E-books are surging in popularity. As this important phenomenon continues, it will only serve to have a detrimental effect upon the High St chains that are left..Waterstones in the UK or Barnes & Noble in the US.

Perhaps the only way forward is to take the competition on at its own game. And this is what Barnes & Noble are doing with the introduction of their own tablet, the Nook.

Without High St book chains, the publishers’ marketing proposition crumbles. The idea that publishers can spot, mold and publicize new talent, then get someone to buy books at prices that actually makes economic sense, suddenly seems out of reach. They stand as gatekeepers to quality if you like, as there is the subconscious acceptance in most of us that because it has made it on to the shelf in Waterstones, then it must be good. The internet allows us all to be self-published with no-one stopping to see if our work is of any real value.

What publishers count on from bookstores is the browsing effect. Surveys indicate that only a third of the people who step into a book shop and walk out with a book actually arrived with the specific desire to buy one.

But the problem is not so much now. People are warming to e-books, iPads and the like, but for the next but one generation of book lovers, they may have never read a book in paperback form! A scary thought!

The global leader in “daily deals” is now valued at almost $13 billion after saying it increased the offering by 5 million shares to 35 million in total and pricing them at $20 each, above an initial range of $16 to $18. Is this good business, or simply a return of the crazy valuations that heralded the spectacular crashing to earth of the majority of 1^st generation Internet companies.

What does Groupon actually do for its customers?

There are mixed reports on the validity of the daily deals model. While the company undoubtedly offers small businesses coverage to a huge customer database, that they would never be able to build themselves, many companies have struggled to break even when take-up has been high. They are forced to price the service often at a loss.

However, for those businesses simply “looking to get people in the door”, then this offers an unrivalled opportunity.

The threat of competition:

But can Groupon really sustain such a high valuation? The shares have traded robustly in the first week, but the threat of more competition hangs heavily over its business model. Many of the major online retailers are creating their own flash-sale sites to sell off stock, and many retailers are now offering time or volume-limited sales either on their own sites, or via social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.

This trend is likely to continue, making the proposition of third-party daily deal sites less exclusive and making it harder for them to source compelling deals. If, as some investment specialists predict, backers simply “flip” their investment – sell straight away and profit on the initial buzz – it could start a downward spiral and something akin to the burst dotcom bubble all over again.

The next few months will tell if the spectre of overvalued internet companies is coming back to haunt us. In the meantime, $13bn company in 3 years from its inception..not bad for 3 years work!

Mobile has a lot going for it:

But smartphones excel not just in their look, but also in their utility. And the consumerisation of the mobile phone owes a lot to the cloud. For much of the personal computing era, the content that people needed for work or entertainment had to be stored on PCs’ hard disks, or on external drives and USB keys. Now huge amounts of data reside in the cloud, and can be instantly retrieved from almost anywhere in the world.

The rise of the cloud benefits the smartphone user in other ways too. It has manifested itself in a multitude of consumer-focused web services from Facebook, which has over 800m users, to a host of smaller firms such as Foursquare, which was created specifically to let people tell their friends where they are.

Find your SoLoMo

A combination of social networking, location-signalling, and mobile computing (SoLoMo) is changing the way we use web services. It is encouraging to use them more frequently on a smartphone or tablet device, than we would a PC.

The proliferation of broadband connections has also helped catapult this into the mainstream. Fixed-line broadband connections are now commonplace, often with a Wi-Fi link at the end of them to allow people to use their devices wherever they are. You can now stay connected to the internet almost anywhere.

For you as a small business with an online presence, our advice is take a look at m-commerce..and fast.  We have been advising on this blog to take social media seriously for many months now, and fortunately a lot of our customers have responded.

Engaging via social media, alerting potential customers of special offers when they are in your area or searching for relevant information around your products via their smartphones..these are yet more opportunities to make e-commerce and even larger part of your business into the future.

