Quikly is a company that rewards players for acting fast. Tapping into the excitement of Black Friday, Quikly draws from the powerful motivations of this day — anticipation, scarcity, fear of missing out and competition. The purpose of the platform is to gamify commerce in a fun, achievement-driven way. This is done through a variable incentive model, meaning the faster one responds the better the rewards. The releases are announced via text message. …read more
Sick of all the terrifying and sad headlines that have dominated the news these last couple of weeks? So are we. As a partial antidote, check out our Retail Police Blotter, a semi-regular roundup of all the weird crimes that went down at the nation’s retailers and fast food joints.
Nude Woman at Walmart
Do you ever leave the house to go shopping, and the whole time you can’t help feeling like you forgot to do something?
For one Pennsylvania woman, that “something” was apparently “putting on clothes.” Jessica Lynn Weitkamp allegedly took a stroll through her local Walmart in the buff, and along the way she yelled at employees and caused more than $300 in damage. She was nabbed by police on her way out the door and charged with a variety of crimes, including “open lewdness.”
Pushing her Luck
A second Walmart crime this week comes courtesy of Florida, where a woman stole a TV worth $448. Then she came back later that same day and attempted the exact same crime, apparently emboldened by her first success.
That time, loss-prevention officers were ready for her, and managed to stop her from absconding with the second TV. But she apparently kicked, elbowed and clawed at security and managed to give them a slip, and police still don’t know who she was.
Presumably she’s at home watching her stolen TV, and is extremely miffed that she doesn’t have a second TV to watch at the same time.
Trading McDonald’s for Sex
Police in Albuquerque, N.M., watched as a man picked up a woman in an “area known for prostitution.” Then they watched as the two drove through the McDonald’s drive-through and ordered some food. When they caught up with the couple at a local park, they found the two in the throes of passion.
Minnesota’s City Pages brings us the tale of a thief who did a bit of shoplifting at his local TJ Maxx, then covered his escape with a cloud of pepper spray that sickened several customers and employees.
That’s weird enough on its own, though not unprecedented. (A few years ago, for example, a Black Friday shopper pepper-sprayed other Walmart customers during a scrum to get to some heavily-discounted video games.) But what makes this story truly strange was that store management didn’t think the incident warranted calling the police, who only found out about it from one of the victims. According to the Star Tribune, there have been similar attacks at other TJ Maxx locations in the area, and upper management had hoped to crack the case in-house.
Casale Media’s Index Quarterly Report Reveals Brand Adoption for Programmatic Ad Buying More Than Tripled in 2012
Key Findings Show Impressions with Third Party Data Drives Pricing, While Retail and Financial Services Industries Top Advertising Spenders
NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Index, a division of ad technology veteran Casale Media, reveals a significant uptick in the adoption of real-time bidding (RTB) among major brands. In its latest Index Quarterly report, which aggregates data from the billions of impressions traded each quarter across marketplaces powered by Index, findings show that the overall number of impressions bought via RTB increased 37% between the third and fourth quarters of 2012.
The number of brands participating in RTB across the platform nearly tripled since the first quarter of 2012. Additionally, the share of the RTBmarket held by local businesses doubled over the same time period. This rapid growth, according to the report, has fueled an increase in the average market clear price, which rose 24% between the third and fourth quarters of 2012.
The report’s findings reveal that wider adoption of RTB is contributing to the more pronounced impact of seasonality and major events on marketplace demand and bidding prices. For example, the financial industry edged out telecoms as the number two RTB spender in Q1, as a result of tax season, while the education industry made its only foray into the 10 biggest-spending industries on the platform in Q3, coinciding with the run up to back-to-school.
The winning bid price index bottomed out during Q4 when Storm Sandy hit the East Coast, while Nov. 23 (Black Friday) and Nov. 28 (date of the record jackpot Powerball lottery draw) saw the highest average winning bid prices.
“Looking back on 2012, programmatic buying of online advertising has grown exponentially as a valuable digital solution for advertisers and publishers,” says Andrew Casale, VP Strategy at Casale Media. “RTB spend has been projected to reach over $6 billion by 2015 and we are well on our way to seeing this become a reality. Our report highlights the need for further transparency into this burgeoning marketplace to continue to drive better ROI.”
