Target to take its website inhouse

I've known that Amazon offered a service where it powered the back-end of a third-party's website. What I didn't realize was that large companies with a strong online presence were still using the service in 2009.

When I first heard about the service, I thought it was brilliant. It was the early 2000's, maybe 2002 or so - the consumer marketplace was at an inflection point: e-tailing was becoming more popular and less of a niche market. But what would the marketplace look like at the end of the transition? Would traditional retailers change shape and exist in both the offline and online space? Could traditional retailers thrive in an online setting? Or would the market be divided into 'traditional' retailers and 'online' retailers?

Add to this uncertainty that creating an online presence - specifically those that include product inventories or ordering capabilities - can require new skillsets, technology, and hardware with high start-up costs. Add to that the high propensity for failure and the short window in which to make an impression in a changing market, and I thought it made great sense for companies to outsource their e-commerce operations to Amazon. I thought the service would primarily be an interim solution until each company built out its own e-commerce capabilities.

I hadn't thought about this service in years, until I came across an article which stated that Target would be discontinuing its partnership with Amazon in 2011 and taking its website inhouse.

So for nearly 10 years, the target.com backend has been powered by Amazon. I was completely surprised by this. But upon closer consideration, I can see how my thinking was biased.

My experience has been primarily with companies whose primary priority are its websites. In my personal experience, companies are filled with people who are technical (or used to be technical) and there are teams dedicated to disaster recovery, data redundancy, performance, security, up-time, etc.

Looking at it through that lens, building and maintaining a quality website seemed, if not easy, certainly not difficult. Add some resources with specific front- and back-end skillsets, expand a few data centers, add resources to the on-call schedule, and the site is up and running.

But, I suppose, not all companies are like the ones I've experienced. Building out a basic html site may be easy enough, but building out and supporting the infrastructure to maintain a highly-available, integrated, redundant, secure ordering site is complex. And for companies whose core business is distinct from that effort, it may not make sense to bring all that effort inhouse.

While this news rated just a few paragraphs in the local paper, I found it very eye-opening. And good luck to Target in this endeavor!

Twitter for Business

Earlier this month, I wrote a blog entry that was, in part, my ideas on how a company could successfully use Twitter.

Yesterday, Twitter launched "Twitter 101 for Business". It includes some more basic information, such as how to get started on Twitter, Twitter lingo, and Twitter best practices.

It also includes some suggestions on how to use Twitter for business, including case studies of companies successfully using Twitter currently. So, did any of my suggestions for how businesses could use Twitter appear in the Twitter 101 guide? Yes!

A number of the ideas I suggested were among those listed in Twitter 101, including offering deals via Twitter, reaching out to customers and potential customers via Twitter, and monitoring talk about your brand via Twitter.

I think "Twitter 101 for Business" is a fantastic idea, and well executed. I suspect many companies know they could/should be using Twitter, but were intimidated by the concept or didn't know enough about Twitter to be able to formulate an idea of how to use it. This site lays out, in a straight-forward way, both how to use Twitter and ideas on how to make the best use of Twitter. The case studies offer good examples on how companies are currently using Twitter.

Twitter 101 may provide a spark for some companies to get on Twitter!

Best Buy's Twelpforce

Earlier this month, I wrote about how consumer companies could use Twitter to their benefit. A timely article, Best Buy has announced its 'Twelpforce', which is a Twitter Helpforce.

Twelpforce is essentially crowdsourcing CRM using Twitter, an interesting approach.

Best Buy has created @twelpforce, a centralized Twitter handle for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) on Twitter.

A complete description is available here, but essentially, any authorized user can have his tweets show up in his stream and the twelpforce stream by adding a particular hashtag to the tweet.

Instead of the stream being monitored and managed by a single employee or group, as is often the case with 'help desks', it's monitored and responded to by whichever Best Buy employees are interested in doing so. Any Best Buy employee (who has signed up and been verified, I assume) can reply as @twelpforce.

There are two ways Best Buy employees are encouraged to use Twitter.

1. Reply to user questions directed to @twelpforce.
   
2. Best Buy employees are encouraged to search for, and respond to, tweets of interest. As an example from Best Buy's 'tip' sheet, a user tweeted that he needed a new tv (but in a whiny/funny 'the wife is watching 'Desperate Housewives' again, I need another tv!'). A Best Buy employee responds, states that he works for Best Buy, and can answer any questions the guy has about tv's.

With a large, knowledgable, tech-savvy workforce, I think the crowdsourcing is a great fit for them.

