Filed under: Competitive strategy, Google (GOOG), Yahoo! (YHOO), eBay (EBAY), Amazon.com (AMZN), Marketing and advertising, Small business

In a recent piece in BusinessWeek, there’s an in-depth look at the revamp of eBay’s (NASDAQ: EBAY) website. That is, the company is trying to bring back buyers - who have been moving to rivals like Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), and Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO).

It’s a smart move and I also think it shows the importance of a key concept: the lifetime value (LTV) of customers.

Generally, LTV involves the following: the profit per unit sold times the average units sold minus the costs of customer acquisition. This should be calculated over a period of time - say 24 to 36 months.

“We actually look at bookings just as much as revenue when we look at the LTV equation,” said Jason Blessing, who is a general manager at Taleo (NASDAQ: TLEO). “We feel this gives us a clearer picture of what we are spending to get new year bookings. We feel that we are operating at peak performance if we are getting $2+ in new bookings for every $1 we spend on sales and marketing.”

So what kind of strategies can help improve LTV? Well, I had a chance to interview Trynka Shineman, the senior vice president at VistaPrint (NASDAQ: VPRT).

According to her, a critical period is the 90 days of getting a new customer. “This is the most important time to establish a strong relationship with the customer,” said Shineman. “If you can get a new customer to make a repeat purchase during that time frame, those customers are considerably more valuable over time than those that don’t make a repeat purchase until later.”

In the case of VistaPrint, about 63% of its bookings - in fiscal year 2007 - came from repeat customers. Shineman maintains:

“We have been successful because we have focused on making our transactional emails, such as order confirmation emails and shipping confirmation emails, into contacts that drive a subsequent purchase on our site. In fact, these emails have the highest open rate of any of the emails we send, which gives us a great opportunity to communicate to customers about other products and services. For example, we’ll highlight products that are related to products they’ve purchased. This has proven to be an extremely successful approach for us. We have also developed other re-marketing efforts tied to the first purchase. These include inserts into our product packaging that showcase the full breadth of products we offer with an incentive to try a new product, and focus on making it easy for customers to reorder their business cards and matching products.”

What’s more, you should ask customers for feedback. “If you send out a semi-annual survey to customers, you are able to see areas where you can improve,” said Shineman. “Customers who participate in these surveys and see the feedback that they give get put into motion will have a greater emotional connection to your company.”

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

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DEMOFall - I got to try the Personal Input Pod (PIP) gaming gadget that helps people master stress while playing. On the photo you can see that the players are holding the PIP between the fingertips, the device measures their stress level and communicate it to the mobile phone via Bluetooth, the more stressed the player is, the slower his/her dragon on the screen is flying. With this you can monitor what kind of thoughts helps you to relax and what makes you stressed.
I won twice… may be tech conferences are a relaxing experience after all!

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Filed under: Audio/Video, Video Games

So you’re a fat slob with a wicked Halo addiction and the will power of a drunken Homer Simpson, but you want to turn that beer gut into a six-pack without letting down Master Chief (or, let’s face it, the fate of the free universe).

Enter the the Gamercize CZ Sport (who comes up with these names, Czechoslovakians?), which attaches to your PlayStation 2, bypassing your controller. Basically, if you want your game to work, you have to work as well: The pedal attachment (or stepper — your choice) recognizes when you’re working out, and knows when you’re slacking. If you’re working hard enough, your controller remains connected to the console; stop, and your session is interrupted like a phone call from your boss during sex. So it’s like half as much fun as it should be, but a thousand times more healthful!

It’s not exactly cutting-edge (i.e. being able to control your character’s movement by you legs’ movement on the device), but it may just help you shed those extra pounds before the dead of winter. You want to look good in your puffy jacket, after all.

From ThinkGeek

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• Video games rot your brain, study says
• Video gaming not an addiction, says AMA
• Halo 3 Receives Thumbs Up Across the Web

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Filed under: Features, Gaming, Portable Video

Just launched in Japan, Sony’s got high hopes for its 1-SEG digital TV tuner — and with over seven million Japanese PSPs now capable of viewing high quality video over the air (complete with EPG), we can’t blame Sony for it’s optimism. The only way you’ll get one of these, though, is if you pack your sorry self up and move on overseas — or find a way to set up a pirate 1-SEG cell, anyway. It’ll might just be worth it though, the whole mobile TV experience we saw on this tuner was pretty smooth, with near-instant channel changes and that slick guide, to boot.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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Filed under: Action & Adventure, Drama, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Casting, 20th Century Fox, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand

There’s this station here in New York that airs Wonder Years episodes back-to-back late at night. (And I just got a few smiles from the folks who’ve discovered this gem tucked somewhere between channels 30 and 40.) Anyway, I had totally forgotten that Giovanni Ribisi played one of Kevin’s friends during those later seasons. It was Ribisi, that dude Chuck who blinked a lot (whatever happened to him?), Paul and Kevin. Am I taking you back? I’ve always been a fan of Ribisi’s work, and kind of like the fact that he’s never really blown up to big-time Hollywood movie star. He’s either the bigger guy in a smaller film (Boiler Room), or the smaller guy in a bigger film (Saving Private Ryan). Sure, he always sounds like he’s five minutes away from a sinus attack, but I’ve loved him in so many films that his constant sniffling and blood-shot eyes draw me in even closer.

