The implications of that question might be a little bold today, but not by much.

Think about your normal everyday habits online for a few minutes.

In case you haven’t noticed, your online behavior has changed drastically in just the last couple of years.  How much of your news and information online do you have to GO TO to consume, and how much of your news and information COMES TO YOU?

(...Yes, you ARE very lazy.)

Now think about Facebook’s role in facilitating that “bring it to me” behavior.  How much of all that content being served up to you has Facebook’s fingerprints all over it (…on Facebook.com, on your mobile device, via an aggregation tool like TweetDeck)?

Now that we have established your semi-sad dependence on Mark Zuckerberg, what are some of the things supporting the argument that Facebook is becoming the new Internet?

What does Facebook dominate?

1) Scale

Unless you live in a cave, you are probably aware that Facebook is freaking enormous.

• More than 400 Million active users
• More than 50% active users log in every day
• The average user spends almost one hour per day on FB
• The average user has 130 friends
• More than 3 Million Pages (company, brand, etc.)
• 70% of active users are from outside the United States
• More than 100 Million active users access FB via mobile devices

2) Platform

Facebook can definitely play the role of destination site if you like it that way, but its real power is as a platform.

• More than 500,000 active applications
• More than 80,000 websites have implemented Facebook Connect
• More than 70 languages are supported and over 300,000 users help translate
• More than 60 Million users engage with Facebook Connect on external websites per month

3) Relevance

Facebook offers a degree of relevancy to YOUR content that is hard to match. Ask yourself this question – what is more important to you?

Information that is streamed to you without a filter other than keywords?

OR

Information that is streamed to you that you know is already pre-filtered by what you have chosen to receive along with  information that is shared from within your personal network?

This is about your personal preferences and trust.  Hands down the pre-filtered content will win your loyalty over the long term every time.  Facebook, 1 – Rest of the Internet, 0. Read the rest of this entry »

It is official — Alice.com is the real deal and they can definitely deliver on all the high expectations set by the amazing front end ordering experience that I reviewed in Part One.  They came through on schedule with a very prompt, very free, and very well packed delivery to successfully close out my purchase experience.

If you are just picking up this storyline now, this is Part Two of a two part review of Alice.com is a new online grocery startup that is shaking things up with a very smart business model, a system that automatically locates & applies coupons, and offers FREE SHIPPING as an alluring acquisition play.  If you have not yet read Part One of this review, it focused on a closer description of how Alice.com works as well as the online ordering experience so I suggest you read it first and then read this post so it all makes sense.

In Part One I left things off at the point where I had completed my account setup and online ordering experience.  So, let’s take it from there shall we?

Confirmations

I received the typical email confirmation immediately following my order, and the following day I received another email that notified me that my order had been shipped and provided the tracking number.  Neither of these emails are groundbreaking eCommerce tactics, but they are both crucial post-purchase touchpoints to ensuring the customer feels confident about his/her order accuracy and about the status of shipping. Read the rest of this entry »

Here is a real shocker for you — people prefer to spend their time socializing, sharing, and learning with their peers MUCH more than they do buying things.

That sounds like a fairly simple observation of normal human behavior, but when you consider that these are actually the findings of an ongoing study by Ruder Finn on what motivates people to go online it makes for some very interesting extensions to that finding.

The ongoing research project I am referring to is the Ruder Finn Intent Index, and the results were recently published online in the form of an  interactive tool.  The tool is both aesthetically pleasing and user friendly.  With the exception of research analysts who love their spreadsheets, this approach of showing the data and insights gained is excellent.

Online Imitates Life …sort of

The findings suggest that more than twice as many people go online to socialize (82%) than to engage in business (39%) or to shop (31%).  The tool allows you to view the data for Men, Women, Youth, and Seniors but regardless of the segment variance they all show a significant preference for socializing, connecting, and learning over doing business or shopping online.  This large disparity is definitely newsworthy given that a large percentage of the value of the Internet is typically tied to online ordering/commerce in some form or another. Read the rest of this entry »