Internet Retailer has posted a very comprehensive overview of the state of mobile commerce, which anyone interested in the sector should definitely read.

Culling data from a lot of sources, the Internet Retailer report provides a deep snapshot of the market.

North American mobile commerce sales will reach $750 million this year (ABI Research), with a lot of that money going to EBay, which has already pulled in $380 million in mobile commerce in the first three quarters of 2009.

EBay is also the leader in mobile visitors, with 5.4 million unique monthly visitors in August (Nielsen). Following it are Amazon (3.5 million), Gamespot (2.5 million) Fandango (2.4 million) and Netflix (2.3 million).

Continue Reading »

Motorola announced its first Android handset device today: The Motorola Cliq, with “social skills.” A new, high-performance smartphone is the focus of the Schaumberg, IL-based company’s hope to boost device sales and improve revenue.

Since the success of the Razr several years ago, Motorola has not been making much impression in the wireless consumer market, as independent analyst Jeff Kagan told ComputerWorld today. “Motorola has been stumbling around in the dark,” he says. “This Cliq could be the biggest opportunity for Motorola in many years.”

Continue Reading »

Amazon is expected to unveil a new Kindle Wednesday. The new model is reportedly designed for newspaper and magazine reading, and the New York Times is partnering with Amazon on the reader.

The new Kindle is one of several e-readers being developed for newspapers and periodicals.

Hearst (owners of our city’s struggling San Francisco Chronicle, which recently bought out some of its best columnists), announced in February that it is developing its own device.

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation is also launching an e-reader next year, as is Plastic Logic, a well-financed German startup.

Continue Reading »

The customer-review site Yelp is being charged with charging businesses to remove negative reviews about them. Bay Area businesses reported that Yelp is actually calling them, offering to remove the offending reviews for $299 a month.

In some instances, positive reviews were replaced with negative ones when owners declined to subscribe.

I don’t know why I’m so disappointed in the news that Yelp allows businesses to remove negative reviews for a fee. I’m not so innocent to believe in the absolute transparency of customer reviews, though I’d like to be able to – that’s what they’re there for, right?

The fact that they’re actually calling businesses with the opportunity – some of the businesses contacted made it sound like Yelp was hounding them, calling weekly.

Continue Reading »

Shopping on the internet brings great deals, but is very time consuming. During the holiday season, this problem is especially apparent. The specific gift is often entrenched in pages upon pages of search results or similar products. Given that 4 out of 5 adults have made an online transaction in the past 6 months, it appears PicClick has prudently developed software to circumvent the time issue.

With PicClick.com, search results from Amazon and Ebay are consolidated into a single scroll down page of icons that include the picture, part of the headline, and the price of the item. For Ebay searches, the results also include the auction ending time. For example, here are the results for the search phrase “Ovation Celebrity,” a guitar that I am looking to buy.

Continue Reading »

78% of US online adults made an Internet purchase in the past six months, according to Nielsen.

Four out of ten made a travel purchase, and more than one third managed their credit card or baking accounts online. Other sites with high transaction rates were clothes/shoes/accessories (28%), books (26%), and hotel/motel reservations (18%). Top individual sites were eBay, Amazon, Wal Mart stores, Target, and Netflix.

Continue Reading »

With the worsening economy and state budget deficits, states are increasingly considering adding sales tax to online retail transactions. Legislation could be implemented as soon as 2009, according to Forbes.

“States are coming up with huge deficits and looking for places to make money,” says Eric Menhart of CyberLaw. “All of a sudden, Internet taxation appears a lot more viable.”

The legislation will be introduced as soon as January; if passed, changes could be implemented within six months. It is estimated that these taxes would generate several billion dollars in revenue: the Streamlined Sales Tax Governing Board (SSTGB) estimates that uncollected sales tax revenue was between $19 and $27 billion in 2006.

Continue Reading »

While consumer spending is down, PC sales have continued to grow in 2008. Much of this growth is being credited to the rapid growth of the netbook market.

“Netbooks are the biggest thing to hit the PC industry in over a decade,” said IDC analyst Bob O’Donnell.

Asus’s Eee PC, launched in 2007, was the beginning of netbooks’ popularity. The small, ultra-light netbooks (9-10 inch screens, 2-3t pounds) are designed mainly for web access and office productivity applications, and sell in the $350-$500 (and falling) range.

Continue Reading »

Gigom called it. It looks like 2008 is the year of LinkedIn, which is, not surprisingly, one of the few companies that has experienced significant growth since the recession’s acceleration in September. Surprisingly, though, the professional network’s traffic has grown exponentially more than other career sites in that period.

Linkedin has seen a 25% percent membership increase since September. There has been a 15% increase in Linkedin invitations in the last two months, and a 14% increase in the number of recommendations of members. LinkedIn has 30 million worldwide users and is now adding 1 million new users every two weeks.

Continue Reading »

With all the focus on Windows 7, Microsoft’s Monday announcement that it was entering the world of cloud computing seemed to come out of nowhere.

Azure is the foundation of the Azure Services platform, which Microsoft says will make the development of cloud applications simple. The release was announced at Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles.

Despite recent high-profile pronouncements by Richard Stallman, Larry Ellison, and Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer companies like Amazon and Google are showing the potential for cloud computing.

Continue Reading »