How Gadgets and Mobile Devices will change the very idea of coupons:
But what if manufacturers could make coupon offers on the spot, as you stood in the aisle, within sight of the promoted product? Your cellphone would identify your shopping predilections, allowing the manufacturer to withhold the offer if you were likely to buy the product anyway. The offer could go exclusively to those who just needed a little nudge.
Sounds very “Minority Report,” no?
“Save the Internet” version versus Comcast CEO version
Are any of you using this site to bring extra traffic to your blog(s)? What feedback have you received?
All following text copied from TechCrunch post:
“Now Over 200 Million Users A Month, Disqus Gets A New Look, Premium Add-Ons, New API
First, the numbers. The Disqus
commenting system (which we use on TechCrunch) is now reaching over 200 million people a month, according to their Quantcast data. That means it took them only about 6 months to double traffic. And by that measurement, it makes them the fourth largest U.S. network, with over 95 million of those users based in this country. There are now 500,000 communities and websites using the service. And there are over 18 million profiles and over 160 million conversations across the network.
And so today it’s time for the next step. Currently rolling out across their network, the latest version of Disqus (technically, version 4) brings three key things: a new design/interface, premium add-ons, and a new API.
While many of the features users know and love about Disqus remain intact, the service has given a fresh coat of paint to some areas of the commenting system. The biggest changes here are in the deshboard area which admins and moderators use to control the comments on a site. Things have been cleaned up quite a bit, and the end result is a simplified moderation system. End users will also be able to more easily manage their own comments from here.
The bigger news is the availability of add-ons. It used to be that certain power features were only available to VIP members of the service that paid for it. These were mainly larger blogs (like this one) that needed and/or wanted more data about their comments through tools like analytics. Now Disqus is giving other sites access to these tools bundled together in smaller packages. For example, while VIP service costs $999 a month, you can pay $19 a month for the Plus service at get access to analytics, realtime updating, moderation reports, admin logs, and preferred support.
There is also a Professional package for $199 a month that adds a few things like single sign-on, an advanced theme editor, and partner API access.
Speaking of the API, with this version 4 roll-out, it has been completely redesigned from scratch. It’s still a bit of a work in progress, says co-founder Daniel Ha, but it should be more powerful. In fact, the new Disqus website is running off of it.
This new API will allow people to better integrate the service into mobile apps, allow them to write plug-ins, and eventually be able to even write their own frontend end for the commenting system. Here’s the link to the new API docs, and the new console.”
As we discuss Service Oriented Architecture, here are some resources:
Accenture Podcast on ITunes: Podcast: How to Get Started on the Service-Oriented Architecture Journey to High Performance
http://www.accenture.com/Global/Technology/Service_Oriented_Architecture/default.htm
Royal Caribbean Cruises example
Remember Homework #7: well, there’s an official answer to the question: do more (Facebook) likes mean more votes? And the answer is no no correlation:
My favorite quote: “Trilogy says the Facebook margin of victory only explained about 13% of voting results. For gubernatorial races, that correlation is even lower, with the strength of a candidate’s Facebook presence only explaining about 0.8% of the vote margin. And for House races, there was actually a slight negative correlation, meaning a stronger Facebook popularity was associated with a smaller margin of victory.”
http://www.quora.com/What-are-some-examples-of-successful-self-service-SaaS-model-startups (the replies to the post are most helpful)
Classic SaaS businesses leverage a salesforce to close deals and rely on CLTV + CAC as primary metrics. Self-service SaaS is a similar model, with some big differences – no sales team, super low cost of customer acquisition, payback period on a customer is usually very quick. Both have a subscription model, but in self-service, there’s very little human interaction with customers.
Note that many “freemium” businesses also use this model, but it’s not just freemium, as many of these will have a single sale or advertising as a revenue model vs. the subscription to a web-based software service.
Some examples I’m aware of include:
http://www.wufoo.com – online forms for small business
http://www.surveymonkey.com – web surveys for businesses of all sizes
http://www.ancestry.com – consumer focused genealogy research site
http://www.seomoz.org – my company, focused on SEO tools & resources for search marketing professionals
Response:
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By John D. Sutter, CNN
November 12, 2010 6:30 p.m. EST | Filed under: Social Media
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(CNN) — If clamping down the privacy settings on your Facebook page isn’t enough to help you sleep at night, take a cue from the youth of America.
Try the “super-logoff.”
Performing the trick doesn’t take superhuman powers. Instead of just closing a browser window or clicking the “log off” button at the top right of the Facebook homepage, some young, privacy-concerned users are simply deactivating their Facebook accounts each time they leave the site.
Then they reactivate their accounts to log back on.
Why go to all this trouble?
Well, for one, it’s not hard. Facebook makes it notoriously difficult to fully “delete” an account. But “deactivating” an account is easy — it only takes a single click, and deactivated Facebook users maintain all of their friend connections, wall posts, photos and the like. The upside, for the privacy paranoid, is that when a “deactivated” user isn’t on Facebook, no one else can see their profile, post on their wall or tag them in photos.
For privacy-minded people, it’s a soothing alternative. It gives them ultimate control.
Read more at article
Submitted by Paige (and Ross mentioned it in class):
If you think you’re already addicted to Facebook, be prepared to spend more time on your social media page.
TechCrunch.com reports that Facebook has sent out invitations to a special event Monday. Many people predict Facebook’s previously secret Project Titan, a Web-based e-mail client run through Facebook, will be unveiled.
Within the company, the project has been referred to as the “Gmail killer.”
Google Talks: Ubuntu Linux
Ted Talks:
Other Links:
UND HON 392's Weblog 