Captivating Connections.

disney wants your babies (in a socially acceptable sort of way).

I wrote earlier about how Disney is upping it's ranking on the list of the world's most valuable brands.This is one of the many reasons...

Disney has announced the launch of "DisneyBaby.com, a Web site intended both as a product showcase for its new line of infant apparel but also as a type of community scrapbook and resource center."

What's the big deal about another baby-centric website?

"It’s Disney’s way of latching onto the 'social commerce' bandwagon — sites that include user contributions (in this case, tips for new mothers from new mothers) that can lead to selling merchandise. DisneyBaby.com is organized around different times of the day — dressing, eating, bath time — and the heart of the site (aside from the products, of course) is something called Magical Moments, an area where parents can upload baby pictures and share stories.

The site is sponsored by Huggies diapers."

Parents, what do you think?

is CES losing it's swagger?

No, I'm not asking this because I'm bitter I'm not there (it's a worthwhile sacrifice to finish up my MBA at an expedited pace!!!).

Now that Apple has been gone from CES for quite some time, and Microsoft has announced that this is their last year there, the NYTimes notes that "the show is unlikely to be where any blockbuster products of 2012 are introduced. Many of the hottest new gadgets in recent years — including Apple’s iPad and iPhone, Microsoft’s Kinect and Amazon’s Kindle Fire — were first announced at other events, even though C.E.S. remains the world’s biggest consumer technology convention."

Why is that?

According to the NYTimes, "this reflects the changing nature of the technology industry — particularly the fact that the most important developments in the electronics business are no longer coming from the makers of television sets and stereos that have been most closely identified with the show since it started in 1967.

And as the industry and its trade show have grown, the need for buzz and branding has become more acute. The most innovative players — like Apple and Amazon — need to stand out from the crowd and so have chosen to introduce their products at smaller, more narrowly defined conferences and company-only events."

 

 

google maps goes indoors to play

Google has officially announced that Google Maps is taking you indoors, giving you access to floor plans of selected retailers, malls, and even airports (and even more will be added over time!).

This is also cool for local businesses; if you want, you can submit your floorplan to Google Maps to be included!

introducing: google+ pages.

Google has launched Google Pages, essentially set to compete with Facebook Pages.

So what's Pages' competitive advantage?

"Google's Pages will be open to a much wider array of businesses, organizations and brands than on Facebook. Anyone will be able to create a page for anything. Google will also make it tougher for operators of those pages -- be they brands, organizations, sports teams or clubs -- to add their equivalent of a fan to what Google calls 'Circles.' And Google+ users will have to opt in to a page to receive any sort of communication from the brand."

 Google VP Bradley Horowitz sums it up by explaining "Pages are for anything, whereas profiles are for people. None of these pages can interact with you unless you invite them into your life."

What do you think?

WSJ debuting e-book bestseller list.

How awesome is this?

"The Wall Street Journal has expanded its relationship with Nielsen BookScan to add e-book sales reporting to its customized best-seller charts. The new charts debut Saturday, October 29, and will appear weekly as part of WSJ Weekend, the Journal’s weekend edition, in print and on WSJ.com."

what's the deal with Facebook's 'People' metric?

Facebook's new "People Talking About This" metric is a new, unique metric that "will appear on brand pages beneath Likes and count the number of people who have taken social actions, such as Liking, leaving a Wall post, commenting, photo-tagging or answering a question posted to a Facebook page."

What's the value in this? According to Facebook, "This will help marketers and Page owners understand how to make their content more engaging and shareable, which increases the reach of their messages on Facebook. It will also help users get a sense for what Pages are relevant, engaging and interesting to them when discovering and connecting to Pages on Facebook."

What do you think?

is "shopping for you" the new way to shop?

For those who online shop (achem, me), sometimes the number of options can be overwhelming. However, a new crop of sites aims to fix that for you...

