Exciting Commerce // Unlimited

The Next Web (of Applications): The Future Building Blocks

Jochen Krisch reported from the 2010 Next Web Conference in Amsterdam this week.

One of the highlights of the Next Web Conference was the presentation from Amazon CTO Werner Vogels, who has taken a look 4-5 years forward at the future of web applications (“The Future of Web Building Blocks”):

"When we talk about building blocks for Internet applications currently we still talk about pretty low level stuff, but slowly there is an ecosystem developing that provides higher level services that are going to be the building blocks for a deluge of revolutionary new applications.
Werner will show how new services that that are coming into existence today in areas such telco, geo, media, graphing, bigdata, are going to drive development of applications that could not be built before."

The Next Weblog has summarized the presentation:

"Vogels insists that in the future, all apps will need to include a core set of functionalities: rich media experience; multi-device access; location context aware; real-time presence driven; social graph based; user generated content; virtual goods economy; recommendations; integrated with social networks; and advertisement and premium support.


Vogels went through a number of infrastructure cloud-based services including Drop.io (file sharing), Panda (security), SimpleGeo (location), Animoto (video), Twilio (VoIP), Echo (real-time conversation), Amazon Mechanical Turk (crowdsourced human labor), Social Gold (virtual currency), Charify (payments), OpenX (advertising), 80Legs and github (development)."

See also Werner Vogels’ last blog entry on the topic of “I am looking for new application and platform services”

Related post:

• Supernova 2009: Change Networks and The Big Shift

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Shoedazzle Gets $13 Million from Lightspeed Ventures

Shoedazzle has received a $13 million capital injection. Jeremy Liew from Lightspeed Venture Partners writes (“Why Lightspeed invested in Shoedazzle”):

"Shoedazzle is one of the companies that I was thinking of when I wrote about startups that can quickly get to millions in monthly revenue.

The company is based outside of Silicon Valley (LA) and is definitely built on the back of business model innovation, as are many of the current crop of fast growth companies.

Shoedazzle has a terrific user value proposition. A member first takes a style quiz to assess her taste. Then, on the first of each month, she receives an email with five pairs of shoes that have been specially selected for her.

If she likes one of the pairs, she buys it. If none of them grab her, she can either skip that month, or request a re-selection and give specific guidance as to what she is looking for (e.g. boots, or higher heels, bolder colors).

Women get personal stylist advice and recommendations brought directly to them, helping them to keep abreast of the latest fashion trends."

The American investor scene has woken up, read further here.

The Canadian startup Panty by Post offers a similar service for ladies’ underwear:

"Customers can order panties individually, or they can sign up for subscriptions lasting two, three, six or 12 months.

A different panty is then sent every month, each wrapped in an attractive mailing package. Pricing ranges from CDN 16 for a single pair to CDN 240 for a year's worth of premium deliveries."

Related posts:

• Extreme Retailing: Change Is Coming to Online Shopping
• Social Commerce: Zappos’ Evolution into a Social Web Company
• Zappos Grows Demand to $1.2 Billion (+17%)

Originally posted in German by Marcel Weiss, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Gilt City: Gilt Groupe Tests Local Live Shopping Events

The US private shopping club network Gilt is expanding further and is testing Gilt City in New York. Gilt City is a local live shopping site with similarities to Groupon (via VCJosh and Techcrunch):

"Welcome to the pre-launch of Gilt City: New York! The newest site from Gilt that offers you the biggest deals in NYC."

Nice to see that the live shopping market is showing some life: Woot! is experimenting with its Happy Hour on Twitter; Gilt is testing local live shopping; and Groupon is taking over the world.

After the live shopping topic lay dormant for a half a decade, like always the Americans were the first to recognize the potential and aggressively pursue the opportunity.

Related posts:

• The Shop Exchange: $40 Million for US Shopping Club Gilt Groupe
• How the Gilt Groupe Wants to De-Throne Vente-Privée
• Three US Online Shopping Clubs Want To Exceed $100 Million

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Demandware LINK On The Tail of Magento Connect

Magento’s innovations are driving an entire industry forwards. Demandware is now the first of the big shop system providers who are offering a marketplace for pre-built integrations along the lines of Magento Connect:

"This week, ecommerce platform maker Demandware launched a new marketplace called LINK, which gives developers and merchants free access to a library of ready-to-use solution integrations.


This means that retailers using the Demandware platform should be able to select a ready-made solution that makes adding PayPal's checkout services; Invodo's video player; or Bronto's email marketing tools effortless."

Marketplaces for ready-to-use solution integrations follow the same philosophy expounded by such companies as Facebook and Apple. In e-commerce the strategy is also not so unusual anymore. Besides Magento and eBay, Oxid and Shopify were the first to have launched such platforms.

