Nine years ago, companies like Boo.com invested heavily in the idea that people would do a huge amount of shopping online. Unfortunately, the time for e-commerce going mainstream had yet to come. This study, however, indicates that not only are consumers comfortable making purchases online, they are increasingly changing their purchasing behaviors in unprecedented ways.
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From The New York Times - Online spending is expected to rise a robust 17 percent this year, despite a sluggish economy that has bruised many brick-based retailers, according to an annual survey to be released Tuesday.
Retail sales online, excluding travel purchases, are set to grow to $204 billion in 2008 from $174.5 billion last year, fueled by sales of apparel, computers and autos, according to a survey conducted by Internet analysis firm Forrester Research for Shop.org, the online arm of the National Retail Federation trade group. That projection is below the 21 percent increase seen in the prior year, but industry officials attribute it to the maturing of the business, not the sluggish economy.
E-commerce ''is clearly the bright spot in retailing,'' said Scott Silverman, executive director of Shop.org.
The upbeat report contrasts with the outlook for many traditional retailers, which have been paring down store growth and closing shops as they struggle with consumers who don't feel like spending amid higher gas and food costs, a housing slump and a weaker job market. The exceptions are discounters and wholesale clubs, as shoppers turn to less expensive stores. | Read full article
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Online Sales to Grow 17 Percent in '08
Monday, April 7, 2008
Xbox 360's Wiimote Accessory Is Already In Development, Coming This Generation
This is hardly a surprise. Kudos to Nintendo!
From Gizmodo - Microsoft's been working on a Wiimote-esque controller due to come out late this year—development started on it all the way back in Summer '07—but the whole process has been "a colossal clusterfuck." Here's what MTV news knows courtesy of their exclusive source, who sketched out what it looks like above.
The 360 Wiimote shaped very much like the Nintendo Wii's Wiimote and has a speaker, microphone, four LED lights, A/B/X/Y face buttons, an analog stick and an underside trigger. The Wiimote, on the other hand, doesn't have a Microphone and has a D-pad instead of an analog stick. It's being worked on by Rare, who are trying to come up with a "unified interface and look for the controller." The current problem Microsoft's having is between marketers and designers. The former wants it just about exactly like the Wiimote so they can match them on spec sheets and lure game developers into porting over Wii games onto the 360. The designers want it to be even more feature-rich than just the Wii, and describe it as Halo, Gears and Forza "in waggle form." | Read full article
Joost faces TV squeeze
From The Times Online - JOOST, the online television service launched with a fanfare last year by the founders of internet telephony firm Skype, is preparing for a major retrenchment after failing to attract enough users and top-flight broadcasting rights.
The company is expected to rein in its global ambitions to focus solely on the US market.
Set up as an antidote to YouTube by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis after they sold Skype to online auctioneer Ebay, Joost has been overshadowed by the success of the BBC’s iPlayer, and in America, Hulu, a collaboration between NBC and News Corporation, the ultimate owner of The Sunday Times.
It has struggled to convince media and sports companies to sell it global rights, which are normally parcelled out to broadcasters country by country. | Read full article
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Amazon Accelerates Its Move to Digital
As the digital media marketplace grows (the one pay-per access/download model, not the Bit Torrent world), Amazon is a viable option. Having tried the Amazon MP3 store, I can say it doesn't compare to the simplicity of iTunes, but it has huge potential. With interface and functionality tweaks, it could be very easy to use. Why don't companies put the effort into product development that they should? It's the digital marketplace equivalent of going into a store and not being able to find the checkout.
From The New York Times - Over the last 14 years, Amazon.com has mastered the art of getting physical copies of books, music and movies to customers through the mail. Now it is trying to add to its repertoire in a hurry.
The overall market for entertainment and information is inexorably going digital. One day, most music, movies and perhaps even printed words will be sent as bits over the Internet instead of in bulky boxes. More than half of the company’s $15 billion in sales last year came from CDs, DVDs and books, shipped from Amazon’s 30 cavernous distribution centers around the world. | Read full article
"Free" is Killing Us--Blame The VCs
This posting is right on the money. So - digital entrepreneurs, how can you make money online if ads only work for larger sites? Go free and hope to be acquired?
From The Silicon Alley Insider - I believe it should be possible to start a small business and to have a small number of profitable customers, and to earn a living. From there, it should be possible to work hard, and to grow your business into something substantial. Until recently, this was the American way, and it applied to technology as much as to any other business. But no more.
In today’s “free” world, in most online business categories, it is inherently impossible to start a small self-sustaining business and to grow it. This is because in the digital world, advertising, the only real revenue stream, cannot support a small digital business. If businesses were based on the idea that people paid for services then small companies could succeed at a small scale and grow. But it is very hard to charge when your competition is free.
The economic problem with advertising businesses is that advertising businesses do not work without really significant scale. In the past, a good product or service could address a niche and succeed without being a home run. Today, a home run is required because if you do not reach a massive scale, advertisers are uninterested. And even if advertisers could be attracted, CPMs are so low that the revenue would be inconsequential. Small Internet businesses don’t work. | Read full article
Thursday, April 3, 2008
NBC Announces New Chapters of Webisodes For NBC.com
From Media Post - NBC DIGITAL ENTERTAINMENT ON WEDNESDAY announced its full slate of content for the summer and fall seasons, including original webisodes for "Heroes," "Chuck," and "The Office," as well as "30 Rock 360," a new original digital production--"Fears, Secrets & Lies"--and digital features for each new show.
New chapters of webisodes for "Heroes," "Chuck" and "The Office" will debut on NBC.com beginning in July. Additional chapters of webisodes for each show will roll out throughout the season. Each chapter of webisodes will continue to weave online with on-air creative to give fans a deeper entertainment experience.
NBC.com will also debut its second season of original productions with "Fears, Secrets & Desires." This series will be available exclusively on NBC.com.
Net Radio Gain: CBS Radio, Last.fm Collaborate
From Media Post - INTERNET RADIO IS SEEING THE flurry of content and sales deals continue in first-quarter 2008. The latest partnership brings together CBS Radio and Last.fm to share content. The deal will allow the Internet company to stream audio from CBS radio station broadcasts live, while giving listeners from the CBS Radio Internet Network access to Last.fm's library of free online music.
For Last.fm, the deal represents a substantial increase in the number of broadcast partners and breadth of content it can offer--adding CBS Radio's 140 stations to its existing partnerships with Universal, EMI, Warner Music Group and Sony BMG, as well as about 150,000 independent artists and studios. The station list includes top CBS properties like New York's WCBS-FM, Los Angeles' KROQ, Chicago's WXRT and Atlanta's WVEE. Last.fm users will be able to access the content through CBS' new online audio player. | Read full article
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Google/Skype Acquisition or Partnership Imminent?
From Tech Crunch - Something big is brewing between Google and Ebay’s Skype, we’ve heard from multiple sources. Actually, for weeks now there have been low level rumors of the two companies talking, but nailing down any details was difficult. New information, however, suggests that they are in current talks and that a partnership or outright acquisition may be announced in the near future.
Skype, acquired in late 2005 for $3.1 billion, has been a financial albatross around Ebay’s neck. eBay removed Skype co-founder and CEO Niklas Zennstrom in October 2007, reportedly due to frustration at the financial performance of Skype. Ebay also negotiated down the huge earnout due to Skype stockholders and took a $936 million one-time loss around the transaction.
It’s clear that eBay wants to either unload Skype, or significantly drive performance. | Read full article
Networks see little profit in online broadcasting
There is no surprise in this article for me; online “broadcasting” is so new and ad models are still emerging. It’s going to be a while until this kind of service draws the audience and revenues (and develops the right ad models) that are more effective than what’s online today. I also doubt that it will replace TV (why is there always this mention in articles?) - but will find its place along side broadcast media – at a larger scale than at present, as people’s behaviors shift to match new content availability... And at the end of the day, it can be profitable, just not as much as TV — which is the same as how selling music through iTunes is profitable, but not as profitable as the old CD/in-store sales model.
From The Globe and Mail -- The biggest thing keeping television networks from wholeheartedly embracing the Internet is that online programming does not make nearly as much money as traditional TV, a new report says.
The report, to be published today by Convergence Consulting Group Ltd., indicates online broadcasting, despite its growing popularity, is still viewed by networks as a complementary business, rather than a replacement for TV.
"There is no current economic rationale for broadcasters and cable networks to abandon traditional TV or attempt to accelerate a transition to a total online model," says the report, which looks at the North American broadcasting and telecom sector.
The findings indicate why online TV in the U.S., though growing much faster than in Canada, still lags behind the prime-time offerings of network television, even though the broadcasters hold digital rights to most of their content. In Canada, where broadcasters don't own those rights, much less content is available online.
Smaller audiences and fewer commercial minutes during Web episodes and clips make it difficult to earn ad revenues comparable to television, said Brahm Eiley, president of Convergence Consulting. | Read full article
