Barclaycard Turns to Crowd-sourcing to Build a Better Credit Card. The new Barclaycard Ring MasterCard aims to be both simple and social. But more than ease of use, what the company is really pushing about the new card is that holders will have a say — up to a point — in how it is managed, serviced and even marketed by participating in an online community. “This could be a major step in the likely application of ‘crowd-sourced everything’ to consumer credit,” says Wharton business and public policy professor Jeremy Tobacman. “Card issuers, craving gimmicks that will help them attract attention and stand out in the genuinely cutthroat competition for new accounts, could view this as an interesting marketing salvo.” Billed by the company as the first “crowd-sourced” credit card, the product has been in pilot testing since December and opened to the general public last month. In addition, customers won’t have to pay a penalty APR if they default.
The Giveback rewards program is billed as a way for card holders to share in the profit. Who’s afraid of AmazonSupply? | 2013-01-02 | Supply House Times. It’s no surprise online retail giant Amazon.com entered the industrial market in 2012 with the launch of Amazonsupply.com. After all, the market for U.S. industrial supplies is more than $150 billion. It may appear Amazon and other industrial merchant sites will create downward price pressure and increased competition for wholesalers and distributors, eventually eroding their margins. While this will put pressure on margins, growing acceptance of the Web as a channel in business-to-business transactions could offset and potentially outweigh that effect for some smart B2B suppliers.
Today, B2B sellers differentiate pricing through customer-specific negotiations. Sellers offer and buyers accept different prices reflecting the relative costs and value of the relationships. Given the confidential “opaque” nature of these agreements, customers don’t really know how their pricing compares to others. Take Grainger, for example. Last camera firm sees out final sad day - Top stories.
How To Publish a "Minimum Viable Magazine" Online. Marco Arment’s digitally native magazine, The Magazine. [via Craig Mod] Shocking no one, News Corporation’s iPad-only publication “The Daily” kicked the bucket today. While future-of-journalism sites ponder the why’s and wherefores, technologists like Marco Arment and Craig Mod may have already identified a working alternative. Their connections to the journalism or publishing “industry” as we’ve understood it for the past century are tenuous at best–Arment is a programmer who built Tumblr and Instapaper, while Mod was a product designer at Flipboard.
And that outsider status is precisely why they’re onto something. Web startups live and die by a strategy called the MVP, or “minimum viable product.” On the other, it’s as opposite from Rupert Murdoch’s app as antimatter is from matter. Make it simple so you can make it fast. If none of this sounds like rocket science, that’s exactly the point. [Read Craig Mod’s essay here. Digital Does Delivery: Google's New Same Day Service Trial Signals Web's Next Era. Convergence between the ephemeral and the quotidian has been slow in coming. The seamless transition from one to the other is the promise of the emergent mobile commerce.
But in many cases, the hand-off is kludgy, awkward, mistake-prone or simply non-existent. Companies like Amazon have invested relentlessly in perfecting the order-to-delivery process, but time and distance remain a barrier. Consumers have signalled through their eager proffers of personal data, answers to surveys and credit cards that they will pay handsomely, sometimes extravagantly for convenience. Companies get this, but progress on breaching the next barrier, same day delivery, has been mixed. Google's new trial suggests that the pressure to deliver almost instantaneously is being met - at least experimentally - with earnest attempts to satisfy the demand. The strategic imperative is to blunt Amazon's inexorable growth as the emerchant of choice. Stacey Higginbothom reports in GigaOm: Mapping The Next Three Decades of Health Technology. When science fiction films depict the future, the best writers and directors are often less concerned with accurately predicting how specific technologies might reshape the world than they are with confronting the moral or philosophical quandaries of present day.
It’s what makes those stories compelling--and relatable. When futurists attempt to tell us how (and when) technology leaps will occur, they’re not only speculating about what we’re capable of achieving in the coming decades but also imploring us to prepare--scientifically and psychologically--for those events. Envisioning Technology, the firm behind the massive infographic explorations of the future of emerging technology and the future of education technology, is, as you might guess, run by a futurist: Michell Zappa.
His most recent visualization maps the next three decades of health technology, charting how regeneration, augmentation, diagnostics, treatments, biogerontology, and telemedicine will change over time. Apple in talks to create internet radio station. E-book settlement has publishing world in turmoil. Publishing insiders worry that a decisive court ruling benefiting retailer Amazon.com Inc. will undermine an industry already struggling with the transition to e-books. A federal court Thursday approved a settlement between the Justice Department and three of the country’s largest publishers, who were accused of colluding to fix prices for e-books. Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers and Simon & Schuster were alleged to have conspired with Apple Inc. to control the price of e-books sold online as part of a larger effort to end Amazon’s online dominance.