Magento is currently working on Magento Connect 2.0, which should raise the general quality level of the ready-made extensions.

When will shops finally be able to communicate with each other?

Nonetheless, with all the new and more than praiseworthy Link/Connect/eXchange extension euphoria, the interesting question still remains:

When will it finally be possible to exchange data between different shops without treading the path of such marketplaces or expensive customizations? Such functionality would allow merchants to directly network with each other.

This year should show a breakthrough in this area. And it will be interesting to see who will be able to establish the standards for the interfaces and exchange formats.

The networking of e-commerce is going to be one of the central themes of the Summer Live Shopping Days conference in Berlin in August.

Related posts:

• Magento To Fuel Expansion with $22.5 Million Growth Capital
• Open Source Debate: Demandware vs. Magento
• On Collision Course: Magento vs. Intershop and Hybris

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Web Currencies: What Facebook Is Planning With Their Credits

At the f8 Conference this week, the people at Facebook talked about their house currency, the Facebook Credit. The Credits have been in Beta phase since last August and should now be taken to the next level ("Facebook: Credits Will be the "One Currency" on All Apps").

According to Facebook, the Credits will be implemented by over 50 application developers who have integrated the credits in over 100 applications. The majority of these are game builders. All Facebook has an overview of a selection of these.

To get users accustomed to applying the credits, Facebook will use apps now to start gifting credits to users who have never used them before, thereby encouraging their acceptance.

Furthermore, there is the new possibility to "earn" Credits ("Facebook Adding Offers to Payment Options for Credits"):

Facebook's interest in Facebook Credits lies naturally with their goal to establish a universal payment medium. Venturebeat quotes Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg:

“With credits, it becomes easier for people to buy things across apps. Rather than being locked into one app that has their credit card, they can buy in any app.

This is a canonical economics example where it makes sense to have a standard and have just one, or a few, and that ends up being better for everyone.”

The "Apps2User" is a program planned by Facebook to make it possible for App developers to transfer proprietary rewards points into Facebook Credits:

"Here’s how it would work: a rewards point system operator, like Chase, might offer their members a chance to convert their Chase points into Facebook Credits.

The motivation for Facebook is to pump more Credits into the system (and users with Credits), so that they can spend more in apps.

The motivation for potential partners would be to offer an attractive new option for users to spend their rewards points, in addition to existing options, like flights or flowers."

Facebook will be cashing in 30% of all transactions using Facebook Credits.

Related posts:

• Web Currencies: Facebook Tests Sponsoring of Credits
• Payvment Offers Open Shopping Cart Network for Facebook
• Magento Matters: Social Shopping with Facebook and Magento

Originally posted in German by Marcel Weiss, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Closely: What Does The Ultimate Shopping System Look Like?

It should be pretty clear to anyone who has needed to work closely with modern dynamic sales methods: current shopping systems are just not cutting it. But it still remains to be seen how the next generation of live shopping systems are going to turn out.

It could be a solution from VibrantOS. Another possible approach is highlighted by Closely, who demonstrated their “real-time application service” recently at the DEMO Spring 2010 event.

Closely calls its live shopping sites “social action pages” and describes their vision as follows:

"Gathering consumers together around a business’ real-time offers is our mission.

Consumers show incredible enthusiasm to follow their favorite businesses and share great offers that match their interests.

Millions of businesses have flocked to social media, drawn to the promise of live interactions with their customers and market.

As promising as Facebook and Twitter are to businesses, the tools remain unnatural and awkward.

At Closely, we’re creating intuitive and sensible tools to help businesses engage real-time demand within and beyond these social networks."

Groupon has given a decisive boost to the live shopping movement. Nice to see services such as Closely are geared towards both Groupon style campaigns as well as other live shopping initiatives.

Related posts:

• VibrantOS: Waiting for the Ultimate Live Shopping System
• SyncFu Makes Groupon-like Campaigns Possible for Any Online Store
• Live Shopping Buzz: Groupon Nabs A Healthy $30 Million

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

The Shop Exchange: GSI Commerce Takes 12.6% Share of Intershop

Spectacular move by GSI Commerce: The US e-commerce giant is homing in on Europe and has taken a 12.6% stake in Intershop.

"GSI acquired a 10.5 percent minority equity stake in Intershop from certain shareholders of Intershop for approximately $6.9 million.


In addition, GSI agreed to purchase approximately 560,000 newly-issued shares, representing an additional 2.1 percent of Intershop's outstanding shares, for approximately $1.3 million."

From the press release, it appears that GSI Commerce e-commerce clients might in the mid-term be running with Intershop technology.

