect, openness, collegiality, and loyalty to our viewers. Unfortunately these values are no longer reflected in our relationship with Keith Olbermann and we have ended it." Olbermann responded that the "claims against me implied in Current's statement are untrue & will be proved so in legal actions I will be filing against them" In Olbermann's place, "Viewpoint with Eliot Spitzer" is launching Friday at 8 p.m. Check out the Storify below to see Olbermann's statement and the news of his departure broke on Twitter. [View the story "Keith Olbermann Fired from Current TV" on Storify] |
| Groupon Revises 4Q Results Downward; Stock Falls 8.5% | | Friday, March 30, 2012 6:40 PM | Todd Wasserman |
|  Groupon on Friday cited an unexpected number of refunds in the latter part of 2011 for a surprise revision in its fourth quarter results. The announcement prompted an 8.5% drop in the company's stock in after-hours trading. The revisions cut Groupon's previous 4Q revenue results by $14.3 million to $492.2 million from $506.5 million. Net income also fell by $22.6 million, or 4 cents a share. The restatement was apparently driven by higher-than-anticipated refund rates. "The revisions are primarily related to an increase to the company's refund reserve accrual to reflect a shift in the company's fourth quarter deal mix and higher price point offers, which have higher refund rates," reads a statement from the company. Translation: The company had not set aside enough money for refunds to customers. Groupon, whose accounting has been questioned by the SEC, says it has hired accounting firm Ernst & Young to oversee its operations in 2011 and has been working with another unnamed "global accounting firm." The latest restatement comes after a topsy-turvy ride for the company's stock since it went public on Nov. 4. Before the latest announcement, the stock was trading at $18.38-- $1.62 less than its opening price. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, cruphoto |
| Eggdrop App Puts a Neighborhood Yard Sale in Your Smartphone | | Friday, March 30, 2012 1:39 PM | Veena Bissram |
|  The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. Name: Egg Drop Quick Pitch: EggDrop is a neighborhood marketplace. Genius Idea: An app that lets users post items to sell or give away, browse items and arrange pickups, directly from their smartphones. Primarily designed for local transactions, EggDrop's free app allows users to post and search for items within an 80 - 100 mile radius of their current location. In just one click, users can also share their posted items on Craigslist, Twitter or via e-mail. It works a lot like mobile, local marketplace Zaarly, but its focus is on Craigslist-like listings, whereas Zaarly also facilitates micro-employment. Posting an item for sale is fast and hassle-free - just press the "sell button" and use your smartphone to take a picture or choose a picture from your phone's photo library. Then name the item, set the price and add a short description. Once you post your item to the EggDrop community, you are given the option to share the post with your social networks. "It's as easy as taking a picture with your smartphone of the item you want to sell and adding a price to it," Dan Zheng, CEO of EggDrop, told Mashable in an interview. If you're looking to find or buy an item in your local area, EggDrop gives you two ways to do so - the "browse" button searches for items based on category, photo or location and the "search" button finds a specific item near your location. Users can also choose to sort items by distance, popularity and the time left in the sale. For privacy reasons, EggDrop only provides a rough, not exact, location of all users. To find out more information about an item, users can "Ask a Question," which will immediately notify the seller. All questions and answers are publicly visible to EggDrop users. If you find an item you'd like to purchase, click "Make an Offer" and enter the amount you want to pay. The seller can either accept or decline the offer in real time. EggDrop does not allow users to make payment transactions via the app. If the seller accepts an offer, they can work out payment options with the buyer and arrange a time and place to meet for the exchange using EggDrop's built-in private messaging feature. So far, the most popular items for sale on EggDrop are cellphones, electronics, furniture, bicycles and video games. EggDrop has a reputation system that lets buyers and sellers give feedback using "karma." If sellers are trustworthy and helpful, users can give them positive feedback by clicking "Life Saver Karma" or "Good Neighbor." The more positive karma sellers have, the higher their scores are. "EggDrop is all about connecting local buyers and sellers in a local setting," says Zheng. "Reputation and identity are important and our reputation system is there to ensure that our users get a better, safer experience when using the app." EggDrop was launched in July 2011 and has raised $1 million in funding. Although the company does not have a business model yet, it is considering offering premium services to local businesses and shop owners that want to sell items. The app is available for iPhone and Android devices and users can browse, but not sell, items on EggDrop's website. Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark
The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today. |
| The Death of the Call Center | | Friday, March 30, 2012 12:57 PM | Zor Gorelov |
|  Zor Gorelov is the CEO and co-founder of SpeechCycle, a leading provider of customer self-service solutions. You can follow him on Twitter @SpeechCycle. The rapid growth of smartphone adoption is changing every facet of our lives. From Siri, Apple's virtual personal assistant, to the thousands of mobile applications that entertain and educate us, we have become an always-connected society. Pew Internet & American Life Project reported that smartphone users have now surpassed basic phone users. Gartner predicts that mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common web access devices worldwide. WiFi is so widely available in major metropolitan areas that most tablet users don't even need wireless data plans. Finally, tablet sales grew 264% in 2011 over the previous year, and this year, Yankee Group predicts the sale of almost 25 million tablets in the U.S. alone. What does this data mean for companies looking to engage with a connected audience? Consumers are now demanding communication with their providers, on their terms, which in most cases, means through their connected devices. What does this mean for the call center? Well, it will cease to be the primary interaction channel between companies and their customers. The smartphone will become the contact center of the future. It won't happen all at once, and certainly not everyone will prefer this channel. However, both consumers and businesses will benefit significantly, leading to a major communication shift by the end of 2012. Why the Shift to Smartphones? The smartphone offers new capabilities for customer service that were never before available on traditional devices. A smartphone is both a computer and a phone, making it easy to offer customers multiple service options. For example, a customer who has a problem with his DVR device can open up a smartphone application, which offers a variety of text options, touch-based menus and even talk capabilities. In addition, mobile applications can offer troubleshooting wizards. By accessing these wizards from their smartphones, customers can visualize troubleshooting steps to resolve the issue. They can also access visual indicators, such as the icons on their cable boxes. If all of these self-service options were to fail, the customer still has the option to connect directly with an agent within the call center to address more complex problems. A smartphone's inherent capabilities can host a rich variety of self-service options. Customers will begin to gravitate toward their smart devices as the first means for service. The call center will become a secondary option, only when all other self-service tools have been tried. What's In It for Customers? Smartphone traffic on wireless networks is expected to increase 700% over the next five years. Therefore, customers will look to the smartphone as the primary communications portal for services and information. Accessibility: When accessing a call center, customers are subject to an agent's decisions, whether or not that employee shares certain tips and information. Even a mobile interaction channel isn't enough. However, mobile applications can provide greater, more direct access to the information customers need. Capabilities: Smart devices not only enhance accessibility; they also improve the method of interaction, particularly when a customer troubleshoots a problem or seeks answers to his questions. Smart devices provide touch, type and talk capabilities, so customers can choose the methods most convenient for them at that time. Value: Smartphone customer service offers greater transparency into the value customers receive and the products/services offered. Apps on these devices can offer tailored plans, products and promotions, based on a customer's data usage, plan features, past behavior and preferences. What's In It for Businesses? In today's crowded marketplace, companies are struggling to differentiate themselves from competitors. The playing field is level when it comes to products, services and pricing plans, making customer service a key driver for organizations looking to distinguish themselves. Smart devices have changed how consumers communicate with one another, not to mention, with the companies they patronize. Businesses that recognize this change and create customer service strategies and tools that leverage these connected devices will have a real opportunity to impact their bottom lines, and retain and grow their customer bases. Here's why. Loyalty: By connecting with customers on-the-go, companies create customer loyalty, which translates to retention. As customers choose to stay with the company, they'll expand the services they use, products they buy and the amount of money they spend. Personalization: The consumer is looking for a personalized experience, and the mobile channel provides the best opportunity to do so. Companies can offer customer services relevant to the