Affiliate Programs and Affiliate Reviews
Part 1 of this two-part series on five of the boldest decisions made by technology companies this year explores the launch of Hulu and Amazon.com’s decision to go DRM-free with its Amazon MP3 store. Now, for the three remaining genius strokes in the E-Commerce Times’ lineup of bold decisions that changed the technology landscape in 2008 …
It’s been said that the meek shall inherit the Earth, but in the cutthroat world of technology, only the bold survive. Some of the biggest names in the high-tech and media sectors launched initiatives in the last year that have changed the landscape — perhaps permanently.
Five years ago, Mark Goldstein and three partners recognized that loyalty programs were becoming a cottage industry. Coming up with the right way to manage those programs, he believed, would be a neat trick. So would finding an effective way to lure in customers. “The toughest part of the business is the selling,” Goldstein, founder of San Francisco-based Loyalty Lab, told CRM Buyer.
Personalization — the purported long-sought Holy Grail of Web content management — just might have finally arrived via Web applications that make Web sites responsive in real-time to the unique needs of individual visitors. At the heart of recommendation and personalization technologies are active, content-based collaborative filtering formulations.
Among dreamy startups and salty e-commerce veterans alike, Zappos.com appears to be the golden grail — certainly one blessed, at least, with heavenly rewards. “Zappos is the Amazon of the shoe business, and its model is extremely difficult to mimic,” Gene Alvarez, vice president of research at Gartner — and former employee of shoe-biz powerhouse, Nine West Group — told the E-Commerce Times.