E-Commerce Blog

World-leading mobile phone maker Nokia downgraded its fourth-quarter market outlook Thursday for the second time, saying the slowdown in the industry was bigger than expected. Nokia said it expected industry-wide handset volumes to drop below its previous estimate of 330 million units in the quarter and 1.24 billion units for the year. The previous estimate on Nov. 14 was already cut from an earlier forecast. Citing “insufficient visibility in the marketplace,” Nokia said it was no longer able to stick to its previous estimate.

Read the original here:
Nokia Braces for Mobile Phone Market Shrinkage

A few weeks ago, Johnson & Johnson presented the blogosphere with an ad for its brand name pain reliever Motrin that was aimed at mothers who were experiencing back pain from carrying their babies around in slings. The backlash was swift. The ad struck many viewers as having a tone that mocked, or at best condescended to, the very demographic the company was hoping to win over. Chastened, Johnson & Johnson withdrew the ad. Making blanket assumptions about who will view an ad in cyberspace is a mistake that could ruin an otherwise good strategy.

Go here to read the rest:
How to Ruin a Perfectly Good Online Ad Campaign, Part 1

Chris Wysopal is the head of a four-iPod family. His wife and two kids all carry the pint-size nano music player from Apple, while he uses a 2003-vintage device he got as a hand-me-down from his wife. But as much they love their iPods, the Wysopal family has no plans to buy any new ones in the foreseeable future. “They’re all working, so there’s no need to buy more,” says Chris. Strange as it may sound, Apple may have an iPod problem. The iconic music player cemented the company’s reputation for innovation and fueled its financial success in recent years. But those days appear to be over.

Read the original post:
Apple’s iPod Problem

When it comes to setting up your Web presence, entrepreneurs are surprisingly lax. Depending on who you talk to, about half of small businesses do not have a Web site. Most of those will tell you that it’s just too complicated, time-consuming and expensive a job to take on. With the availability of free and very low-cost drag and drop Web building tools, however, entrepreneurs have no more excuses for being off-screen. It’s getting harder than ever for all those entrepreneurial types out there to stay ahead of the game.

Read more:
How to Build a Small-Business Web Site, Part 1: Nuts and Bolts

Many organizations spend months and endure significant costs to obtain the reporting and analysis capabilities that BI technology promises, only to find that different “versions of the truth” still exist without any definite way of determining which one is real or accurate. This raises the question: Is “One Version of the Truth” achievable? The answer is a qualified “Yes,” according to recent research from The Aberdeen Group. Managers are questioning their level of trust in corporate data: Do the reports, charts and analytic tools in use today represent “the truth?”

View original post here:
BI: Is One Version of the Truth Still Out There?