Buzzwire launches a mobile social networking site perhaps raises some valuable questions.
February 27, 2009
March 17, 2008
October 21, 2007
globe
Interesting article in the Toronto Globe and Mail that highlights research being done that actually shows what happens when people respond to spam emails and actually buy products mentioned in them.
The Centre for Global e-health is a joint effort of Toronto University and the University Health Networks, funded by the Canadian Government. A research programme they are doing involved actually buying prescription drugs that were advertised in spam emails.
There are two things that are really interesting. Firstly, that their report estimates that about two thirds of all email sent was spam, and one third of that was for health related products. and that of the products they bought, they actually received about a third of them.
They also say that there was no noticeable attempt to misuse their credit card details. This would seem to imply that there are companies behind the spam they send out with products that they do actually sell, which I’d never assumed to be the case. What is as interesting is that we don’t know (or at least I don’t!) actually how many people do click through on spam and actually buy products (I’d assumed no-one did) but also the researchers don’t know at the moment what was actually in the products they received - they’re doing tests at the moment and hopefully will have results later in the year, which of course, is a huge issue.
Given the cost of prescribed drugs, in the US particularly, online pharmacies and buying prescription drugs online is potentially a huge worldwide issue. What this report highlights is that spam isn’t purely one of those annoying things that you’re ant-virus software will get rid of, it has the potential to literally affect the health and well being of some of the most vulnerable people in society.
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sprint
Sprint, The US carrier, has teamed up with an online ’shop front ‘ mshopper, in what provides an intriguing glimpse into the future use of cellphones.
Sprint customers can use their phones to do online shopping through the above portal. At the moment they have a choice of about 7 million products from 30 retailers, which, according to the Reuters report, includes Wal-Mart. In any event, I guess the number of stores and who they are will grow over time.
What is particularly interesting is how people use the service. Basically someone pre-registers their address and credit card details on the system and when they come to want to buy a product, all they have to do in key in their phone number and a pin code and they’ve bought it.
mshopper also market the system as an opportunity for people to check in store prices against online prices whilst physically shopping - the real drawback to this is instant gratification or the lack of it i.e. if you’re shopping somewhere, check a price, see its cheaper online (which is normally intentional and quite often a selling point by the store) and assuming the store won’t lower its price, you’re then left with the choice of buying it online and waiting for it to be delivered or paying for it at the time , knowing you could have got it cheaper online !
The real significance of this is the ease with which people will be able to buy things (assuming they want to! ). One of the reasons for the rise in the use of credit cards is because people often don’t really think of it as spending money when they use a card - its in the future, it isn’t physically money etc, which means they probably spend more than they would do if it were simply cash.
This takes the process effectively one stage further whereby all you do is tap a load of numbers into your phone, which you do all day anyway, and hey presto its yours ! - Its not like it pre-loads all your credit and/or credit card details which you then confirm - there is no showing you that you’re actually spending money and your mindset is much more likely to be that yes you’re spending money, but not really! - that’s the attraction from a business point of view and the danger from a customer one !
Jupiter Research reckons the North American consumer will be spending $1.9 billion online by 2010 !
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