http://www.inteloquent.com iThinQware. Common Goals, Uncommon Thinking. Sat, 04 Feb 2012 19:14:22 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://www.inteloquent.com/2012/01/07/next-on-amazons-road-to-world-domination-casa-com-for-home-decor/ http://www.inteloquent.com/2012/01/07/next-on-amazons-road-to-world-domination-casa-com-for-home-decor/#comments Fri, 06 Jan 2012 20:17:17 +0000 Josh Constine http://techcrunch.com/?p=478942 The rights to Casa.com (Spanish for 'house') have been transferred to Amazon, indicating the ecommerce giant's next dedicated vertical shop may be a home decor site. Amazon's Quidsi network of sites already runs diapers.com for baby goods, wag.com for pets, beautybar.com for -- well, you get it. If you visit Casa.com now you'll find more evidence, with a blank screen explaining "You have reached an invalid location. Maybe you are looking for http://www.diapers.com, http://www.soap.com..." Casa.com could offer a more affordable, traditional home decor shopping alternative to luxury and flash sales sites like One Kings Lane and Gilt's Decorati.]]> http://www.inteloquent.com/2012/01/07/next-on-amazons-road-to-world-domination-casa-com-for-home-decor/feed/ 0 http://www.inteloquent.com/2012/01/06/benchprep-is-codecademy-for-any-subject-high-school-to-med-school/ http://www.inteloquent.com/2012/01/06/benchprep-is-codecademy-for-any-subject-high-school-to-med-school/#comments Fri, 06 Jan 2012 01:11:00 +0000 Josh Constine http://techcrunch.com/?p=478351 Books are not the best way to learn. To retain knowledge you have to interact with it, and that's where BenchPrep comes in. The startup licenses textbooks from big publishers like McGraw Hill and converts them into interactive web and mobile learning courses. Today, BenchPrep announces its expansion beyond college admission test prep. It will now offer courses to assist with high school, university, law, medicine, professional certifications, army, and more. It's also releasing a new evaluation tool that determines a student's weaknesses in a given subject. BenchPrep is the future of the 'education anywhere' movement.]]> http://www.inteloquent.com/2012/01/06/benchprep-is-codecademy-for-any-subject-high-school-to-med-school/feed/ 0 http://www.inteloquent.com/2012/01/05/groupon-merchant-center-now-shows-if-customers-love-or-hate-your-deals/ http://www.inteloquent.com/2012/01/05/groupon-merchant-center-now-shows-if-customers-love-or-hate-your-deals/#comments Wed, 04 Jan 2012 22:04:59 +0000 Josh Constine http://techcrunch.com/?p=477746 To combat the lack of transparency around customer satisfaction with daily deals, Groupon today launched a new version of its Merchant Center. It includes the real-time percentage of deal customers who would recommend the business to a friend, plus their comments. Customer satisfaction is a big question for merchants wondering if they should start or continue running daily deals. Data on satisfaction rates is scarce, though. Worse,  a 2010 study showed that just 36% of customers spend more than the value of a deal, and just 20% return to the business. The feature could be a double-edged sword, encouraging retention or desertion depending on a merchant's feedback.]]> http://www.inteloquent.com/2012/01/05/groupon-merchant-center-now-shows-if-customers-love-or-hate-your-deals/feed/ 0 http://www.inteloquent.com/2012/01/04/paypal-shreds-ostensibly-rare-violin-because-it-cares/ http://www.inteloquent.com/2012/01/04/paypal-shreds-ostensibly-rare-violin-because-it-cares/#comments Wed, 04 Jan 2012 15:55:18 +0000 John Biggs http://techcrunch.com/?p=477549 When we last left Paypal, the company was busy destroying Christmas for a bunch of kids. This week they're shredding violins into bits while taking money from unsuspecting sellers. When will we stop trusting these guys? When they kill a puppy? Regretsy reader Erica sold an ostensibly rare violin to an eBay buyer who paid using Paypal. The buyer disputed the authenticity of the instrument and asked for his money back. Rather than handle it amicably with Erica, the buyer went to Paypal who advised them to supply proof that the item had been destroyed and they would refund the money. The buyer then shredded the violin into chowder and sent a handsome photo to Paypal and Erica. Paypal refunded the money.]]