The majority (88%) of Americans plan to shop online in the upcoming holiday months, according to a new report from iPerceptions.

The report found that online retailers need to optimize their purchasing channels by addressing their website visitors intent. Thirty-eight percent of shoppers visit retail sites to gather information about products and brands. Shoppers who do this are generally satisfied (75%) and able to complete their research tasks (85%).

There is a drop-off in the task completion from the research phase to the buying phase. Only 61 percent of would be buyers indicate they were able to make a purchase on the site. Thirty-four percent said they could not find what they wanted and 13 percent said site navigation and usability were barriers to making a purchase.

“A 61% task completion rate means that 39% of your buyers are walking away, and a retailer with $50 million per year in online sales is losing $18 million in business,” said iPerceptions President and CEO Claude Guay.

“By structuring their sites so that visitors can look for - and find - crucial decision-making information, companies can remove a major hurdle responsible for causing would-be purchasers to eventually abandon the process altogether. This is extraordinarily valuable information for online retailers as we move into the holidays, and something that should really make marketers stand up and take notice.”

e-Readers are positioned to be a popular selling device this holiday season, according to a new survey commission by Retrevo and conducted by Gadgetology Study.

The survey asked an online sample of individuals if they were planning on buying an e-reader this year. The response revealed 1 in 5 intended to purchase an e-Reader before the end of 2009.

The study also indicated that 1 in 4 men planned on buying an e-reader, compared to 1-6 women. The Amazon Kindle, attracted 62 percent of shoppers, while the Sony Reader attracted 32 percent and another six percent preferred an alternative.

“e-Readers have come a long way in recent months, and with so many new innovations on the horizon, like color, lighter, more durable frames, and access to more content, e-Readers are fast becoming the must-have gadget,” says Retrevo CEO Vipin Jain.

Broken down by demographics, 25-34 year-olds led other groups with 40 percent of their peers indicating interest in buying an e-Reader, followed by the 35-45 year old age with 22 percent intending to buy an e-reader.

Mid and high income households made up the largest segment of potential e-Reader buyers with 33 percent of those with annual household incomes in the $100,000 - $200,000 range, followed by 16 percent in the $50,000-$100,000 range.

Running an online contest can be a breeze, especially when compared to its direct mail cousin. Not only are they quicker and easier for consumers to complete, they have the ability to go viral resulting in a far greater breadth of data collection and are an excellent customer acquisition tool.

But boring contests, with boring prizes aren’t going to cut the mustard. They won’t inspire people to enter. They aren’t going to be passed on to others. They won’t create a buzz online.

So, how do you make your online contest click with consumers?

1. Don’t skimp on prizes. It sounds rather obvious, but the more a consumer stands to win, the more likely they are to put effort into entering a contest. Not only that, they will be willing to exchange more personal data for their dream prize. It seems anyone can win an iPod or a laptop from just about anywhere these days, so differentiate your prizes to stand out from the crowd. For example, Elance’s recent contest offers to pay the winning freelancer a year of healthcare insurance to the value of $10,000. 

2. Promise fame, or a crack at it. Bear in mind that some consumers put a high value on personal publicity and to have their winning video, photograph or talent broadcast either online or offline can be every bit as enticing as many thousands of dollars or a flash laptop. Ourstage.com runs contests with prizes such as the chance to play a set on tour with other artists or studio time with a recognized producer.
   
3. Include celebrity. Depending on your target audience, a celebrity can push an online contest in to the spotlight. Whether the celebrity is related to the prize (‘win a day with’) or is judging the contest, the association can drive online buzz.

4. Build online buzz. Even a great contest with an amazing prize won’t travel far unless consumers get to hear about it. Use social networking sites, micro-blogging platforms, forums and even blogs to get the word out. Include “send-to-a-friend” or “share” links within the contest framework to make it easy for entrants to pass the contest on to others.

1. Keep entry quick and easy. While the temptation is to get as much data back from the contest entrant as possible, endless profile questions can turn consumers off, as do tasks or questions that are too hard or time consuming to complete. Ensure that the ability to enter is as accessible to your target audience as possible, and keep data collection questions to a minimum. This is particularly relevant for contests targeted at mobile Internet users.

And finally, one aspect of online contests that should not be overlooked, but often is - the announcement of the winner. This in itself is a valuable marketing activity that drives awareness long after a contest has closed, particularly when a great prize or a well-known celebrity is involved.

On Tuesday, dozens of engineers, developers, and designers were begging for money. Of course, it was a very sophisticated kind of begging—the kind of begging that only engineers, developers, and designers are entitled to do: seek funding for building revenue-generating Facebook applications.

The source is known as “fbFund,” and it’s over $10 million deep. Its Facebook description calls it a “10M seed fund supporting developers and entrepreneurs on Facebook.” In addition to providing the monetary backing, fbFund provides mentoring and marketing for companies who think that they can cash in on Facebook and acquire revenue for themselves, revenue for the investors, and revenue for Facebook.

The fund is a partnership between Facebook and Accel, a high-profile silicon valley investment firm, along with Founders Fund, an investment firm that is also deeply invested in the social networking site.

