Johns reaction: Another arrow to put in your quiver

Since Pinterest was founded in 2008, it's proven one thing: People love their visuals. And it looks like the site is becoming a hot space for online video marketing opportunities as well, with its recent integration of the Vimeo platform.
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Johns reaction: Interesting point to note when hiring account managers and sales people or any role that demands face to face

If you're a digital native, you should be aware that the internet may have partially rewired your brain in such a way that when you meet people face to face, you're less capable of figuring out what they're thinking. No, I'm not joking. There's a significant amount of scientific literature on this. Compared with people who didn't grow up using computers and the internet, you may be slower to pick up on nonverbal cues such as facial expressions, tones of voice, and body language. That could be a liability if you want to work in a field such as consulting, financial advising, and diplomacy that requires face-to-face interactions. The trick, if you're looking for a job in areas such as these, is to be aware of your possible shortcomings and try to compensate for them.
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Marks reaction: Excellence and perfection are treated as synonomous, but are they really? This brief comment explores the difference between excellence and perfection in relation to the fast paced world of online retailing

Most people would tend to think that striving for excellence and striving for perfection both mean the same thing. Do they? I have been very privileged to have worked in quite a few different industries in my life, which has given me many life skills that are very valid in the frenetic online retailing and ecommerce world.
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Johns reaction: Good overview on how to create good and searchable online content

This week we're going to piggy-back a little on last week's Whiteboard Friday that discussed how to increase your blog's visibility. So you get readers to your site, now, how do you keep them there? Well the direct answer is great content. Create awesome material that keeps your readers interested and engaged and they'll keep coming back for more. Beyond that, they may even hit the "Koolaid Point" and become fans and evangelists for you, helping to grow your audience even wider. So what are the four cornerstones of creating great content? Watch the video and Rand will discuss them in all of their glory. When you're done, scroll down and we'll briefly recap the main points for you.
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Marks reaction: Although published in Nov, Its always refreshing to see another report on the state of Online Retailing in Australia. The more reports out there the greater the opportunity to be able to compare and get a better understanding of where the industry is at, at the moment.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority has published its latest research report: E-commerce marketplace in Australia: Online Shopping. The report is their first look at the developing online shopping market from both a supplier and user perspective.
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Johns reaction: Love this guy, well worth a read...

The scale above shows the many stages one has to go through in order to become a bona fide self-righteous jerk in social media. Still, there are many people who aspire to reach this peak, but fall short in executing against it. Given this observation, I thought it would be worthwhile to piece together a few best practices which will ensure your status as a social media self-righteous jerk (or SMSRJ). In no particular order: 1. Join The Klout Gestapo 2. Unfollow Offensive Twitter Followers In Public 3. Target Social Media Gurus 4. Analyze Social Media Influencer Lists 5. Use The #Humblebrag Hash Tag At Will
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Johns reaction: Another shadowy new anti-counterfeiting law about to be passed. Whats going on?

Last week, 3 million of us beat back America's attack on our Internet! --- but there is an even bigger threat out there, and our global movement for freedom online is perfectly poised to kill it for good. ACTA - a global treaty - could allow corporations to censor the Internet. Negotiated in secret by a small number of rich countries and corporate powers, it would set up a shadowy new anti-counterfeiting body to allow private interests to police everything that we do online and impose massive penalties -- even prison sentences -- against people they say have harmed their business. Europe is deciding right now whether to ratify ACTA -- and without them, this global attack on Internet freedom will collapse. We know they have opposed ACTA before, but some members of Parliament are wavering -- let's give them the push they need to reject the treaty. Sign the petition -- we'll do a spectacular delivery in Brussels when we reach 500,000 signatures!
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Johns reaction: The six basic tendencies of human behavior that come into play in generating a positive response: reciprocation, consistency, social validation, liking, authority and scarcity.

Hello smart entrepreneur. I know you re a busy person, so I ll be brief. Read this post NOW, if your startup involves convincing someone to do something. Your friends and competitors are reading it already. Years of research into human behavior and influence went into these insights by Prof Robert Cialdini, so read actively, and try to apply these lessons on your business. In the process of acquiring new customers, startups need to persuade, convince or enchant the potential customer to sacrifice a resource, let it be time, money, access to their stream of information, in order to use the startup s product. The persuasion process is very subtle, and most likely takes place in a matter of seconds: the user gets to the landing page, the user sees your icon in the app store, the user thinks about registering for a free trial these seconds are going to determine the future of your business.
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Johns reaction: leaders of industry or better self promoters than most, you decide.

Every two years, the Thinkers50 publishes their definitive list of management thinkers. Below are the results for 2011.
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Brads reaction: Well done RWW. Will be interesting to see what SAY adds to the property.

I'm thrilled to announce that ReadWriteWeb has been acquired by SAY Media, a digital publishing company headquartered in San Francisco. ReadWriteWeb will anchor SAY Media's growing Technology channel, which reaches more than 75 million global consumers each month. ReadWriteWeb is going to get bigger and even better. Our plans include widening ReadWriteWeb's editorial scope and expanding our team. That starts from today, with the addition of SplatF's Dan Frommer to our team as an editor-at-large. We will also be doing a re-design, utilizing the sophisticated designers at SAY Media. With SAY's technology and services, we'll be able to scale ReadWriteWeb in ways previously unavailable to us. So I'm very excited about our team joining SAY Media. We're going to take ReadWriteWeb to the next level!
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Johns reaction: interesting and very funny in places

TIME surveys the highs and lows, the good and the bad, of the past 12 months
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Johns reaction: Part of the net neutrality debate

Right now, the US Congress is debating a law that would give them the power to censor the world's Internet -- creating a blacklist that could target YouTube, WikiLeaks and even groups like Avaaz! Under the new law, the US could force Internet providers to block any website on suspicion of violating copyright or trademark legislation, or even failing to sufficiently police their users' activities. And, because so much of the Internet's hosts and hardware are located in the US, their blacklist would clamp down on the free web for all of us.
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Marks reaction: An insiders take on life at Catchoftheday.com.au and after - A copy of an email sent out to the InternetRetailing.com.au database. The response was so overwhelming that we thought we would share it with the greater digital community. Feel free to respond.

