The NYTimes does a nice job of outlining how major retail chains are reinventing their business models during this recession.
For example, at Macy’s ….
Under the new system it will not be unusual for a local Macy’s to stock the merchandise customers request, be it wide-width shoes or Sean John suits, and for those [...]
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Jared Spool has this nice little presentation about Design Treasures from Amazon (there are four of them, or at least four that he’s willing to talk about).
The presentation is worth a listen, particularly for anyone who manages a large website and wonders how to keep making it better. The quickest answer I [...]
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Take this unsubscribe page. I got here by clicking on the “click here to unsubscribe from this newsletter” link at the bottom of a spam/bacon email:
By “unsubscribe button” do you mean the submit button …? Will I actually be unsubscribed, or surreptitiously be added to another spam list?
And while we’re at is, what [...]
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From The Economist: Fresher cookers: The humble cooking stove is being overhauled around the world with the help of “user focused” design
The tasty bit:
As well as being efficient, stoves must also meet the conflicting objectives of being transportable and being rugged enough to withstand the rigours of daily cooking. Combustion chambers therefore present a “huge [...]
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This article from the FT, and its sister article, also in today’s FT — Web 2.0 euphoria tempered by social problems — are perhaps not news, but a confirmation of what many of us already knew. It’s hard to make money with “Web 2.0″ aps.
The article defines Web 2.0 sites and applications as [...]
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Tags:random web users·untested advertising methods
If you don’t know about the Best Buy story, you should. They changed their approach to how they understand their customers, and have seen nothing but success since. A recent story in the FT neatly captures their approach.
Best Buy launched the “customer-centricity” concept in its US stores four years ago, gradually remodelling each [...]
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Tags:Best Buy·Brad Anderson·Columbia·Columbia University·Dick Schulze·early technology adopters·Geoff Colvin·Larry Selden·United States
Recent news that Amazon is creating two aps for Facebook (from TC here, and FT here) may seem a bit strange — after all, wouldn’t Amazon want more traffic and activity on their site — but a moments reflection should help explain.
Amazon is probably not only the world’s large search engine (er, product search engine, [...]
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Tags:large internet retailer·large search engine·product search engine·Search engine·social networking sites·social-networking site
The Attention Economy
From Wikipedia
‘Across consumer markets, attention is becoming the scarcest – and so most strategically vital – resource in the value chain. Attention scarcity is fundamentally reshaping the economics of most industries it touches; beginning with the media industry.’
‘Attention economics” today is primarily concerned with the problem of getting consumers to consume advertising.’
The Experience [...]
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Tags:beverage·Canada·Jasmine Green Tea·Linda Nazareth·media industry·Singapore·South Korea·United States
I wrote recently about search goods and experience goods, and what that means for faceted (or guided) navigation. As I continued to think about the post, I began looking at the presentation of these goods online. And I found something rather interesting.
Let me back up a bit. Some definitions first.
A [...]
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Tags:information_design search_goods experience_goods amazon·Search goods