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February 08, 2006 | Greg Ness: The Great Extinction Redux

Will future social scientists looking back on this age be puzzled by what so abruptly changed the economy, society, and the world business climate in just a few short years? If they’re probing for answers, I’ll assume they won’t blame a large heavenly object for today’s cataclysmic reordering. But, similar to the comet that struck earth and wiped out dinosaurs 65 million years ago, the rapid changes of our present period will likely lead to some business model extinctions.

Technology and the Internet are rapidly altering the business platform for almost all organizations. The changes are swift and deep.

February 07, 2006 | Dean Froslie: iPods: Beyond Entertainment

The stethoscope is a timeless tool in the medical profession.

But according to a Time magazine article, today’s medical students are often less competent and comfortable with stethoscopes. Instead, they increasingly opt for expensive, high-tech tests to diagnose conditions that could be detected by careful listening through a stethoscope.

A Temple University doctor may have a solution. Time reports that Dr. Michael Barrett, in an American Journal of Medicine study, “concluded that medical students improved their stethoscope skills dramatically if they listened to certain digitally recorded soundtracks that mimic the distinctive vibrations produced by various valve problems and other cardiac conditions.”

Barrett created a recording of stethoscope sounds heard when a patient has an abnormal heart. Students downloaded the recording to an iPod and listened for two hours. The results were impressive: After listening to the iPod recording, students could correctly identify 80% of the sounds (up from 30% without the recording).

February 06, 2006 | Greg Ness: Super Growth Spurt

Blogs

There is a new report that has just been released. Technorati, the blog search engine, now keeps tab on over 27 million blogs. There are 60 times as many blogs as there were three years ago. At the present rate of growth, they will double every 5.5 months.

Most of these blogs are not written by professional writers or journalists. Only a few of these will gather a large audience. But, when there are 75,000 new blogs added each and every day (about one per second), they will have an effect on how and where people spend their time online. It is now estimated 25 percent of the Web content output daily is consumer-generated media (CGM) with blogs playing a major role. This is long past a fad and well into a major trend reshaping our information society.

iTunes

Apple’s online iTunes store growth has soared 241 percent in the last year. It had over 20 million unique visitors in December.

February 03, 2006 | Greg Ness: Budweiser To Use Super Bowl Ads To Launch Its Own Network

In a story here Wednesday, I discussed the contrasting Super Bowl advertising of big-money Budweiser and the guerilla marketing tactics of GoDaddy. Now it turns out, Budweiser knows how to use guerilla advertising methods, also. Budweiser, the biggest advertiser in the biggest event on television, is going to use its Super Bowl presence to launch its own direct-to-the-consumer broadband network via the Web (story here). The network will feature a variety of programming and entertainment options.

February 03, 2006 | Greg Ness: Online Retail Still Crazy Hot

Online retail sales in the Christmas season beat even the most optimistic expectations (see story .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)). January figures now indicate 2006 is continuing at the same rapid pace. Based on figures from comScore, online non-travel retail sales were up 33 percent over 2005 revenues in the same period. Some of the fastest growing retail categories included:
- Event tickets…up 50 percent over 2005
- Consumer electronics…up 43 percent
- Sports and Fitness…up 41 percent
- Apparel and Accessories…up 38%

This hypergrowth may appear difficult for some economists and prognosticators to comprehend, but it seems almost expected when you see the fundamental shifts taking place in people’s media of choice. A .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on a just-released Jupiter Research study reveals time spent online is now equal to the time spent watching TV among Internet users.

February 01, 2006 | Cloy Tobola: Yahoo Takes Heat for Human Rights Violations

While many would argue that opening up business relationships in China has lead to greater freedoms, it’s also put businesses in a position to impact human rights issues.

As noted in an earlier blog, a few U.S. companies have been criticized for helping totalitarian governments censor the information and sites that users can access. Now, Yahoo has come under fire from Amnesty International for identifying a Chinese journalist who had disclosed a Communist Party directive instructing the media to downplay the June 4 anniversary of Tiananmen Square Massacre.

January 27, 2006 | Greg Ness: The Web Is Now The Fastest Growing Marketing Channel

A post this week in CMO Online reveals just how quickly and profoundly the marketing landscape has changed. The article states, “What started out as a secondary channel to generate traffic for information seekers has now grown into a critical component of any well-designed business or marketing plan. Today, the Internet is the fastest growing marketing channel and is beginning to challenge television and radio for billions of advertising dollars.”

The CMO article cites a Forrester Research report that shows the Web is, by far, the most active remote shopping channel. It predicts this year, the Web will outpace catalogs, direct mail and telephone sales to account for 75 percent of all out-of-store purchases and revenues.

January 27, 2006 | Cloy Tobola: New Economy Less About Immediate Gratification Than We Thought

John Hagel’s Edge Perspectives blog provides some interesting insights into globalization and the impact of the Internet on the global economy.

Among the problems he identifies in several posts is the tendency of companies to focus on short-term savings from suppliers, thereby creating an ongoing adversarial relationship that doesn’t ultimately serve either party well. Hagel suggests that a better solution is to cultivate long-term supplier relationships that can lead to better responsiveness and greater flexibility. He identifies this as one of the major problems that has placed U.S.-based automakers behind the competition.

January 26, 2006 | Greg Ness: Online Activity to Affect Half Of All Retail Sales By 2010

Jupiter Research just released a forecast report that predicts online activity will affect 50 percent of all retail sales by 2010. This includes items that are either bought online or researched online, and bought elsewhere. There is a more detailed story regarding the research on Internet News.

January 25, 2006 | Cloy Tobola: Governmental Censorship Derails Internet Promise

The borderless Internet may have been the goal, but government interference into the free flow of information has put serious restrictions on the liberating effect that might have had on culture and society. The Open Net Initiative, sponsored by the University of Toronto, Harvard and Cambridge Universities, is focusing its research on what individual governments are doing to control information flow, and the impact this has had on politics, human rights, state sovereignty and law.

January 23, 2006 | Cloy Tobola: Selling Our Souls for Security Checks

The Transportation Safety Administration has followed the Bush Administration’s directive by offering private companies the option of creating “express lanes” for travelers who want to avoid delays at airport security checkpoints

The agency, which has recently been criticized for a variety of blunders including stopping a 4-year-old boy whose name was similar to one on a terrorism watch list, will require that program applicants undergo a government background check and submit 10 fingerprints that will be stored on a digital identification card.

January 23, 2006 | Greg Ness: Coming Simultaneously To A Theater and TV Near You

What if new movies were released to theaters, home television sets and DVDs all at once. That scenario might not be far off, based on a New York Times story. The article discusses an initiative by IFC Entertainment to simultaneously release 24 films to theaters and cable pay-per-view TV at the same time. Granted, these releases will be to independent theaters, but I think it signals the beginning of some big changes in the movie industry as a whole.

In a related post here two weeks ago, I cited an AP-AOL poll that revealed 73 percent of adults would prefer to watch movies in their homes. The Internet and entertainment industry has time after time witnessed the fact that digital content wants to lose its dependence on the middleman.