I have been asked so many times recently what was it like working at Catch, what life is like after Catch/Scoopon, what are my plans etc. So, let me answer a few of these questions and share my exciting journey with you. For those of you that don t know me that well; up until recently I was Chief Operating Officer at the Catchoftheday group of companies. That s a large reason why internetretailing.com.au kind of slowed down in the past 18 months. I couldn t fit enough into my 8 day weeks and something has gotta give, know what I mean. Anyhow that s all changed and those of you following the website will notice that there are fresh articles and content popping up on the site rather regularly once again.
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Johns reaction: Interesting VIDEO on opinions on Google's motive last month for encrypting Search. Is it a 'toe in the water' start of something bigger? Distrust and confusion reigns on the why.

Google has caused quite a ruckus in the search marketing community after it announced some changes to search. Last week, the search giant said that it would begin encrypting logged-in searches that users do by default, when they are logged into Google.com. This further integration of a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) will prevent search marketers from receiving referral data from the websites consumers click on from Google search results. What do you think of Google s move to encrypt searches?
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Johns reaction: How many of us would do this ?

n the lead up to today's release of the Steve Jobs biography, there's been an increasing stream of news surrounding its subject. As a business researcher, I was particularly interested in this recent article that referenced from his biography a list of Jobs's favorite books. There's one business book on this list, and it "deeply influenced" Jobs. That book is The Innovator's Dilemma by HBS Professor Clay Christensen. But what's most interesting to me isn't that The Innovator's Dilemma was on that list. It's that Jobs solved the conundrum. When describing his period of exile from Apple when John Sculley took over Steve Jobs described one fundamental root cause of Apple's problems. That was to let profitability outweigh passion: "My passion has been to build an enduring company where people were motivated to make great products. The products, not the profits, were the motivation. Sculley flipped these priorities to where the goal was to make money. It's a subtle difference, but it ends up meaning everything." Anyone familiar with Professor Christensen's work will quickly recognize the same causal mechanism at the heart of the Innovator's Dilemma: the pursuit of profit. The best professional managers doing all the right things and following all the best advice lead their companies all the way to the top of their markets in that pursuit... only to fall straight off the edge of a cliff after getting there.
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Johns reaction: Is it the start of the end of net neutrality?

AT&T dropped us an e-mail this weekend, finally confirming rumors that the carrier will begin throttling data speeds for the top 5% of data users still on an unlimited plan. In the note, AT&T blames a spectrum shortage for the policy, and says the only option is to complete its merger with T-Mobile. The new policy starts October 1. For customers who still have AT&T's unlimited data plan, your download speed may be reduced once you hit the threshold considered to be in the top 5% of data usage for one billing period. AT&T did not say what that threshold is. However, AT&T says it will warn you before it's about to stop throttling your data speeds and give you a grace period before it starts doing so.
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Brads reaction: Great read, the highest stakes game of poker ever!

"It s not like Android s free. Android has a patent fee. You do have to license patents." That was Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in an interview last year with The Wall Street Journal. At the time, Microsoft was on the verge of releasing their first Windows Phone 7 devices, and knew their best hope in the market would be to go after Android - the same OS which quickly ran Windows Mobile into extinction. In the months that have followed, right or wrong, it looks like Microsoft is slowly but surely forcing Google's OEM partners for Android to agree with this stance. The reality is that for an increasing number of these partners now, Android is not free. It doesn't require the licensing fees that Windows Phone does, but it does require a patent fee. A fee paid to Microsoft, not Google, mind you.
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Johns reaction: There goes the bubble again. I love the opening line 'strong demand for its initial public offering despite concerns about the viability of its business model'. Sound familiar?

Pandora, the streaming music website, has seen strong demand for its initial public offering despite concerns about the viability of its business model. The company and its venture capital backers raised $235m on Tuesday by pricing the shares at $16. That compares with its projected range of $10 to $12, a spread higher than the original $7 to $9. Please respect FT.com's ts&cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; & redistribute limited extracts. The pricing values Pandora at $2.6bn, or 19 times last years sales of $137m. That is much higher than most traded companies, but still below LinkedIn, the business social network, which debuted last month at more than 30 times last years sales. The success of LinkedIn and now Pandora is propelling high hopes for anticipated offerings by companies like Groupon and Facebook, though it has led some analysts to suggest there may be a bubble in web company valuations.
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Brads reaction: I am surprised this isn't reported more often, I am sure its happening to a degree across the industry. Apple even smears its competitors openly.

Facebook allegedly hired PR firm Burson-Marsteller to push negative stories about Google in the press, according to reports. It's understood that Facebook hired the PR firm to persuade the press to cover stories questioning Google's privacy policy.
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Brads reaction: We were predicting Facebook here an I think they were in for it but MSFT swoop in with the big biccies. What will happen? Hopefully an improvement in Skypes currently fairly woeful service.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier tonight that Microsoft-in what would be its most aggressive acquisition in the digital space-was zeroing in on buying Skype for $8.5 billion all in with an assumption of the Luxembourg-based company s debt. Sources told BoomTown tonight that the deal for the online telephony and video communications giant is actually done and will be announced early tomorrow morning.
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