This week, the companies delivered their sharpest appeals in the hope to be awarded the cash that will help them launch their ideas into the “Facebook-o-sphere.” It’s no easy task. As one news report observed, “finalists in the annual program, the startups have spent the past 12 weeks camped out in an old Facebook building in downtown Palo Alto, building their products, scribbling ideas on whiteboards and refining their pitches.”

The startups lucky enough to get money are the startups which have a good idea that will eventually turn into revenue. Good examples of this are sites like Thread.com, a service that claims to match up potential mates by allowing you to find friends of your friends who could turn out to be that special someone. Nutshellmail is another potentially lucrative idea that empowers you to “take control of your social networks,” by putting all those social networks into an easy-email format rather than having to ply through the networks themselves all day long. FriendRadio tries to amp up Facebook’s music tab by adding a browser plugin, integrated with Facebook that lets you listen to your friend’s favorite music, not just look at it. Samasource is a humanitarian site which gives you access to outsource your tasks to underprivileged but educated people that live internationally.

Obviously there are more appeals and ideas, much more. The ideas cover everything from viral marketing services to errand-running services. There is no end to the options, but there is an end to the money. As the companies get cash and get going, you may soon be invited to become a fan or join a group.

A trend toward super-sized ads appears to fly in the face of Internet user preferences.

Small ads, embedded within the content of a webpage, are far more effective at driving purchase intent and awareness than large, screen-hogging units, according to new findings released this week by Dynamic Logic.

In their study of 2,390 display ad campaigns that were implemented over the last three years, Dynamic Logic found that smaller ad units, such as “half banners” and “rectangles”, had a greater impact on brand awareness and better conversion rates than larger, more intrusive ads that “frame” content, such as “leaderboards” and “skyscrapers”.

Yet advertisers’ desire to “own” the page and eyeballs of viewers appears to have spawned super-sized ad units. Banner blindness, too, plays its part. AOL.com introduced large format ad units last year, and more recently the OPA and Burst Media did so.

Advertisers appear to be forsaking creativity and engagement for size, yet saying something louder doesn’t make it any more convincing, or relevant. As Senior VP of custom solutions at Dynamic Logic, Ken Mallon, said , “Just about any size will work better than a bad ad that’s huge”. The other issue at play is that large ads are, by their very nature, intrusive. Previous studies have found consumers find ads that obliterate all or part of a webpage’s content, or are hard to minimize or close, annoying.

So, the answer online, as always, is it’s not the size of the ad, but what you do with it. “We continue to believe that creative quality is the most important factor driving the success of online advertising,” said Mallon. “However, it will be interesting to see how the new, larger ad formats that publishers are beginning to debut will rank next to the more traditional online ad formats. Based on the current data, bigger doesn’t always mean better, but these new ad formats are quite unique and we look forward to testing them.”

As the web reels over the news of the Yahoo Microsoft partnership, Twitter quietly enhances its own search service. On Tuesday, Twitter ramped up this search engine function, which now allows users to query current tweets to find out what is happening in the Twittersphere.

As a search engine, Twitter is a more valuable tool. In fact, some might argue that Twitter is more useful as a search engine than as a tweeting forum. For one, users can search Twitter in real-time. I did a quick search for “Microsoft and Yahoo,” and immediately came up with ten Tweets that occurred in the last thirty seconds. I would say that’s real-time.

Another upside to the Twitter search engine is that it’s open to the general public. One does not need to sign up or sign in to Twitter in order to take advantage of the helpful search function. That’s a good thing, since ‘the general public’ may not be part of Twitter. Or, if they’re like me they signed up on Twitter, didn’t use it, forgot their username, and now are part of the shockingly large number of seldom-tweeters.

Behind the search engine function is a history of Twitter’s acquisition of Summize, a Twitter search engine. As one of the multitude of Twitter piggy-backers, Summize hit upon an idea that Twitter thought was nearly as smart as their own—give people the ability to read Tweets that are happening right now. Marrying the search function with the Twitter main page is the perfect solution to a better facility for search-and-tweet action.

Beyond just a cool tool, the founder of Twitter, Biz Stone, says that this is about making Twitter a bit more user-friendly: “Helping people access Twitter in more relevant and useful ways upon first introduction lowers the barrier to accessing the value Twitter has to offer, and presents the service more consistently with how it has evolved.” In other words, people who visit will be more likely to join and use. That’s the goal at least.

The new format helps out. At the top of Twitter’s newly redesigned home page is a can’t-miss-it invitation to “share and discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world.” The search box is labeled, “See what people are saying about…” If people are drawing a blank and don’t know what to search for, Twitter invites you to check out their popular topics by the minute, day, and week.

But how valuable is reading someone else’s stream-of-consciousness? Few are devoted to the actual value of reading another’s description of their breakfast, tweeted moments ago. However, judging by our addiction to blogs, Facebook status updates, and constant Tweeting, it is rather entertaining to check out this kind of real-time information on friends and celebrities. Besides, as the New York Times insightfully pointed out, it gives us the opportunity “to peer into the world’s collective brain.” Surely there is value in that.

