Insight-Driven Retailing Blog

Mary Meeker: Mobile Is Exploding

By David Dorf on November 23, 2009 11:56 AM

In her annual presentation at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Morgan-Stanley analyst Mary Meeker focused on the growth potential of the mobile internet. Her presentation is embedded below, and I suggest you skip ahead to slide 28. If...

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Oracle's iPhone Apps

By David Dorf on November 18, 2009 9:03 AM

I went looking for a list of the iPhone application released by Oracle, but couldn't find a single source. So I compiled a list from iTunes and have posted it below. Oracle Business Indicators is a business intelligence application that...

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Best Buy Wants to be Your Mobile Solution Provider

By David Dorf on November 13, 2009 1:25 PM

Yesterday Best Buy launched their m:IQ service, a free offering that backs-up your mobile phone to a private web account, much like Apple's MobileMe and Microsoft's MyPhone. Both Apple and Microsoft charge for their service, but the Best Buy service...

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M-Commerce Momentum

By David Dorf on November 10, 2009 3:08 PM

This week I've been in Florida at the quarterly meeting of the Association of Retail Technology Standards (ARTS). One of the projects we're just starting is a "Mobile for Retail Blueprint," modeled after our successful "SOA for Retail Blueprint." Several...

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Walmart's iPhone Application

By David Dorf on November 5, 2009 2:03 PM

I downloaded two more iPhone applications from retailers and played with them a bit. The first is Gucci's app, which is unique presumably because their customers are unique. They run "iPhone only" specials like $500 designers sneakers (limit one per...

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iPhone Application Recipe

By David Dorf on October 20, 2009 8:30 AM

RetailWire ran articles yesterday and today on the success of iPhone applications for the retail industry. Apps from Amazon, Target, Gap, and Whole Foods seem to be getting traction, but all of them had shortcomings. Here's my list for what...

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RedLaser -- Part 2

By David Dorf on October 19, 2009 7:21 AM

As described in last week's posting, RedLaser is an iPhone application that accurately scans product barcodes using the built-in camera. The product was created by University of Michigan graduates Jeff Powers and Vikas Reddy through a start-up called Occipital. I...

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iPhone RedLaser

By David Dorf on October 16, 2009 1:46 PM

Frequent readers know I like to experiment with iPhone applications as I believe mobile commerce will continue to gain even more acceptance. In past reviews, I've been disappointed with iPhone barcode scanners but always assumed the problem was a lack...

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Starbucks on the iPhone

By David Dorf on September 24, 2009 2:28 PM

Starbucks recently released two iPhone applications. myStarbucks helps you locate the nearest store, design your coffee, and research nutritional information. Certainly useful, but nothing really unexpected. The second application, Starbucks Card Mobile, makes managing your prepaid Starbucks Card a little...

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iPhone Bump for Retail?

By David Dorf on July 22, 2009 4:25 PM

A friend just turned me on to the latest iPhone app to garner lots of buzz. Its called Bump. When two people meet and both have the Bump application running, they can "bump" iPhones to exchange contact information. You can...

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Price Matching

By David Dorf on December 11, 2008 6:46 AM

The other day, just as I was leaving for a flight as it were, our washing machine died. Its about 10 years old so its not worth repairing, especially when we can get a more efficient front-loading model. So I...

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Shopping on the iPhone

By David Dorf on December 8, 2008 9:45 AM

I've had my iPhone for a while now, and my favorite non-Apple applications are Facebook, Evernote, and More Cowbell. But its not all fun and games. In a previous post I discussed some of the research we were doing with...

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Web 2.0 Honeycomb

By David Dorf on December 4, 2008 10:00 AM

If you caught my article in RIS News entitled Web 2.0 Shapes the Next Generation of Enterprise Retail Software, then you have some idea of Oracle Retail's direction for user interface design. But here's a little more detail for those...

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Store Twitter: What are you doing?

By David Dorf on October 8, 2008 9:16 AM

An elderly woman at lane three needs help carrying bags to her car. Who is available to help? As a store manager, it would be nice to know who's on the clock and what they're doing. Having an up-to-the-minute understanding...

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