June 7, 1999
Industry Standard: A Fast Takeoff for Airline Sites.
But the airlines so far have been rather indifferent disintermediators. The rapid growth in their online sales has been a byproduct of universally recognized brand names and a loyal cadre of frequent fliers...
Industry Standard: Technical Difficulties.
But a whole host of other user-interface problems stem from the fact that travel sites act as front ends to one of several computer reservation systems - decades-old legacy networks...
Industry Standard: Big Dumb Companies Wise Up.
Companies will need to show digital world dominance, too - even if it comes at the expense of brick-and-mortar results.
PC Week: Sold on the simplicity of Web sites.
...Forrester estimates that usability labs charge between $25,000 and $50,000 for thorough testing. Compare that with the cost of a site tear-down and overhaul: $780,000 to $1.56 million.
News.Com: E-cash shows signs of revival.
KCOM also will host MilliCent payment hosting services for content providers such as Asahi Shimbun, one of Japan's largest newspapers, which will make its archives available through MilliCent.
SJ Mercury: Catering to cyber-customers.
To meet that influx, companies are adopting new customer service technologies, including online self-service based on artificial intelligence or live, one-on-one chat sessions with customer service agents over the Web.
SJ Mercury: Oracle Buys Thinking Machines Assets, Technology.
``Darwin uses current information to predict customer behavior on your site and to understand what they are likely to do or not do.''
Interactive Week: Package Lets Sites Engage Consumers.
By clicking a button or entering a phone number, the software would allow the user to initiate a chat discussion or receive an immediate call-back.
Industry Standard: Why Intel Wants to Host Your Web Site.
Q&A with Intel CEO Craig Barrett. Broadband will be a huge boost for e-commerce. In business-to-consumer commerce, consumers like to look, feel, touch, have true color, hear music and see greater realism when looking at things that are for sale.
Wired News: Striking for Cheaper Phone Rates
"Despite the hype, free access is not the solution -- free services are simply the result of the whole problem of high phone rates."
Useit.Com: Spotlight of a report on the usage patterns of registered and non-registered users on portals.
Without looking at a control group with similar pre-registration behavior, there is simply no way of knowing the causality underlying the observations.
Industry Standard: Shall We Play a Game?
The failure of entertainment on the Web relates to its origins. Often developed by old-media companies, the early attempts used old-media development models.
Information Week: E-Business Evolution.
If fulfillment systems and procedures, for example, aren't integrated with online storefronts, customers will be able to see that from the Web.
Internet World: Balancing Server Loads Globally.
This is why real-time, transaction-intensive sites such as E*Trade now involve more than one regional work center. Content providers like USA Today distribute data repositories nationally and internationally.
Interactive Week: Nothing But Net: The Scarcity Syndrome.
The giant sucking sound you hear is talent and capital being pulled away from established fields - and put into Internet start-ups.
SJ Mercury: Grocery `store' goes back to the future.
Whereas Amazon.com can use central distribution centers and Federal Express to deliver books, online groceries have to go market by market. They will have to set up local distribution centers...
Wired News: E-Commerce, Japanese Style.
ES-Books is intended to do an end run around a couple of obstacles that have hampered cyber-shopping in this country: a widespread preference for using cash payments and money transfers instead of credit cards, and a persistent apprehension about transacting business online.
Industry Standard: The Only Game in Town.
Carl Steadman. Day trading represents the Internet Economy's relentless pursuit of efficiency. With the single click of a mouse, I'm able to lose $5,000 or $10,000 or more, easily.
PC World: Will Your PC Talk Back?
IBM's showcase includes computers you can have a dialogue with and voice-driven automated services that let you bank by phone.
TechWeb: L&H Partners With Intel On Speech.
...both companies will concentrate on developing systems with embedded real-time speech-recognition capabilities that will be enabled for use over the Internet.
News.Com: First NSI competitor goes to work.
Although the registrars were supposed to be operational by April 26, the process of getting them connected to NSI's master database has pushed back the schedule considerably.
| 