But, I find the second a bit creepy. I can understand responding to tweets about the company itself, but if I wrote a funny/joking tweet about needing another tv, I would not want a response from a Best Buy employee offering assistance!

Overall, an interesting approach, and I look forward to seeing how it turns out and what other companies do in this space.

Monetizing Real Time Data

TechCrunch has posted the 'Top 10 List' to monetization in real-time data from Ron Conway, an angel investor in Silicon Valley.

After reading through the list, 'real-time data' seems to be a euphemism for Twitter, which is, I suppose the only real-time data set available to the average business, and the largest one available to most others.

For reference, here is the list, directly from the TechCrunch article:

10. Lead generation

9. Coupons

8. Analytics

7. CRM

6. Payments - If I was at PayPal, I would be looking at this.

5. Commerce

4. User authentication - Corporate accounts want to pay.

3. Syndication of new ads - Twitter itself could just syndicate. Multi-billion.

2. Content advertising and advertising context and display

1. Acquiring followers

I would break the list down in the following way:

• What can third-parties do right now to monetize on Twitter? Given the current state of Twitter, there are certain things a company could start doing right now. (in ascending order of importance, as ranked by me, numbered from the original list)
  1. Followers - This is the first step - creating a brand identity on Twitter. There are many ways to go about this, from having a corporate-branded account that tweets official, corporate output, to having a visible person tweeting on behalf of a corporation.
  7. CRM - Again, there are many possibilities, from creating an official mode of customer interaction to searching for and responding to mentions of the brand on Twitter.
  9. Coupons -Posting special events or offers on Twitter that make it worthwhile for a user to follow your corporate brand on Twitter.
  10. Lead Generation - Who's searching for your product (or similar), or appears to need your product?
  
• What can Twitter do to take advantage of some of the items on this list? I think that, if Twitter wanted to, it could monetize similarly to the way Google does.(in ascending order of importance, as ranked by me, numbered from the original list)
  3. Ads - Paid Advertising/SEM, and Natural Search/SEO, on the search engine side could easily be modified for Twitter. Results could display for searches or individual tweets. Twitter search could even be modified to something other than 'most recent tweet' first.
  2. Contextual Advertising - Google has search history to determine user context, Twitter has history of user tweets (what do I find interesting), followers (who do I find interesting), etc.
  4. User Authentication - Verified Accounts, which allow public figures to 'claim' an official account, were a huge step in the right direction. I'm having a difficult time imagining 'paid' accounts, but if the verified accounts do not work out, they may become important. Or, perhaps, if paid accounts were certain benefits, such as priority in twitter queues or some method of discreet advertising.
  

It will be interesting to watch Twitter grow and mature over the next few years - and potentially that will include becoming profitable!

Self Knowledge through Data - Wired article

I recently read an article in Wired about the growing use of 'personal data' - tracking everything from how much we eat to how far we run to daily blood pressure.

I admit that I track my life, and I'm glad to see I'm not the only one! I do it for two main reasons. First, I am one of those people who is motivated by getting to check something off a list. Second, I like understanding how things work, and how different things interact. Does the amount of sleep I get impact how much I eat? Are there certain times of year when I consistently spend more money?

Something I teased out of my financial data recently was that I spend about twice as much on coffee drinks in November and December than at any other time of year. I suspect it's that I spend more time shopping during those months. And, when I'm shopping (which I typically don't enjoy), I treat myself to a fancy coffee. I'm not sure how to make use of this knowledge, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Bing, WolframAlpha, and Google

As an internet user, you're no doubt aware that google dominates the search market. If you have worked in SEO(search engine optimization), website traffic attribution, or web analytics, you may know more about how the search traffic breaks out. (Based on my professional experience, I distinguish google, yahoo, and Microsoft from 'other' search engines. If you'd like more details, comScore's April 2009 Search Engine Rankings is available.)

This week saw a flurry of tech announcements, including a new search engine (Wolfram|Alpha), and an updated/rebranded site (Microsoft's Bing).

First, bing.com, an updated/rebranded release of Microsoft's Live Search. Bing calls itself a 'decision engine', not a 'search engine', but the differences appear subtle to me. As far as I can tell, the launch is largely to get people talking about Microsoft search and to give themselves a cooler name that can be 'verbed up'.

Second, Wolfram|Alpha, a 'computational knowledge engine'. From the FAQ,

It's a computational knowledge engine: it generates output by doing computations from its own internal knowledge base, instead of searching the web and returning links.

The code was built with Mathematica and brings back memories of my college computer science classes! Wolfram|Alpha is not a replacement for google (or bing, or yahoo). For certain things, this type of computation makes sense and returns relevant information. For others, it does not even attempt to return results. In fact, Wolfram|Alpha results page offers a 'Search the web' option, which takes you to a google search with your initial search term.

I tried out a couple different types of searches to compare the results.

Search for a city:

• bing - returns the city website, then separate sections for hotels, restaurants, maps, newspapers, and jobs.
  
• google - returns a map and a list of links, including the city website, hotel chains, and a local college.
  
• Wolfram|Alpha - provides population, current time, nearby cities.

Winner: bing, although I can see myself using the 'nearby cities' feature of Wolfram|Alpha.

Search for me:

• bing - I know I'm not a celebrity, but I was disappointed in the results - the first results page includes my grandfather's 2002 obituary and 5 separate entries for my amazon profile.
  
• google - variety of results, mostly what I expected
  
• Wolfram|Alpha - no results

Winner: google (although bing's results may improve as they encounter more of my pages.)

Search for stock symbol, date, etc.:
Winner: Wolfram|Alpha

To my mind, Wolfram|Alpha is a fascinating intellectual achievement, and I will certainly use it for specific types of information. Bing, on the other hand, I found less interesting, and for the bulk of my search I will likely continue to use google.

Facebook Apps Analytics via Omniture

Yesterday, Omniture "announced App Measurement for Facebook, a new solution that enables Omniture SiteCatalyst customers to measure the popularity and success of Facebook applications." (from the Press Release) (screenshots)

In March, Omniture announced Twitter analytics via its SiteCatalyst tool. (Press Release. I wrote a quick blurb here).

As a strong believer in the power of data and analytics, seeing a company with an established following making headway in the social media space is exciting.

I.B.M. Unveils Real-Time Software to Find Trends in Vast Data Sets - the Article

There was an interesting article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal about a new IBM software, to track and analyze data in real-time.

This sounds similar to a technology I have used in the past, although IBM seems to have built out the system to learn and find correlations in the data without guidance.

Real-time data analysis is often expensive compared to near-real-time or offline processing. Additionally, with complicated data, it would be a sophisticated and well-designed system to anticipate and correctly handle all data. So, a system that is self-learning would be advantageous.

I would be very interested in finding out more about this technology and its related product, System S. I was not able to find much information online, unfortunately.

Goodbye, Craig Breslow!

When I'm following a sports team, I usually pick a favorite. It's usually someone who's less well-known and someone I think I would like as a person even if they weren't on my sports team.

Since mid-last summer, my favorite Twin has been Craig Breslow. He's a lefty middle-reliever, comes in for an inning or two every few games. Some outings are better than others, and he's bounced all over the league and in and out of the minors. He seemed like a good underdog, and when I discovered that he'd graduated from Yale and his backup plan if baseball didn't work out was med school, he was a shoo-in to be my favorite.

Of course, the problem with underdogs is that there's risk. If Justin Morneau is your favorite, you know he'll be playing first base nearly every game and that he'll be on the team til 2014. If Craig Breslow is your favorite, you spend the middle innings of every game scanning the bullpen to see if #49 is warming up.

And, of course, you worry about him getting . The A's apparently don't have a lefty reliever so perhaps he will see more playing time. On the one hand, the A's have the philosophy and history of recognizing potential and I think his chance of success is greater with an organization like that. On the other hand, I now have to pick a new favorite Twin.

Recruiting via Twitter

I came upon an interesting article earlier today about companies using Twitter to post job openings.

I think it's an interesting concept, and a natural extension of networking and social networking sites, but I found the application, twitterjobsearch.com, a bit difficult to use.

As far as I can tell, you can filter by location and job type. Searching on 'Minnesota' got some targeted results, but also results from Atlanta, Houston, and the East Coast.

What I found more difficult was that the tweets weren't in a consistent format and many of them were missing information I'd find valuable - namely job title and location. Combined with the seemingly ineffective search, I think you'd spend a lot of time looking at postings that don't interest you.

An interesting idea that will likely improve over time.

Differentiating Online Ads

Recently, Google started offering behavioral ads in addition to its contextual ads. There was an interesting article in the NYTimes blog section this morning about it.

Google allows you to opt out of its behavioral ads, and also provides generalized information on why you're getting specific ads. The author of the blog suggests going further, to display exactly why the ad is displayed and why it's displayed the way it is. For example, whether the image, text, or price displayed are variable, and if so, exactly what information about you was used to determine its value.

