It has been a whirlwind for me the last couple of weeks, with a trip to Seattle to visit with Amazon and then a roadtrip to eBay to hear about the most recent changes. I’m looking forward to settling in and watching how the final quarter of the year turns out for online sellers.
I’ve also been making the podcast circuit; first an interview with Ina Steiner of Auctionbytes then a podcast with my buddy Kevin Harmon for Startup Nation, followed by a get together with ColderICE and then this morning, an Interview on eBay and Beyond: Basics to Business my interview is in the second hour of the show following Doug Minnick of Overstock Auctions.
As you probably know by now, I have an opinion about many subjects — some I should keep to myself :). I call it my 15% and MyBlogUtopia is the perfect place to express those opinions, […]
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Sorry, I know a post like this is not why you come to My Blog Utopia, but it is a Friday and there isn’t much ecommerce news, so I thought I would make some politcal observations: (I’ll probably tie some of it to eBay somewhere)
The 2008 Presidential election is historic and interesting for a number of reasons:
Age and Experience:
Two Senior Citizens are running - McCain (72 today) and Biden (66 in Nov.)
Two 40-somethings are running - Obama (47) and Palin (44)
Two Senators with over [25] years in national politics.
So the experience/no experience issues are cancelled out. There is enough experience to go around for both parties and BTW, when is someone in their 40’s considered young
Barriers Broken - It is about time that we have a black presidential nominee and a female nominee for VP (on the Republican side) — It only took, nearly 250 years to change […]
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Attempting to beef up its ecommerce offerings, Microsoft acquired Greenfield Online, owners of the shopping engine, Ciao. Back in June, Greenfield Online announced that it was being acquired by Quadrangle Group, a private equity firm, for $426mm. Microsoft made a better offer of $486mm and Greenfield therefore terminated its agreement with Quadrangle. According to the company statement, Microsoft will sell off Greenfield’s survey business, so this is all about comparison shopping in Europe. First Cashback (US), now Ciao (Europe)…what’s next?
More info at Paid Content.
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If you’re new here, welcome! And thanks for subscribing to Get Elastic. Friday is Blogger Digest day where we highlight posts from other blogs that are of value and interest to online retailers and Internet marketers.
Just a head’s up - Get Elastic is taking a break for Labor Day and will be back in full swing on Tuesday. Enjoy your weekend, and don’t work too hard!
Before we start the link list, are you aware of our multi-conference-slash-book-giveaway?
And have you signed up for our webinar on conversion testing yet? We’re also giving away copies of Bryan Eisenberg and John Quarto-VonTivadar’s book “Always Be Testing” (click for a sample chapter).
I also want to let you know about our friend Chad White from the Email Experience Council’s latest reportlet - the Retail Email Guide to the Holiday Season. If you do any email marketing you must subscribe to the Retail Email […]
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The search marketing industry is abuzz on the heels of Google’s announcement that Google Suggest, previously available through Google Labs, is now a default feature on the Google home page.
Google Suggest offers search term suggestions in real-time as you type a query, and ranks these suggestions based on the most commonly searched phrases. So if […]
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The team behind Amazon SimpleDB is in the process of designing and implementing a new API call. The new call will return information about a particular SimpleDB domain. They have posted the design spec to the SimpleDB forum and would be very interested in receiving some more feedback.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — much of what we do at Amazon is driven by real feedback from real customers. If you are using or are thinking about using SimpleDB, please take a look at the spec and let us know (via a post to the forum) what you think.
– Jeff;
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If you have some time available this Saturday, I will be a guest on the weekly radio show eBay & Beyond: Basics To Business. This is an Internet show that will be replayed throughout the week, but we will be “Live” on Saturday morning to take your calls.
The show begins at 10:00 AM EST so you “Left Coasters” will have to get up pretty early. The first guest will be Doug Minnick from Overstock.com and then I’m scheduled for 11:00 am EST but make sure to listen in to the whole show.
We will be taking calls by phone and Twitter, so if you have time and have questions Saturday will be your day.
See you on Saturday August 30th at 10:00 AM EST www.basicstobusiness.com, Toll free call in number is 866-357-7746 and there is a live chat board available on the site in addition in case you can’t twitter.
Just […]
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I had a chat with our upcoming webinar guest, Bryan Eisenberg at Search Engine Strategies San Jose, 2008. Bryan’s an expert in both Google Website Optimizer and testing for conversion optimization - he’s also the author of Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer.
In a brief 7 minutes, we discussed several issues around testing your website. Be sure to attend our full hour webinar to glean more tips and tricks for making the most out of testing with Google Website Optimizer.
RSS/Email Subscribers: Can’t see video? Click here.
Here’s a recap of the interview:
Just because Amazon does something, doesn’t mean you should follow. On Bryan’s blog GrokDotCom, you can find a visual history of Amazon’s add-to-cart buttons over the years. Bryan recalls clients calling him up and saying “Amazon changed the button and we want to do the same.” But changing […]
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The folks at RightScale will be conducting a webinar on Thursday, August 28th at 10 AM PDT.
They’ll focus on the recently announced Amazon Elastic Block Store, discussing application scenarios, mission-critical deployment, architecture, and design considerations. Michael Crandell (RightScale CEO) and Thorsten von Eicken (RightScale CTO) will present.
The webinar is free, but space is limited and pre-registration is recommended.
– Jeff;
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As you make your plans for the 4th quarter of 2008, it might be beneficial to take a look at Fulfillment by Amazon this holiday season.
I’ve been using FBA for almost a year now and have zero complaints. Amazon’s service frees me up to do other things and I actually take home more money than if I shipped the items myself.
I would recommend you at least test the service this holiday season for several reasons:
With FBA, customers get access to all of Amazon’s world class services (Prime, Super-Saver Shipping, Gift Wrapping, etc.)
You can ship all the way up to Dec 23rd for arrival on Christmas Eve. When I ran Glacier Bay, we didn’t offer any expedited services, so we had to cut-off Christmas orders by the 18th of Dec. each year. With FBA, your customers can order on Dec. 23rd for delivery on Christmas Eve — that is 5 more […]
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