Image-Based Search Technology Gains Steam
October 10, 2016
If you need to do a bit of smartphone photos clean-up, now is a good time. More websites are integrating photo-based search technologies according to Pinterest Will Let You Snap Photos To Find Real-Life Products Online. This piece from Forbes explains camera search will be available in the coming months and will allow users to snap a photo of, for example, a purse they see someone else carrying down the street, and find similar products on Pinterest. They’re calling these products “buyable pins”. According to the article,
Users make 130 million visual searches on Pinterest per month and about 2 billion total searches. Now, more than 10 million products can be purchased without leaving Pinterest from more than 20,000 retailers, up from 2 million products when “buyable pins” launched about a year ago. When a user sees a product on Pinterest, they are two times more likely to buy it in-store. And if a merchant promotes the pin, users are five times more likely to buy the item in person, the company said. In testing “buyable pins,” Pinterest said a third of purchases made on the web were first discovered on mobile. More than 80% of users access Pinterest on mobile devices.
Some applications for this search technology, may not be well-poised to monetize this, but according to a survey cited in the article 55 percent of respondents already consider Pinterest as e-commerce. Currently, the platform sees itself as a “bridge between inspiration and making it part of your real life.” This is essentially the role of any brick-and-mortar shop amenable to window-shopping. So, while it may work, we certainly can’t say the strategy is new.
Megan Feil, October 10, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Freedom Versus Fear
September 4, 2015
The Ashley Madison data breach has understandably been getting a lot of press, but what does it portend for the future of the Internet? Computerworld’s Tech Decoder predicts far-reaching consequences in, “Here’s Why the Dark Web Just Got a Lot Darker.” Security experts predict a boom in phishing scams connected to this data breach, as well as copycat hackers poised to attack other (more legit) companies.
Reporter John Brandon suspects such activity will lead to the government stepping in to create two separate Internet channels: one “wild and unprotected” side and a “commercial” side, perhaps sponsored by big-name communications companies, that comes with an expectation of privacy. Great, one might think, we won’t have to worry if we’re not up to anything shady! But there’s more to it. Brandon explains:
“The problem is that I’m a big proponent of entrepreneurship. I won’t comment on whether I think Ashley Madison is a legitimate business. … However, I do want to defend the rights of some random dude in Omaha who wants to sell smartphone cables. He won’t have a chance to compete on the ‘commercial’ side of the Internet, so he’ll probably have to create a site on the unprotected second-tier channel, the one that is ‘free and open’ for everyone. Good luck with that.
“Is it fair? Is it even (shudder) moral? The commercial side will likely be well funded, fast, reliable, government-sanctioned, and possibly heavily taxed. The free side will be like drinking water at the local cesspool. In the end, the free and open Internet is that way for a reason. It’s not so you can cheat on your wife. Frankly, people will do that with or without the Internet. The ‘free and open’ bit is intended to foster ideas. It’s meant to level the playing field. It’s meant to help that one guy in Omaha.”
Yes, security is important, but so is opportunity. Can our society strike a balance, or will fear reign? Stay tuned.
Cynthia Murrell, September 4, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Retail Feels Internet Woes
April 29, 2015
Mobile Web sites, mobile apps, mobile search, mobile content, and the list goes on and on for Web-related material to be mobile-friendly. Online retailers are being pressured to make their digital storefronts applicable to the mobile users, because more people are using their smartphones and tablets over standard desktop and laptop computers. It might seem easy to design an app and then people can download it for all of their shopping needs, but according to Easy Ask things are not that simple: “Internet Retailer Reveals Mobile Commerce Conversion Troubles.”
The article reveals that research conducted by Spreadshirt CTO Guido Laures shows that while there is a high demand for mobile friendly commerce applications and Web sites, very few people are actually purchasing products through these conduits. Why? The problem relates to the lack of spontaneous browsing and one the iPhone 6’s main selling features: a big screen.
“While mobile-friendly responsive designs and easier mobile checkouts are cited as inhibitors to mobile commerce conversion, an overlooked and more dangerous problem is earlier in the shopping process. Before they can buy, customers first need to find the product they want. Small screen sizes, clumsy typing and awkward scrolling gestures render traditional search and navigation useless on a smartphone.”
Easy Ask says that these problems can be resolved by using a natural language search application over the standard keyword search tool. It says that:
“A keyword search engine leaves you prone to misunderstanding different words and returning a wide swath of products that will frustrate your shoppers and continue you down the path of poor mobile customer conversion.”
Usually natural language voice search tools misunderstand words and return funny phrases. The article is a marketing tool to highlight the key features of Easy Ask technology, but they do make some key observations about mobile shopping habits.
Whitney Grace, April 29, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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