Social Commerce - The new way to shop

What makes online shopping so dangerous and sometimes unattractive for customers?

Well, if you don't have someone to talk to you personally, give you advice and makes sure that you get what you want for the price that you want to pay, online shopping can be a risk. Today, problems like these are overcome by reviews, ratings and specialized online presentation. Without these extras consumers tend to not trust a website and probably search for one that gives them the security they need. As Shopper Approved summed it up in February this year Social Commerce is an advantage as well as necessity for websites that sell online.

Consumer Ratings help to sell, increase the conversion rate, improve the organic ranking through unique content and give the consumers the security they need. Social Commerce is definitely here to stay and will become a fundamental tool to increase sales.

Google TV

Finally...

the era of combined TV and Internet arrived yesterday, 20.05.2010 with the launch of Google TV at the Google I/O Developers Conference in San Francisco, USA. (Source: YouTube.com)

About 5000 people witnessed the event live and even more were connected via YouTube that night. Made possible by Sony, Logitech and Intel, Google TV will be available through set-top boxes and Blu-ray players, which enables interactive video from the Internet to be seen on home TVs. Also implemented are Google Ads and displays as we know it from the Search Engine. Advertising will be brought to a new level with interactive Internet TV powered by Google. Marketers see great potential and increasing marketing activities in  interactive video for the coming years. The only question remaining is, when will Google TV arrive in Europe and the rest of the world...??!

Germanwings Viral Marketing Campaign

Something happened on an easyJet plane the other day...

Six hired people from Germanwings went on board of an easyJet flight in Hamburg, Germany. Within their hand luggage were giant speech bubbles, which they displayed during the flight in front of the passengers and which in the end suggest a flight with Germanwings. The video was successfully posted on YouTube in April where currently about 80 000 people are counted to have watched it. (QuietGlover.com 2010)

The campaign was interviewed, posted on several social networks and microblogging sites and created a huge Buzz in the German travel market. Good for Germanwings, rather mortifying for easyJet...

Web 3.0

Web 2.0 is now and basically has done the preliminary work for the new and future product of Web 3.0. Social networks are the basement of this new intellectual idea as it is seen on YouTube or Facebook. It has shown that there is a need of customized and highly personalized information supply on the Web.  

...so whats this new thing called Web 3.0 promising to personalize all our requests from the Internet chaos world? This new browser will be able to give you personalized and ordered results to queries as 'short cheap weekend break in the Algarve, with rented car and amazing nightlife offers'. But that is not all yet, the browser will learn throughout the time you are using it which patterns of the Internet you are interested in and what products or services might be of use to you. It is an ever evolving and learning software, which in the end knows what you are looking for. A question that raises in me is how save this browser will be and how will it prevent the misuse of all the personal and highly expensive information about ourselves. Because, if already the browser knows what we want it is only a matter of time till highly personalized advertisement, pop ups and other spam haunts the web users. For me it is the first step towards artificial intelligence accessible for the commonality and if we are unprepared it might turn to abuse of privacy and information. 

If looking directly to tourism related products and services it might be possible that you own your very own private and virtual shop assistant, soon. She or he will update you on any offers that will interest you and will be able to operate the entire shopping process from selection till payment - all virtual of course. 

So enjoy your new intelligent Web 3.0 Browser with caution...