Social networks

apophenia: social network sites: my definition

Colin Henderson

Zephoria offers a working definition of a social network site.  A “social network site” is a category of websites with profiles, semi-persistent public commentary on the profile, and a traversable publicly articulated social network displayed in relation to the profile Source: apophenia: social network sites: my definition Some additional detail around the three attributes.  Strategic attributes usually come in threes, and more or less usually suggests the granularity is too deep or too high.  In this case, the three resonate well, and cover the broad requirements of a social site. Profile. A profile includes an identifiable handle (either the person’s … Continue reading apophenia: social network sites: my definition

Social networks

apophenia: what I mean when I say "email is dead" in reference to teens

Colin Henderson

Zephoria brilliantly highlights the conundrum we face from generational change, and use of technologies.  I’m part of the generation caught between email and IM where IM feels more natural but most of the folks just a little older than me refuse to use IM so I’m stuck dealing with email. Today’s teens are stuck between IM, MySpace/Facebook, and SMS. There’s another transition going on which is why there’s no clean one place. IM replaced email for quite a few years but now things are in flux again. Still, no matter what, email is not regaining beloved ground. Source: apophenia: what i mean … Continue reading apophenia: what I mean when I say "email is dead" in reference to teens

online+banking4 Comments

Ten Ways To Build A Better Financial Services Sales Site

Colin Henderson

Brad at Forrester talks about the customer buying process, and how Banks’ need to do a better job understanding that process, as it has changed with online. Financial services Web sites fail to meet customer expectations when compared with the branch and phone channels. Why do sites fail? Most financial firms do not understand their customers’ needs, their expectations, or the basics of online selling. To drive more online sales, financial services firms must first understand what drives consumers’ choice of product. Armed with this information, they should create sites that deliver compelling content, decision-support tools, and a superior buying … Continue reading Ten Ways To Build A Better Financial Services Sales Site

AI

BBC – Radio 1 – Online banking fraud rockets

Colin Henderson

 Update to the earlier post.  The increased phishing in the first half of this year, is resulting in significant increases in fraud attempts through Banks’ online banking throughout the world. More of us are getting conned into giving out our bank details over the internet. Phishing fraud uses emails and fake websites to trick customers into revealing their username and password. Between January and June this year there were more than 5,000 cases. That’s compared to 312 in the first six months of 2005. Source: BBC – Radio 1 – News – Online banking fraud rockets   Technorati tags: fraud, … Continue reading BBC – Radio 1 – Online banking fraud rockets

AI

Islamic Banking Products « Risk Management in Australia

Colin Henderson

Ozrisk continues with part 2 of a brilliant definition of Islamic Banking.  I have added a feed in the sidebar to track the Islamic Banking tag at wordpress. One of the best ways to understand Islamic banking is to gain an understanding of the products that are considered acceptable. Several of these are covered below. Source: Islamic Banking Products « Risk Management in Australia Refer here for my posts as to why I believe this is important.  Ozrisk is providing the background and the understanding of Islamic Banking. Our brain has to move beyond the news headlines of today, see the demographic … Continue reading Islamic Banking Products « Risk Management in Australia

Profitability

Aneace’s Blog: Why do merchants prefer credit card surcharges rather than cash discounts?

Colin Henderson

Aneace has been consistent in his themes that customer experience at the transaction point is a moment for differentiation, and that interchange revenues will be driven down through transparency.  The latter is the topic of his latest post. Merchant coalitions appear to be shifting their strategy away from court mandated regulation of interchange fees, and appear to be moving instead toward greater transparency, making it clear to consumers how much merchants must spend on interchange, so as to set the platform for massive surcharging Source: Aneace’s Blog: Why do merchants prefer credit card surcharges rather than cash discounts? That interchange transparency is coming is … Continue reading Aneace’s Blog: Why do merchants prefer credit card surcharges rather than cash discounts?

Innovation

Payments News: Branded Gift Cards Popular With Consumers

Colin Henderson

 Branded gift cards feature highly for consumers according to this poll.   The poll, conducted by BK Research, found that branded gift cards were chosen more often as an item on a consumer’s shopping list than a branded toy (18%), an iPod or mp3 player (14%), a computer or laptop (12%) and a game console (7%) Source: Payments News: Branded Gift Cards Popular With Consumers – November 06, 2006 A significant percentage of consumers will buy them. …..  one in five consumers plans to purchase branded gift cards (a gift card with an American Express, Discover, MasterCard, or Visa brand logo) … Continue reading Payments News: Branded Gift Cards Popular With Consumers

Payments

PayPal to offer cash rebates – Yahoo! News

Colin Henderson

 In a display of great focus for a 1bn annual profit company, Paypal introduces cash rebates. NEW YORK – PayPal, the payment-service company owned by online auction site eBay Inc., said Monday it will launch an incentive program, allowing customers who subscribe to the service to receive cash rebates of up to $20 on several thousand merchants’ sites in North America. In a release, PayPal said that the cash rebate programs, valued at $100 million, will be available to consumers from Nov. 23 through May 15. Free shipping promotions will be available beginning Nov. 23. Source: PayPal to offer cash … Continue reading PayPal to offer cash rebates – Yahoo! News

AI

Mark Evans :: AdTech: Day #1

Colin Henderson

Mark live blogs from AdTech. Online advertising is booming on the agency side, but lacking on the demand (advertiser) side. On the other hand, advertisers – the ones spending the money – continue to be cautious, pragmatic and still in need of more education/hand-holding before they commit more of their budgets to online vehicles Source: Mark Evans :: AdTech: Day #1   Technorati tags: marketing Continue reading Mark Evans :: AdTech: Day #1

AI

NetBanker 2.0: The one-million club: 31 U.S. financial institutions with seven-figure site traffic

Colin Henderson

 Jim has used compete.com to compare the top bank sites.  Their estimate of unique users is based on their online panel in the US. Using Snapshot, we found 31 financial institution sites with one million or more unique users in September: Rank/Unique Visitors (millions) 1.    17.1            Bank of America 2.    16.7            PayPal 3.    11.9            Chase 4.    11.4            CapitalOne 5.    11.3            Citibank 6.    10.0            Wells Fargo 7.      6.2            Discover Card 8.      5.6            American Express 9.      5.3            WAMU 10.    5.0            Wachovia Source: NetBanker 2.0: The one-million club: 31 U.S. financial institutions with seven-figure site traffic Right away, I was struck with Paypal. Only … Continue reading NetBanker 2.0: The one-million club: 31 U.S. financial institutions with seven-figure site traffic