Other key findings include:
The number of impressions bought via RTB increased by 37% from Q3 to Q4, affirming optimistic predictions earlier in 2012
Rackspace Broadens Hybrid Cloud Ecommerce Vision Through Magento Partner Program
Leading Open Cloud and Ecommerce Providers Team Up to Provide High Performance Solutions for Online Retail Businesses
SAN ANTONIO, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Today, Rackspace® Hosting (NYS: RAX) , the open cloud company, announced it has entered into the Magento Hosting Partner program as a platinum level partner. Rackspace and Magento, a division of X.commerce, an eBay Inc. company, will work collaboratively to serve both dedicated and open hybrid cloud customers with one of the fastest growing ecommerce platforms on the market.
For companies aiming to expand their global footprint, the collaboration between Rackspace and Magento will provide a low cost entry into new markets around the world without the cost of establishing a physical presence. Through a broad product portfolio that includes dedicated hosting, public cloud, private cloud and hybrid cloud, Rackspace is giving customers the flexibility to choose the right solution for their unique business needs.
Rackspace’s hybrid cloud in particular provides a differentiated and compelling customer experience, as it offers a dedicated infrastructure for managing day-to-day traffic, along with powerful open cloud solutions for sporadic spikes during peak times such as Cyber Monday, Black Friday and free shipping Thursday. In addition, Rackspace helps online retailers achieve PCI compliance by delivering a variety of products for its dedicated and cloud customers.
“Within three months of launching the new site built on the Magento platform, Gant’s online orders went up 340 percent. We also saw a 290 percent increase in conversion rates and 35 percent reduction in page load time,” said Anna Carlqvist, a global eCommerce manager at GANT Clothing in UK. “Thanks to the infinite scalability of the Rackspace Open Cloud, Gant can scale servers up and down to meet customer needs while only paying for what we actually use. This has lead to a 50 percent reduction in hosting costs.”
Rackspace is gaining traction within the ecommerce market; according to a study from ecommerce publishing authority Internet Retailer, Rackspace is currently ranked the number one hosting provider for the Internet Retailer Top 1,000 websites. Rackspace now hosts a greater percentage of the world’s Magento deployments than any other hosting provider.[1]
“Over the past five years, Rackspace and Magento have developed a strong, lasting relationship with the shared goal of providing an optimal, end-to-end ecommerce solution,” said Suaad Sait, chief marketing officer at Rackspace. “The ecommerce space …read more
Tepid enthusiasm for Windows 8 is bad news for Microsoft, but it’s good news for laptop shoppers.
Notebooks with 15-inch displays and running Windows 8 with Intel Ivy Bridge processors have been spotted in the wild selling for as cheap as $299, according to the bargain hunter site DealNews.
That price, which includes 6GB of RAM and a 750GB hard drive, is $100 less than the best deals available during last year’s Black Friday weekend.
Many of the Windows 7 laptops still available are priced higher than their Windows 8 equivalents, an examination of several online retailers reveals. At the 10-month mark in their lifecycle, Windows 7 laptops with Core i5 Sandy Bridge processors and 15-inch displays were selling for around $400, a 34 percent drop from their introductory price, DealNews reports. By comparison, the price of similarly configured Windows 8 systems have dropped a whopping 46 percent at their 10-month mark.
The PC industry is starting to show signs of stagnation, resulting from the dramatic rise of smartphones and tablets. Last year, it took the assault of nearly 830 million mobile computing devices to drive PC sales down 3.5% — the first annual decline in over 12 years. This data suggests that the PC is perhaps beginning to look a little long in the tooth for consumers who continue to shift their electronic spending towards mobile computing devices. Microsoft‘s touch-friendly Windows 8 has yet to excite consumers largely because touch-enabled laptops remain in limited supply. According to NPD, last year’s Black Friday sales of touch-enabled laptops only accounted for 3% of laptop sales. Given this apparent supply constrain, it’s no wonder the PC has underwhelmed the consumer in the age of touch-enabled smartphones and tablets.
However, in the coming years, the PC will evolve to become more like the tablet in terms of portability and features, but will still stay true to its PC roots, grounded in productivity. When it’s all said and done, the PC should theoretically give the tablet a run for its money.
