[Source: Multichannel Merchant Most Recent

Web marketers make a ton of mistakes in all aspects of e-commerce. These are just a few of our favorite faux pas that i-merchants make with e-mail.

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[Source: Yahoo! Finance: Textile - Apparel Footwear & Accessories Industry News

Shares of footwear maker Skechers USA Inc. surged in Wednesday aftermarket trading, after the company surprised Wall Street by posting a first-quarter profit instead of a loss.

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[Source: Hack a Day

Though Time won’t admit it, their poll on the most influential person was hacked. Moot, the founder of 4chan is rated #1. Not only that, but if you read the first letters of the poll results, you get “Marblecake also the game”. This refers to the IRC Chanel where many 4channers congregate as well as “the game” an internet meme. This article is very interesting as it delves into the details of the attack. Focusing mainly on what happened when the autovoting software was shut down due to reCaptcha.  you’ve probably seen reCaptcha before. It presents you with two words, made difficult to read by strange kearning, warping, and squiggles. If you can read it, you’re most likely a human. Anon, a common name for 4channers, first tried to hack reCaptcha.

Their attempt at hacking reCaptcha relies on the process reCaptcha uses to identify words. It presents you with two words, one of which it already knows. The other is compared to a database of common responses to that word. Anon decided that if they entered “penis” enough times, they could flood the database allowing their autovoter to function again. This, though clever, was unsuccessful. They eventually settled on manual voting. This was taking too much time, they feared they would never reach their goals. To help with this, they built a simple interface that would preload several reCaptchas and cue up votes. This streamlining allowed them to squeak in the votes they needed to accomplish this.

It’s also worth noting that Time didn’t close the vote entries when the poll closed. They removed the poll from their site, but the streamlined vote software was still working. Anon is a powerful force of nature. If only we could harness it to cure cancer or HIV.

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[Source: Yahoo! Finance: Textile - Apparel Footwear & Accessories Industry News

CARROLLTON, Texas—-Heelys, Inc. has sold its one- millionth pair of skate shoes into Japan, through their exclusive distributor, A.G. Corporation. These sales were driven by the efforts of the A.G.

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[Source: Yahoo! Finance: Textile - Apparel Footwear & Accessories Industry News

NIWOT, Colo.—-Crocs, Inc. today announced the launch of the Prepairâ„¢ Collection, a new technical footwear line designed to help athletes recover following athletic or fitness activity.

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[Source: Posts from the Econsultancy blog

The Internet Advertising Bureau UK recently developed a set of good practice principles for online promotions, to ensure companies that collect and use data for behavioural advertising do so ethically.

Firms that have signed up to date include Google, AOL, Microsoft Advertising and the not-at-all-controversial Phorm.

The principles, which signatories have agreed to abide by after September this year, are fairly obvious.

They all relate to notifying people of data collection, offering them a choice about whether or not they want to participate and educating the online community as to the benefits and purpose of behavioural advertising.

So, does the search engine optimisation (SEO) industry need to worry about principles?

There is a wealth of best practice advice out there, from blogs casually addressing elements of SEO, to informative guides like this Econsultancy report.

What are the key principles of what we do? There is extensive debate about this and the old ‘white hat versus black hat’ argument has been done to death.

As far as I can see, search engines improve their algorithms constantly and what is unethical but safe today could see your client plunging down the results pages tomorrow. Risk it, risk destroying their online business.

Google lists four key principles for our sector. These are:

Number one: create pages for users and not search engines. Do not attempt to present different content to either group.

Number two: Avoid ‘tricks’ and question whether or not the action you are taking will add value to users and if you would bother doing it if search engines did not exist.

Number three: Do not take part in link schemes and avoid linking to web spammers and “bad neighbourhoods”.

Number four: Do not use unauthorised computer programs to submit pages and evaluate rankings. These consume computing resources, in violation of the search giant’s terms of service.

Yahoo! explains it wants to rank pages that offer: original content with genuine value; pages designed for humans rather than search engines; links that help people find interesting and related content; accurate and descriptive metadata; and good web design.

Live Search has a similar set of human-focused criteria; it warns webmasters from keyword stuffing, from using hidden texts or links and from using link farms to increase the number of inbound links to a page.

So, three leading search engines, three very similar sets of principles. Is it possible to narrow these down or summarise the thinking behind them?

I think there is and it is simply: make sure that every effort you make serves to enhance the experience of a human visitor to your site.

Search engines only want to deliver useful content to searchers and the quicker the SEO industry focuses on prioritising that sort of work, the greater ranking longevity we will win for our clients.

Okay, rant over. If you agree or disagree, your comments are most welcome.

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[Source: Yahoo! Finance: Textile - Apparel Footwear & Accessories Industry News

Deckers Outdoor Corp. said its first-quarter profit rose 9 percent as sales of its popular Ugg brand of boots and shoes climbed and helped the company top expectations.

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[Source: Scobleizer: Technology, innovation, and geek enthusiasm

Yesterday I was lucky enough to visit Zappos and get a tour and talk with some of their executives, including Tony Hsieh, CEO.

Up until now most of what I knew about Zappos was that they had a lot of people on Twitter (434 of their 1,500 employees are on Twitter with more joining every day).

I thought I was going to Zappos to study how Zappos uses social media and get an interview about that for Building43, the community Rocky and I are building for people who are fanatical about the Internet.

But within 10 minutes of walking in the front door I realized that there’s a lot more to Zappos than that they get Twitter. More on that later, because Tim O’Reilly demonstrates some of Silicon Valley’s worst beliefs about Twitter when his conferences advertise “learn the secrets of building 100,000 + followers.” Zappos does NOT believe that is the goal of Twitter, more on that later in this post. Aside: if you want to attend a Twitter Conference that focuses on real business value and community engagement, come to 140: The Twitter Conference.

Before we even got to the front door tons of employees said “hello.” That’s weird, doesn’t happen at most companies, believe it or not. And the way they greeted each other told me something else was up here.

Then when we got into the front lobby we were warming greeted again, and then as we looked around, we saw this wasn’t going to be a normal visit to a normal company. There was a book store with books free for the taking. There was a popcorn machine. A Dance Dance Revolution machine. A “hall of fame” board for employees who had pushed “reply to all” too quickly. And a video display that showed off how many sales were made yesterday. I had never been in a corporate lobby like this before.

Then I hooked onto a tour given by Zappos’ Mayor, Jerry Tidmor. Oh, yeah, everyone has weird titles. Executives are called “monkeys.” One employee’s title was, simply, “fred.” Causes him a lot of fun when he tries to get a badge at conferences.

Along the way Jerry showed us office after office that was decked out with some fun weird theme. I had seen some of this at other places like Google and my new employer, Rackspace, but Zappos gets everyone into it. The lawyers’ offices even hold the Christmas tree (they have Christmas twice a year at Zappos. Why? Why not?).

In one office they set up a bowling alley. That was a lot of fun for the Rackspace employees who were here for discussions.

They are transparent with all their numbers. All employees know how they are doing and so does the public. The numbers are on a white board on the tour for all to see and take pictures of. This picture is of Jerry standing in front of the board with the up-to-date numbers.

During a lunch session with Zappos “monkeys” we asked how they handled a recent layoff. We noted that the employees who were laid off were incredibly positive. The answer: they did it in open with everyone understanding the reasons for it. They did it fast and didn’t drag their feet. So when they did it they had enough cash to give everyone a good severance package. They said if they had waited to see if business conditions would improve they wouldn’t have been able to do that.

Anyway, so what can Silicon Valley learn from Zappos?

1. You don’t need to be in San Francisco to build a great company. Zappos actually started in the same building as Craig’s List. They moved to Las Vegas because it was cheaper and because they saw they could build a better company. The other half of the company is a warehouse in Kentucky. That’s there because that’s where UPS is, so they can take your order in the evening and have it on your doorstep the next day.

2. Focus on culture and build something for long term. Tony’s first company, Link Exchange, was sold because it wasn’t fun anymore, he told me. That’s why he focused so much on culture when he got involved with Zappos. I see so many companies who focus on growth and get exactly what they want: an unfun fast growing company that falls apart later.

3. Get rid of assholes. Zappos has a filtering system before, during, and after hiring to make sure they get rid of people who “don’t fit the culture.” That is the nice way of saying they get rid of assholes and they get rid of them quickly. They even pay candidates $2,000 after they go through training if they can admit they don’t fit into the culture.

4. Get a coach. Zappos has its own coach. His name is Dr. Vic. He meets with every employee. Takes their picture. Learns what they are about and helps them get their career moving. Plus he writes a blog for everyone else’s company.

5. Share with others. Zappos gives tours to everyone to share what they’ve learned. You can take the tour too, I highly recommend it if you are in Las Vegas. tours@zappos.com will get you a date and a time. Oh, did I mention they pick you up from the airport? And that they carry your bags? And that they are, well, um, nice?

6. Train, train and train some more. Zappos has a whole department that puts together classes. Your pay goes up the more classes you complete. Plus they have all those free books in the lobby.

7. Enable all employees to be spokespeople. Every single new hire at Zappos is asked to start a Twitter account and post a few times to it during training. After that they don’t care if you keep it up. Why do they do that? They want to rub it in that EVERYONE in the company is a public spokesperson for Zappos, not just the CEO or PR team.

8. Everyone lives by same rules. During the tour we heard of a new hire that was fired during training for not showing up on time and giving some lip. This was a high level technical person that they really could have used. Silicon Valley companies would put up with that kind of behavior. Not at Zappos. Everyone, from executive recruits on down are expected to live to the same rules.

9. The CEO’s office isn’t sacrosanct. Tony enouraged us to throw peanut shells on his office floor. Why? That happens every day, we learned, as tours come through. But it’s a subtle message that Tony isn’t above anyone else in the company and that his door isn’t just open, but that you can come in and mess up his work space.

10. Create a welcoming culture. Every department, as we walked in, said “hi” in a different way. Here’s the casual department who waved these little clappy hands at us. Other departments had other kinds of noise makers. The Fashion department took pictures of us while they played music.

11. Everyone is a VIP. Both internally and externally everyone gets the VIP treatment. This means all sorts of little things all across the company. Vendors, when they come to Zappos, get their bags carried. That wins them accounts. In our case we had our tripods and cameras carried and our every need catered to.

12. Create an atmosphere for both goofiness and brilliance. Every conference room was decked out with personal touches. It gets you in the mood for creative discussions. Here Rackspace employees are meeting with Zappos employees and learning more about Zappos. Notice all the weird touches on the table, the walls. It’s hard to take yourself too seriously there.

13. Root out hubris and kill it. This is mostly a note to myself, but I know lots of San Francisco companies who this could apply to just as well, too.

14. Follow your employee’s and customers’ passion. How did Zappos get into clothing? Their customers and employees were passionate about it.

15. Don’t be religious about what’s working. Having 400 employees on Twitter is clearly working for Zappos but Tony, at one point, told his employees to talk to me about friendfeed. They are always looking for the next idea. By the way, here’s everyone who is saying something about Zappos on friendfeed. I love this quote from Forrester’s CEO, George Colony (Tony is speaking at the Forrester Conference today): “When asked why he was on Twitter, Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO said: “People relate to people, not companies.”

16. Be religious about taking care of customers. Tony loves telling the story about when they got pizza ordered for them by Zappos help desk (they didn’t know who was calling). Every employee is empowered to take care of customers and get their problems solved.

17. Reward greatness. Every employee can give a $50 bonus to any other employee. Does it get misused? Not often and when it does it’s easy to solve.

18. Remember most policies are to take care of edge cases. They resist writing new policies at Zappos. When they do write a policy, they make sure it really is needed across the company. Usually policies get killed.

Anyway, there is lots of posts like this one about Zappos and why this company is so interesting. I didn’t get it until I went on a tour and saw it for myself. I’m a fan for life. I wish there were more companies like Zappos.

The fact that there isn’t tells us something about us. And I don’t like what I’m learning.

Back to that quote from the O’Reilly Twitter Camp home page: the goal of a good company as they get on Twitter should NOT be to get more followers. It should be to take care of customers and create an emotional attachment to the company through its people. Zappos gets this at a deep level. Boy do I wish more did.

Posted in technology Tagged: Corporate Culture, innovation, Twitter, zappos

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[Source: eWeek - RSS Feeds

Google Product Search now has increased functionality on mobile devices, including ones that run Googles Android operating system, and iPhones. As Google Android begins to penetrate the smartphone and mini-notebook, i.e. netbook market, Google has tailored core products to run more efficiently on the OS.
-

Google
announced a mobile-friendly version of its Product Search application, emphasizing
its utility for iPhone and Android-powered devices, in an April 23 corporate
blog posting.

Google Product Search,
which can be found here, allows
users to type whatever theyre searching for…

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[Source: Fast Company

Marloes ten Bhömer is just 26, but she’s been reinventing shoes her entire life. As a child, she started off by dismantling her mother’s shoes, coating them in papier-mache and producing entirely new, exaggerated forms. Today, she’s still doing the same thing, in carbon fiber and leather. She’s particularly well-known for the latter, using a “lather mache” technique to create wildly layered, architectural shapes. She even uses laser sintering–a rapid prototyping technology that builds forms using powdered plastic. A laser passes over the materials, fusing it in shapes that are impossible to render in any other way. Above is a shoe Design fiends have noticed–this year ten Bhömer was a nominee in the prestigious British Insurance 2009 Design Awards. You can see the shoes above–molded from rubber right in the gallery, on the industrial assembly line you see below–through May 31, as the Krannert Art Museum at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champagne.

Related: The London Design Museum’s 2009 Design Awards

Related: Fashion Even a Geek Could Love

[Design Yearbook via NotCot]

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