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Users of hosted e-commerce shopping cart solution FoxyCart can now have their orders fulfilled via ShipWire, thanks to a new integration between the two services called FoxyWire.

ShipWire is an order fulfillment provider that promises to give small and medium-sized businesses the supply chain capabilities of larger enterprises. They handle the storage, packing and shipping of products that are ordered online, as well as customer returns.

Mobile technology has been implemented in the supply chain of many businesses today - in warehouses and in retail stores, for instance. But it's not entirely a new phenomenon, as many of these organizations have utilized mobile technologies for a number of years, via tracking through RFID, for example, or with some sort of handheld unit tracking things like onsite orders and deliveries.

Arguably then, it's not simply the mobile hardware itself that is changing the supply chain, but it's the ability to integrate information from these mobile devices with other aspects of business analytics - and to do so in real time.

The Internet of Things, when objects in the real world are connected to the Internet, is adding a whole lot more data to the Web. The fascinating question is how that data will be used, by existing businesses and new startups yet to emerge. Take the food industry for example. With sensors, QR codes and RFID tags on food shipments, suppliers will be able to monitor and optimize the delivery of food from the place of production to its place of consumption. It's an open invitation for disruptive food businesses to utilize that data for competitive advantage.

Of course, consumers stand to gain too. Data from the food supply chain will enable consumers to more easily judge food quality.

When we think of how technology has revolutionized business, we tend to think first of examples that exist primarily online: Web-based CRM, online storefronts, search advertising and the like. But much of what businesses do in the offline world is being turned on its head - and made much more efficient - by digital technology.

One prominent example is supply chain management (SCM), which is the process by which businesses acquire physical materials and resources, assemble them and deliver them to customers.

I had the opportunity to talk Monday with Danny Wong, one of the co-founders of the startup Blank Label which allows customers to create custom men's dress shirts. Users can pick fabrics, collar styles, cuff styles, size and fit options, as well as embroider custom monograms.

The company is the brainchild of Wong's partner, Fan Bi, who developed the idea during an exchange program between the Boston area's Babson College (a school we've mentioned before for it's entrepreneurship programs) and his school in his home of Australia.

Hype cycles, like all cycles, are getting shorter. People want to be the first to say, "You heard it here first, folks: this or that hot thing you hear about all the time is a bunch of hot air."

We love to debunk myths and prick bubbles as much as the next set of pundits, but we think the real-time Web is for real. Financial traders have lived in a real-time world for a while, but only within the confines of the trading floor. When they left work, they entered a batch world. Most other people work in a batch world. That is changing. We are all entering the real-time world of the trader. Some of us are getting there faster, but we are all heading there. And relax, there is an "Off" button!