> http://www.inteloquent.com/2012/01/04/paypal-shreds-ostensibly-rare-violin-because-it-cares/feed/ 0 http://www.inteloquent.com/2012/01/04/virtual-currency-and-pay-per-view-2-0-world-series-of-beer-pong-to-stream-on-facebook/ http://www.inteloquent.com/2012/01/04/virtual-currency-and-pay-per-view-2-0-world-series-of-beer-pong-to-stream-on-facebook/#comments Wed, 04 Jan 2012 03:14:41 +0000 Josh Constine http://techcrunch.com/?p=477218 In Facebook's early days the company planned a national beer pong tournament, but then cancelled it out of fear it would promote underage drinking. Tomorrow, that dream will be revived in a new way when social video and ecommerce company Milyoni streams The World Series of Beer Pong through its Facebook app. For 50 Facebook Credits/$5 PayPal pre-sale or 70/$7 once the games begin, viewers can tune in to all the boozy action from doubles to rebuttals. The stream could demonstrate whether live sports could work as Facebook pay-per-view programming.]]> http://www.inteloquent.com/2012/01/04/virtual-currency-and-pay-per-view-2-0-world-series-of-beer-pong-to-stream-on-facebook/feed/ 0 http://www.inteloquent.com/2012/01/04/december-brings-1m-in-sales-to-bandcamp/ http://www.inteloquent.com/2012/01/04/december-brings-1m-in-sales-to-bandcamp/#comments Wed, 04 Jan 2012 01:09:18 +0000 Devin Coldewey http://techcrunch.com/?p=477112 The question of how music will be distributed in a year, five years, or ten years, is an open one. The landscape has been altered so drastically over the last ten years that the only thing that seems sure is that major changes will continue to come. Bandcamp hopes to be part of those changes, and they're showing healthy growth: the site pulled in a million dollars in sales just in December. Not, of course, much of a challenge to the sudden empire of iTunes and the inverted economics of streaming services of Spotify — but the Bandcamp approach to the distribution question is building legitimacy.]]> http://www.inteloquent.com/2012/01/04/december-brings-1m-in-sales-to-bandcamp/feed/ 0 http://www.inteloquent.com/2011/12/29/holiday-shopping-wrap-up-apple-makes-top-performing-e-commerce-site-list-amazon-excels-on-mobile/ http://www.inteloquent.com/2011/12/29/holiday-shopping-wrap-up-apple-makes-top-performing-e-commerce-site-list-amazon-excels-on-mobile/#comments Thu, 29 Dec 2011 18:08:33 +0000 Sarah Perez http://tctechcrunch2011.wordpress.com/?p=475466 According to the end-of-season benchmarks from Compuware's web performance division, Apple.com was among the top three best-performing retail websites during the 2011 holiday season. Meanwhile, Amazon made the list for the top m-commerce sites. The sites were ranked from November 21st through Christmas Day using Compuware's Gomez Performance Index which compares how U.S. retailers' sites perform in comparison with typical non-peak periods.]]> http://www.inteloquent.com/2011/12/29/holiday-shopping-wrap-up-apple-makes-top-performing-e-commerce-site-list-amazon-excels-on-mobile/feed/ 0 http://www.inteloquent.com/2011/12/29/fabs-fabulous-year-now-doing-over-100000-orders-a-month/ http://www.inteloquent.com/2011/12/29/fabs-fabulous-year-now-doing-over-100000-orders-a-month/#comments Wed, 28 Dec 2011 23:53:16 +0000 Erick Schonfeld http://techcrunch.com/?p=475059 In many ways, 2011 was the year of the pivot. One startup that successfully switched gears was Fab, which started the year as a gay social network and ended it a design-oriented e-commerce site. Founder Jason Goldberg created the Fab Timeline slideshow below to illustrate all the changes the company has gone through, from its pivot in February to raising $8 million in July, another $40 million in early December, and growing all along the way. But one slide in particular caught my eye. It shows Fab's order growth shooting up from just above 20,000 orders in July to about 40,000 in September and then jumping to nearly 100,000 in November. Orders in december continues to climb, Goldberg tells me, and the company is on an annualized revenue-run-rate of almost $70 million.]]> http://www.inteloquent.com/2011/12/29/fabs-fabulous-year-now-doing-over-100000-orders-a-month/feed/ 0