DM Internet Sales Projected to Rise to 43 Percent

Eric Dukart, who directs Sundog’s Customer Insight Group, just returned from DMA 05, the Direct Marketing Association’s national convention in Atlanta. In an article dated yesterday, DM News, the mouthpiece of that organization, reported that a Multichannel Marketing 2005 survey of direct marketers projects Internet sales will leap to 43 percent by 2007. Keep in mind these figures are specifically for companies that are considered direct marketers. One of the interesting findings of the survey was that 33 percent of Web sales were incremental...sales that wouldn’t have occurred if people would have had to order via phone or the mail.

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Robot Cars Great…Where’s Our Hover Car?

Only one year after Grand Challenge 2004, where the robot cars barely left the starting line, Grand Challenge 2005 saw five teams cross the finish line. Last year was an embarrassing assembly of bad robot drivers, but this year’s field clearly passed chauffeur school.

Stanford’s “Stanley,” a diesel-powered, Volkswagen Touareg R5, took six hours, fifty-three minuutes and fifty-eight seconds, to navigate the 131.6 mile course in the Mojave desert. Stanford will receive the $2 million prize from contest organizers, DARPA. And can expect lucrative U.S. Defense Department contracts, to build robot vehicles for the armed services.

I think the other four teams should now get on with more important things, like finally building those hover cars we’ve been expecting since 2001. 

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Rumors of the Video iPod

Apple is planning another one of it’s mysterious events for October 12. This time, people seem to think it’s the long sought after video iPod. Personally, I can’t fathom why you’d want to watch Spiderman 2 on a 2 inch screen, or how I would legally get Spiderman2 on my video iPod.

I would be impressed if it had: 

• A big hard drive
• Video out capabilities
• The ability to link to iTunes to buy and sell movies and/or television shows

Let’s just hope it’s not another phone.

Links: AppleInsider MacRumors Reuters

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The Google-Sun Non-Announcement

Google and Sun announced yesterday that Sun will offer the option of including the Google Search toolbar with downloads of it’s Java Runtime Environment. Many were expecting yesterday’s press event to announce the Google Office Suite. Instead, it turned out to be about as exciting as Apple and Motorola’s snoozefest announcing the iTunes phone.

Google and Sun said there will be more to come from the partnership, let’s hope so.

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24 Hour Laundry Comes Clean

24 Hour Laundry, the stealthy startup that’s been keeping Netscape founder Marc Andreesen busy lately, has finally lifted the lid off its newest offering. Honestly, I’d forgotten he was up to anything. And now, after seeing Ning I don’t know whether to stand and applaud, or just scratch my head. Why all the mystery prior to launch?

Riding on the recent successes of social apps like MySpace, Flickr and del.icio.us, Ning seems to have created an online social application structure for you to take and create your own social application.

If you’re up on the social software phenomenon, think of Ning as a CMS for social apps. If you’re not, I’d suggest visiting some of these links before trying to understand what 24 Hour Laundry is doing.

I’m interested to see if Ning releases a future standalone product that allows me to host my own. If it does, sign me up! In the meantime, I’m sure I"ll waste part of my weekend playing in Ning’s new playground.

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