ShopSocially, a social commerce startup, is formally announcing the launch of its social shopping platform and is revealing some of its early insights from its customer lineup. The company has worked with several hundred customers to date, including big-name brands like Sears, The Children’s Place, Sport Chalet, CafePress, Ritz, Zales and others.
We’ve also learned that the company had quietly… → Read More
Apple’s Siri has been transforming how people interact with their phones. It taught us that it’s not just OK to talk to our phones, but that, in many cases, it’s actually a more useful way to get things done. Along those same lines, a company called Saygent is launching a mobile feedback solution which developers can insert into their application to collect feedback from the app’s users. → Read More
500Friends, the social loyalty solution for e-commerce retailers, is announcing it has completed a $4.5 million Series A round led by Crosslink Capital, with participation from Intel Capital as well as company CEO (and angel investor) Justin Yoshimura.
Founded in 2010, and launched in summer 2011, YC-backed 500Friends’ LoyaltyPlus service allows merchants to reward their loyal customers who are… → Read More
How were the crowds at your local Best Buy, Circuit City and PC Richards yesterday? Good? Great? Grim? (My local Best Buy was pretty crowded yesterday, to say nothing of the mall itself; parking space was at a premium.) To be sure, if there’s one item these retailers hope to sell this holiday season it’s HDTVs. Lots of them, preferably. Like it or not, but HDTVs have become the great… → Read More
Round of applause for Best Buy, which aims to educate you all about the upcoming digital TV transition. (Remember the big day: February 17, 2009.) The lastelectronics retailer left standing will hold a series of workshops at 25 of its stores to “educate consumers about the transition to digital television broadcasting and help them choose the best solution for their television needs.” Here… → Read More
Tough times at Circuit City, which you can now buy outright for something like $38 and doing the CEO’s dry cleaning, as a credit agency has just warned manufacturers about shipping merchandise to the store. Seems the credit agency, Bernard Sands, isn’t sure whether or not Circuit City would be able to pay the manufacturers on time. So… a store, which, by definition, is in the… → Read More
Looks like Best Buy’s got a pretty massive boner for Carphone Warehouse, as it’s just increased its ownership share from 2.9% to 50%, according to IDG News Service. Best Buy has agreed to invest an additional $2.1 billion in the European retailer, likely by the end of August. Carphone Warehouse will be opening stores here in the states this year and Best Buy is planning to open its… → Read More
[photopress:hdbrexchange.jpg,full,center] A retailer actually giving a damn about its customers? It can’t be an American one, right? No. It’s not. Japanese corp Edion, which owns a bunch of electronic stores over there, will exchange customers’ now obsolete HD DVD players for Blu-ray players. The corp will accept Toshiba players for one from Sony, Panasonic or Sharp. Edion… → Read More
[photopress:vhddvd.jpg,full,center] HD DVD? What’s that? Universal has ended its HD DVD exclusivity arrangement and Paramount’s HD DVD contract has an escape clause. Should Paramount exercise that clause, and there’s no reason not to at this point, Blu-ray would have thoroughly won this silly “format war.” Now we can get back to the important business of arguing over… → Read More
I’ll accept that “cables make a difference” in certain situations. Cable length, interference, and corrosion can effect cables, especially analog signals, and I’ve seen some improvements in using higher-end cables on higher-end gear. This, however, is unacceptable. Gizmo Republic visited a big box store where they found some red hot Monster HDMI cables for sale and demo… → Read More
Kim Bayley, director-general of the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA), is warning that DRM is “stifling growth and working against the consumer interest.” Wait a sec, Kim. Say that again. “DRM is stifling growth and working against the consumer interest.” Come on over here. Give us a little kiss. Amen, sister. Basically she’s saying what we’re all… → Read More
A new class action lawsuit is upon us and yet again, Apple is the target. This time, independent music label Dawg Music is suing Apple, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music for selling its catalog without consent or compensation. The two major labels here have not only screwed Dawg Music out of royalty checks, they’ve also made illegal hard copies of music not owned by them. Piracy… → Read More
Sony can’t catch a break. Now it looks like the company itself and several retail outlets have stopped selling the 20GB version of the PS3. Sony’s own SonyStyle online store (note: what a terrible name for an online store—SonyStyle! Yuck.) and retailers like EB Games and Best Buy now only offer the more expensive (and more profitable) 60GB PS3. Sony says this is because of high… → Read More
Poor Jobs. He must be so distraught now that his precious iTunes Music Store isn’t getting exclusive rights to the Beatles’ catalog, that he needs a little help from my friends. Apple Corps head Neil Aspinall says that iTunes will be getting plenty of Beatles tracks, but so will other online music retailers. This means you’ll be able to go on a magical mystery tour of online… → Read More
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