Blue Nile Needs to Up-Sell

Back in May I rated Blue Nile (NILE), the leading online retailer of diamonds and fine jewelry, very well in terms of Web 3.0. Blue Nile takes the approach of providing in-depth educational content and vertical search tools that aim to make consumers feel in control of the jewelry shopping process. Many males will admit

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Web 3.0 & Amazon (Part 5)

Conclusion We have reviewed Amazon’s strategy in the upcoming Web 3.0 world over the last few days. Amazon has been focusing on enhancing its technology, introducing new categories of products and services (recently introduced, Amazon MP3 and Grocery), increasing depth of selection in each category, opening new markets (UK, Germany, Japan), offering better shopping tools

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Standing by WebMD

WebMD Health Corp. (WBMD) is a familiar home to anyone who has ever searched the Internet for a cure to bad food, a sprained ankle, the difference between a pulled muscle and torn hamstring, or between schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder. I covered their business concept at length in an earlier comparison article on health websites

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Web 3.0 & Amazon (Part 4)

Acquisition Targets Amazon has been slow to acquire companies. Amazon acquired dpreview.com, a London-based digital photography review site in May 2007. Amazon needs to use acquisitions to enter businesses that have a higher profitability dynamic in their business models. For example, Amazon could consider acquiring on-demand, customized product creation company CafePress. CafePress.com is a growing

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Web 3.0 & Amazon (Part 3)

Web 3.0 Framework discussion Below is a quick overview of the Web 3.0 framework for the Amazon sites. Context Amazon’s primary Context is shopping. Whether it is for books, music, toys, or clothes, you come to Amazon to shop. Content Amazon has really good content about its merchandise. In fact, the Amazon catalog is a

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Word of Mouth: Marketeers’ Delight and Nightmare

One of my absolute favorite sites on the web is TripAdvisor, which we reviewed a while ago. Let me use a screenshot from the TripAdvisor home page to demonstrate what Word-of-Mouth can do to a business:

Web 3.0 & Amazon (Part 2)

Vertical Strategy Amazon is the most popular e-commerce site in the world. We will take a look at the Company’s various online verticals below. Books, Newspaper and Magazines Amazon was started as an online bookstore. It is the largest retailer of books online. It allows users to buy books, magazines and newspapers online. Amazon has

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Web 3.0 & MSN (Part 5)

Conclusion Microsoft has been reorganizing and rebranding its online properties. The Company has rebranded MSN Messenger and Hotmail as Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Hotmail. Microsoft is working on improving the underlying technology behind MSN and introducing new features but all this is yet to trickle down to the bottomline. There are rumors of

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