June 16, 1999
ZDNN: When the Web is always on.
After years spent gearing their offerings to people who surf for hours at a time, America Online Inc., Yahoo! Inc. and other Web companies are mulling over what to offer people who surf in short, spontaneous trips.
Forbes ASAP: Malone's Musings.
Do we really believe that we can long prosper in an economy that devalues experience: in people, in design, and in business ethics? Or will there be a crisis, then a backlash, when the old rules at last reassert themselves?
[clip]: Service In Cyberspace.
According to Taylor, customer service should start at the beginning of the customer experience and follow through to after the sale. Taylor points to the "shopping cart" feature of an e-commerce site as holding the key to future improvement.
[clip]: Connecting IT And Business.
...what's distinctly unimpressive is the failure of companies to grasp exactly what they're paying for as well as how important IT is to their core business.
- CIO WebBusiness: From December 1998; Tomorrow Land.
Q&A with Disney's Bran Ferren. The key decision makers have to get in the game and be online. If you cannot understand the behaviors, likes and needs of your customers, you're being isolated from the critically important community you need to reach.
News.Com: Net, furniture sellers not such strange bedfellows.
Brooks argues that offline furniture stores are too distracted by showroom operations issues to succeed online, and analyst Bellomy notes that furniture retailing is as fragmented as manufacturing.
TechWeb: E-Commerce Sites Not Living Up To Name.
"In fact, most business-to-business e-commerce is only an extension of traditional, land-based channels. Few new customers actually are acquired through the Internet. Cisco Systems, for example, only allows transactions on its websites from existing customers."
Advertising Age: Levi's goes offline to plug Web stores.
Levi Strauss & Co. halted online advertising for its new Web stores and now is regrouping, with plans to shift money into traditional media to drive traffic to its sites.
Computerworld: Insurance industry lags online.
Insurers "rely on them as their primary distribution channel" and are reluctant to do anything that cuts them out of the sales process...
ClickZ: How Confident Are Your Consumers?
In the consumer's mind, a confidence cue is what we rely on to tell us whether or not it's safe to buy.
[clip]: The Science Of Cyber Shopping.
Q&A with retail consultant Paco Underhill. One of the things the Web is waking up to is, 'How do we sell to people who aren't completely Web-literate? How do make sure we aren't constructing for other Web designers?
News.Com: Akamai aims to end Web waits.
With dedicated housing, the company can host content from customers like Yahoo at each of 20 points around the world. This allows a user to go to a site close to his or her own computer in accessing bendwidth-heavy content...
USA Today: Wireless carriers struggle to meet demand.
Wireless phone carriers are struggling to cut costs and expand calling networks as customer rates plummet.
News.Com: Excite@Home exec takes on open access ruling.
Q&A with Dean Gilbert, @Home. If anything like this ever came to pass it would destroy this business. I'm telling you there is no way this whole open access thing would do anything other than hurt the public.
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