In this latest podcast I speak with Jane Gleadall of Biglight on e-commerce and the challenges faced both on the high street and in digital from the credit crunch and the current and future impact of social media on e-commerce.
You can listen to the podcast here. You’ll also be able to download it, subscribe via iTunes and all that plus download the transcript if you’d rather read than listen.
Here’s some nuggets:
On the economic impact affecting retailers and e-commerce:
I think that online sales whether its high street or online it will be a hard fought battle this year, I think that what we are going to see is that many of the consumers are raising their expectations and they want improved service at lower cost, I do think that online will be high on the agenda for many retailers this year, and I think that getting that share of business is going to be an essential part of their survival strategy. The principles of online to a large degree are no different to what you are seeing on the high street, it’s about improving margins, it’s about reducing your costs, it’s about improving your efficiencies.
On social media’s future impact on e-commerce:
I think social media in the retail context plays a slightly different role than as it’s used for the pure community context. In the pure community context people just want to talk to one another, want to share information but retail have got to see a bottom line improvement. I think that as I have said before retail tends to apply the philosophy of testing and if social media and what it brings to the table can improve conversion, can improve average order values, it will absolutely be used. What is becoming evident is that social media is becoming very important to purchase decisions
As usual, I’ve run the content through Wordle and it looks like this:
Catch up on previous podcasts:
Tomas Nihlen of Urban Lifestyle Report
Future of search with Love Digital
Kym Niblock, bbc.com
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Nicholas Gill, Planner | nick.gill@fivebyfivedigital.com | @nicholasgill | bluurb.wordpress.com
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In this latest episode, I talk to Tomas Nihlen, editor in chief of Urban Lifestyle Report about the role of social media and the recent blogger uprisings against what has become known as the Wiretapping Sweden law. Tomas also discusses his digital life and what the future may hold. Eager listeners should look out for a special discount opportunity against the subscription fee for Urban Lifestyle Report.
On the role of social media in the Swedish blogger uprising:
I think there’s several different types of social media tools that were used and the most important was the blogosphere. And in the blogosphere it wasn’t like one organisation that decided to start and organise this resistance it was many different people. But then there was also a few videos spreading on You Tube. Then Jaiku was also used… It was a way for the early adopters so you can get who’s going to what demonstration, what’s happening in the blogosphere, you could always follow the discussion from the blogosphere on Jaiku.
On the iPhone and Google Android:
I think they aim at different targets. I think iPhone is more for the mainstream consumer; people who want nice looking phones, everything to just work and they don’t care if it’s open source or not. They may not even know what open source is. And the Google phone is more for really tech-savvy people, they want to have exactly the type of applications they want, they want to have total control and they want to be able to tweak the best out of their phones. So I think there’s a market for both.
Previous podcasts:
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After kicking off a podcast series, the tables were turned and I became the interviewee for David Campbell's podcast series, Love Digital Out Loud. David works for Australian agency, Love Digital.
You can listen to the entire podcast here or using the enhanced presentation on SlideShare.
Some nuggets:
On mobile search:
You look at things like the iPhone which is changing the mobile sphere apace and we might yet, finally see the year of mobile that everyone has been predicting for the past five years or so. That tied up with Google Android where the ability to search by your mobile is now so easy because the graphical interface is there, the speed is there. Absolutely the investment in search will continue but it will diversify into the different areas and particularly into mobile.
On social search:
...the power of social search is ... you can get recommendations from your friends, you can see where they’ve been, you can see what they’ve written about, you get their user view. So, again it’s a more personal sphere as opposed to going to a content aggregation site or an editorial site which will promote what their beliefs are. What you want is to search what your friends’ experienced and therefore more likely to appeal to you as an individual. So, again it’s this whole changing face of search from the very passive, put in a term and get a list of results to things that become much more meaningful, much more resonant to you as an individual and ultimately more actionable.
And here's what just my section looks like on Wordle.
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In the first of our new series of podcasts of interesting conversations and thoughts with beautfiful people about the wonderful digital world we live in, we talk to Kym Niblock, Managing Director of bbc.com about innovations, the challenges of an international site, social network opportunities, convergence and more.
Listen, download or subscribe using RSS or iTunes right here. We've even included a full transcript if you fancy reading rather than listening.
Here's some snippets:
On learning from others in the digital space
“I think there’s lots that we can learn from some of the things that are coming off those sites around the way they use semantic search, around the way they talk to their users, around the way they’re inclusive, around the way they’re using social networking to broaden the experience. I think all of those things are things we can take away and learn from. That’s part of being in the web space. It’s a symbiotic relationship: once somebody’s learned something, everyone’s learned it.”
On the future
“I think that some of the next big pieces are going to be around the true convergence of what we’ve been talking about for ten years. Things like iPlayer are going to lead the way to do that, you know, how to get those things on to the home TV. At the moment it’s a pretty solitary pursuit doing things in front of your computer – how are we going to open that up and share it with friends in a mainstream way?”
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The Feed from Five by Five will be a mash of thought pieces, podcasts with industry leaders and some magazine type content covering all things digital. And to make sure we get all the F's, we'll probably be knocking these out on a Friday. We'll have our first podcast up in the coming weeks and are on the lookout for digital leaders who want to tell the world about their view on digital so get in touch if you fancy it.
Undoubtedly we'll also be whoring ourselves on these pages with news of new projects, wins etc. but we'll try not to over-do that.
And if you want a bit of Friday fun in the meantime...
Photo-bombing
Cats on treadmills
Photoshop Disasters
fivebyfivedigital.com | 19 Bolsover Street, London W1W 5NA | 4 Grosvenor Square Southampton SO15 2BE
Nicholas Gill
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Member since: 05 Jun 2008
Last login: 23 Feb 2009
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