Monday, November 21, 2005

Top 50 Retailing Web Sites Named

Internet Retailer Magazine just announced their Top 50 Retailing Web Sites for 2006. The picks are in seven different categories and they range from giants such as Amazon, eBay and Best Buy all the way to smaller ventures like Vermont Teddy Bear.

If you check out some of the sites, you’ll see a lot of similarities. These sites are built for fast, easy use, yet they each manage to capture a branded look. Most of the sites seem to follow the Web usability advice in Steve Krug’s popular book, Don’t Make Me Think.

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Friday, November 18, 2005

Online Shopping Continues To Increase

Back when the Yellow Pages were about the only form of “search” for shopping, they launched a Yellow Pages campaign that suggested you should “let your fingers do the walking.” It was a good campaign at the time because it pointed to a real benefit and, of course, it was just about the only game in town. The Yellow Pages Association still uses a form of the “fingers” logo from the decades-old campaign.

Times have changed...mostly because of the Web and more specifically, search engines. We are approaching one billion searches per day on major search engines. People are letting their fingers do the walking, but this time it is on the keyboard. And unlike the old yellow pages, the Internet allows people to buy when they find where they want to shop.

A new study by WSL Strategic Retail, highlighted yesterday in a story on ClickZ, indicates a continuing increase in the percentage of people who shop online. The average shopper now spends an average of 3.1 hours per week online shopping. Another interesting fact is that much of this shopping occurs during the business day.

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Friday’s Fun Time Waster

Sometimes I feel like we’re a little too serious. We’re usually telling you about things like the $100 laptop, the latest Google beta product (Analytics) and where today’s marketing dollars are going (online).

Well, today being Friday, I’m inspired to introduce you to the Friday time waster. To kick it off, we have Readymechs, which you print and build. So today, while the boss isn’t looking, take 15 minutes and add some fun to your desk. I’m going to put together “Papercut of Death,” here shortly.

Bonus time waster: Cassette Jam ‘05, for the less crafty folks out there.

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Thursday, November 17, 2005

AAF Study: Major Shift To Online

A new joint study by the American Advertising Federation (AAF) and Atlantic Media reveals advertising executives feel we are in the middle of a rapid shift to online media. According to respondents in the survey, media budgets devoted to online would increase 33 percent in 2006.

In addition, the surveyed ad execs felt that continued traditional media stagnation and fragmentation would drive more advertisers online. In a related news story this week, AAF reported, “Traditional advertising challenges remain major industry concerns, such as demonstrating ROI, creating ideas that break through the clutter and integrating creative across media channels.”

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Yahoo and Gawker Media Team Up

Nick Denton’s family of blogs, under the Gawker Media umbrella (Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, etc.) has entered into a distribution deal with Yahoo.

Yahoo will get some great content and Gawker will get a lot of eyeballs. You’ll remember about a month ago AOL took a different approach when they purchased Weblogs, Inc. The Yahoo/Gawker deal is non-exclusive and allows both parties to continue pursuing more deals.

See more on the Yahoo/Gawker deal via Paidcontent.org.

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