E-Commerce

Google Takes Maps to Next Level
May 16, 2013

Google Maps, already the de facto standard for online and mobile maps, is breaking new ground with added capabilities announced on Wednesday at the Google I/O Conference in San Francisco. Maps will get 3D views, speech recognition, enhanced voice search capabilities and will leverage artificial intelligence. Google Maps for mobile is also being enhanced.

Now It's the EU Harping on Huawei, ZTE
May 16, 2013

What next, Antarctica? Citing illegal subsidies, the European Commission is considering trade duties against Chinese telecommunications equipment makers Huawei and ZTE. This is but the latest headache for Huawei and ZTE. Between them, the U.S., Canada, Australia and India have all publicly voiced concerns about the duo.

German Court Orders Google to Clean Up Autocomplete
May 15, 2013

A federal court in Germany has told Google that it must remove offensive or defamatory suggestions from its autocomplete function when it receives a complaint. The case that prompted the ruling started with a German businessman who, upon culling through Google.de, found that he was associated with scientology and fraud.

Square Stand Lets Small Retailers Put Their iPads to Work
May 15, 2013

Square announced Tuesday it would reach out to retail outlets with its new Square Stand, an iPad dock that can handle business transactions and customer analytics. The mobile payments processing startup said small and medium-sized businesses would be able to collect customer loyalty information when they ring up sales. Square Stand replaces the cash register.

Amazon Mints Coins and Makes Deposits in All Kindle Fires
May 13, 2013

Amazon Kindle owners have a new way to pay for games, apps and in-app purchases -- Amazon Coins. Amazon released its virtual currency Monday, and to kick off the new feature the company deposited 500 free Coins into the accounts of every Kindle Fire owner. Since each Coin equals a penny, the gift amounts to $5 for each user.

China Bashes Apple for Tax Evasion
May 13, 2013

China has been having a good go at Apple lately, having slammed the company in March for substandard post-sale service and quickly following that up with charges of copyright infringement. The latest accusation: tax evasion. Oh, and pornography. Apple's online stores in China reportedly are not paying proper import taxes for software sold to Chinese customers.

How to Muff a Mobile Marketing Campaign, Part 2
May 13, 2013

You wouldn't think it was easy to bungle a mobile marketing campaign -- but it definitely is doable. Six in 10 decision makers planned to increase their companies' mobile marketing budgets in 2013, Forrester said earlier this year, reporting on a survey conducted for Acquent. However, 42 percent of those respondents were worried about achieving ROI. They have good reason to be.

Amazon's 3D Phone Could Simply Be a Wonder to Behold
May 10, 2013

Amazon is rumored to be developing two high-end smartphones, as well as an audio-streaming device, broadening its range of branded hardware products well beyond its current Kindle e-readers and Kindle Fire tablets and its expected -- though as yet unconfirmed -- TV set-top box. The big surprise in the latest rumor is that one of the smartphones might actually support 3D video.

From BI to KPIs to Benchmark Success in the Cloud
May 10, 2013

Organizations of all sizes across an assortment of industries are using a growing set of cloud analytics solutions to address their Big Data, business intelligence and data integration challenges. Escalating competitive pressures and customer expectations are forcing organizations to find new ways to tap internal and external data sources to achieve their business goals.

Groupon Regroups With Q1 Revenue Gains, Mobile Growth
May 09, 2013

Groupon reported a better than expected first quarter thanks to strong North American revenue growth and an uptick in mobile customers. That helped send the daily deal website's stock soaring Wednesday. The company reported revenue of $601.4 million, an 8 percent jump from the $559.3 million during the same time last year.

Klout Gives Bing Some Expert Advice
May 09, 2013

Content aggregation site Klout has expanded its partnership with Microsoft to provide Bing users with access to answers from Klout experts. The site, which pulls data from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google+, Blogger and other sources, rates an individual's influence, based on a 100-point scale. Klout seeks out those who have real clout -- that is, who are influential about certain topics.

Lumia 928 Steps Out of the Shadows
May 08, 2013

Nokia has created a video that shows off the PureView camera in its upcoming Lumia 928 handset and more importantly show how it compares to two of its rivals. The video highlights how the new Lumia 928's 8.7 megapixel camera fares better in low light, and how the optical image stabilization can handle fast movements.

YouTube Trends Map Shows What You Like to Watch
May 08, 2013

YouTube viewers curious about what other users are watching across the country can now find out, thanks to a new feature from the streaming video site that displays data about what is being shared and viewed throughout the U.S. The new YouTube Trends Map, which made its debut this week, is an interactive graphic map of the country that displays which videos are the most popular.

Chinese Authorities Net 11 in Piracy Bust
May 08, 2013

Police in Beijing arrested 11 suspects believed to be involved with a major high-definition downloading ring. The website, silu.com, was running what has been called an "unprecedented" operation. It reportedly boasted more than 400,000 registered members and offered under-the-table downloads for nearly 19,000 films and TV series.

Pre-Roll Ads Will Soon Know Where You've Shopped Online
May 08, 2013

Pre-roll video ads are about to get smarter, according to OwnerIQ, a digital advertising company that is adding targeting data based on consumer browser behavior to online video ads. The new targeting capabilities borrow from tactics developed for display advertising that try to zero in on a prequalified audience.

US Senate Gives States an Internet Tax Collector
May 07, 2013

The U.S. Senate on Monday voted 69-27 to pass the Marketplace Fairness Act, a measure that gives states the tools necessary to collect sales taxes from online retailers that do business in their states but don't have a physical presence there. The bill, lauded in some quarters and decried in others, is now heading to the House of Representatives, specifically the House Judiciary Committee.

Tap CRM to Give Your Customers a Pleasant Surprise
May 07, 2013

So you have your CRM application in place and humming, collecting information about customers and potential customers and organizing it -- but how are you using it? Most companies pour it back into sales, marketing and support to keep feeding those machines, which is good. It's the way you realize the value from your CRM investment.

How HP Could Become the Next Apple
May 06, 2013

I was given a task the other day, and this happens every once in a while, to imagine a sequence of events that would turn HP from an industry problem to an industry leader in Apple's class. Apple went from being in far worse shape than HP's in now to become more valuable at its peak than even oil companies, so this isn't an impossible goal.

How to Muff a Mobile Marketing Campaign, Part 1
May 06, 2013

This year could be the best of times and the worst of times for mobile marketers, suggests a report Forrester released earlier this year. Six in 10 survey respondents -- people who make decisions about their company's mobile marketing strategy -- planned to increase mobile marketing budgets this year, according to the report.

New IT Tools Untie Tangled Webs of Business Data
May 06, 2013

Information may indeed be power, but organizations large and small are finding that they have to expend more energy than ever just to keep up with the data streams flooding their infrastructures. It's not just the internal data that provides intelligence about their businesses. Organizations are also having to manage all that external Big Data that can help them land new customers.