Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

Customer service on Facebook

Paypal is starting a daily deal service 

Google acquires makers of Alfred to improve digital assistant services

Xbox Live entertainment update coming tomorrow

Those who receive gifts must check in at the business with the Giftly app on their smart phone, and purchase whichever items or services they choose, after which they are immediately reimbursed by Giftly.

Digital babysitting booking. Similar to TaskRabbit and all that other stuff.

Amazon and ecommerce is pushing out brick and mortar. Small businesses may survive online due to good service, nostalgia, unique selection, etc. But big boxes are in the middle. No one misses Sears.

internet radio service -- pandora -- partnership with acura, kia, and audiovox.

digital receipts

spotify ending free unlimited service.

publix cancelling their curbside program

verizon uses technology that can digital transmit a customer service rep in life-size in a setting and provide live interaction

Turntable/avatar hangouts in Japan

Using a facebook app to promote skype group video calling. Customized video birthday posts. The recipient receives free week of the service.

there is apparently a service dubbed Stalkbook developed by MIT graduate, Oliver Yeh, that lets you view that person's profile, photos, contact info, etc. simply by letting you view that profile under the guise of another Facebook user.

The video, entitled 'What's a VIDEO worth?' is designed to show just how big online video has become, how big it is expected to grow and why brands would be remiss not to hop on the online video bandwagon.  Just a few of the statistics that companies and brands will find hard to ignore in the video are as follows: 68% of viewers share video links (and sharing means more promotion for your brand!) More than 50% of the videos on YouTube have been rated or include comments from the community (which means a brand new way to engage with your customers!) Having a video on the landing page of your website makes it 53% more likely to show up on the first page of a Google search (and who doesn't like higher ranking in search results?) The average user's visit to a text and image-based website lasts only 43 seconds; for a website with video, the average visit lasts 5 minutes and 50 seconds (ding! ding! ding!) Customers that watch videos of products or services are 85% more likely to make a purchase (ka-ching!)

Now, with the help of a web app called Radio.SC, SoundCloud can even as a radio service that lets you listen to the taste of any SoundCloud user -assuming they have uploaded songs, favorited tracks, and generally used SoundCloud in more than a fleeting way. It's easy - just enter in the exact SoundCloud username you're looking for, or something close to it, and you're up and running. Or, you can try a random SoundCloud user.

Among the findings: Overall, 29% of video service customers watch paid video content via handheld device. Some 18% of customers use tablets for viewing paid video content, making them the most-often-used handheld device, up from 11% in 2011. The use of wireless phone customers has increased to 16% in 2012, up from 14% a year earlier. Viewing of paid content via desktop and laptop (PC/Mac) has declined to 39%, down from 48% in 2011.

The primary goal: begin to phase out reliance on the ad impressions-served metric and replace it with the viewable impressions metric. Also by that time the Interactive Advertising Bureau and its partners in the initiative expect advertisers and publishers will be using the eGRP metric, which industry players hope will complement the viewable impression metric with a more audience-focused gauge that speaks to brand advertisers. It was over a year ago that the IAB came together with The Association of National Advertisers and American Association of Advertising Agencies to introduce its sweeping project, overseen by the Media Ratings Council, a respected third party with a long history accrediting advertising and media firms. Pilot testing for the viewable impression is near completion, said the organizations during a webinar held this afternoon. The groups also said the creation of a viewable-based eGRP is underway, in addition to the development of a new taxonomy to classify digital ads as they move into this next evolutionary stage. The viewable impression metric would measure only ads that are actually seen by a user, rather than measuring all impressions served even when users don't bother to scroll down to see them. The idea is to count only real exposures of ads online. "The notion of viewable impressions is accepted by buyers and sellers alike," said Sherrill Mane, SVP, industry services for the IAB, during today's webinar.

To show just how prevalent brand images are across the web, Stipple built an image calculator for Ad Age readers at stipple.com/imageaudience. Just input a brand's URL to see how widespread its images are. for BMW, for example, 405 million hits come up (at this writing) in just the past seven days. Stipple falls into the same space as ThingLink and Luminate, which both attach a commerce element to images. The idea of image-based commerce has marketers excited about services like Pinterest and The Fancy. But in order to capitalize on this opportunity, sellers need a system to assert some degree of control - a way to keep the information associated with their products consistent across the web.