Source: Lenovo.
When worlds collide If the PC and the tablet had a baby, it’d look something like the Lenovo ThinkPad Helix pictured above. Not only does this hybrid Ultrabook device feature full-blown Windows 8 and the option for a powerful Intel Core i7 Processor, the screen can detach itself from the keyboard so it can operate as a fully functional 11.6-inch tablet. In terms of battery life, the Helix is expected to get in the neighborhood of 10 hours of life between charges. Starting out at a price of $1,499, the convergence of two devices won’t come cheap. As always with cutting-edge PC designs, it will take a few years for the price of hybrid devices to become less burdensome on the wallet. If you need assurance, take a look at the Ultrabook’s price trajectory over the years. When first released in 2011, the average Ultrabook would fetch $999, but now a lower-end Ultrabook could be had for $599.
The toaster and the fridge When two products are combined to make a device that’s intended to be better than the sum of its parts, skepticism arises. When Apple CEO Tim Cook called the hybrid laptop the equivalent of combining a toaster and refrigerator, it sounded the alarm bells. Cook’s thinking here is that devices that are forced to converge make too many compromises, which ultimately hurts the user experience. Apple has taken the stance that it won’t be converging elements of its iPad with its Macbook line of computers.
I believe that PC makers will eventually be able to successfully marry the PC and tablet in perfect form. It’s going to take trial and error, but products like the Helix give the PC industry hope that the future of PC computing isn’t going to be a …read more Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
All of us down in the Deal Nerd labs have been working late the last couple nights, ignoring our imaginary girlfriends and wives, to bring you some smoking hot new deals. Leading the pack is this Toshiba Satellite U945-ST4N01 Ultrabook, a super-slim machine packed with features and an SSD for just $599.99 after $130 savings. Everyone can use a stronger WiFi signal, so be sure to check out the factory refurbished Linksys Wireless-N Range Extender marked down to an all-time low of $37.99. And definitely don’t miss this massive price drop on the Sharp LC-60E69U 60″ HDTV, coming in at a new low price of just $698 including free shipping, making it one of the lowest brand-name 60-inch HDTVs we’ve seen since Black Friday and making it the best HDTV under $1,000. Scroll down to see the fruits of our non-social lives born as the hottest deals across the web.
College classmates say that an Oregon terrorism suspect was a happy-go-lucky college student who enjoyed drinking and football.
The image described by classmates Friday in the terrorism trial of Mohamed Mohamud is a strong contrast to the man depicted in previous testimony as a hardened, teenage jihadi intent on killing thousands.
Mohamud has been charged with attempting to detonate a bomb at a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in Portland in 2010. The bomb was a fake supplied by undercover FBI agents.
Elyssa Ridinger was a freshman in Mohamud’s class at Oregon State University in 2009.
She testified that on the morning of the tree lighting, she, Mohamud and their friends went Black Friday shopping and that he was in good spirits.
She says he showed no signs of anti-Western sentiment.
College classmates say that an Oregon terrorism suspect was a happy-go-lucky college student who enjoyed drinking and football.
The image described by classmates Friday in the terrorism trial of Mohamed Mohamud is a strong contrast to the man depicted in previous testimony as a hardened, teenage jihadi intent on killing thousands.
Mohamud has been charged with attempting to detonate a bomb at a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in Portland in 2010. The bomb was a fake supplied by undercover FBI agents.
Elyssa Ridinger was a freshman in Mohamud’s class at Oregon State University in 2009.
She testified that on the morning of the tree lighting, she, Mohamud and their friends went Black Friday shopping and that he was in good spirits.
She says he showed no signs of anti-Western sentiment.
The Vita’s been taking a lot of heat in the media lately. Though Vita hardware sales in the States were significantly bolstered by a one-two punch of Black Friday deals late last year and an almost too good to be true selection of free titles on PlayStation Plus, it’s no secret that Sony has been engaged in a bit of an uphill battle trying to build the Vita’s strength worldwide. The turning tides in portable gaming have certainly made the road long and difficult for Sony in the west, but nowhere have both the challenges and victories faced by the system been more pronounced than the system’s homeland of Japan.
Leading up to the system’s Japanese launch in December of 2011, the situation couldn’t have been better for Sony. With pre-orders selling out online at many major retailers nationwide and PlayStation fans camped out on the eve of Vita’s launch, things kicked off with a bang. Riding a wave of hype generated in part by the runaway success of its predecessor, the Vita experienced sellouts online and moved an impressive 324,859 systems during its first week on the market, comparing favorably with the Japanese launch figures of the original PSP (which clocked in at a less-impressive 160,019 in its first week).
By Young Entrepreneur Council, Contributor Another holiday shopping season has come and gone, and in its wake most major retailers are scratching their heads, wondering how earlier-than-ever Black Friday openings translated into retail’s smallest growth rate since 2008 (a measly 0.7 percent). Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
The Walton family in Bentonville, Arkansas still own the majority of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. The company has grown to become the largest retailer in the world with almost 9,000 locations and 2.2 million employees (1.4 million here in the US). They are the world’s third largest public corporation and the largest private employer in the world. Their annual gross income for 2012 was just under $450 billion dollars. Their subdivisions include Sam’s Club, Walmex, Asda and Seiyu Group.
Over the past few years, Wal-Mart has received some scathing media coverage, mostly about how they discriminate against women in management and how they treat their employees by not providing benefits or enough hours to qualify for benefits. Earlier this week they were the target of reports that they had halted all orders for ammunition for their sporting goods departments because of the impending gun control laws from President Obama. However, the company quickly countered those reports by publicly saying that it is business as usual and they intend to continue supplying their customers’ needs.
In the wake of all of the negative publicity Wal-Mart receives, I thought I would share a positive story for a change. Bill Simon, president and CEO of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced at the National Retail Federation convention in New York that company plans on hiring at least 100,000 veterans over the next five years. Anyone who has been honorably discharged from the military within the past 12 months will be given a serious consideration for employment in their retail and warehouse stores as well as in their distribution centers.
By Dan Ikenson, Contributor Other candidates come to mind when contemplating the world’s worst international trade scofflaw, but the United States makes a strong case for itself. A recent Commerce Department determination that foreign companies like Samsung, LG, and Electrolux engaged in “targeted dumping” by reducing prices on their washing machines for Black Friday sales […] Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
Cyber attacks of all kinds are on the rise. It is a trend you ignore at your own peril. National Security Agency and U.S. cyber-command chief Keith Alexander said in July that Internet attacks of all sorts surged 44 percent in 2011 and are responsible for what he terms the “greatest transfer of wealth in history.”
In a world where you can rent an already-hacked botnet for about $20to start your attack, and in a world where a criminal enterprise industry has developed to support amplifying attacks in progress, it is important to understand that these types of attacks are simply not going away. Are you ready for them? Are you considering the right points? Here are four strategies to help your organization prepare for and defend against Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) events in the future.
1. Consider over-provisioning a service in advance
Most of us develop systems on strict budgets. There is a general resistance among financial types as well as information executives to not pay for unused capacity. This makes good sense in and of itself—why waste your dollars on capacity, either bandwidth or compute, that you are not using? Many companies scale their systems to match a predictable but legitimate peak, such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday or another annual peak load.
In a DDoS attack, however, your site or resource can experience loads many times greater than even your highest peak activity—on the order of 10 or 20 times, if not more. Mind you, I’m not suggesting you budget capacity to pay hackers to blast your network with packets. While you are specing bandwidth and compute resources, though, it makes sense to give yourself a healthy margin of error, even on top of your peak.
Windows 8 notebooks apparetly didn’t create a lot of cheer around the Christmas tree this holiday season.
Market research firm NPD says while shoppers started off strong, their purchasing dropped off throughout the rest of the season for an overall sales decline of 7 percent compared with 2011. The firm blames Windows 8, in part.
“Despite the hype, and hope, around the launch of Windows 8, the new operating system did little to boost holiday sales or improve the year-long Windows notebook sales decline,” NPD said in a statement Friday.
The Port Washington, N.Y.-based firm said Windows notebook holiday unit sales dropped 11 percent, on par with Black Friday, and similar to the yearly trend, but revenue trends weakened since Black Friday to end the holiday period down 10.5 percent.
