Like a certain social network that came before it, Pinterest already appears to be doing a few things behind the scenes.
CNN reports that the popular virtual pinboard social network site has been "appending affiliate links to some pins," particularly those featuring goods from Amazon, eBay, Target and thousands more merchants. If someone clicks on one of those affiliate links and buys a product featured in one of the pins, Pinterest makes money. But no one would have known this if the following blog post on LLSocial.com had not appeared.
Last night's Grammy awards was not the Super Bowl, which broke a tweets-per-second record, but it was still a chance for advertisers to tap into an audience watching the event on television and using second screens to discuss the event on social media.
But, much as they did last week, most brands scored a big swing-and-a-miss: big, because Twitter was already super-charged with Saturday night's death of Whitney Houston, meaning some people who had no plans to watch the broadcast were tuning in after reading tweets about the 48-year-old singer.
Most of us still don't like giving out our credit card information on social networking sites, according to a poll of 2,630 adults by Harris Interactive for Digitas.
And that could mean trouble - at least for now - for Facebook and other social networks hoping to make good on predictions that social media commerce will reach $30 billion within five years. The poll, which included 2,247 people who identified themselves as social media users, found attitudes that mirrored those confronting retail brands when they opened online stores a decade or more ago.
My girlfriend and I are renting an apartment in Paris for a week this summer, which is the first real vacation I have taken since 2006, when I went to Dublin to run a marathon then spend a week recovering in Irish pubs and on Irish seashores. (Word of advice: no matter how enchanting it seems, don't rent a bicycle on the rocky Aran Islands off the coast of Galway two days after running your first marathon).
The only thing that is further in the past than my last, "real" week-long vacation was the first time I turned to Orbitz as my first and last shopping destination when booking air travel for business and the weekend getaways. According to Orbitz, the first trip I ever booked through the site was in November, 2001 when I flew from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia.
That says a lot about how good Orbitz has been at maintaining my loyalty, but not so much about my savvy shopping skills. With a pair of $1,200+ flights to purchase (based on originall search of Orbitz), I decided it was time to figure out a better way to buy airfare online.
Today in its quarterly earnings call, Groupon reported that it did not meet fourth quarter expectations. The company posted a $43 million loss, or $0.08 cents per share.
Despite the loss, Groupon's fourth quarter 2011 revenue grew 194% to $506.5 million, up from $172.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2010. This brings everyone back to the same question: Is the daily deals model a real, legitimate business, or is it just a trend? Only the numbers will tell.
Groupon really wants to get to know you.
Today the daily deals giant acquired Adku, which describes itself as an "early stage startup working on big data for e-commerce" with the goal of giving users "a more personalized experience." Adku focuses specifically on e-commerce sites.
Ever since its public offering last November, Groupon has been working on personalizing its services. It acquired social shopping start-up Mertado earlier this year. Similar to Adku, Mertado's goal is to create shopping experiences that "build bridges between content, commerce and community." Adku focuses on bigger ecommerce sites; Mertado is more focused on home-related products.
From a technological perspective, near field communications (NFC) is one of the most powerful and prominent innovations to come about in the last several years. But from a functional, real world standpoint, NFC is a technology without a clear-cut purpose. What problems does it actually solve? When it comes payments, how much different is a tap with your smartphone than a swipe of your debit card? What about the ability to open doors or share content with your friends? There are solutions already available on mobile devices for many of these "problems." So, what is the real future for NFC?
"We're always looking to get as close to one touch donations as we can," Romney Campaign's Digital Director Zac Moffat told the LATimes.
Politico reports that both the Romney and Obama campaigns have started using Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey's "magical" dongle, Square. Of course, you can't pay by saying your name as you now can at select merchants, but Square still makes campaign donations much faster and easier. Staff, field organizers and campaign volunteers hook up Square to their mobile phones and accept campaign donations on the spot.
2012 will be the year that consumers will learn how to use their smartphones to make payments with smartphones. Mobile payments will see consumers paying for physical goods with near field communications, mobile wallets and PayPal among other options. It has become such a big trend in the digital economy that mobile payments have caught the attention of the federal government.
The Federal Trade Commission wants to get in on the discussion. In April, the FTC will host a workshop on mobile payments and how the trend will affect consumers in the near future. You know an emerging technology is about to explode when the federal government starts poking its fingers in it. See the details below.
Pinterest is growing fast, and 80% of the site's users are women ages 25-44.
Laura Skelton, owner of Prix-Prix, told me about Pinterest months ago when we met up one chilly Chicago morning for brunch. "Have you tried Pinterest?" she asked me with a glint of excitement in her eyes. I shook my head no. "Try it out, but be careful, you'll get addicted." I am always wary of that caveat because I do end up getting addicted. I decided to stop by just to see what was up. I registered for an account and then left. Everything looked too pretty. Then, a few months later, I started receiving a slew of notifications: "So and so is following you on Pinterest." It was around then that Pinterest blew up.
AdAge's David Teicher wrote about how Pinterest is driving traffic to sites like design magazine RealSimple. But more importantly, he writes, "the true potential in Pinterest may be in its ability to impact purchases, which is why retailers like Etsy, Nordstrom, and Lands' End have taken to developing a presence on, and strategy for, this new platform."