The two elements of wrongdoing alleged in the case — publishing competitors conspiring to limit competition in the e-book market, and fixing the retail price — are a sign of an industry grappling with disruptive change. “By putting the legal approval on this settlement, the district court has pushed us over a certain kind of cliff. The decision has thrown the publishing world into turmoil. Dawn.chmielewski@latimes.com. Amazon to Apple: the game starts now. The key moment in Jeff Bezos's keynote announcing Amazon's new Paperwhite Kindle and Kindle Fire models came before he introduced any of the new hardware. "People don't want gadgets any more," Bezos declared, explaining why the Kindle Fire had succeeded where other gadgety Android tablets had failed.
"They want services that improve over time. They want services that improve every day, every week, and every month. " This statement of purpose signals a new phase in Amazon's evolution as a company, and its singular, emerging take on the developing consumer marketplace, and how it's positioning itself towards its broad field of competitors. Bezos now talks about the Kindle Fire as if it were synonymous with Amazon itself "The Kindle Fire," he added, "is a service. While Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Facebook are all charting different evolutionary routes from PC to post-PC and from desktop to mobile, Amazon has largely been able to sidestep that entire problem.
Leaving Android behind. At Procter & Gamble, the Innovation Well Runs Dry. For much of its history, Procter & Gamble (PG) didn’t just launch new products, it created new product categories, from the first mass-produced disposable diapers to Crest teeth-whitening kits. That’s one reason P&G has more than 1,000 Ph.D.’s among the 8,000 employees at its 26 innovation facilities around the world. “P&G is largely a branded science company,” says Larry Huston, former innovation officer at P&G who’s now managing director of 4inno, a consulting firm. Lately, though, there’s been a dearth of pioneering brands emerging from the world’s largest consumer-products company. Spending on research and development in fiscal 2012 ended June 30 was $2.03 billion, or 2.4 percent of sales, the same as the prior year and down from 3 percent of sales in 2006.
P&G’s most recent homegrown blockbusters—Swiffer cleaning devices, Crest Whitestrips, and Febreze odor fresheners—were all launched at least a decade ago. When former CEO A.G. P&G still brings plenty of new products to market. How Google Builds Its Maps—and What It Means for the Future of Everything - Alexis C. Madrigal. An exclusive look inside Ground Truth, the secretive program to build the world's best accurate maps. Behind every Google Map, there is a much more complex map that's the key to your queries but hidden from your view.
The deep map contains the logic of places: their no-left-turns and freeway on-ramps, speed limits and traffic conditions. This is the data that you're drawing from when you ask Google to navigate you from point A to point B -- and last week, Google showed me the internal map and demonstrated how it was built. It's the first time the company has let anyone watch how the project it calls GT, or "Ground Truth," actually works. Google opened up at a key moment in its evolution. The company began as an online search company that made money almost exclusively from selling ads based on what you were querying for. And for good reason. This is not just a theoretical concern.
But that would entail actually building a better map. On first inspection, this data looks great. Kindle – Firing up a revolution « Buy, Use, Love. Transforming an industry that has been incrementally improving on a business model and technology for over 500 years is not for the faint of heart. Although it might still be too early to compare the impact of ebooks to that of the mechanical printing press (invented by Gutenberg in 1440), the Amazon Kindle seems up to the task. I ordered my 2nd generation Kindle as soon as it was released in early 2009 (yup, I paid the premium) and it has fundamentally changed how I read. I read a lot more now than I used to, I never lose my page, I always have a dictionary at hand, I can carry a whole slew of books on every vacation, I beam with pride (at least I used to, back in 2009) when people ask to take a closer look and I try to sell a Kindle to everyone who cares to listen.
Yup, you guessed it… the Amazon Kindle far exceeds my buy, use, love threshold. Read More Books by Brother O'Mara It was pretty obvious to me that there are some key lessons in the Kindle saga for Product Managers like me. Can Apple, Amazon and Google's new mini-tablets revive the news industry? | Technology. Any news executives confident that the answer to falling print sales is more people using tablet computers should be delighted by the next six weeks or so. On Thursday, Amazon's Jeff Bezos is expected to unwrap a new version of the 7in Kindle Fire tablet, and even to extend sales beyond the US into Europe – after opening up its app store here last week. Google has been selling its 7in Nexus 7 tablet since July in the US and Europe. And early in October Apple's Tim Cook will unveil a 7.85in version of the iPad, according to rumours whose detail lacks only a price. So that's a dramatic change from 12 months ago: we will go from having zero big-name small-size tablets at the start of the year (ignoring those from Samsung and RIM, neither of which has grabbed the market's attention) to three by the end of it, and all around the £150 mark.
