X.commerce
eBay’s X.commerce wants to be the future platform of technology-powered buying and selling; http://eicker.at/Xcommerce
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Gerrit Eicker
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Gerrit Eicker
Facebook Music
Facebook seems to get serious about music and media after consolidating retailing, news, games; http://eicker.at/FacebookMusic
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Gerrit Eicker
Facebook Deals Launch
Facebook Deals will be available soon in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Diego, San Francisco; http://eicker.at/FacebookDealsLaunch
Gerrit Eicker
Relationship Business
Donato: Social commerce will have its biggest impact with naturally relationship businesses: the locals; http://eicker.at/28
Gerrit Eicker
Facebook Shopping
Retailers are integrating Facebook: users are opening up to the idea of shopping on Facebook; http://eicker.at/FacebookShopping
Gerrit Eicker
Facebook Commerce
eCommerce through Facebook: NBA Store, Amazon Gift Cards, Facebook Vendor, Payvment, Big Commerce; http://eicker.at/19
Gerrit Eicker
Facebook Mobile
Facebook launches: new iPhone/Android apps, Single Sign-on via Places API, Facebook Deals; http://eicker.at/FacebookMobile
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Gerrit Eicker
TNW: “Facebook held its ‘mobile event’ for over 7,000 viewers. In his opening remarks, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, ‘Our goal is to make it so that no matter what platform you are building, your apps can be social…And that over the next few years, entire industries will be rethought as social applications.‘ He also mentioned that 200 million people now use Facebook via mobile devices.”
Ray, Forrester: “Today’s pronouncements demonstrate the ambition and vision Facebook has for itself in mobile computing and socializing over the long term, but in the immediate future Facebook now is poised to bring the wonders of checking in to the masses. … Facebook’s new Deals feature is uniquely positioned to bring rapid changes to consumer behavior over the next year. Here’s why: First, Facebook is a platform with 500 million avid users (compared to the 4 million who currently use Foursquare), and with each passing month more consumers are accessing and updating Facebook via their smartphones. Second, Facebook’s new Deal platform is free for marketers and SMBs; anyone who claims a location on the Facebook Places platform can easily and quickly launch an offer. Finally, marketers are lining up to create offers on this new Facebook platform. … One outstanding question is how Facebook’s new Places features will affect the fledgling LBS category. … It seems evident to me that the LBS space is in for some profound changes in the coming year as Facebook Places becomes as familiar to Facebook users as status updates and fan pages are today.”
SEL: “The world of location-based services changed dramatically today. And the changes that Facebook announced place the company firmly in the center of that very dynamic universe and ecosystem. – Toward the end of becoming a “platform” for mobile, Facebook made several significant announcements aimed at developers. There were also announcements aimed at consumers and marketers, ‘Deals’ being the big one. … It thus appears very simple to create an offer for Facebook Deals. The simplicity of this page will be significant for the millions of small businesses that will undoubtedly be interested getting access to this offering. And it will be opened up to small businesses in the near future – initially 20,000 and then the broader audience. … Deals will be a big hit with both consumers and marketers, whether large or small. Coupons is one of the most effective and popular forms of mobile advertising and Facebook’s reach will make it a huge player in this segment. – It will take a little while to digest all the implications of these announcements as well as to see their impact on the market and the mobile ecosystem as a whole. But I’m pretty confident that they’ll be significant and even lasting.”
IF: “Facebook is seeking to allow developers to build in a social environment no matter what phone they’re building on, whether that’s RIM, Android, iPhone, Windows Phone, or the mobile web. The company recently reached the milestone of 200 million people actively using Facebook mobile products across all platforms. … ‘You can rethink any product area to be social, have it be more engaging, have it grow virally, and remake whole industries’ says Zuckerberg.”
VB: “With a new single sign-on feature, Facebook aims to become the way users log into all their mobile applications. It’s already doing this to some extent, by allowing users to log into non-Facebook websites using Facebook Connect, but the company’s mobile chief, Erick Tseng, said the goal here is to make the process as simple as possible on phones, where typing in user names and passwords can be a huge pain. … On the privacy front, the news today doesn’t seem hugely significant, but I still expect some complaints when users start seeing Facebook data showing up in other apps.”
Guardian: “Facebook today revealed a series of improvements to its service on mobile devices in a move that lays the foundations for new revenue streams from retail stores, venues and small businesses. – Mobile is seen as a powerful platform for the expansion of Facebook, particularly in the developing world where internet adoption is increasingly skipping desktop computers and growing rapidly on the mobile web. … Facebook’s head of mobile business, Henri Moissinac, told the Guardian the improvement could be interesting for developers. ‘Augmented-reality apps like Layar will be able to visualise deals in real-time around a user’s location,’ he said.”