What I found most interesting about the article was a quote from a Google representative which suggests that few consumers understand the difference between contextual and behavioral ads.

It's simple (or it can be, at least). Contextual targeting uses information about what you are currently doing. For example, search for 'Prius repair' and you'll get ads about local repair shops. Search 'Prius 2009', and you'll get ads about new Priuses. Or in an offline sense, an ad for sugary kids cereals during Saturday morning cartoons.

Behavioral targeting uses information about what you have been doing. For example, if you've been browsing for new Priuses, you may see ads for cars even when you're browsing a news site. In an offline sense, this could be like if you go to the same waitress every Saturday morning, and one week she offers you a coupon for being a loyal customer.

Of course, there's a difference between online and offline. Most people fully understand, or *could* understand offline collection methods. But 'online' is a black-box to many. I think the author's idea is an interesting one, if unlikely to come to fruition any time soon. I would probably use it, but most wouldn't. I think the most benefecial aspect would be one mentioned in the article, that companies would behave more ethically or risk public press because of watchdog agencies and the media having access to the information.

Collective Intelligence Article

There was an interesting article in the NY Times recently about collective intelligence and privacy concerns.

With the internet and mobile technologies, the amount of data that can be collected, aggregated, and made available as collective intelligence has increased exponentially in recent years. As with many technologies, the technology is ahead of the concensus on how it can/should be used.

As an example from the article, during the SARs outbreak, once an infected person was identified on a particular flight, other passengers could have been located and their movements tracked through their cell phones. Another example is Google search data. At an aggregate level, what people search for can be extremely valuable and insightful (as in Google flu trends). But, Google often has information on the user/household making that search - sometimes at the ip / computer level, sometimes at the userid level, and sometimes at the user level.

Although tech-savvy users may be aware of this, many others aren't. I'm glad a non-tech publication like the NY Times printed an article like this to get people thinking about this idea.

Slow Blogging

The NY Times had an article on the concept of 'slow blogging'. At the extreme, there's a site that scans and posts postcards it's received via snail mail to answer the Twitter question 'what are you doing right now?'

That is obviously slow blogging taken to an extreme, but the rest of the article is more mainstream. The article references the Slow Blog Manifesto, which states It is an affirmation that not all things worth reading are written quickly. I find that to be so true!

I don't consider my blog to be a stream of consciousness, quickly written, poorly edited. I consider what to post, think about my topic, and proofread it before publishing. I'm less critical than I am when writing for work, but more critical than an email to a friend.

For one, I know that posts to the internet live forever, and especially because this blog is associated with my name, I want to be careful what is presented. Second, I often don't like reading posts that people have quickly slapped out. I much prefer a well thought out piece. Third, and this may be because I am late to the blogging party, I consider Twitter, Facebook, and instant messaging to be more appropriate for quick updates.

An interesting article! And now, when I don't post for a while, I can say that I am purposefully participating in slow blogging!

Pizza from your Tivo!

When I was a kid, there was one way to watch tv - in the family room, when the show aired.

And now? You can watch entire seasons on DVD. You can watch on-demand. You can watch shows online.

But, my favourite way to watch tv is on my Tivo. You pick which shows to record. You can pick one show at a time, all episodes of a show, new episodes of a show, shows with particular actors, etc. And then you watch it later. You can fast forward through commercials, pause if you get a phone call, rewind if you missed some dialogue, or even watch scenes over and over in slow motion.

The upshot is that many Tivo users are fast-forwarding through the commercials (or, like I did, setting it up so you can skip ahead 30 seconds at a time). But, advertising is a powerful force, and so they introduced new methods of advertising on the Tivo, specifically "tags" in commercials. If a commercial interests you, you can click a button and be taken to a more in-depth commercial or request info via the mail.

I did it (once) just to try it. I clicked on a 30-second GM spot, I think, and was taken to a longer GM commercial. Not earth-shattering. In fact, not even that useful, because I am rarely interested in 30-second commercials, much less interested enough to want to see a longer commercial.

But, it did get me thinking about Tivo's interactive capabilities. Without even extending the concept much, they could integrate links into tv shows themselves. Say there's a show with an interview of an author about his new book - a link could connect to reviews or a place to buy the book. Or a news program could offer links to a more in-depth story or an online article about the subject. Or for a social networking application, you could link to a community area to discuss an episode or program or actor.

