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Google’s Matt Cutts announced that Google is working on a search ranking penalty for sites that are “over-optimized” or “overly SEO’ed.” Matt announced this during a panel Search Engine Land’s Editor-In-Chief, Danny Sullivan and Microsoft’s Senior…
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While consumers and developers welcome Friday’s launch of the new iPad, design sales site Fab.com has a special interest in Apple’s tablet, which is powering more and more of its total sales. CEO Jason Goldberg shared with me some statistics on the potency of its iPad app users, who represent 15 percent of its customer base but make up 25 percent of all revenue.
The company has been trying to get its head around the impact of mobile shopping since it launched its first mobile apps in October 2011. It’s found that now 40 percent of daily visits come from its mobile apps on iPhone, iPad, and Androiddevices, up from 30 percent two months ago. But it’s the iPad that is standing out as the true money maker. Using software-as-a-service Custora to analyze historical user and order data, Fab created a model that found that 40 percent of iPad app users make a purchase within three months, and 70 percent will make their first transaction within seven months of joining.
Among non-iPad users, about 15 percent make their first purchase within four to five months, said Goldberg. He said while many retailers are happy if they can convert 10 percent of all visitors, 10 percent of Fab’s iPad app users buy their first product within their first week. That shows a clear willingness for iPad browsers to become buyers. Over a projected two-year time frame, Fab’s iPad app users are expected to bring in $700 each in revenue, twice that of non-iPad users, based on Custora’s predictive models.
Why the iPad is a shopping magnet
Goldberg believes iPad users are buying at a higher rate on Fab because of the more intimate and streamlined nature of buying on the iPad app, which presents one product at a time, compared to the desktop version which provides views of multiple items. And the ability to get up close to products and almost touch them using swipes and gestures makes it conducive to buying. The fact that iPad users are likely more design-conscious and probably have more disposable income also contributes, he said.
“It feels like you’re touching the product on the iPad,” he said. “It’s the closest thing to going into the store.”
This is not even counting iPad users who visit the store through the web. Fab tries to steer those users to its app. But there are indications from other retailers that the tablet web shoppers are also more likely to buy as well.
Goldberg said the iPad app is due for an update in the next couple months to make it even more tailored for tablet users. He said he doesn’t have the resources yet to make a dedicated tablet-optimized website but it’s something he’d like to tackle as well.
The numbers from Fab represent just one online retailer, but I think it’s indicative of a larger trend of shopping being transformed by tablets. The devices are really well suited for buying, especially for products that invite closer scrutiny and interaction. With iPad penetration expected to increase with the launch of the new iPad, it means even more opportunities for retailers.
Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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Forecast: Tablet App Sales To Hit $8B by 2015Monetizing music in the post-scarcity ageCES 2012: a recap and analysis
There are plenty of companies trying to create new forms of group texting or social networking. There are far fewer who are trying to offer a messaging service that crosses the web, email and mobile devices in a seamless way. Facebook is perhaps the most obvious example, but its utility is social — you might not want to use it for work, or for organizing your kids’ little league game, or for communicating with the parents of a class you’re teaching.
Enter SendHub, a startup in this year’s Y Combinator class, that has already started to get some serious traction by focusing on professionals. The company offers a clean interface for creating and organizing groups of people, and communicating back and forth with them over their desired format.
The result is that it has been growing fast. When Sarah Perez covered SendHub in February, the company was sending 30,000 messages a month. Now, it’s sending around that amount per week. Check out the graph below. The numbers are still small, but they’re in the right direction. YC partner Paul Graham says that its growth looks like AirBnB’s in the early days.
What types of users are causing this growth? A few big partnerships are helping, including one with Teach For America and another with the Florida Department of Education, cofounders Garrett Johnson and Ash Rust tell me. But some people are using it for social purposes as well, including a group of cross-fit trainers who coordinate times to work out. And there’s a variety of folks who veer into Facebook Messaging territory by communicating with each other to keep social activities like beer crawls together.
How does the app work? You’ll need to go to the website, sign up with Facebook or Google or a new user account, then enter the information of the people you want to share with. You can do it manually, or import CSV docs from Gmail, Outlook and other email clients. You’ll also get a new local phone number (the company uses Twilio’s voice messaging platform on the backend).
Then you can start writing messages and texting them out to people. Other users can also join using a keyword you choose. So a local business could invite existing customers via uploading its CSV file of them and asking new users to text in to sign up (which is how most people are joining). You get a unique new phone number, and you’re asked to either add contacts manually or via a bulk importer.
Users who receive the texts are also sent a link to go back and rate the message or block the sender. So if a local business starts spamming too many deals, they’ll be able to get feedback quickly.
But why did the growth take off? The founder joined YC with a product in hand, but they tell me they got a bunch of design help that has made the site easier to use for people. Other cofounders with specific technical skills have also helped them with scaling their services for new waves of users. And, they also got encouraged to focus on every single user who called in. Right now, they’re sleeping shifts so they can respond to any issues 24 hours a day.
Where to next? “Email and social will be our primary focus in the short term, Rust says, but we expect voice will be an important frontier for us to develop.”
“We did a basic integration and we’re seeing over 3,000 calls a month. IM is attractive, but it’s not requested nearly as much.”
These types of messaging apps are inherently viral, but sometimes have trouble making money as a result of too much success (see: GroupMe, Beluga). SendHub provides a set of premium features instead. If you want to go above 1,000 messages a month, you’ll need to pay at least $10 a month. If you want more than three groups, larger API requests, the ability to bring your own number, phone support, or a branded profile page, you’ll need to buy more expensive options.
The team still has a couple things to work out. In testing it out, the bulk importer had some trouble uploading my contact list. And the interface has some oddities, like an error message telling you that you need to type in a ten digit telephone number, which appears as you’re typing your number in. But all in all it feels right, and the engagement numbers seem to indicate that many more users will, too.
China will surpass the U.S. in smartphone shipments this year, a title which the U.S. is never expected to regain, according to market figures released on Thursday by IDC.
The time of infographic supremacy has perhaps fallen, as everyone and their mother seems to have taken to them like a fad. Because of this, TNW has all but banned infographics from our blog, since most of the time they end up being too heavily branded, self-promotional and poorly designed.
Still, in our hearts, we haven’t forgotten that infographics are one of the most compelling ways to share information. This is why we have exceptions.
In the case of ResumUP, a recruiting company with the slogan “Go Visual – Get Visible”, data visualization still has so much promise. The site has just updated its approach to visualizing your resume based on a full look at your Facebook profile, including…wait for it…a psycho-social analysis.
The set up is quick and painless (so long as you’re okay with sharing your data), and you’ll quickly be presented with a rather beautiful, data-driven resume that’ll show off your skills in an impressive light. The only downside to the site (that I’ve seen so far) is that they push users to invite friends. If you can get over that bump in the road, the results are worth it.
In the event that you like to hide your data from Facebook, you also have the option to edit the information ResumUP has gathered. Once your resume is complete, you can share on Facebook, Twitter, etc, or you can opt to export everything as a PDF or PNG with very little branding added.
Overall, the site has a ton of promise. I’d love to see more features in the future, like embeddable graphics and various layouts, but for the most part, what ResumUP offers now is surprisingly fresh.
➤ ResumUP, Site & Sample