Disruption boys at it again

Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis are at it again. After P2P/distributed downloads (Kazaa) and telephony (Skype), they're taking a shot at TV.

Their new venture, the "Venice Project", aims at TV show distribution on the Web. Very hush hush, but be sure that it'll tackle and tickle most of current on-line content distribution hurdles, mostly DRM and such.

Kazaa, Skype, and now "The Venice Project"

technorati tags:skype, DRM, TV, video, content, distribution

Back to basics

People, need I remind you that e-commerce is just a derivative from catalog / distant selling?

Just for a second, forget about ajax, javascript, ergonomics, eyetracking, real-time metrics... Benefits of buying online for consumers remain the same as buying from QVC or The Sharper Image catalog: convenience, convenience and convenience.

And with gas prices rising, and the current heat wave we're experienciing this summer (in the US and in France), buying on-line and returning purchases from home makes more sense than ever.

Check out the results of Harris Interactive's US July study:

InternetRetailer.com - Daily News for Monday, July 24, 2006

technorati tags:e-commerce, survey, harris, consumer

Kickapps : build your own social network

Want your own web 2.0 network service? Try Kickapps. Just create an account, copy and paste a code and here it is :

More social commerce

Here it is, folks. The social commerce wave.

eSnips, a social website enabling its users to upload, organize, tag and share files of all formats, has just added a marketplace feature. Payment is PayPal-enabled.

Apparently, the guys at eSnips identified the need for e-commerce on their website by learning that a lot of their users were offering stuff for sale in their shared folders.

To offer a product for sale, all you have to do is create a new shared folder, activate its marketplace capabilities, upload a picture of your product and add price, content and tags. Done!

Seems like the service is free. How eSnips will make money from this I don't know. Maybe it is free while in beta stage?

I'm sure there's more to come. I'll keep you guys posted.

eSnips.com - Let your content take you places

technorati tags:esnips, social, commerce, tagging, tags, paypal, e-commerce, networking

Forget outsourcing, here comes crowdsourcing

Try applying the "grid computing" concept to outsourcing and you get crowdsourcing.

Some sites have started to appear on the Web, offering outsourced services which will be rendered by a community of experts spread out over the world. Services range from simple tasks like filling up databases to intricate website design.

Check out Amazon's Mechanical Turk, or XHTMlized for a better grasp.

I think it's great stuff!

PS: Oh! Reminds me that I actually used a pioneering crowdsourcing service a few years ago : www.logoworks.com. These guys produce quite sexy corporate logos for a low price, using a network of designers accross the US, competing on your creative brief to get the "bounty".

Amazon forays into online groceries

When Jeff Bezos said Amazon would be the store where one can buy anything, he really meant it: the e-commerce powerhouse quietly beta-launched its groceries tab.

The section includes 12 categories of nonperishable goods such as cereal, pasta and canned soup. The new category also includes merchandise from a variety of well known consumer brand manufacturers such as Kraft, Kellogg and Betty Crocker.

The online grocery business is regional, can be very dependent on local and regional suppliers for perishable goods and is hard for a national player to establish as a profitable business.

It isn’t clear if Amazon will eventually sell more perishable items such as meat and produce, but we can be sure they are making a very calculated move into the online grocery market in a way that could result in a very profitable business over time. They are selling higher margin items in their specialty lines and setting minimal purchasing requirements with lower margin products.