There are so many possibilities! And I've been waiting patiently since 2005 (when I clicked the GM commercial) for *something*. *Anything*.

And it's finally happened. You can now order pizza from your Tivo. Groundbreaking? No. Useful? Not for me. But conceptually interesting and hopefully a harbinger of things to come :)

Speed Golf

When I was younger, some of my friends and I would play golf almost every day. Our favourite time to play was in the early morning - especially when we could be the first group of the day. We didn't have to deal with other golfers, especially slow ones, and would finish in about 2 hours.

It seems there are some others who appreciate this type of golf as well. I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about 'speed golf'. The man in the article completed an 18-hole round in 45 minutes!

So, he's a lot faster than we were! And not very practical, but still fun to hear about!

A Biased Market - article

There was an interesting article in last week's Economist about bias in the news media. I've always found this an interesting topic, especially during the most recent election. The article maintains that 'slant' is influenced by reader/user preferences, but not by owner/employee preferences. They further say that the 'slant' is such that it optimizes profits.

The method they used to determine slant was really interesting. They identified 'Republican' and 'Democratic' phrases to distinguish. For example, 'death tax' versus 'estate tax' or 'pro-life' versus 'pro-choice'.

As for the premise, I don't feel convinced. The real world is imperfect, and why are we to believe that the current state has optimized revenues? Clearly print media, especially newspapers are having a difficult time recently - are they truly maximizing profits (by minimizing losses)?

I would have liked to have seen more of the data to put some of my questions to rest.

eBay Layoffs

I spent about 5 years at eBay (as a consultant), so I find this sad.

The RNC is in *St Paul* - part 2

The local paper ran a story yesterday about newscasters and politicians referring to the RNC as being in Minneapolis (instead of St Paul, where it is actually being held).

You can find the original post here. I don't have any updates. I just feel a little more vindicated :) That I'm not the only one who finds this frustrating.

401k Debit Cards?

There was a piece this morning on NPR about 401k debit cards. The concept is that you sign up for the program, pay a yearly fee, and set aside some of your 401k money into a 'debit account', which is still part of your 401k. You can withdraw money from that part of the account using the debit card. You are charged for the loan of the amount you actually withdraw, not the amount you put into the account.

As with many concepts, there are potential benefits. The main one I can see is that instead of taking out a loan for the maximum amount you might need, you can set aside that amount in the account, and take a loan against exactly the amount you need. That will decrease the amount you need to pay back, and the associated taxes and fees.

The company offering the debit card also says that people prefer the convenience of debit cards and that people who are hesitant to 'lock' money into a 401k may do it, knowing they have an easier way to get the money out.

I recognize that there are valid situations in which the best option may be for someone to take a loan from their 401k. And I want those people to have that option. But I don't think that it should be easy to do. The easier it is, the more people will do it.

Consider the 'free money' reasoning used by people who get into credit card debt. If people start factoring 401k (or some subset of it) into their 'available money', then they are more likely to spend that money (or at least, more money). I don't mean to say that people aren't responsible enough to manage their own financial well-being, but I don't see any reason to make potentially irresponsible decisions the easy option.

Okay, rant over :)

Hypermiling

With gas prices going up, there seems to be a lot of talk about fuel efficiency.

I'd like to believe that I've always been pretty conscious of fuel economy. I purchase smaller cars that get good mileage, and don't require premium gas. I keep my tires filled, the trunk empty, don't drive aggressively, etc.

My new car has a real-time gas mileage indicator, so I've been able to learn more accurately what actions result in poor gas mileage.

I've also recently started using a site that tracks gas prices. The idea is that people post the gas prices they see at their local gas stations, and the time they saw that price. then, when you want to fill up, you have an idea of the relative cost at the stations near you. Of course, it's not perfect, but I have found it useful and interesting. You can view the site here.

But, it seems that I'm not doing all I can to increase my gas mileage - yesterday, there was an article in the USA Today on 'hypermiling'. The concept is that how you drive will impact your gas mileage. Some of their tactics are things I've already been doing. But, some are quite aggressive (and even dangerous, in my opinion). For example, some drivers 'draft' off larger trucks on the interstate. Now, I appreciate the power of drafting (I know a thing or two about NASCAR...), but I would prefer being safe, than have to worry about rear-ending a truck for a few extra miles per gallon.

Wow..not only do *I* not want to hypermile, I don't want the cars around me hypermiling either. Coasting in neutral in traffic? Turning off the car at stop lights? Yikes.