It’s been a long time coming, but with the recent announcements of over $150 million in new funding sources, Vermont is now positioned to make G4 universal broadband access a reality statewide.

Over lunch at a recent conference, a marketer complained about her design team. Their revamped web site was very well designed – perhaps too well. Highly interactive, thoughtfully scripted and artfully presented, the team relied heavily on Flash to achieve what was, to their eyes, a compelling online experience. The marketer was concerned that the [...]

“Please DONT get me a Vermont Teddybear.”“Vermont teddy bears? No bloody way Dude!”“Vermont teddy bears do not make good vday gifts for women.” For a company that does the vast majority of its business in one short intense holiday season, Vermont Teddy Bear is inadvertently taking social media to a brand new level. Its latest [...]

Among the slew of analysts looking back to the 2008 holiday season, comScore has estimated that online sales from November 1 through December 23 were actually down 3% from the year before. Apparel was one of the bright spots, with an online increase of 4%, compared to a 19-21% decrease in the category overall sales. [...]

At first I thought ElasticPath’s post “Should Your Use Large Images on Category Pages?” would shed light on the size of thumbnails, but the discussion is about the importance of testing big-footprint lifestyle imagery. Does a large banner above the thumbnails add a sense of place to the page, similar to display banners in the [...]

Leaving user generated videos and the world of YouTube aside, video over the web is, by most accounts, either: the next biggest thing that’s about to break or the thing that’s most broken or that which has broken the most hearts or all of the above In spite of the sorry state of commercial video [...]

The initial numbers for the holiday season are already coming in. Comscore reports a 19% increase in online revenue for the 2007 holiday season (November 1-December 27), to $28 billion. Spending for the peak holiday season (Black Friday – Christmas Eve) increased by 21% over the same period, although an extra day between Thanksgiving and [...]

Another end-of-year post: a selection of images taken during 2007. If less is more, here’s a lot. Fewer shots this year than in the 2006 set, and all locations within a 5 mile radius. See the slideshow or click a tnail.

A list of the best marketing books I’ve had the pleasure of reading during the past year. There were others that were professionally important but overly technical, more that made the effort but not the grade. Each of these combines a fresh approach to thinking about eComm with clear and often entertaining writing skills. Have [...]

The algorithms used by larger Pay Per Click advertisers can produce some less-than-stellar ads — and, we can assume, sales results to match. ROI Revolution has posted their second Funny Adwords Contest. This time, contenders include “Quality Low at Amazon.com” and “Sell Your Soul on eBay“. Vote for your favorites, or check out the Round [...]