Inline, Online, Off

Your Very Own QVC? V-Commerce Is Heeeere

And there you were thinking F-commerce was de rigueur… While setting up shop on Facebook is yet to yield major sales for most merchandisers, verified YouTube publishers will soon be able to sell via the Merch Store and this, quite frankly, makes a lot more sense from a consumer mindset standpoint. 

Merch Store was initially rolled out in partnerships with music distributors and start-ups like iTUnes and the particularly fabulous Topspin. But according to AuctionBytes, “Over the next few months, YouTube publishers will see a new tab on their channel called “Store,” where they can choose merchandise to showcase to their viewers. “You’ll need to have an account with each company to list products on your channel, and clicking on the product will take you to the site where it’s for sale.”

So, while it won’t open up major new revenue channels for most beauty and apparel designers and bloggers, the bigger publishers (think: Glam, Gilt, Hearst, Conde et al) should be eyeing this very closely. When you couple existing behaviors around things like haul videos and styling how-tos with the ability to sell within the experience, I predict video commerce is going to significantly up the ante on commerce-driven-content. 

And if you’re a VC or you’re working at a start-up e-tailer or fashion site, I’d start loading up my basket with some of these eggs. 

Wearable Tech: Taking High Tech to the Highstreet

Everyone agrees that  wearables will transform our lives in numerous ways, trivial and substantial, and as I discussed last month, it’s clear Why Google Must Start Working With Gucci. Now the good people at Forrester have been following the subject, too, evaluating what it will take to elevate these accessories from niche to mainstream. 

Citing apps, platforms, the role of the quantified self, and other intelligent systems, check out the summary at AllThingsD: Wearable Devices: How Geeky Glasses and Wristbands Will Move Mainstream.

We Need to Set Some Human Interface Guidelines

yes and yes dbreunig:

Select Gizmodo articles from the past 3 days:

• “Super Creepy Stalker App Puts Names and Faces of ‘Girls Around Me’ on a Map”
• “This Super Face-Scanning Software Thinks It Can Guess Your Age”
• “Here’s a Website That Lets Sad Guys Pay Girls to Do Girlfriendish Things for Them”
• “Posters That React to Being Kissed Are the Worst Posters”

reblogged from dbreunig

Consumers Creating Their Own Multichannel Experiences

That’s the key takeaway from this PwC survey, as outlined by MediaPost: Even With Social, Stores Aren’t Keeping Up. 

Retailers are losing loyalty due to their inability to create a connective experience. So why is that?

It’s obvious that most stores know they need to anticipate shopper needs long before they walk into the store but are the stores even close to understanding what those needs are?

From what I have seen and heard, the way the retailers are organized may be at the heart of the problem. For instance, those weekly social media reports created by the digital team may not ever make it to the merch guy or the buyer. And the mobile trends or SEO reports probably don’t factor into conversations with the architects. 

The way we navigate a website or mobile app has already changed the way we navigate our real-world surroundings. The type of information we know we need from a person vs. a “result” has altered our tendency to ask for that information. Our need-set continues to shift, dramatically, and our expectations of experiences are undergoing major change. 

But these seemingly lofty theories aren’t making their way into the board rooms, nevermind the shop floors of most businesses. The handful of organizations that are prepared to stop thinking of “digital” as a department will be the ones that thrive. 

Why Google Must Start Working With Gucci

A headline like “Fashion’s Stake In The Future Of Tech,” will only play to certain rooms; and headlines like that did play to packed rooms at The Driskill during this year’s spring break for geeks, SxSW Interactive. Fashionably Marketing (@InsideFMM) put together a list of must-attend events, most of which were paneled by print editors making their way into digital, and agency people helping brands develop apps, Facebook pages and content strategies. As a result most of the talks focused on websites, social media, and advertising. 

What was missing from the list was Amber Case’s keynote. Billed as: UX designer Amber Case will share insights from her research in cyborg anthropology and talk about what really makes us human, I get that sounds a little geeky. OK a lot geeky. And while the talk wasn’t necessarily focused on fashion’s future, Case’s keynote had a lot to do with fashion. Of course, what she calls “wearable technology” isn’t likely to get the fashionistas and ad women kicking off their Louboutins to race over to the convention center. 

As a futurist, looking for hints at what we’ll be doing and buying in 40 years time, Case talked about our detachable brains (smart phones) and digital wayfinding belt buckles, location-based/head-mounted cameras and data filters on glasses and eyeballs. She introduced the crowd to some eccentric artists and scientists who’ve spent decades prototyping all this cumbersome tech noting, “Eventually they’ll make us look cooler than we are versus very strange looking. And until that happens, it’s going to be difficult to wear glasses that give you information.”

Case in point: Google’s augmented reality glasses, which are apparently shipping by the end of this year and will look something like Oakley’s mp3 playing Thump sunglasses. 

Umm, honey, hate to tell you but those are so not cute. You rock up in a pair of these and you’re either an off duty Navy SEAL or Dog the Bounty Hunter. 

Of Microsoft’s prototype for a shoulder-mounted multitouch projector, this blogger wrote, “This is just an early look at what might be part of our everyday garb in the future. When you think about it, everything has been turned into high-tech, with the exception of clothing.”

Perhaps more recently in the technological revolution, the fashion industry has made strides on the software side (as exemplified by the content of this year’s SxSW panels). But the business has been largely absent from hardware. Sure, you see designers making custom laptop skins and wraps for phones; fashion houses churn out custom cases, purses, and holders for all these various devices but to go back to Amber Case’s point, unless Tom Ford or Stella McCartney has a seat at the table with Google, IBM or Microsoft, all this breakthrough wearable technology is going to struggle at shelf. 

It’s fair to argue that apparel and accessories designers are involved in development but they’re often indie houses or artists with neither good PR nor mass appeal. And shoes that check you in to places or so-called ‘smart garments’ have largely been the domain of men’s athletic wear or marketing stunts designed by agencies. 

If we are to be adorned in dreams and devices, and the fashion industry’s brand marketers continue to make SoLoMo (2.0 software) cool, events like SxSW and its geekier counterparts should design tracks where fashion and tech can truly collaborate.

To really drive desire and generate the kind of consumer excitement that trickles down from runway to Soho, to malls and Main Street — and incidentally back to Wall Street — big tech companies need big fashion brands.