"JewelMint is one of a new breed of e-commerce sites — which also include Send the Trend, ShoeDazzle,JustFabulous, Sole Society and the upcoming StyleMint — combining old-fashioned and new-fangled methods for luring customers. They present users with a limited selection of jewelry, shoes and accessories by coupling software algorithms that determine personal style with strategies culled from home shopping TV channels and CD-of-the-month clubs.

The sites are the latest example of retailers inventing new ways to shop online. The recent flurry of innovation in e-commerce has also produced private sale sites like Gilt and daily deal sites like Groupon. Like those, these shopping clubs aim to filter the seemingly infinite options online and show a small selection, catered to an individual’s taste.

"JewelMint, Send the Trend and ShoeDazzle follow a similar recipe: a fashion celebrity designs or picks the styles (or just attaches his or her name to the project). Shoppers take a style quiz, confiding their go-to nail polish shades and whether they most covet the wardrobe of Nicole Richie or Reese Witherspoon. Each month, the site selects a handful of items and the shopper buys one for a set fee, skips the month, or forgets about it and gets charged that month’s fee, which can be applied to purchases over the next year.

'When you type in anything to search on the Internet, it’s almost terrifying the tidal wave of information you get back,' said Kate Bosworth, the actress who is the celebrity face of JewelMint and one of its designers. 'The idea of harnessing search for different, sought-after things on the Internet is really the new frontier.'”

nielsen going into the brains of consumers.

....literally AND figuretively!

This morning, Nielsen-backed NeuroFocus "unveiled a new biometric measurement technology it claims will revolutionize the way Madison Avenue thinks about how it's consumers think. NeuroFocus claims the technology, a cap-like device that can read the brainwaves of people who wear it, will leapfrog current methods of neurological testing, because it is lightweight, mobile and 'medical grade.'"

How cool/crazy is that?

 

the ny times joins the groupon competition.

"Like many online publishers seeking additional revenue streams, The New York Times is getting into the Groupon-led daily deal space with TimesLimited. Unlike most publishers, however, the NYT has chosen to build its own deal platform rather than partner with Groupon or one of its many rivals.

'This is a natural extension for the Times,' Denise Warren, SVP and chief advertising officer for The New York Times Media Group and general manager of NYTimes.com, told Online Media Daily. 'We believe we have the assets, the consumer reach and the relationships with the advertisers to do this on our own.'

First reported by paidContent on Wednesday, TimesLimited is not the publisher's first foray into the deal space. 'We have had success with our existing e-mail based advertising programs, like Sophisticated Shopper and Great Getaways,' a NYT spokeswomen explained. That said, 'we are excited about the product because it is a natural extension of what the Times already does, connecting advertisers with the Times' highly desirable audience.'"

google is taking over your closet (and drawers).

This is mindblowingly awesome:

"In a deliberate collision between nerds and fashion mavens, Google has created a new e-commerce site that significantly improves how fashion is presented and sold online. The site, Boutiques.com, which is expected to go up Wednesday morning, may also change how people shop for clothes.

Boutiques.com has so many capabilities and components that even Google engineers have a hard time qualifying it. It is a collection of hundreds of virtual boutiques merchandised — or, in the new parlance, 'curated' — by designers, retailers, bloggers, celebrities and regular folks. You can shop in the style of, say, the actress Carey Mulligan or Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen — among the celebrities who signed up for the launch — or you can build your own boutique and amass followers who can comment on your taste.

It is a place, then, to show off your fashion acumen, much as millions of Polyvore users already do with their picture collages.

It is also a source of inspiration. In every boutique on the site, there are dozens of additional choices inspired by a designer’s or celebrity’s style — generated by algorithms — with product photos that are much larger and sharper than on other shopping sites. And if you don’t know how to wear the leopard pumps you just bought, there’s a panel of street-style photos on the right side of the site that visualizes the shoes in more expressive modes. Indeed, whatever your style preference — classic, romantic, casual — the inspiration panel automatically adjusts for them, like a support group that can read your mind with surprising precision."