Broadstuff commented, that Google is right to be scared of Bing. Fair enough that they are right not to underestimate this competitor, but early signs show that their innovation is going to need to be a lot further ahead of the curve than it currently is to really strike at the heart of Google, at least in an Australian specific context. Besides the name change, there has been little growth in the market share held by Microsoft. I think that the lack of decent cross product integration will also make it difficult. Maybe Microsoft should consider buying Zoho and fixing Hotmail – they could run it on Google Wave maybe?
I recently had an interesting discussion with Darren following his cry “Collaboration is a myth” as he tried to find real world examples of collaboration. he framed the question in an interesting way, “What motivates people on Wikipedia to do stuff in concert like that. What is the essence of what we call collaboration?”
At first I thought it came down to two things, user stake in the objective, and user effort required for contribution. These must be balanced against each other. the lower the effort for contribution, the less that needs to be at stake for collaboration participation.
Darren then mused if you could achieve collaboration for business processes, where the user stake in a larger company can be exceptionally minimal.
“Can the gap be bridged purely by technology? - a technology which truly brought collaboration to the workplace”
At first, I thought no, if effort is required and user stake largely removed, can technology bridge the gap to achieve any kind of collaborative work. But then I remembered a great talk from TED,
that showed us that in fact there are times when we will very willingly do something for nothing. that is when we are at play.
there are actually already examples of this type of collaboration in the real world – here are two:
http://images.google.com/imagelabeler/
and
Play Pumps
del.icio.us Tags:
play,
design
Traditional retailers are reclaiming the ground lost to ‘e-tailers’ (online only retailers) over the past few years, with over 3.5 million unique visitors searching catalogues online for in-store offers over the December shopping period.
Bricks-and-mortar retailers reclaimed market share from e-tailers over the Christmas shopping period, with more than 3.5 million unique visitors searching the catalogues of retailers published on Salmat DigitalForce’s Lasoo.com.au and Dynamic Catalogue platforms during December.
The figure is an aggregated total of unique visitors throughout the month to Lasoo.com.au and the 20-plus Dynamic Catalogues hosted within the sites of individual retailers, including major brands such as Target, BIG W, Myer and Dick Smith.
Previous Christmas retail periods indicated a trend towards consumers engaging more with e-tailers’ at the expense of the bricks and mortar retail brands. This was largely attributable to the fact that time-poor consumers were easily able to find exactly what they were looking for on the internet from the online retailers, while traditional retailers struggled to make their brands and offers discoverable online.
Since the November 2007 launch of Lasoo.com.au, which allows consumers to search catalogues and offers from various retailers; and Dynamic Catalogue, a managed catalogue hosting solution that sits within the retailer’s own site; offline retailers have had an effective way of making their catalogue offers visible to consumers online. What’s more, the technology behind Lasoo.com.au and Dynamic Catalogue allows these offers to appear towards the top of search results from search engines such as Google. Until Lasoo and Dynamic Catalogue, these search results pages were previously dominated by e-tailers.
Pre-Shopping has become a growing trend for online shoppers seeking instant gratification, as witnessed by e-tailers with conversion rates around 1% to 4%. Retailers have capitalised on the behaviour in 2008, clocking up a 24% conversion rate from online–to-offline transactions.
Lasoo analysed Hitwise data by comparing a custom category of the Top 25 Retailers (traditional bricks and mortar retailers) against a custom category of top 25 E-tailers (pure online retailers) based on market share of Australian Internet visits. As a result the year-on-year comparison of the market share of traditional retailers v e-tailers[1] during Q4 clearly demonstrates this trend, with the retailer Christmas traffic surpassing the benchmark previously set by e-tailers as they now seem to have reached a ceiling over the last 2 years.
E-Tailers vs Retailers Q4 06
Etailer vs Retailer Q4 07
Etailer vs Retailer Q4 08
[1] Using custom categories (see endnote) comparing weekly visits against traffic in “All Categories”
E-tailer traffic included:
shop.lego.com www.1-day.com.au www.abebooks.com www.allposters.com.au www.altech.com.au www.amazon.com www.ap.dell.com www.apple.com.au/itunes www.avon.com.au www.bargaindeals.com.au www.bigpondmusic.com www.bodybuilding.com www.booktopia.com.au www.cafepress.com www.catchoftheday.com.au www.crazysales.com.au www.dailydeals.com.au www.deals2u.com.au www.dealsdirect.com.au www.dinosaurdeals.com.au www.dstore.com.au www.ezibuy.com.au www.ezydvd.com.au www.factoryfast.com.au www.fishpond.com.au www.graysonline.com.au www.hp.com www.isubscribe.com.au www.itvsn.com.au www.latestbuy.com.au www.lenovo.com www.liteneasy.com.au www.modyourcar.com.au www.moshtix.com.au www.mwave.com.au www.oo.com.au www.ozstock.com.au www.play-asia.com www.redbubble.com.au www.shoppersadvantage.com.au www.shoppingsquare.com.au www.simplymobile.com.au www.soldsmart.com.au www.strawberrynet.com www.streetsmartshopper.com.au www.techbuy.com.au www.ticketek.com.au www.ticketmaster.com.au www.topbuy.com.au www.wickedweasel.com.au www.winemakerschoice.com.au www.zazz.com.au www.zazzle.com.au www.zodee.com.au
Retailer Traffic included:
catalogues.bigw.com.au shop.telstra.com.au store.three.com.au store.vodafone.com.au www.abcshop.com.au www.aldi.com.au www.angusrobertson.com.au www.bcf.com.au www.bigw.com.au www.bigwentertainment.com.au www.binglee.com.au www.borders.com.au www.bunnings.com.au www.coles.com.au www.crazyjohns.com.au www.davidjones.com.au www.digitalcamerawarehouse.com.au www.digitalhome.com.au www.dse.com.au www.dymocks.com.au www.ebgames.com.au www.fantasticfurniture.com.au www.flightcentre.com.au www.freedom.com.au www.game.com.au www.harveynorman.com.au www.ikea.com www.jaycar.com.au www.jbhifi.com.au www.jbhifionline.com.au www.kmart.com.au www.loadit.com.au www.mitre10.com.au www.msy.com.au www.myer.com.au www.officeworks.com.au www.petersofkensington.com.au www.rebelsport.com.au www.retravision.com.au www.rivers.com.au www.sanity.com.au www.spotlight.com.au www.supercheapauto.com.au www.supre.au.com www.target.com.au www.target.dynamiccatalogue.com.au www.teds.com.au www.thegoodguys.com.au www.toysrus.com.au www.umart.com.au www.videoezy.com.au www.westfield.com.au www.witchery.com.au www.woolworths.com.au