Suddenly, tablets will be affordable and portable. Why? By contrast, buying books or papers isn't a key task on a tablet. Or perhaps that should be: yet. Business Model Innovation Japan. Intuit's High-Velocity Experiments | Working Knowledge ® Aug12 Point: Fast-cycle experiments let companies create the best product/service offering with the least risk. Story: At the World Innovation Forum, Scott Cook, co-founder of Intuit, described his company’s culture of high-velocity experimentation. Intuit uses an experiment-driven decision-making process throughout the organization. Rather than expect executives and managers to know all the answers, Intuit uses large numbers of low-cost experiments to test new product, service, and marketing ideas. To illustrate how high-velocity experimentation works in organizations, Cook described how the concept works in Intuit’s 20-person online TurboTax unit.
Fast experimentation also improves employees’ sense of engagement and ownership. Paradoxially, running more experiments and getting more failures lowers the fear and cost of failure. Action Tags: Case study, experiments, failure, Innovation, Intuit, speed, World Innovation Forum Leave a Reply. Harley Davidson – Born to be HOG wild « Buy, Use, Love.
I can’t think of any other brand that generates as much buy, use, love passion as Harley Davidson. In a time when ‘American manufacturing’ is becoming an oxymoron, Harley Davidson is proudly carrying the banner of American innovation, industry and irreverence. Regardless of all the well-heeled Harley owners who just tootle around on weekends, Harley Davidson represents the irrepressible American spirit of legend that has captured the world’s imagination. Over the years, Harley Davidson bikes have been vilified, glorified and caricatured in American popular culture but the sheer resilience of their iconic image is the envy of corporate America. Since opening it’s doors in 1903, the company has seen many highs and lows and even some near-death experiences.
The juxtaposition of this chequered past and the utter devotion of its customers intrigues me. As I was writing this post, the reasons behind the Harley loyalist’s passion became crystal clear to me. Like this: Like Loading... 60% Of Netflix Subscribers Stream Films Online — Online Video News. Netflix – Flicks directly on the net… at last « Buy, Use, Love. Lately, I’ve been running errands to tie up the loose ends of a construction project at home and I keep driving past the now defunct ‘Hollywood Video’ store in my neighborhood. As you might expect, the Product Manager in me looks at this abandoned store and can’t help thinking about the innovation and creative destruction delivered to my neighborhood by… you guessed it… Netflix.
I have to admit that, over the years, I was only a sporadic member of the videos-by-mail, no-late-fees Netflix service. That’s because I was always able to find time to watch movies in the theater and so waiting for movies to release on video and be shipped to my house didn’t make much sense. However, all that changed recently when I discovered the instant gratification of Netflix’s video streaming service. Of course, like the rest of Netflix’s instant-streaming customers, I would like the catalog of content to grow by leaps and bounds. Like this: Like Loading... Subaru – Love on four wheels « Buy, Use, Love. At the outset, I should admit that I live in the Pacific Northwest and that may be one of the reasons I’m taken by this buy, use, love story. I love our Subaru (technically it’s my wife’s car so I don’t use it as much as I’d like to). When we bought it, it was the lightest, most fuel efficient (for an AWD), tightest-turning little SUV we could find.
Even though all cars eventually lose their new smell and sheen, we keep recommending the Subaru to our friends and family. There is no doubt that Subarus shine in parts of the country that have harsh winters or tons of outdoor enthusiasts. Lately, however, it seems like its core group of self-appointed brand advocates have slowly started turning the rest of the country on to Subaru vehicles. It's what makes a Subaru, a Subaru All car companies have hits and misses and Subaru is no exception; it is also much smaller than some other companies so growth rates alone might not be the correct measure of its success. Like this: Like Loading... The Stories. Marc Andreessen on Why Software Is Eating the World. Innovation Almost Bankrupted LEGO -- Until It Rebuilt with a Better Blueprint.
9 Ways Supermarkets Are Going High Tech. An Airline Industry Disrupter With a Netflix Model : Innovation. Sadly for RIM, fond memories aren't enough to stop the decline and fall of BlackBerry. Bye Bye BlackBerry. How Long Will Apple Last? Here's Why Google and Facebook Might Completely Disappear in the Next 5 Years. RIM's downward spiral visualized. 4 Reasons Microsoft is Coming Back in a Big Way. Panera's experiment in human nature: Let customers decide what to pay. RIM chiefs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie's best quotes | Technology. 6 Hot Digital Trends Transforming the Fashion Industry. Here's Why Google and Facebook Might Completely Disappear in the Next 5 Years. Better, Faster, Cheaper Is Not Innovation: Kodak and Microsoft.
5 Startups Infusing Social Good with Innovation. Once the dust of Social TV hype settles, content recommendation will be changed forever (2/2) Collaborative design, and the social TV case study.