Related posts:

• GSI Grabs RueLaLa/SmartBargains for $350 Million
• TheBakery: How Intershop Wants To Lead the Trade Revolution
• Magento To Fuel Expansion with $22.5 Million Growth Capital

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

VibrantOS: Waiting for the Ultimate Live Shopping System

In the next years we at Exciting Commerce are expecting a new generation of high grade, specialized shopping systems. Such shopping systems will be developed to serve the e-commerce market for live and event shopping far better than today’s conventional systems.

The Evolving Dynamism of E-commerce

VibrantOS (“feel the vibe of liveshopping”) was announced last week and is one of the most noteworthy open source initiatives moving in this direction, even if still in it’s very early stages:

 "So why release a version of vibrantOS, at this early stage? - Because we want vibrantOS to build a strong and ever growing communtiy as soon as possible and keep the ideas and suggestions flowing."

Even now, many e-commerce experts don’t see why this new business model needs new system solutions and expect that business needs can be solved at the feature level and/or at the module level.

But in the end, there are obvious reasons why Woot!, iBOOD, Vente-Privée and others have preferred to go with custom built solutions. Indeed, the requirements of a dynamic sales model is vastly different than a static model.

The optimal live shopping system would enable simple and effective planning and the control of very quickly changing products. It must handle critical moments in a stable manner (such as at the start of a sales campaign), and in addition be outfitted with communications and interactive elements.

With its name, vibrantOS already starts its journey in the right direction, since the goal is not simply to take over shopping or product administration, but in the long run rather to be seen as an “operating system” for e-commerce.

Related posts:

• The Amazon WebStore and the Shopping System of the Future
• Exclusive Live Shopping Campaigns in Facebook
• Magento Announces Shopping Solution for Private Club Sales Model

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Extras: WePay, Markafoni, Social Payments

A collection of noteworthy e-commerce related news from last week:

WePay

WePay helps groups to administer collaborative financial accounts. Typical use cases could be found for student organizations, amateur sports teams or, as ReadWriteWeb suggests, a group of roommates.

WePay accounts enable the collective administration and gathering of cash pools, provides a means of making centralized payments, all the while providing transparency on all the transactions.

VentureBeat spoke with the founders:

"In an interview, co-founders Bill Clerico and Rich Alberman told me they see signs that WePay is “cannibalizing” PayPal users, something they hadn’t expected initially. With WePay, users are able to separate their payment activities into multiple accounts in ways that PayPal doesn’t allow, and also simplifies things considerably."

Markafoni

The Turkish private shopping club Markafoni has raised 11 million lira (5.4 million euro) from investors. Ex eBay manager Sina Afra has taken over general management of the company.

Social Payments

Russ Jones categorizes social payments and defines the topic:

"I’ve concluded that for something to be a social payment, it’s got to be social. It’s got to involve multiple parties paying at once. Or multiple parties being paid at once. Or one party buying and another party paying. On and on."

Social payments can be roughly understood as the union between financial transactions with social networks.

The WePay example could be categorized under social payments and then in a further sub category, group payments.

Originally posted in German by Marcel Weiss, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

SyncFu Makes Groupon-like Campaigns Possible for Any Online Store

SyncFu (“We Make Shopping Social”) is a new service for creating group sales campaigns similar to what is seen on Groupon. Merchants can use a widget to integrate SyncFu into their websites. An example widget here:

SyncFu works according to the well known group discount principle. The bigger the group of purchasers, the deeper the discount for all buyers.

SyncFu is available no charge for merchants to use. Before integrating the widget they simply need to define the ratio between volume sold and the amount of discount.

SyncFu wants to generate revenue by offering a fee based product reservation service.

"SyncFu plans on charging customers a micro-payment – between $1-3 – via their mobile phone (SMS) or credit card as part of signing up to the offer or more accurately making a pledge to take part since they are still free to walk away even after the offer has expired.

The idea is that by taking a micro-payment from prospective customers it increases the reliability of each pledge, but it’s also a convenient and clever way of SyncFu to make money themselves."

The buyers receive via their reservation a rebate code from SyncFu which they can then redeem at the merchant. The payment system of SyncFu is supplied by micro-payment service allopass.

SyncFu is a good example of how almost all live shopping concepts can be realized by a tool or app which can be integrated into any online store as a widget or extension.

Thanks to Hendric for the tip about SyncFu at the Exceed Net.

Related posts:

• Magento Strategies: Seeking Crowdsourcing Extensions
• Sokoz Offers French Live Shopping Action
• Lockerz: The Shopping Extravaganza for the Next Generation

Originally posted in German by Marcel Weiss, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo