E-Commerce Blog

A small group of us were standing on the Dreamforce trade show floor surveying the more than 200 booths and vendors assembled there. We were trying to put a finger on what, exactly, the show had become. Was it a user group meeting, a conventional trade show, a partner meeting, or some hybrid? By process of elimination hybrid won out simply because we could not conclude that the show was anything else. Most interesting to me was the number of new companies with very different ideas about applications and specific business processes.

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The Dreamforce Dream Team

MySpace may be the top social network when it comes to monetization, but with revenues apparently falling short of expectations, it’s looking for new ways to make money.

At the Web 2.0 Summit last week, COO Amit Kapur announced that MySpace will be launching a virtual payment and gift system that enables it to earn real cash by selling virtual goods to its users.

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MySpace prepares for launch of virtual payment system

MySpace, the popular online social network owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., could develop a digital music player in the future, pitting it against Apple’s hot-selling iPod. However, there are no immediate plans to make or sell such a device, MySpace cofounder and chief executive Chris DeWolfe said at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco on Thursday. “It’s possible” that MySpace, which recently launched a music joint venture with major music labels, could eventually build a device for listening to music, DeWolfe said.

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Is a MySpace Music Player on the Drawing Board?

Chief marketing officers are given the unenviable, almost contradictory, task of catching marketing lightning in a bottle on a consistent basis. The problem is that turbulent economic conditions, like the ones we’ve experience recently, have historically stymied marketing innovation and forced CMOs to focus their budget on “tried-and-true” tactics rather than experimental ones. Smart executives, however, do not have to compromise innovation in favor of short-term sales goals and building a cohesive long-term brand vision during unstable times.

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Don’t Let the Economy Kill Marketing Innovation

A new business advocacy group has launched in New Orleans — a city that three years out from Hurricane Katrina is still trying to entice all of its former residents to move back home. Called “504ward,” a play on the New Orleans’ area code of 504, the group’s main goal is to help the city attract and retain a key worker and consumer constituency: the 21-to-35-year-old age group. Toward that end, it is kicking off its operations with a $100,000 contest for entrepreneurs to submit the best business idea for retaining this demographic.

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Tech-Oriented Biz Ideas May Hit Sweet Spot in New Orleans Contest