Angry Birds Space becomes fastest-growing mobile game ever
While nobody can deny the massive popularity of Rovio's Angry Birds franchise, there are plenty of skeptics who question whether Rovio's cash cow will remain popular forever.
And for good reason: in today's fast-paced and highly-competitive gaming market, which now includes millions of social and casual 'gamers', producing hits is difficult but keeping them hits is often even more difficult.
Walmart.com targets cash-only shoppers
When you go shopping online, most retailers are ready to welcome your business provided that you have one thing: a credit card.
Thanks to the wide availability of credit cards in the Western world, online retail has become a multi-billion dollar business. But how much business are online retailers missing out on from would-be customers who don't have credit cards?
Rovio, Walmart team up for Angry Birds Space launch
It's going to be a big week for Rovio, which has become one of the world's most valuable gaming companies thanks to its ultra-popular Angry Birds franchise. On Thursday, the latest Angry Birds game, Angry Birds Space, will make its way to app stores around the internet.
But for players looking to maximize their Angry Birds Space experience, a trip to the local Walmart may be in order.
Walmart acquires mobile agency Small Society
Walmart has acquired mobile agency Small Society to join its growing @WalmartLabs mobile team.
Small Society has built several consumer iPhone apps for brands such as Starbucks and Whole Foods, and the team will now be set to work improving the retailer's mobile offering.
Walmart makes social media acquisition
M&A is back in full-force in the consumer internet space, but this time around, it's not just the usual suspects -- tech companies -- doing the buying.
Case in point: yesterday, Walmart announced that it is buying social media company Kosmix. Founded in 2005, the company, which raised $55m in investment over the years, "filters social media to connect you to content that interests."
Do location-based services really matter yet?
Location-based services like Foursquare saw their popularity increase
dramatically in 2010, and along with that popularity came plenty of
press attention. To some, location-based services may represent the holy
grail of mobile marketing for brick-and-mortar businesses.
But are brick-and-mortar marketers overestimating how much these services can help them?
Walmart takes a page from Amazon.com's playbook
Amazon.com may be the king of online retail but the king of offline retail, Wal-Mart, may have Amazon.com's throne on its mind. Yesterday, Walmart.com added one million new items to its catalog thanks to the launch of the Walmart Marketplace.
What is the Walmart Marketplace? As the name suggests, it's the Walmart equivalent of the Amazon Marketplace, a program that enables third party merchants to hawk their wares on Amazon.com.
Q&A: Jim Stengel on purpose driven brands and the state of marketing today
Jim Stengel spent seven years as the global marketing officer at Procter & Gamble and is
largely credited for transforming P&G into one of the most admired
brand-building companies in the world. He is now president of Jim Stengel, LLC, a think tank and a consultancy that focuses on proprietary research and ways to drive business growth in the current economy. He is also a director of the Motorola Corporation and serves on the Board of Advisors for MarketShare Partners, a marketing analytics firm.
His new book 'Packaged Good', which is set to come out next year, examines the role that purpose driven marketing plays in growing market share for brands.
This week, he was appointed as an adjunct marketing professor at UCLA's Anderson School of Management. Starting next January, he will teach brand marketing to graduate students at the university.
Econsultancy caught up with the marketing guru to see what his plans are at UCLA and what role purpose driven marketing can play in a downturn.
Web 2.0 needs Customer Service 1.0
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. These are but a few of the services many of us have come to enjoy.
Yet there's one thing that seems anything but enjoyable about them: dealing with their customer service.
WalMart, Best Buy shun social media
It would make perfect sense for some big box retailers to curl up, lick, their wounds from the devastation of the 2008 holiday season, and plan for the next move. After all, reports Retail Forward today, anything that resembles improvement at retail will wait until the fourth quarter of this year.
It would also make perfect sense to take this opportunity to step it up online. The good questions to ask would regard web site experience, email marketing, customer engagement via social networks, and online marketing plans for the fall. But what we see lately is a focus on public relations, a lot of spending on in-store technology, and mobile commerce.
