Yahoo Opens Up Search To Third Parties

From Ars Technica:

 As Yahoo tries to stave off a determined Microsoft takeover, the company has announced one of its most interesting new search innovations in recent memory. By opening up a new search platform for third parties to build upon, Yahoo search results will soon offer a lot more relevant information in the form of images, restaurant reviews, and virtually anything else developers can dream up.

Announced on the official Yahoo Search Blog, the company’s new open search platform will allow third parties to build browser plug-ins that can augment Yahoo search results and insert additional relevant data. As you can see in the example Yahoo provided, crowd-sourcing local review site Yelp has added a restaurant rating, contact information, and links for reviews and photos to a Yahoo search for “Higuma Japanese Rastaurant.”

Spammers to Gmail Captcha: Gotcha!

From The Register:

Spammers have broken captcha at Gmail with a 20% success record. With Gmail an unlikely domain to be blacklisted, spammers have gained a powerful, free and incredibly annoying new weapon with which to spread their penis enhancement and re-fi mortgage offers (one of which I did recently…not from a email, so save the hate mail….I’ll leave you in the dark as to which).

The spammers are believed to be the same ones that broke MSN’s Live captcha a few weeks ago.

Captcha (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) challenge-response systems, are used to prevent accounts being created until a user correctly identifies letters in an image, are designed to ensure requests are made by a human rather than an automated program. Websense reckons the latest Gmail Captcha hack is the most sophisticated it has seen to date.

Catalyst Conference

Warning corporate shill at work =).  

If you’ve ever wanted to pick the brain (and play golf at Pinehurst) of some of the smartest and most connected people in the industry like:

 Chris Shimojima, Vice President, Global Electronic Commerce of Nike

Stephanie Tilenius, General Manager, eBay North America

Mary Anne Gillespie, Vice President of Sales of PayPal

John Mracek, Vice President and General Manager, Distributed Commerce of Shopping.com 

Vince Monical, Director of Commerce and Analytics of Google  

Sebastian Gunningham, Senior Vice President, Merchant Services of  Amazon.com      

Ben Ling, Director of Platform of Facebook

If the health and direction of e-comm is your thing, then stop by to network and get the opinions of Deutsche Bank, Bears Sterns, Goldman Sachs and Stifel Nicholaus.

Then I’d encourage you to attend ChannelAdvisor’s  Catalyst conference in Pinehurst, April 1-3. It’s only $349 and that includes the conference itself as well as golf, transpo to and from the airport, drinks and meals, parties, etc..  And unlike other company sponsored events….ChannelAdvisor doesn’t pitch its own products…no really! I wouldn’t lie to you.

If you email me and let me know you are coming, I’ll even take you out for an additional round of golf!

Ebay Boycott

Today is the third day of a seller’s boycott against Ebay’s recent decision to eliminate sellers the ability to give buyer feedback ratings.

Ebay listings seem to be down 3%  but an Ebay spokesman says that the boycott isn’t having an impact.

My question to you is, ‘ Did you know there was a boycott?’ ‘Do you care?’

Fox Interactive to Buy Pricegrabber?

According to a source, Fox Interactive Media is in preliminary discussions to purchase Price Grabber from Experian.  Fox Interactive, which owns a number of web properties including MySpace, has been mentioned in a number of buy out speculations over the past 6 months.

Bloomberg released and article that seems to suggest that there is other in interest in PriceGrabber as well.

From the article: “I see no reason why they would get less than what they paid” for PriceGrabber, Christian Koefoed-Nielsen, an analyst at Panmure Gordon & Co. in London, said by telephone today. The unit “is more profitable than when they bought it.”

Ciao Goes Live in the US

Ok so I am a little late with the announcement, but after talking to these guys at Etail West last week, I can say they really seem to get it.

 Ciao is one of the bigger comparison shopping engines in Europe with a with presence in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

Why do I think these guys get it? Markus Rottmaier, Head of Sales International says, “Our main focus is on the user. We provide them with all the information they need before clicking through to a merchant’s product page.  The target audience is someone who’s in the middle of the buying process.  Typically, we’ve found that customer-written recommendations are the most useful in accelerating the decision process — and deliver increased conversion rates for merchants.” 

Instead of paying lipservice to the web 2.0 mantra, Ciao encourages user-to-user interaction by stepping up  and paying its most valuable contributors.