individual in question -- be it the applications and products they subscribe to, their location information, etc. Consistency: When a company keeps information up to date and consistent with a smart mobile app, its customers receive the same answers, regardless of channel. This enables a deeper understanding of customer relationships, and delivers tailored and personalized experiences. Cost: Calls previously handled by contact center agents can be addressed directly by fellow consumers. Provide direct access to information, troubleshooting tools and diagnostics. This foresight drives down costs. Bottom line? Businesses want to strengthen and improve customer relationships, and customers want the most value for the least amount of money. However, customers will remain loyal to companies that can enhance the user experience and foresee their needs. While the call center will still remain an important part of the customer service experience, smart devices can provide richer features and more in-depth assistance -- all on-the-go. Call centers will become a secondary mode of communication, no longer preferred by the masses. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, lisegagne, fotosipsak |
| 3 Reasons Facebook Brand Pages Are Good for Businesses | | Friday, March 30, 2012 11:01 AM | Christian Taylor |
|  Christian Taylor is founder and CEO of Payvment and developer of the number one Facebook e-commerce platform for brands, agencies and merchants, and the world's only Facebook Shopping Mall. Not everyone is cheering over the recent switch to Facebook Timeline for businesses. But the reality is, the new layout will present many great opportunities, particularly if companies properly use it to merchandise their products. So be afraid, if you must, but then check out the three reasons why Facebook's new brand pages will benefit sellers and social commerce as a whole. 1. It Encourages Fresh Content and Active Conversation With the new Timeline, business pages now look and behave like personal profile pages. This means a Facebook storefront can no longer be the landing page for new visitors using the old "default tab" setting. While this was useful to ensure more visibility for the storefront, it was also a crutch for not actively creating fresh content, which is the most effective way to drive new traffic to the store. With the new Timeline layout, building exposure for the storefront and its products will rely on frequently posting promotions and deals. While a post can be "pinned" at the top of the Timeline for up to seven days, smart sellers will create a daily posting plan to develop continuous awareness with their fans. Better yet, they will look for ways to actively encourage comments on their posts by asking questions, creating polls, or publishing other content designed to provoke responses and make their stream an active discussion forum. 2. It Provides a Richer Canvas for Seller Expression The new Facebook pages give sellers more real estate to showcase their brand and products, starting with the cover photo. While there are some content limitations for the cover photo, it is a really great way to attract new visitors and engage current fans with a core brand message. The ideal dimension for a cover photo is 850 pixels wide by 315 pixels tall, and it's a good idea to create several for regular rotation. Storefront applications will also be a more visible part of the page. The old tabs on the left of the page have been replaced by a large 111 pixel by 74 pixel icon that can be placed just under the cover photo. This icon is automatically filled by the storefront application, but the seller has the option to create a custom icon. The new application canvas for the storefront will also play a larger part. All of the profile information that used to be on the left of the page will move to the top, allowing sellers to deliver an 810 pixel wide experience for shoppers instead of the previous 520 pixels wide. This means more products above the fold, or larger product photos, or both. 3. It Offers Deeper Engagement Insights and Tools The older version of Facebook Insights did not deliver real-time data, so it could take up to two days to get analytics on a post. With the new Insights, sellers can now track how a post is doing within five to ten minutes after publishing, allowing them to immediately tweak their posts depending on how they are performing. Sellers can then immediately amplify the reach of well-performing posts by turning them into a premium ad or a sponsored story. Some other new or enhanced metrics include: People Talking About Engagement: This is the total number of people that have engaged in any way with your page, including users liking your page, commenting on or sharing a post from your page, or answering a question you've asked on your page. Sellers can use this to measure engagement with their brand across all Facebook activities and track the success of their programs beyond "likes" and clicks. Friends of Fans: This is the total number of friends all your fans have. Sellers can use this to track the growing (or declining) influence of their fan base. As the average goes up, so does the potential reach for a seller's campaign or promotion. Reach: This is the total number of people who have seen content associated with your page. Understanding how far and wide messages are traveling will enable sellers to optimize their content to generate maximum reach. Virality: This is the percentage of people who saw a story from your Page and "talked about it." Again, knowing what's being shared can help sellers assess what is actually of interest to their fans and customers. |
| This Website Is Made of Real Bacon [VIDEO] | | Friday, March 30, 2012 10:11 AM | Sam Laird |
|  Ruby on Rails. PHP. HTML. Bacon? Yup, pork belly just became an honorary member of the list of things you can use to make a website. Bleacher Report -- among the web's most popular sports sites with more than 25 million monthly unique visitors -- went all-bacon beginning Friday morning. After navigating to BleacherReport.com, users can click a yellow button on the homepage to switch to a bacon-draped version of the site, in which its links and images remain but the rest of the layout is made of the greasy fried meat. The funniest part? It's not just some digital wizardry, but actually a photograph of a physical replica of the site made with real bacon. The stunt is a promotion for Kraft Homestyle's latest flavor, sharp cheddar and bacon. The premise is that everything, in fact, goes better with bacon. Even websites. SEE ALSO: Clorox Smells a Winner with Bacon-Scented Cat Litter/a> The bacon model and parallel Bleacher Report site were built by a team at the digital ad agency CP+B. "We know people hate banners about as much as they love bacon, so it made sense to use one to offset the other," CP+B creative director Tom Markham says. "And we're lucky enough to work with a client who knows that sometimes you've got to do unexpected things -- like build a website entirely out of meat." Bacon-loving web surfers will be able to "baconize" Bleacher Report all day Friday and Saturday, and again on April 7. Check out the video below for a behind-the-scenes look at how the bacon-based site was created. Is this advertising idea funny? Creative? Tacky? Gross? Stupid? Let us know in the comments. |
| Google Partners With Publishers on a New Kind of Paywall | | Friday, March 30, 2012 9:15 AM | Lauren Indvik |
|  You might not be willing to fork over a monthly subscription fee to read some of your favorite news sites, but would you answer a survey question? That's what Google and a handful of well-known online publishers are aiming to find out. On Thursday, the tech giant unveiled "Google Consumer Surveys," which allows publishers to glean a little more revenue from their content by serving up short surveys to readers. These surveys function like paywalls: When a reader lands on an article page, he or she will have to answer a question or three to view the full text of the article (see it in action here). For every response sent to Google, publishers get .05. The program has launched with around 20 online publishers, including Pandora, AdWeek, the New York Daily News and the Texas Tribune. And what happens to those survey responses? They're collected by Google and sold to businesses seeking low-cost market research. Responses targeting the general U.S. population cost businesses .10 per response, with a minimum order of $100, according to Google's pricing page. Questions that are more finely targeted, either by demographic, region or through screening questions, cost .50 per response. Lucky Brand Jeans and King Arthur Flour are already clients. To finish reading an article, you may have to answer survey questions like this one. The product, it turns out, isn't that well built. PaidContent's Laura Hazard Owen already discovered that the surveys won't appear for users who have the AdBlock browser extension enabled. What do you think of Google Consumer Surveys? Do you think it's a good alternative to paywalls for publishers and readers? Or would you automatically skip any articles that required you to answer questions? Image courtesy of iStockphoto, RonBailey |
| Google to Sell Tablets Through Online Store [REPORT] | | Friday, March 30, 2012 6:59 AM | Stan Schroeder |
|  Google plans to sell co-branded Android tablets directly to consumers through its own online store, the Wall Street Journal reports. This move comes in an effort to kickstart Android tablet sales, which are still nowhere near the iPad sales levels. The tablets will be manufactured by Asus and Samsung, WSJ claims, but a Google branded tablet is a possibility, too. There's no word on the price, but Google might subsidize the price of the tablet(s), making them more attractive to consumers and closer to the $199 price of Android-based Amazon Kindle Fire and B&N's Nook Tablet. Google already tried this approach with smartphones, having sold its Google Nexus phone through its own online store, but it gave up on it after disappointing sales. This fact alone makes it unlikely that Google would try the same approach again, but recent rumors that Google is working on a cheap tablet of its own give some credibility to the story. If WSJ's sources are correct, Google will launch the store sometime this year. |
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