The tech light sabers clash, this time between long-time rivals Google and Microsoft over office applications. The Microsoft Office developers pledge their customers with a new Microsoft Office 2010 that will render Google Docs an impotent relic of the past.

“Humbug,” says Google.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is calling on a federal court to reject bogus copyright claims in a ringtone royalty battle that could raise costs for consumers and put their rights at risk.

As part of a ploy to squeeze more money out of mobile phone companies, the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) has told a federal court that each time a phone rings in a public place, the phone user has violated copyright law.

ASCAP argues, phone carriers must pay additional royalties or face legal liability for contributing to what they claim is cell phone users’ copyright infringement. In an amicus brief filed Wednesday, EFF points out that copyright law does not reach public performances “without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage.”

“This is an outlandish argument from ASCAP,” said EFF Senior Intellectual Property Attorney Fred von Lohmann.

“Are the millions of people who have bought ringtones breaking the law if they forget to silence their phones in a restaurant? Under this reasoning from ASCAP, it would be a copyright violation for you to play your car radio with the window down!”

ASCAP has responded by saying that it does not plan to charge mobile phone users, just mobile phone service providers. No doubt that cost would be passed along to mobile phone users.

“Because it is legal for consumers to play music in public, it’s also legal for my mobile phone carrier to sell me a ringtone and a phone to do it,” said von Lohmann. “Otherwise it would be illegal to sell all kinds of technologies that help us enjoy our fair use, first sale, and other copyright privileges.”

4 Friend Requests, 2 event invitations, 4 cause invitations, and…an invitation to the White House? If you’ve ever wanted to be a fan of the White House, you may now do so. True to its plugged-in, connected, and relevant nature, Obama’s White House has its own Facebook app—an up-close real-time look at White House current events right on Facebook.

The app (short for application) launched earlier in June keeps up an ever-steady stream of status updates that can keep pace with any Facebook-happy teen. The updates are typically political in nature—like “Watch, discuss, and engage with Van Jones of CEQ on Green Jobs,” rather than (fictional) “Obama Eats Cheerios for Breakfast.” But, to get a more personal look at the life of the First Family in the White House, the app provides “Photos” which reveal impromptu shots of Obama jogging down the hall with the First Puppy or tipping his chair back on two legs during a meeting.

Keep up with White House happenings by clicking on the “Events” tabs. A generous stream of commentary is available on the “Notes” tab, and the “Video” box always has something interesting to display. The White House Facebook app is a one-stop-shop for all your White House news.

The app has a friendly feel to it. Not a lot of ranting and raving, although there is room for friendly discourse. So far, the White House has well over 260,000 fans, and more are joining daily. The White House fosters a strong sense of community, as members “like this,” (Facebook’s version of a thumbs-up), others comment on a status update, and more fans give feedback on every topic imaginable. For example, 3,813 people have indicated that they like Obama’s pictures. 934 people have made comments on the photos. Friendly banter like “My dog can beat up your dog” (comment posted on a photo of Bo, the Obama’s dog) lace the comment feed. Other approving remarks like “great team!! Your the best Pres ever!!! luv u Rahmbo” are posted for all the world to see.

Unlike his predecessors, Obama keeps up a rapid stream of popular-level interaction. Admittedly, social media venues were not as available to past presidents as they are today. News, networking, discussion, commentary, and information from this administration can be found on virtually any media outlet today. The new White House App rounds out the following list:

http://www.whitehouse.gov
http://flickr.com/whitehouse
http://twitter.com/whitehouse
http://myspace.com/whitehouse
http://vimeo.com/whitehouse
http://youtube.com/whitehouse
http://apps.facebook.com/whitehouselive/

Social news site hopes users and advertisers will dig new ad format, literally.

Leading social news site, Digg, is aiming to do for advertising what they’ve done for news with the introduction of Digg Ads.

Advertising on Digg will take on a new twist once the latest format is out of the pilot stage. Users of the social news site will be introduced to Digg Ads. The ads take on the guise of user-submitted content, and slot nicely into place without jarring, but are clearly marked as sponsored messages.

The twist is that Digg users can vote on the ads - choosing to Digg or Bury them - as with Digg’s usual content. Not only should this format provide site users with more relevant advertising, it can also provide advertisers with real-time feedback on the performance of their messages.

“With Digg Ads, we have two key objectives: to provide advertisers a more effective way to reach consumers, and to provide the voting community of Digg users with a more dynamic, relevant advertising experience,” wrote Mike Maser, Chief Strategy Officer for Digg, on the company blog.

Advertisers will be charged based on the popularity of the ads. The more an ad is Dugg the less the advertiser is charged and the more an ad is Buried the more the advertiser is charged until priced out of the system, explained Maser.

However, as Zee Cane of London-based marketing agency WeDoCreative points out, Digg may have a few stumbling blocks ahead. “Aside from potential competitors burying ads, they’ll need to deal with Apple fan boys who’ll instinctively bury Microsoft ads, marketing agencies who will simply give up in frustration unable to create ads Digg users are satisfied with and all that aside, each ‘ad’ is likely to have to deal with the masses of typical Digg commentary slating every aspect of it and the company behind it,” he wrote on The Next Web Blog.