It's interesting that we're seeing a consolidation of big publishing houses, but I still don't see how they deal with the Amazon behemoth. That Justice Dept antitrust case against Apple and the publishing houses is going to have far-reaching ramifications.
I've never heard of them before either. I've known about Amazon since the 90s. That probably can tell you enough about Rakuten's clout in the United States - simply put, they don't have any.
I'm a big fan of Amazon Prime - for $79/year you get next day shipping, and now you can stream movies and TV shows. The selection is limited right now but since it already comes with Prime I find myself using it. Does Rakuten have anything like this?
I don't know about acquisitions, Alison, but I suspect Rakuten will be looking for partners to promote the Kobo e-reader which is key to their global plans. And of course Wal-Mart has just dropped the Amazon Kindle.
On this side of the pond we've also just had the tie-up between two major publishing houses, Random House and Penguin, which is seen as a response to Amazon's market dominance.
Who do you think Rakuten would be wise to buy in the U.S. if they wanted to compete with Amazon on a customer service level? Which other e-tailers or ecommerce sites have such a good rep?
Amazon, which is so big, is amazingly agile. I've shopped there for years and have only had one or two disappointing experiences - through their partners - which were immediately rectified by Amazon. The customer service was as good as if I'd worked with an SMB. From Kindle email support to shopping, I continue to be impressed by their customer service which will be a challenge for a competitor to duplicate, I'd imagine.
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Social media has been with us for a decade -- but employer policies and the law are anything but firm about the most appropriate usage of this powerful tool.
Businesses often struggle to decide which domain to use. When it comes to purchasing a domain name, you have plenty of extensions to choose from, ranging from .com and .net, to .me, and even .mobi. But which one should you pick?
I've been writing about how the next evolution of the Internet might just be an advertising revolution, and how corporate IT can stay involved as the enablers and providers of the technologies that make this possible.
In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
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M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
