Please welcome this week's guest blogger: Lorenz Jakober, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Akamai Technologies. Responsible for the product marketing of Akamai's Aqua product line, Jakober brings a wealth of experience focused on web and mobile application design, performance optimization, usability, and delivery. Prior to joining Akamai Technologies he drove mobile product marketing strategy and the complexity at the edge theme for Compuware Gomez. This is part two of a two-part blog post from Lorenz.

Now let’s focus on how to create engaging, holistic experiences across your different channels. In particular the digital experiences inside and outside your stores. We know that end-users have high expectations when it comes to web and mobile experiences. In fact, Akamai commissioned Forrester to conduct some end-user research back in 2009 and asked consumers how fast do they expect a website to load on their PC? 47% said 2 seconds or less.

In 2011 another company asked the same question but of smartphone users – how fast do you expect a website to load on your smartphone? 34% said 2 seconds or less.

Please welcome this week's guest blogger: Lorenz Jakober, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Akamai Technologies. Responsible for the product marketing of Akamai's Aqua product line, Jakober brings a wealth of experience focused on web and mobile application design, performance optimization, usability, and delivery. Prior to joining Akamai Technologies he drove mobile product marketing strategy and the complexity at the edge theme for Compuware Gomez. This is part one of a two-part blog post from Lorenz.

We all know digital commerce is evolving. It used to be pretty simple. A person would visit your ecommerce web application from her PC over a wired connection. You probably had to support one, maybe two browsers. The world has changed. No longer do consumers shop only from their desks. We have entered the age of couch commerce, showrooming and price check apps on mobile devices.

In fact, the Internet and mobile devices in particular have changed our lives – including how we shop. As Charles Golvin from Forrester likes to point out: We no longer go online – we are online. And this trend is only going to accelerate in the coming years – in fact analysts like Mary Meeker predict that for the first time in 2013 the installed base for smartphones and tablets will exceed PCs. This is not tablet and smartphone shipments – that was surpassed in Q4 2010 – this is the number of devices in the hands of actual end- users.

On February 1st, MITX hosted the second annual "What's Next" e-Commerce Summit, exploring today's customer journey. These are the tweets and the hottest topics of conversation from the event:

FutureM, the weeklong event experience on the future of Marketing, today announced eleven new session topics and meet-up leaders focused on digital media, mobile and e-commerce for its national fall event. Today’s session leaders include:

FutureM, a weeklong event experience on the future of Marketing, today unveiled its 2012 schedule of sessions, with more sessions and sponsors being added on a daily basis. Participating companies and attendees, including SCVNGR, Google, CampusLIVE, Hubspot, etc., will facilitate discussions and discovery about the future of Marketing, including:

Get to know a MITX member! This month we're featuring Staples.

1. Tell us what’s new at Staples.

We recently announced that we’ll be opening an E-Commerce Innovation Center in Cambridge this spring. The office will house teams responsible for designing and implementing innovative new e-commerce solutions for the millions of business customers who shop Staples websites and stores. We’re adding IT, product management, usability and creative positions as we continue to invest in the multi-channel customer experience across mobile devices, desktops and stores. We’ve said publicly that we’re looking to triple the size of our e-commerce and IT teams for Staples.com in the next three years. Tasked with that, we knew that opening an office in Cambridge, a hub of innovation, with both world-class universities and technology companies, would attract some of the world’s best e-commerce talent with the goal of rapidly bringing breakthrough new ideas to market in emerging online technologies like mobile commerce and social media.

Here are the best blog posts & tweets from the first ever E-Commerce Summit! Scroll through and see what people were saying.

A Tale of Two (E-Commerce) Retailers - by Chris Fletcher, Research Director, Gartner
Perspectives on the E-Commerce Summit - an Event Recap - by Mina Hsiang, Associate, General Catalyst Partners

Guest post by Mina Hsiang. Mina is an associate with General Catalyst Partners in Cambridge and a current member of the MITX Future Leaders Group.

As I sat in the sold-out MITX e-commerce event, I couldn't help thinking to myself "This is about everything but the commerce!" No one was discussing transactions. No one was talking about how to manage payment systems.  People talked about social media, e-mail, reviews, comparisons, a volunteer marketing army!  So I looked up the word commerce, and this is the definition I found:

com•merce/ˈkämərs/
Noun:    1.  The activity of buying and selling, esp. on a large scale.
2.  Social dealings between people.
    
I immediately saw where my expectations had been wrong. In fact, I now think e-commerce is finally coming of age; it is truly becoming commerce instead of just shopping.  

Get to know a MITX member! This month we're featuring e-Dialog.



1. How was e-Dialog founded, and what inspired its creation?

e-Dialog was founded in 1997. The original founder was Bill Herp, a serial entrepreneur, motivated by technology and new opportunities around that technology - originally focused around email. It grew quickly initially, but had to retrench during the dot-com bust of the early 2000s, going from 200 employees to 50. The company raised $20 million in venture capital and quickly grew to 400 employees and was acquired by GSI Commerce in 2008, which was acquired by eBay Inc. in 2011. Today e-Dialog is a leading provider of multichannel digital marketing solutions for some of the world’s most recognized brands, with over 400 people in 6 locations through the U.S., Europe and Asia Pacific.

2. What makes e-Dialog different than other companies in your market space?

It has to be our strong core foundation in email marketing combined with backing from ecommerce power houses like GSI Commerce and eBay that is enabling us to extend beyond email and provide digital marketers with an end-to-end platform for multichannel customer engagement. As the “hub” for digital communication, our open platform allows digital marketers to quickly analyze data, make decisions, and target and refine consumer experiences seamlessly across channels.

   Guest post by Brian Tilzer, VP, Staples.com, E-commerce and   
   Business Development

I work in e-commerce for Staples, the second largest e-tailer in the world, so it may not come as a surprise to you that I’m crazy about technology. I love reading up on (and usually buying) the latest in personal tech.

Mobile technology has a very special place in my heart. I’m always on a mobile device of some sort, whether it’s my iPhone or a tablet. It’s my constant companion piece. As a huge New York Giants fan (I know that’s heresy here in New England but it’s the truth), I love that I can still keep up with the game or listen to New York sports radio, all through my mobile phone. When I am at home, I can turn to my tablet to get the latest stats from the game whenever I want.

In essence, the things that I love about my mobile devices (the ability to do research, access to news and info on the go) are the same things that make mobile so important to businesses in today’s society. Mobile is an inherently cross-channel tool that can provide value to your customers. Even though we’re not necessarily seeing mobile users purchasing as much on the go, we’re definitely seeing them using mobile as a research tool. It really is a cross-channel enhancer. Many of the e-mails that we send to our Staples customers are opened on a mobile device.