PayPal turns to developers in its quest for world domination
When Steve Ballmer repeated the now-famous and parodied words, "Developers,
developers, developers", he may have been far more sane than he looked at the time.
From Apple to Facebook, some of today's most successful and popular internet companies are taking advantage of third party developers to extend their products and make them more useful and appealing. In many cases, these companies owe some of their success to developers.
Pizza Hut iPhone app generates an extra $1m sales
Another example of the potential of mobile commerce comes from Pizza Hut, with its iPhone app generating $1m in sales in the three months since launch.
The app, which allows customers to order food on the move, is approaching the figure of 1m downloads. It is only available in the US at the moment.
Buy it now, or not: eBay can't sell GM's cars
Life is tough for General Motors. Once the world's largest and most powerful automaker, the Great Recession put the final nail in the coffin of a company that had grown too large and too lackadaisical to survive.
But thanks to Chapter 11 bankruptcy and the support of the United States government, GM is trying to reinvent itself. It's spending lots of money trying to convince consumers to give its cars a second look and it's looking for new solutions to old problems.
EBay shows that mobile commerce can work
Online auction giant eBay recently announced that it has generated $380m in sales through its mobile commerce channel, showing the potential value of m-commerce for retailers.
The figures are interesting, especially as other large retailers such as Amazon have yet to reveal their mobile commerce sales, and shows that enough shoppers are prepared to make purchases on their mobiles to make it worthwhile for retailers.
Is M&A back?
At this time a year ago, the global economy was imploding. We were in uncharted territory. Banks were on the brink. Lending dried up. Private equity was sitting tight. The wheels of the financial markets had stopped moving.
Flash forward to today. While there's still lots of debate about what the future holds and there's good reason to believe that we're not out of the woods yet, in some industries executives are feeling more confident. In the tech and media worlds, there are signs of life in the M&A markets.
Tesco opens up its DB, offers affiliates lifetime commissions
A move by Tesco may provide some hints about the state of affiliate marketing and its future.
Earlier this month, Tesco sent the 150 developers who have been working with Tesco.com's Grocery API an email detailing that the company was opening up its database to them and giving them the ability to build applications that could potentially generate lifelong affiliate commissions.
EBay's identity crisis
The recession is making it hard for retailers right now, but online auction site ebay is especially hurting from efforts to diversify its core business.
For over a year now, eBay has been expanding its offerings to include retail items, and putting itself in closer competition with retail giant Amazon. But that has come at the expense of its core business.
Ina Steiner, the editor of AuctionBytes, a news service for eBay sellers, has found that eBay’s Web traffic has been steadily falling since last fall. She attributes that drop to the company's current “identity crisis.”
Are UK retailers not bothering with m-commerce?
While mobile commerce seems to be taking hold in other markets, especially Japan, the UK's retailers seem to be slow so far to anticipate this trend, with very few having launched transactional mobile sites.
Looking at a US article on mobile commerce usability today from GetElastic, I was struck by how many of the big name retailers in the States are already catering for customers on mobiles.
Sears, BestBuy, Ralph Lauren, Barnes and Noble, Amazon and others all have m-commerce sites, yet I can think of very few in the UK.
eBay gets back to basics, will other companies do the same?
eBay, the online auction giant, is doing a bit of Spring cleaning.
On Monday, it announced that it had sold StumbleUpon, a content discovery service it purchased for $75m in May 2007, back to its founders and a group of venture capitalists.
Ebay bets with its head, not over it
Back in the days when OffTrack Betting was popular in New York City, the ad tagline said "bet with your head, not over it." It may be uncool to say, but eBay's recent conservative retrenching is a solid strategy. A little boring, maybe, but at least the company is betting with its head.
CEO John Donahoe told a group of analysts Wednesday that the company is going to focus on its original mission, which is ecommerce auction. No more eBay Express. No more plans to compete with Amazon for the overall ecommerce business. Donahoe was roundly trashed in the blogosphere. While it might not spike its short term stock price, it's the right move. With Skype and PayPal in its tent, eBay is positioned to play very well in the most active markets. It has communication infrastructure, payment infrastructure, and auction infrastructure. Right now anyway, no one is a serious threat to that trifecta.
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Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
