What price innovation?
As part of the build up to the Econsultancy’s 2012 Innovation Awards, we’ve been quizzing some of the best and brightest entrants about different aspects of innovation.
With that in mind, it's time to get down to brass tacks and takes a look at the economic imperatives surrounding innovative company cultures.
While it’s great to set your sights high, eventually you’ll have to deal with the harsh reality of funding ideas and convincing stakeholders who may not be as enamoured with the gleaming future and sense of endless possibilities as you are.
We gathered our awards shortlist once more and asked them how they manage to convince key stakeholders, and given the current economic climate, ensure that there is available budget for testing and deploying innovative ideas...
Search engines attract 2.3bn UK visits in January
Visits to search engines in the UK increased to 2.3bn in January 2012 compared to 2.2bn in the same period in 2011, according to data from Experian Hitwise.
The additional 100m visits equates to a yearly increase of 4.5%.
Google still dominates the market with 90.64% of all UK searches conducted in January, slightly down on December's tally of 91.75% but up 0.27% annually.
How do you build an innovative company?
In yesterday's post, we took a quick top-down look at what innovation meant to some of the businesses who’ve made it onto the shortlist for our Innovation Awards this year.
While opinions differed greatly about what makes innovation, everyone we spoke to agreed that businesses need to push boundaries in order to grow and thrive in the current climate.
Our respondents work across a huge variety of sectors, from start-ups to multinational, but they’ve all managed to integrate practical, innovative ideas into their business.
We know you don’t read the Econsultancy blog for esoteric opinions, so today we’re looking more closely at how they managed this, by asking:
How do you build an innovative company, or foster innovation within your organisation?
Blackberry's impressive app stats avoid the bigger picture
Blackberry’s App World generates 43% more daily downloads per app than Apple’s App Store, according to RIM’s VP for developer relations Alec Saunders.
During his speech at Blackberry DevCon Europe today, Saunders also stated that App World has more paid downloads than the Android Market and clocks up 6m daily downloads, which equates to 30 apps per Blackberry user each year.
Overall, App World is second only to iOS in terms of profitability, generating 40% more revenue for developers than the Android Market.
Groupon bolsters personalised shopping with Adku acquisition
Groupon’s scramble to bring in fresh talent (and technology) has taken yet another step forward with the acquisition of personalised shopping startup Adku.
The newly acquired company personalises the shopping experience for those visiting e-commerce sites, and was picked up for a price reported to be more than $10m.
Why retailers need to embrace mobile internet in stores
It's natural that some retailers will feel threatened by the growing use of mobile in store, but the answer is to embrace this trend and use it to enhance the in-store experience.
Retailers can do this by providing apps and mobile optimised sites, but also by offering wi-fi to customers.
According to an On Device Research (ODR) survey of mobile users, 60% of respondents have used the mobile internet while in stores, while 78% would use free wi-fi in stores if offered it.
The use of smartphones by consumers is growing, and many are now using them to compare prices, and search the web for product reviews.
So how can retailers adapt and use this customer behaviour to their advantage?
What makes something innovative?
Innovation has always been one of Econsultancy’s core brand values and we celebrate this every year with our Innovation Awards, shining a light on those companies and individuals who’ve helped to advance the digital marketing landscape over the past twelve months.
But what do we mean when we talk about innovation? It’s a deceptively simple word with a million interpretations. For some it can be about simple changes; incremental decisions and refinements that give big results.
For others it could be a radical overhaul of the entire company structure. Some businesses seem to naturally burst with ideas, while others require specific challenges to inspire them.
In the run up to this year’s awards we thought we’d ask those who’ve reached our awards shortlist to tell us what innovation means to them.
We’ll be publishing a series of posts throughout February, covering everything from building innovative companies to exploiting new technologies.
We hope they’ll give you an insight into how some of the market leaders work and help you develop your own innovative ideas (and dare we suggest, enter them for an award in 2013).
In the wake of MegaUpload, another file sharing service bites the dust
When agents of the United States federal government began an international operation to raid MegaUpload, they were targeting after an organization that was allegedly engaged in a highly-illegal and highly-profitable piracy business.
But their actions have had a ripple effect across the internet, with other 'file locker' and 'file sharing' services questioning their own futures.
Will relationship building cost newspapers too much?
The New York Times is giving pay wall skeptics reason to reconsider their skepticism. Despite questions about the company's paywall strategy, the daily has managed to lure some 325,000 paying subscribers.
That's good news for a newspaper that some believed might not survive.
Super Bowl fail: Toyota spams Twitter
The Super Bowl is an exciting time for the brands that shelled out big bucks to reach millions of consumers on one of the biggest days in the world of sport.
That was certainly true for Toyota. The carmaker had high hopes for its Camry Effect campaign, which it described as one of the "most ambitious social media campaigns we've ever implemented." But did it get a little too excited?
