The BBC unveils its EU cookie law solution
The ICO's one year amnesty on enforcement of the EU e-Privacy Directive ends tomorrow, and a few more sites have been rolling out their compliance solutions.
BBC.co.uk launched its cookie info banner yesterday, while Channel 4, The Guardian and the Telegraph have today.
The four approaches are all very different...
Facebook launches homegrown mobile photo app
What's cooler than spending $1bn on a mobile photo sharing app?
The answer: spending $1bn on a mobile photo service and then launching your own mobile photo sharing app service weeks later.
Yahoo builds a browser, and people actually like it
Yahoo has made a lot of big mistakes over the years, and today it finds itself in the fight of its life to stay relevant on the modern web.
The big questions: what can Yahoo do to recapture some of its past glory, if anything at all?
One possible answer is so obvious that nobody thought of it earlier: build a browser.
Which of these smartphone card readers will win the mobile payments race?
The mobile payment industry is constantly evolving and extremely complex.
NFC gains a lot of attention largely thanks to the fact that Visa has thrown its weight behind the technology. However, as yet, it has failed to take off because access to NFC enabled devices is limited and consumers are still largely sceptical.
In the short-term, it seems likely that mobile card readers will prove to be more popular with merchants and consumers.
The EU cookie law conundrum in numbers [Infographic]
With the deadline for compliance with the EU e-Privacy Directive just two days away, we've rounded up some of the key stats in an infographic.
This embeddable infographic looks at marketers' and consumers' views of the EU cookie law, and our five-step plan for compliance.
This is a topic we've covered in detail, so I've also rounded up some of our recent articles and other resources on the EU cookie law.
Six clever examples of branded Facebook apps
Facebook apps are a good way for brands to engage with their fans in a way that doesn't feel like a hard sell.
They also have the added bonus of scraping lots of useful consumer data. However, apps aren’t necessarily right for all brands.
They need to be in keeping with the company's values and offer users something they want to engage with and share with friends.
Here are six examples of brands that have put Facebook apps to good use.
Ballmer's bold prediction: up to 500m Windows 8 users in 2013
According to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Windows 8 represents a "rebirth" of Windows and it's the "deepest, broadest and most impactful" version of the operating system his company has yet created.
Those are strong words from a man whose legacy may hinge upon Windows 8's success. But Ballmer apparently isn't afraid to use them, or to offer up bold predictions about how fast Windows 8 will find its way onto consumer devices.
App review: eBay's revamped iPad app
Earlier this month eBay overhauled its iPad app to offer users a range of new functions and hi-res images.
The app now has a customisable homepage, back button and new ways to view search results. eBay appears to have taken the liberty of giving itself five stars in the product description, but are the upgrades actually an improvement?
User reviews in the App Store show that opinion is fairly polarised: 362 people give it five stars but 265 give it one star.
Building a multi-billion pound business online
The recent valuation of Facebook at $104bn, the purchase of Instagram (by Facebook) for a billion dollars, and even Rakuten’s investment in social network Pinterest shows that there is serious money to be made in online business.
We ask all our merchants to join the Rakuten University to help them maximise their online sales, but some of the principles taught here can be applied to any online business, however they sell.
Here are some invaluable tips for online business and retailers that we’ve learnt over the years...
Just 17% of UK consumers 'completely aware' of mobile NFC payments
Only 17% of UK consumers are ‘completely aware’ of what contactless mobile payments are, according to a survey by eDigitalResearch.
However, 67% of respondents have heard of the technology before, suggesting that more needs to be done to educate consumers about how NFC works.
This tallies with research published recently by VoucherCodes.co.uk which found that 55% of British consumers were unable to name a single mobile payment brand.