According to CSE Strategies “The strategy has worked in Europe, where Ciao’s conversion rates tend to be higher than its competition. Plus, it’s one strategy also recently employed by Become and Pronto, both of which have seen massive traffic increases (1000%+) since releasing social features in the same spirit.

“We see ourselves more as a shopping community than a pure price comparison site.”

Unlike the typical CSE model of click arbritrage, Ciao is relying on its user generated content to ensure high organic rankings.

Merchants who want to try Ciao can  sign up now and get three months worth of traffic free. After the 3 months,  it’s a CPC model with no bidding and the lowest price for that product showing up first.

Top 50 US Website, Most Gain Month over Month

Yahoo Sites once again as the #1 web property, beating Google Sites and MSN (2^nd and third respectively). In what might be excellent leverage to get Microsoft to raise it’s bid, Yahoo sites were visited my 138 millions users, according to Com Score.

 

 

With tax season once again upon the USA,  the IRS.gov site predictably saw a huge increase (181% from prior month) with 12.5 million visitors. TaxAct (5.8 million, a 1,000% increase) and H&R Block (5.3 million, 312%) also saw huge upswings in traffic.

 As the presidential primaries heat up and with New Year resolutions, political sites and career sites grew month over month.

Ebay Scams: Please Steal…errr…Buy this Notebook From Me

Love Ebay? Hate the scammers? Well so does “Class It“, it seems. Class It lists a notebook for sale and all the ways you can scam it from him.

“DIFFERENT WAYS YOU CAN STEAL THIS LAPTOP OFF ME:

PAYPAL: Paypal is currently ebays preferred method of stealing high value electrical items off sellers. There are a number of various ways you can use to steal this laptop using paypal.
1: A Fake “Item Not Received” (I.N.R) Claim – All you simply have to do here is purchase my item using an unverified paypal account. Then when you receive the laptop, simply claim that you didn’t receive it at your registered (credit card) and paypal will give you all your money back !
2: A Fake “Item Significantly Not As Described” (S.N.A.D) This is a great way to steal items off sellers. Simply start a dispute after you get the laptop making up some lie about the item being damaged etc – You could use Photoshop to make up fake pictures of damage. Paypal will ask you to send the item back to me, but don’t bother – they never enforce that on buyers and after a short wait you will get all your money back and you will still have the laptop.
3: A fake “Unauthorised Use” Claim – This is a super way of stealing items on ebay and is widely used. Simply claim that someone hijacked your account (paypal & ebay) and that you didn’t order the laptop. Then in conjunction with a fake I.N.R claim you can simply steal the laptop and of course, get your money back.
4: A Stolen Credit card – Of course, ebay make no real attempt to vet any of its buyers, so hey, just register a new ebay account using fake ID information and link it to a paypal account set up with a stolen credit card – and hey presto – A free laptop.

WESTERN UNION
Although officially banned on ebay, fake western union payments are the preferred way for Nigerian Scammers to steal high value electrical items. Simply email me (using pigeon English) telling me that you would like to buy this item using Western Union – Tell me that you would be happy to pay over the odds for the laptop and that it is a present for your mother in law. Then send me a fake western union payment notification and I send you the laptop – Perfect. This method of stealing items off sellers is very widely used on ebay and of course, as ebay do not properly verify buyers its easy to do. Make sure you use Pigeon English as I am really really stupid and it’s bound to fool me.

MUGGING
If you are a traditionalist like me you may prefer a good old mugging. Simply offer to meet me on some dodgy housing estate somewhere and have a load of you mates hiding behind a hedge with a few iron bars. Again, offer to pay me over the odds as there is nothing better than using a sellers greed to bait them into a scam. I would be grateful if you could avoid killing me as this will cause bad publicity for ebay which would be terrible.

GENUINE BUYERS
In the unlikely event that you are actually a genuine buyer then you really should be shopping in a real shop and not this scammers paradise. However this laptop does really exist and is really for sale. You can email me or skype me with suggestions on how we may actually transact this item to both our satisfaction – with both our safety in mind. Don’t even think of buying it using paypal. I’ve only listed it as accepted because ebay run a protection racket that means I have to accept it. If you do pay by paypal I will simply refund your payment and give you a nice new shiny NEG.

FEEDBACK BLACKMAIL
Of course you will no doubt be aware that from May onwards you will be able to blackmail sellers into giving you free P&P / discounts etc. You will be able to give them neg feedback and they will not be able to give you any.. I regret to advise you that because this rule does not come in until May this option of scamming me is not open to you yet.

AUCTION WRECKING
I would grateful if some sad failed traffic warden could report this auction for two reasons
1: Ebay will see this listing and will hopefully close my account, saving me a 180 days wait to do it myself.
2: You will save me listing fees, making this a free advert.”

 Hat Tip To Andy Beal

Shoppers tell Retailers, “Don’t Mess With Me”

67% of consumers say their expectations about the quality of their online shopping experience had increased from the previous year – and 80% say they would would be less likely to return to a retailer’s site after a negative online shopping experience, according to an Allurent survey. Major reasons cited for the rising expectations:

• I know that technology is constantly changing and improving and I expect that online shopping should also be getting better (66%).
• I see that most retailers consistently advertise their websites so I expect to see them invest in making those sites better than they were last year (46%).
• I have high-speed bandwidth and expect to see more online stores better presenting products in a way that takes advantage of my faster internet speed (41%).
• I am familiar with interactive and visual sites like Google Maps or Facebook and I expect to see more online stores being innovative like these sites (29%).

Nearly half (48%) of 18-24 year-olds cited interactive web experiences, such as those of Google Maps and Facebook, as the reason for the rise in expectations.

The third annual “Holiday Shopping: Online Customer Experience Survey” sought to better understand consumer online shopping behavior and attitudes toward online retailers. Allurent worked with the e-tailing group to establish pre- and post-holiday benchmarks.

Below, additional findings from the survey.

Negative online experiences damage brands

• An overwhelming 80% said they would be less likely to return to a site after having a negative online shopping experience there – i.e., with most customers, retailers have one chance to make a great impression.
• Consistent with the results of Allurent’s two previous holiday surveys, consumers confirmed that they do not differentiate among channels:
  • Nearly 40% said a frustrating online experience would make them less likely to shop at that retailer’s physical store.
  • 60% reported that when they have a frustrating shopping experience online, it negatively impacts their overall opinion of the retailer/brand.

Customer service features are valued, especially by women

• When asked to rate customer service features that are most important to them when buying online:
  • 74% of consumers rated a perpetual shopping cart as an important feature (ranking it a 4 or 5 on a scale of 1-5).
  • 70% rated one-page checkout as an important feature, rather than having to click through multiple checkout pages.
• These two features were rated above other options such as access to a toll-free telephone number, available live help, and accessible contact information.
• More women than men found customer service features to be of high importance.

Interest in desktop shopping is strong

More than half (53%) of consumers surveyed expressed interest in virtual catalogs and circulars that can be downloaded directly to their desktops, so retailers could update information on new merchandise and special offers.

2008 online holiday spending outlook is good

• Consistent with the past two holiday surveys, consumers reported that they purchased more holiday gifts online this year than they had in the past.
• Based on their online shopping experience this year, 67% plan to shop online more during the 2008 holiday season.

About the study: The 2007 “Holiday Shopping: Online Customer Experience Survey” was conducted in January 2008 via Zoomerang, an online survey services provider, and is based on 721 respondents (46% male, 54% female).

http://www.marketingcharts.com/direct/valentines-day-cost-of-love-128-3338/?camp=newsletter&src=mc&type=textlink

The Cost of Being a Valentine, Men Spend More than Women

On average, the price placed on love – that is, the amount intended to be spent on Valentine’s Day – is $128.00 ($166 spent by men, and $90 spent by women), according to the Brand Keys bi-annual Customer Loyalty Engagement Index.

“More and more gifts are being exchanged between friends and family in the name of St. Valentine, and that’s turned Valentine’s Day into a major retail holiday,” said Robert Passikoff, president of Brand Keys, Inc.

There are demographic differences in gift giving, according to the findings:

• The 18-34-year-olds plan to spend the most (as they seem to do every year) at an average of $162.
• The 35-49-year-olds plan to spend $69.
• The 50+ group plans to spend an average of $52.

“Gift-giving will be slightly skewed this year as purchases of gift cards have nearly doubled now that they’ve replaced ‘gift certificates’ and have become a more-than-acceptable gift,” said Passikoff.