'Net Features : 232010

Slideshare Gets Channels

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:30:00 GMT

Online sharing community SlideShare launched a new service dubbed Channels which provides custom-branded microsites. Several companies including agencies Razorfish and Ogilvy have already secured their brands on the website – you might want to consider doing the same (hint, hint).

Slideshare, for years, has been a great source of visitor traffic and exposure for a lot of business professionals, and the new Channels (microsite) feature will further enable the services users’ (all 25 million monthly unique visitors) to let their brands engage more deeply with their audience. It also presents a good opportunity for businesses to sponsor (advertise on) topical channel content.

Channels are but the latest addition to SlideShare. The services other business products, including AdShare and LeadShare, compliment the custom-branded sites almost perfectly in my opinion. “Our vision is to build a new type of advertising that both community and advertisers will embrace," said Rashmi Sinha, CEO & co-founder of SlideShare. "With Channels, LeadShare and Adshare we provide integrated solutions for social media with direct business results."

You Stink at Personalization

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:00:00 GMT

Recommendation service provider ChoiceStream, which provides its technology to many leading Internet retailers including Tesco, Zappos, Borders, Blockbuster and Ticketmaster, announced part 2 of the findings of their 2009 Personalization Survey – the first part can be found here.

The quality of the product recommendations on retailers’ sites declined significantly year over year with more shoppers reporting that they received poor quality recommendations in 2009 versus 2008. The survey also found a discrepancy in recommendation quality between retail categories with shoppers giving music and entertainment stores top scores while rating toy stores and office supplied at the bottom.

Overall, the number of online shoppers who received poor quality recommendations in 2009 was 59 percent, which represents a 31 percent increase over the 45 percent reported in 2008. When asked for a reason why the recommendations were considered poor, the majority of shoppers responded that the recommendations were for products that were unrelated to what they were looking for. Separately, shoppers were asked to rate the quality of product recommendations across 10 retail categories. On average, only 17 percent of shoppers rate retailers’ recommendations as ‘excellent.’ There is also a wide discrepancy in recommendation quality between the categories. For example, music and entertainment stores are 48 percent more likely to receive excellent ratings than toy or office supply stores.

"It's unfortunate, but not surprising, that so many consumers report receiving poor quality product recommendations. Consumers expect more from recommendations than they did even a year ago. They expect them to be accurate and on target, so when they're not, shoppers are disappointed," said Lori Trahan, vice president of marketing at ChoiceStream. "It's also true that as product recommendations become more pervasive and more recommendation providers enter the market to meet demand, these vendors lack the in-market experience necessary to create good quality recommendations. This should highlight for retailers the importance of working with solution providers that have deep expertise in analyzing specific shopping behaviors and factoring them into their recommendation strategy."

Drooling Over Droolr - WM Site of the Day

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:30:00 GMT

Stateless Systems, a web development company focused on building user driven sites (and creator of RetailMeNot.com), the web’s most popular online destination for coupons, today announced the release of Droolr.com, the wishlist for geeks. On Droolr.com, geeks—and the people who love them—can share, discover and vote on the latest in gadgets, electronics and novelty items.

“We love gadget blogs, but they have limitations in that users can’t vote on items or share opinions directly with friends,” said Guy King, co-founder, Stateless Systems. “Now when users read about an item they want, they can post it to Droolr.com and share it with friends in a Tweet or Facebook post.”

There are no restrictions on the items that can be submitted and products that receive the most votes rise to the top, meaning that the community collectively determines which items appear on the Droolr.com home page. Every item has a discussion attached to let users comment and share opinions with the community.