The BBC has reported from Silicon Valley the next stage in online communities is exclusivity. Following on from a report by HP researcher, Bernardo Huberman, they both talk about the amount of information and groups which is freely accessible to everyone on the internet.

“Everybody has access to the same kind of information and the same array of products,” he said. “Those who manage to convince you to part with a lot of money in exchange for being exclusive, feeling different, and feeling part of an elite group are the ones that are going to make it.”

I think this is a valid point. As consumers expect a level of free stuff from the internet, they are finding out most of it is garbage, which will condition them into thinking they will have to pay for quality.

Read the full article here

Worried about the Hadron Collider?

Those mischievous chaps over at SEO Black Hat have written about Google’s black hole. A very real phenomena that happens frequently. It’s not what you think either, not about being page 1 one day and no-where to be found the next, although that too happens a lot. No, this is about the power of authority sites and how they dominate 70% of the top rankings.

Read the article here http://seoblackhat.com/2008/09/08/black-hole-seo/

Myer, David Jones and Target have been beaten to the world of online shopping by an overseas department store. JCPenney, the US department store, has setup shop in Australia – not physically but online.

It’s an odd move, considering they don’t have a bricks and mortar shop here, and even more odd is all their sizing is in inches. What the? Having obviously spent a considerable sum of money on an Australian online store they couldn’t scrape together another $10 to convert the sizing to centimeters?

Anyway, I’m going shopping now … www.jcpenney.com.au

p.s. Actually not, the shoes I want are $18, the freight charge is $29 and the handling charge is $10. Mmm…how do all those people on eBay do it?