You need two websites nowadays:

One thing that this should flag up for businesses, is that a social media presence, has become, at the very least, as important as your web site. Any product-focused operation needs to be where its customers are. Social media’s power to engage an interested audience, and to enable customers and prospects to advocate your brand for free only strengthens this argument.

But there has been a backlash among the Internet population about the control online behemoths such as Facebook and Google seem to have over us. These brands are much maligned in the media..we are constantly told that these people cannot be trusted.

Facebook and Google: Friends or foes??

People have a choice. There are plenty of search engines aside from Google. There are numerous other ways to organise and enhance social lives, or to promote your brand in a positive way, other than Facebook. These are just two of the best at what they do. We use them for convenience and for the quality of their service if nothing else.

If Google started to give erroneous and irrelevant results on a regular basis, we would soon turn away. And the same with Facebook..if it was really that intrusive and “Big-brother”like, we would soon delete accounts…and the population would fall at a much faster rate than Facebook users are currently jumping ship.

Friends for sure:

Rather than being perceived as dominant and oppressive control freaks in the online space, these two brands should be embraced and appreciated for the great things they are. There are very few people reading this, who will not have benefited from either brands myriad of great services. If that wasn’t the case, we would soon be off to use someone who could give us what we want!

The digitisation of books:

Books are indeed swiftly following music and newspapers into the digital world. This has major advantages both for readers and publishers. Getting the balance right in terms of print-runs is no longer an issue. And readers love the flexibility and easy downloading options. And of course, when reading via a Kindle, or Ipad, no-one knows what you are reading!

The big problem for publishers will be piracy. A routine search on a file-sharing website such as Pirate Bay, shows many e-books already there for download, either individually or as part of a bundle.

As the “agency” pricing model takes hold in the digital world, there is a multitude of cheap books and self-published novelists only too happy to sell their books at low prices to widen their readership.

The dominance of Amazon:

Amazon sells over 90% of e-books in the UK, and is clearly the dominant player. Even with the success of the iPad, Apple’s iBookstore has struggled to gain a decent market share. With a tablet computer pitched as a rival to the iPad imminent, Amazon is tightening it’s grip alarmingly on the e-book market.

The usual counter-argument of there is nothing to rival the experience of being in the bookshop, is old hat now.  Consumers have clearly moved on. And supermarkets are now major players in terms of sales; casting another dark cloud upon their horizon. Both traditional booksellers and publishers must confront the problems that have afflicted other media industries that have gone digital, if they are to survive the “Amazonisation” of the book industry.

So Steve Jobs has not only helped reshape Apple, but he has redefined major parts of the technology industry. So will his departure mean the end of Apple’s dominance? Other companies have seen their fortunes fade after iconic leaders have departed. Take Bill Gates leaving Microsoft as an example.

Succession planning:

But this should not be the case for Apple. This is not a sudden move. The company has had a while to plan for this, and indeed the new chief operating officer, has stepped in successfully for Mr Jobs in the past. For the periods where Mr Jobs has been absent in the past, Apple has continued to run smoothly. Loyalty of the workforce and a significant pool of talent across Apple’s business divisions, signifies that Apple’s future should continue to be bright.

And after all, Steve Jobs, is not disappearing completely. He is to become Chairman of Apple’s board, so will no doubt have a say in key decisions for the foreseeable future.

More game changers in the pipeline:

Perhaps, most importantly of all, Apple has a great product pipeline. The company will shortly unveil the latest version of the iPhone and is expected to launch a new iPad early next year. And their dominance is not just in products (hardware). The real secret of Apple’s success lies in the integration of these with software and services such as the iTunes store.

This symbiotic relationship between hardware and software is what has transformed the music industry. The iPhone and its Apps have helped to transform another market and create a huge cash pile.

We wish Mr Jobs continued prosperity, but more importantly, good health.

On a negative note, Twitter served as a mobilising tool to encourage further mindless vandalism. Indeed, it has even faciliated a co-ordinated looting strategy. By posting on Twitter, where these vandals were heading, others rushed to get a slice of the loot. It helped to inflict further criminal damage upon our society, and to foment an already tense stand-off between police and the looters.