Gerrit Eicker
Facebook Deals
Facebook goes local business, enables merchants to push deals out to existing and new customers; http://eicker.at/FacebookDeals
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Gerrit Eicker
NYT: “Facebook introduced a feature on Wednesday that will allow retailers and other merchants to offer coupons and special deals through its mobile application, intensifying competition in the market for mobile searches and advertising. – People who use Places, Facebook’s location feature, will see a yellow icon indicating that a redeemable deal or coupon is available nearby. They can then use the application to ‘check in’ at the store or restaurant and show their phone’s screen to an employee to claim their deal. … Mr. Kendall said Facebook would not charge businesses directly to list coupons and special deals through the mobile application. Instead, businesses can purchase advertising to publicize their offerings on Facebook, he said. … Facebook also plans to work with nearly two dozen major chains like H&M, 24-Hour Fitness and McDonalds for special offers. But eventually all merchants and small businesses with a Facebook Places page will be able to offer deals. Facebook’s deals program borrows heavily from location-based social networks like Foursquare, Loopt and Gowalla, which have long been experimenting with similar ways to offer rewards and deals on cellphones. … For retailers, the Facebook feature offers the chance to establish online connections with real-world customers and learn more about them.”
AF: “So far Facebook claims that the number of users who have used the Places application is multiples larger than any other location service. That would lead us to believe that well over 10 million Facebook users have checked in with Places. If enough brands begin to leverage the new Deals platform, this could clearly be a big win for Facebook. Most significant here is that Facebook doesn’t charge any companies to launch deals. – Contrast that with Groupon who goes through the laborious process of negotiating the cost of every deal that they launch with local businesses. While Groupon has an incredible email list of consumers who want to make purchases, Places based deals could prove to fill a much needed niche. While companies can’t ping Facebook users as they walk by their businesses, users can choose to seek out deals that are nearby. … To be clear, Facebook Deals is not the Groupon-killer that some had claimed when we leaked out information last week about the impending launch. Instead, this is a different business model where customers will have to seek out deals through businesses that they become a fan of. Fortunately, many of the companies don’t think it will be long before most Facebook users are seeking these deals out.”
IF: “The most interesting part of the product is that Facebook isn’t taking a cut of revenue for these discounts, posing a challenge to smaller competitors that use deal revenue as part of their business model. On a business’ Places page, they can set up an offer. There are four kinds: Individual deals, which reward a customer if they check-in once. Loyalty deals, which reward customers for a certain number of purchases or check-ins. Friend deals, which reward customers if they bring in extra friends. Charity deals, which allow businesses to donate to charity for every check-in they attract.”
VB: “The social network’s executives said in a press conference that they won’t charge businesses for the deals. – That’s pretty surprising, since deals are seen as the main way for check-in services like Facebook Places (which includes the deals service), Foursquare, and Gowalla to make money. … Update: A Facebook spokesperson just emailed and said that although the deals are free for the program’s initial launch partners, the pricing could change in the future. … Facebook chief technology officer Bret Taylor said that Facebook didn’t create the feature to increase advertising. ‘The main thing is to improve the user experience around our Places product,’ he said.”
pC: “It’s not clear how many people are using its check-in feature, called Places, right now, although if this catches on it will clearly give users a financial incentive to use it. Places was introduced in August. Asked about usage, Zuckerberg only said it was ‘multiples larger’ than other similar services. – Zuckerberg did use the event to provide an update on Facebook’s overall mobile usage, saying that the company now has 200 million users who access the social network ‘across all platforms,’ a figure that has tripled over the last year.”
Gerrit Eicker
Social Networks
McClure: How to take down Facebook. An open letter to the next big social network; http://eicker.at/SocialNetworks
Gerrit Eicker
Social Commerce II.
The 5th C of community: social commerce besides content, conversation, connection, continuity; http://eicker.at/SocialCommerce
Gerrit Eicker 07:41 on 13. October 2011 Permalink |
X.commerce: “See it first at the Innovate Developer Conference. A seamless commerce experience – any time, anywhere, any way. That’s what consumers want, and that’s what technology is making possible. Now the capabilities developers and merchants need to compete and win in an increasingly complex, fast-changing environment are available in one place.”
X.commerce: “Technology is completely transforming the relationship between consumers and merchants. – Consumers today want and expect more choices in how and where they shop. And multi-channel innovations – online, offline, mobile, and the fast-blurring spaces in between – are delivering. Consumers are also armed with more knowledge before they buy. Reviews and recommendations. Daily deals. Barcode scanning and instant price comparison. So as today’s consumers use technology innovations to seize control, the question is how can merchants of all sizes keep up? … X.commerce is the future of technology-powered buying and selling. – It’s more than e-commerce. More than marketing automation. More than mobile transactions. It’s the first end-to-end, multi-channel commerce technology platform designed for all the ways consumers choose to shop today. And it’s the only platform that combines the power of eBay, PayPal, Magento, and all the ground-breaking commerce capabilities within the eBay Inc. family.”