Why the love-fest for Ribisi? Well, according to The Hollywood Reporter, my man just landed a heckuva role in James Cameron’s highly-anticipated — film-that-will-change-the-world-as-we-know-it — Avatar. He’ll be playing a character named Selfridge “in the Fox film about a band of humans pitted against a distant planet’s indigenous inhabitants.” Ribisi joins a cast that already includes Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana (Avatar and Star Trek XI? When did this girl become so hot?), Sigourney Weaver and Michelle Rodriguez. Apart from the human actors, Avatar will also feature six computer-generated actors known as “synthesipians.” And in the case of a Hollywood strike, I imagine those “synthespians” will take over for awhile — ya know, kind of like replacement baseball players. Avatar hits theaters on May 22, 2009.

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Filed under: Cellphones

As if receiving $200 million from SK Telecom and EarthLink back in July wasn’t enough, Helio is now set to accept (up to) a $270 million check from SK Telecom. According to EarthLink, SK Telecom will “invest up to $270 million in Helio,” and as expected, EarthLink was “very pleased” with the decision — you know, considering that it won’t be forced to cough up any more dough at the moment while still maintaining “substantial ownership interest in Helio’s future.” Most interesting, however, is the tidbit that mentions the parents’ plans, as EarthLink and SK Telecom are reportedly “in discussions to amend their existing agreements to reflect the additional investment by SK Telecom and their future governance of Helio.” Gotta pay to play, we suppose.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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You know, Bush won’t be president for too much longer.

(pause for various reactions from different corners)

…So I thought I’d put this one up before it’s too late. I’ve been sitting on it for a while, but I really must share. Plus, me being the sucker for parody (and zombies) I am, I just don’t feel right withholding this brilliant piece of work from you all.

…by the heat of the moon.

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Filed under: News

FCC employees must have had a lot of fun testing out this one. Though the hipsters might call it Exhibit VFR822151, to the layman it’s the Bluetooth-enabled wireless Rock Band guitar for the PlayStation 3. Shown on the site are some test reports, pictures of the guitar’s innards (ew!) and snippets of the manual.

Somewhat perplexing is the picture of a USB dongle (pictured after the break). Because of the Bluetooth technology, the guitar shouldn’t need an intermediary device to connect to the PlayStation 3; however, the user manual included with the FCC exhibit clearly show the dongle as part of the setup process. Perhaps it’ll become clearer closer to Rock Band’s holiday launch.

[Via Engadget]

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Filed under: Computers

Believe it or not, we still don’t know what Billy Shakespeare, the kid, looked like after all these years (or perhaps because of them). But using what are being called “sophisticated techniques,” an artist with Britain’s Metropolitan Police claims to have created an image of what Mr. Shakespeare might have looked like as a 14-year-old laddie.

Cathy Charsley, the artist, is apparently highly trained in “age progression,” and drew from this training to create the image. Using various portraits of the adult Shakespeare and the police’s EFIT (Electronic Facial Identification Software), Charsley was able to come up with the image of the young William Shakespeare.

“I have been trained in age progression, so I worked in reverse, deciding how the face would be different if aged 14, and what features were important,” she said.

Apparently, the younger William was a dead-ringer for Daniel Radcliffe (who plays Harry Potter) with the fuzzy beginnings of a handlebar moustache

From The Sun and The Independent

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• Best ever celbrity gadget ads
• Grateful Dead comes to Rock Band game

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The Australian web community is buzzing ahead of the Web Directions South conference in Sydney later this week. As usual, a contingent of friendly and fun-loving folks from SitePoint HQ will be attendance. Also as usual, we’re hiring!

If you’ll be at the conference, be sure to say “Hi!” to Lucas Chan, Matt Magain, Andrew Krespanis, or myself when you see us. We’ll be the pale guys in blue and orange. Oh, and watch out for a fun SitePoint freebie in your conference bag!

If you can’t make it (it’s in Sydney, Australia, after all!), be sure to watch SitePoint for extensive coverage from the event!

Wherever you are, we hope you’ll be cheering us on when they announce the winner of this year’s McFarlane Prize, for which SitePoint has been shortlisted.

No, SitePoint won’t be giving away free drinks at the closing night party this year, but read on if that’s your cup of … erm … long island iced tea!

Webjam

Of course, Web Directions South isn’t the only reason to be in Sydney this week! The day after the conference, SitePoint is sponsoring Webjam, where a bunch of web developers gather to show off their latest projects in 3 minutes or less, with the audience voting via SMS to spur on the competitive atmosphere.

“Sponsoring,” you ask? “Don’t you mean giving out drink cards to anyone who will talk to you?”

Why yes, we do.

This article provided by sitepoint.com.

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