It has manifested itself as tool for good and bad citizen journalism. With everyone posting tweets, it has been nigh on impossible for authorities to decipher real intelligence from red herrings. How can an already stretched police force manage this? This is the equivalent of 100,000 prank 999 calls all coming in simultaneously. Perhaps we should take a leaf out of China’s book and not be afraid to turn websites off in they compromise national security. Extreme I know, but we are dealing with peoples’ lives and livelihoods here.

On the flipside, for every false tweet, there have been many that have used it to vent their frustration and anger at these criminals, and to take a stand against it. #riotcleanup has already generated over 100,000 tweets,and is clearly a force for good amidst all this. Social media can now bring networks and communities together for the rebuilding process.

But determining exactly what you can do with Facebook is possibly the hard part. Relentlessly hunting for “likes” is for vanity really and nothing more! It is the equivalent for businesses of individuals competing for the most friends. It has yet to be comprehensively proven to be useful in selling anything. (although we stand to be corrected?!)

What Facebook can be used effectively as is a test bed if you like. You can gauge if something is actually going to work, by actually giving people a taster of a product and then monitoring their reaction. Facebook is the perfect place to set-up the equivalent of the perfect bricks and mortar “pop-up”store. You can quickly see what people think of your new idea and without a great deal of effort or expense.

Facebook is after all where the people are. Furthermore, it is a fast-moving environment where people are looking to access information or items of interest capriciously. They do not expect an immersive or especially refined brand environment.

With so many apps and services now available to consumers, how can you gain a march upon your rivals. The answer is the same as it has always been. Content. But rather than you producing the content, it is the consumer’s content that you want. Our put another way, their data. Their tweets, their photos, their purchase history, and social relationships. Once you know what they are about, then you can communicate with them in a useful manner. This is how you create value for your customers and build long-term relationships.

To achieve this, the old buzz words still apply. Transparency and trust. Consumers have the control because they are the owners of the data. So the best strategy is to give them more control. By giving control to consumers, we have seen the advent of citizen journalism and brand advocacy. Citizen journalism has helped significantly to bring down governments (Egypt, Tunisia) and brand advocacy is the “sweet-spot” for e-tailers or indeed anyone with a brand. Through working with audiences more effectively, the results have been tremendous.

Those brands who have achieved success have given up some control, in order to gain a voice and social influence. They have basically put people before technology. All brands should follow suit.

Top-level domain names:

From January 2013, companies will be able to apply for a customised internet name. For example we could apply for .morellodigital, Virgin for .virgin etc. This frees companies up from the current restrictions of .com and .net, among others.

In terms of creating these “top-level domain names” costs are expected to be a whopping $500,000, including a $185,000 application fee.

Nor is this going to be confined to companies. Cities (London – .london or New York .nyc) can take advantage of this new opportunity as well.

Costs are a concern:

Although the costs for small businesses clearly will not be as high, this does constitute as an extra cost. And potentially businesses will be left with no choice but to buy the domain relevant to them. Purchasing and owning a new top-level domain name will be much cheaper than a protracted legal battle with a cybersquatter.

Cybersquatters excited by the potential:

Cybersquatters are the term coined for those people that buy up domain names speculatively in the hope that they can resell to those that actually need at a profit. It is surprising that this practice is allowed to go on so freely, given that it effectively holds businesses to ransom. These opportunists can name their price when it comes to selling the domains. Sky for example, would not be able to operate as effectively with anything other than Sky.com as their domain. They could but any other term is not as relevant. So if you owned the domain 15 yrs ago, you could name your price!

Going to the highest bidder:

Another potential flaw in this new opportunity is that it has been decided that ownership of popular names will be decided by auction. So not only will the costs potentially be sky-high, but somewhat farcically, you may be stripped of the opportunity to own the domain name most relevant to your business.