A Code of Conduct for Web Aggregators

David Carr of the New York Times reports that: “As words and articles became digitized over the last 15 years, they began to float, there for the plucking and replication elsewhere. Words like ‘curation’ and ‘aggregation’ became the language of the realm, sometimes used as substitutes for describing the actual creation of content. What had once been a craft was rapidly becoming a task. Traditional media organizations watched as others kidnapped their work, not only taking away content but, more and more, taking the audiences with them. Practitioners of the new order heard the complaints and suggested that mainstream media needed to quit whining and start competing in a changed world, where what’s yours may not be yours anymore if others find a better way to package it.”
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Stores Smarten Up Amid Spam Flood

As Dana Mattioli reports in the Wall Street Journal: “Retailers have started to wear out their welcome in customers’ E-mail inboxes, forcing stores to rethink their spam strategies. Last year, the nation’s top 100 retailers by E-commerce revenue sent recipients an average of 177 E-mails apiece, up 87 percent from 2007, according to research by marketing-technology company Responsys Inc. Some of the most aggressive emailers—including Neiman Marcus Group Inc.—sent each recipient more than 500 E-mails apiece in 2011, Responsys said. Amid signs that the sheer volume of email is starting to turn customers off, some retailers have begun pulling back, reducing their mailings and fine-tuning their marketing tactics.”
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Source: Responsys/Wall Street Journal
Posted in Online Retailing, Part 3: Targeting Customers and Gathering Information, Part 7: Communicating with the Customer | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Better Business Bureau Steps Up Online Effort as Consumers Turn to Review Sites Like Yelp

According to a story by Geoffrey Fowler and Angus Loten in the Wall Street Journal, lost in the buzz over Yelp, Angie’s List, and other online review sites “is the original feedback venue: the 100-year-old Better Business Bureau, which vets and investigates consumer complaints against companies—and charges fees for memberships, providing businesses that meet its standards with the right to use its seal of approval. Behind the scenes, the BBB’s 116 independent branches are debating how to adapt to a world where consumers turn to the Web for business reviews by strangers. The nonprofit BBB risks losing its Internet moment if it doesn’t respond, say customers and executives at several of the group’s largest branches, who have begun experiments in user-generated reviews. The BBB’s Web sites attracted 4.1 million U.S. visitors in February, according to comScore Inc. Yelp, where consumers can leave reviews anonymously, attracted 30.6 million; Angie’s List, where paying subscribers post reviews, attracted 2.4 million.”
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Posted in Part 3: Targeting Customers and Gathering Information, Part 7: Communicating with the Customer, Social Media and Retailing | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment