Independent Analysis: AI, SaaS, and Revenue Growth Strategy

  I love marketplace on NPR . I have been reading the releases by the various organizations on how Black Friday performed and here is the Marketplace take on CyberMonday.

This is a Google trends snapshot on Nov 30th 2009 at 4.50 p.m. Look at the cities and see if there is any logic behind the pattern? What are your theories? Did the French really search for Cyber Monday? See the regions graph above.

The retail and travel industries are crossing their fingers for a prosperous holiday season. CNBC interview with Stephen Hoch, of Wharton, and Steve Kaufer, of Trip Advisor, share their insight. I love tripadvisor and have used it several times to plan trips and found agencies in the local places to save money. Some examples- Car Service in London and Punta Cana. Travel agency in Peru Kuoda Tours.

Ylan Mui of the Washington Post wrote a great article that will come in tomorrow’s paper about Black Friday 2009 . The National Retail Federation released their Black Friday Verdict. Top takeaways: More people joined in the post-Thanksgiving shopping bonanza this year, but they spent less money and hunted down bargains 195 million people visited shopping malls and online retailers Thursday through Sunday, up from 172 million consumers last year department stores ranked as the top Black Friday shopping destination, with 49 percent of shoppers visiting at least one. Discounters, which have typically claimed the No. 1 spot, fell to second place with 43.2 percent of shoppers, according to the NRF survey. Comscore on the other hand headlined their release with Black Friday Boasts $595 Million in U.S. Online Holiday Spending, Up 11 Percent Versus Year Ago Top Takeaways: Over the years, the online channel has become an increasingly influential driver in offline...

I went to Gnomedex in August and we distributed these cool Network Solutions t-shirts. Yama @jyamasaki interviewed me for seesmic.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project, Pew Research always has very interesting studies and I wanted to share this with you. The slide presentation is below delivered by Lee Rainie Director Pew Internet project and heare are some findings that I found very interesting. 97 % of teens play video or computer games 75% of teens have a cellphone but only 60% have a desktop or a laptop 14% of teens have blogs and post regularly while 54% read blogs 93% of teens are online and of these 73% use social networking sites 40% to 50% Tag content ( I wonder what the ratio is for adults ) 50% to 60% post photos online 8% use Twitter Teens In The Digital Age View more presentations from Pew Internet & American Life Project, Pew Research Center .

Notes from the presentation at Pubcon Zappos Keynote at PubCon – Tony Hsieh CEO Zappos • Zappos wants to own the three C’s: clothing, customer service, culture. • Zappos labels their products “happiness in a box”. Delivering that experience through both digital channels and a tangible product. • Zappos has grown gross merchandise sales from $1.6M in 2000 to over $1 billion in 2008 by focusing relentlessly on customer service – a potent digital marketing tool • #1 driver of Zappos’ growth is from repeat customers and word of mouth. Put a focus into the customer experience, create something that is worth talking about. Let customers do the marketing for you through digital (and physical) channels. • Customer service: What customers see first on the Zappos website: o 24/7 1-800 number on every page o Free shipping o Free return shipping o 365-day return policy • What customers experience: o Fast, accurate fulfillment o Most customers are “surprise”-upgraded to overnight s...

A DM is a direct message on Twitter. To send a DM you type d followed by a space and the Twitterid of the person example : d shashib stop stealing the doughnuts :) Have you ever experienced the panic that hits you when you look at your phone and there is no signal. You are now disconnected from the world and all alone by yourself. For some strange reason this happens to me specially in hotels. Don’t panic help is on the way. You will still be able to communicate with me : a) If there is wi-fi you can be sure I am connected ( specially if wi-fi is free) b) If there is wi-fi I probably have Skype on so you can call me “shashibonskype” c) I check Twitter and so I can get your tweets and DMs Now if you have wi-fi you can pretty much reach me by email too but then its sounds like so yesterday :) On a recent trip to Poptech Michelle Riggin of Batch Blue gave me a tip to use web video conferencing to keep in touch with the kids who are thrilled to see parents even if on a compu...

INNOVATION: The Key to Pro$perity Technology & America's Role in the 21st Century Global Economy A Book Signing and Evening Talk with Aris Melissaratos Senior Advisor to the President for Enterprise Development Johns Hopkins University WHEN: Thursday, November 19 6-7:30 p.m. WHERE: Johns Hopkins University Montgomery County Campus 9605 Medical Center Drive Rockville, MD RSVP to: Barbara Crews, bcrews@jhu.edu or 301-294-7004

Baked 1052 Thomas Jefferson St. NW Washington, 20007 Tuesday, November 17, 2009 from 7:00 PM - 8:15 PM (ET) Register here http://sweetsandtweets3.eventbrite.com/?discount=VIPcupcakeeater About the Event The point of social networking on Facebook, Twitter, etc. is not about being social or frivolous or wasting time . Social networking is also about more than collaboration , a new "in" term in government-speak. Social networking can improve the process of government, according to Mark (aka @cheeky_geeky ) who writes for O'Reilly Radar, Federal Computer Week, Mashable and many other publications. Our sponsor is Neighborhood America , an enterprise software company that has been doing cool things in the Gov 2.0 space before it was Gov 2.0 . Neighborhood America develops enterprise social media solutions for public sector, non-profit and Fortune 1000 clients. Their software powers the content-rich AmEx OpenForum , one of my favorite small ...

#pubcon magic at this panel really magic by http://www.mysticjoe.com , originally uploaded by ShashiBellamkonda . As I am blogging this David kelin is doing a magic trick with Mystic Joe of http://www.joemystic.com/ beside him. I attend a lot of conferences but this is a first and I have never seen this before.

  Book Signing by Jennifer Kaplan - Greening Your Small Business Saturday, November 14, 1 p.m. Jennifer Kaplan  Greening Your Small Business (Prentice Hall, $19.95) For companies too small to hire a consultant to implement green policies and practices, this is an affordable, comprehensive guide. Designed to address every aspect of going green, the manual assists in basics such as recycling, reducing waste, energy efficiency, and reducing the IT footprint, as well as considering wider concerns such as green marketing and communications, green business travel, and green employee benefits. Location: Politics and Prose 5015 Connecticut Ave. NWWashington, D.C. 20008 Jennifer Kaplan is a well-respected voice in the green space. She is a founder of Greenhance LLC and Adjunct Faculty of Marketing at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia.

Social Media To Increase Your Business At The Regional Chamber Of Commerce Prince William View more presentations from Shashi Bellamkonda . This is a presentation I made at Innovations 2009 at the Prince William Chamber of Commerce on Nov 6th 2009

Subscribe Free   Add to my Page It was great to be on the IMI Tech Talk show with Tom D`Auria and I have to thank my friend Gabe Goldberg who heard me speak at the CPCUG EIG meet at Clevland park and recommended me to Tom. I got a chance on the show to show the immediate effects of Social media when I asked the question on Twitter for examples of Small Business using social media. Examples that we received  are : United Linen http://www.unitedlinen.com/ , BlueSmoke Salsa http://www.bluesmokesalsa.com , @ Sprouter , @ FreshBooks , @ Ben_Kwan ; his family's restaurant, @ AmazingChinese , The Show website is http://imitechtalk.com/

Every Sunday Tom D’Auria, discusses tech topics to help you run your business and your life. Today  I excited to be a guest on this show today. You can listen live if you live in the Greater Phoenix area on 1100 KFNX AM or online at http://www.1100kfnx.com/ .  If you can't listen to the live show you will find the show as a podcast archive on the IMI Tech Talk website http://www.imitechtalk.com/archives.html ON AIR Questions for Tom or Guest +1 602.277.KFNX +1 602.277.5369 TechTalk[AT]imi-us.com Follow the show on Twitter : @imitechtalk and head over to the show's Blog http://blog.imitechtalk.com/2009/11/november-8-time-to-get-to-business.html for details of past shows. Folks behind the show : Production Staff Members ( http://www.imitechtalk.com/about.html ) Host - Tom D'Auria IMI President - Terry Ruggiero Executive Editor & Executive Producer - Matt Campagni Producer & Senior Editor - Eric Johnson Foreign Bureau Chief - Da...

[Wed., Nov. 18] 7:30 pm, Digital Video SIG, free MAKING A SUCCESSFUL FIELD DOCUMENTARY: "We Remember Grundy" Speaker: Russell Belcher, Arc Lamp Productions Bethesda Chevy Chase Services Center 4805 Edgemoor Lane, 2nd floor, Room A (southwest corner of Old Georgetown Road and Edgemoor Lane) Bethesda, MD Parking: Garage in building (small fee) Metrorail: Bethesda Station, Red Line, 1 block away http://www.dvug.org ------------------------------------------------------------------ Saturday, November 21 ---------------------     * RSVP requested--send e-mail to bconn@cpcug.org * 1:00 pm, Entrepreneurs and Consultants SIG, free PRODUCTIVITY WITHOUT THE STEEP COST: An Overview of Free Open Source Software Speaker: Tom Gutnick, Sunny Banana, President and Chief Dragon Slayer Cleveland Park Library 3310 Connecticut Avenue, NW, 1st Floor Large Meeting Room, Washington, DC (west side of Connecticut Ave...

Mike Neumann @mikeneumann and Lindsey Mastis @ LindseyMastis are organizing a tweet up in Rockville. Mike is visiting from Austin and I had a chance to meet him at the #GrowSmartBiz meetup at Indique Heights on 29th October. Where? Gordon Biersch 200 East Middle Lane, Unit A Rockville, MD When? Nov 9, 2009 7pm - 10pm Please RSVP here http://twtvite.com/iqkbao/1

The Chesapeake Innovation Center , CIC, is currently conducting an active search for one of our Agency and Prime Contractor Partners.  A select group of companies will get a unique opportunity to provide an in-depth company overview presentation and demo  of their product and solutions to key senior staff at one of the Agencies and Major Primes (Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, ARINC, Alion, and others)  at the CIC TechBridge Showcase.  Slots are limited for the presenting companies.  Please urge your companies to apply today! We are seeking to identify companies with developed and real technologies that are considered to be newest and/or  greatest that are revolutionary – faster, lighter, cheaper, less bandwidth, etc…  (please refer below for a list of targeted technology areas).  We are looking for companies that have clear AND significant advantage over their competitors.  TechBridge Program and Showcases: GET nOTICE...

Word On The Tweet a weekly podcast for everything about Twitter. The show is hosted by @jeffparsons and @CostaVidaFred   and today I am one of the guests on the show too at 08.30 p.m EST. URL for the live show and chat is http://www.wordonthetweet.net/live-show-and-chat/ Hope you will join us.

Key message :That is not to say that Google is some reincarnation of the dot-com-era Microsoft. It has yet to engage in such hubristic excesses as co-founding a TV news network, and it hasn't trampled over the antitrust laws. Google avoids locking in users with proprietary data formats or protocols; last month, it set up a site ( http://dataliberation.org ) to document and promote ways for users to take their data out of (and into) Google services. Read the rest of the article and see how Google is a major presence in probably your lives in reference to: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/30/AR2009103000753.html ( view on Google Sidewiki )