X.commerce: “For starters, X.commerce is available today, free to registered users with premium services to be added over time. We’ve also added a wide range of technology assets in the eBay portfolio to the X.commerce ecosystem, including Magento, RedLaser, Milo, and Zong. These new technologies combined with existing assets from eBay and PayPal allow us to offer a complete collection of commerce capabilities to merchants and developers. – We were also joined by Facebook’s Katie Mitic for a discussion on how shopping has become increasingly social and people-centric. Katie also showed off the fact that Facebook’s new Open Graph functionality will be integrated into eBay Inc.’s X.commerce open commerce ecosystem. … We also joined PayPal in announcing a new trusted commerce identity system, PayPal Access, which lets consumers shop safely and easily across web with just their PayPal usernames and passwords. This is a big move with major implications for merchants and consumers alike.”
X.commerce: “The technology assets in the eBay Inc. portfolio collectively represent the most robust, scalable, commerce platforms currently available in the retail industry. They offer developers the opportunity to create new applications and capabilities that play perfectly into evolving consumer shopping practices. These assets, which will be available on X.commerce, include: Magento, the feature-rich, open-source e-commerce solution, launched a new version of Magento Connect: The Magento Extension Marketplace. – The newly opened API from Milo allows developers to create apps that localize the benefits of online shopping by searching the inventory of local stores in real-time. With Milo, developers everywhere can harness the power of local commerce for their app or website. – RedLaser, the free barcode scanning application for mobile comparison shopping, is previewing a new iOS application offering a refreshed look and new features. – With thousands of apps already available on the Android Market, Zong’s SDK makes it easier for developers to get paid on the Android platform. – The eBay Mobile iOS SDK will be available soon to developers in the X.commerce ecosystem who have an eBay Developer Program account. The iOS SDK will contain APIs to help developers build mobile apps specifically designed to enhance the eBay selling and buying experiences.”
TC: “‘We’re at an inflection point’, eBay CEO John Donahoe said from the stage at Innovate, eBay’s brand new developer conference that launched today in San Francisco. ‘We’ll see more change in how consumers shop and pay in the next three years than we’ve seen in the last 15 years’. – Donahoe’s prediction for the future came as context for giving a more complete introduction today to X.commerce, the platform formed by eBay and its nest eggs PayPal, Magento and GSI – designed to create a robust, full-service and ‘open’ eCommerce solution. The eCommerce solution ‘to rule them all’, one might say. … One of the more anticipated announcements to come out of Innovate was a partnership between the world’s largest social network and eBay, which will see the latter integrating Facebook’s Open Graph… The virtual shopping experience is a long ways off from one that mimics its offline counterpart, and I’ve yet to be convinced that just because one of my grade school friends interacted with a product on Facebook, which then popped up in my news stream, that I’m more likely to interact with that product and buy it just because of some loose social connection manifesting while I’m in the process of turning off more Facebook sharing features. Yes, it adds to a brand’s network, and if I’m browsing friends’ profiles and see a product I want to learn about before buying, this is a great conversation starter.”
WSJ: “EBay officially unveiled Wednesday its X.commerce online shopping platform as a way to encourage developers to build new online shopping tools, a move that comes as the company is pressing ahead with a transformation from online marketplace to comprehensive Internet retailer. – EBay said X.commerce will draw developers to an open platform, and enable them to build new shopping and payment tools for merchants that will be used by eBay’s marketplaces and PayPal units. The move is reminiscent of efforts by Apple Inc. to entice developers into building apps for its iOS platform, and by Facebook Inc. to encourage the creation of tools for its social network.”
Forbes: “EBay launched its new X.Commerce platform today at its conference in San Francisco, opening up technology for developers to build new commerce tools and services for merchants–as well as a marketplace for merchants and developers to buy and sell them. – The open platform is designed to enable developers to quickly build applications that connect to a variety of online and offline commerce services, including eBay properties such as PayPal, Magento, GSI Commerce and Milo. … On the social front, eBay announced a partnership with Facebook to integrate Facebook’s new Open Graph technology into eBay’s Magento and X.Commerce developers. This will enable developers to post a variety of actions that consumers take back to Facebook–such as ‘Jack bought Adidas shoes,’ and the like. … It will be interesting to see if eBay announces further integration with Facebook to, for example, bring Facebook social information to eBay about buyers and sellers.”
ZDnet: “PayPal Access becomes the Facebook Connect for online payments – Essentially, PayPal Access is a login, identity system that simplifies shopping for customers by keeping track of multiple passwords and accounts. Even more simply, think of it as Facebook Connect for PayPal. – In theory, and likely in practice in time, this will make online shopping more seamless than anything we’ve even seen before. To get started, all users need to do is login to participating websites with their existing PayPal accounts. That should automatically bring up preferred shipping and billing addresses and more.”