by Angie Sandy
Whether you’ve been an internet entrepreneur for quite some time or are just getting into the world of online business there are a few things that every business website must have to both attract and keep customers.
A Memorable Customer Experience
A fantastic customer experience is paramount to a great and profitable website. How do you create that fantastic experience? First and foremost, in order to make a decision to buy anything, your customers need to be able to find what theyre looking for quickly and easily. Make sure all your information is right up front and easy to find.
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The House of Representatives defeated the digital TV delay bill with a 258-168 vote that failed to secure the two thirds needed for passage. The vote closely followed party lines with 155 Republicans voting against the bill and 22 Republicans voting for it. Amongst House Democrats, 236 voted for the bill and a mere 13 voted against it. The defeat signaled a win for House republicans who have opposed the delay, claiming the four month delay would further confuse consumers, cause an unnecessary delay for companies and public safety agencies waiting for the spectrum to be released and burden TV companies with the additional cost of broadcasting both analog and digital signals during the four month delay. The defeat is a setback for the Obama administration and congressional democrats who believe that the current resources to assist people in the digital TV transition are in a state of disarray and are concerned that the public, particularly poor, rural and low-income Americans, will not be adequately prepared when the analog air waves are turned off on February 17th. The Obama administration and congressional democrats still claim to be exploring all options to secure another vote on this issue.
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It’s no secret that 2008 wasn’t kind to most major corporations around the world. Unfortunately, as the year-end reports have been trickling in over the last couple of days, we’ve gotten a healthy look at just how bad many of our favorites fared. While T-Mobile has yet to release their actual financials, we’ll have to wait until the 27th of February for that pleasure, the company has gone ahead and released its subscriber stats for the 4th Quarter of 2008. During Q4 the company added 621,000 new customers. Progress is something, but compare this to the 671,000 added during Q3 2008, as well as the whopping 951,000 added during Q4 2007, and the picture gets a bit more bleak. New contract additions were up 43%, compared to 44% in Q3 and 77% in Q4 2007. Blended churn was up just a bit at 3.3% compared to 3% in Q3 and 2.8% in Q4 2007, but it looks like the company is doing a decent job retaining its meager customer base. At the end of the day, we can probably chalk much of this up to the economy at large, but it’s still a bit disheartening to read yet another example of our financial woes. On the other hand, T-mobile seems relatively optimistic about their prospects in the coming year, given plans for an increased 3G footprint, coupled with a lower-than-average pricing and new device introductions. We’re not so sure this is terribly realistic, but we’ve got a whole year ahead for them to prove us wrong.
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While S60 fans here in the US anxiously await the arrival of AT&T’s E71x, provided they haven’t already bought and sold their E71 months ago, Nokia is getting ready to push out the color refresh we caught wind of last month. The E71 page on Nokia’s site now includes a fresh Flash banner front and center that proudly showcases the new red / silver and black color choices. The online shop still limits purchase options to silver or white, though we imagine that will soon change once stock is received. Lack of any indication on Nokia’s US site leads us to believe the new colors will apply to the European variant only, but you never know. While the red / silver version is a tad too, umm, spicy for our taste, the black version definitely has some appeal. AT&T seems to agree, as its E71x looks to have opted for the darker garb. Hopefully we see some movement from AT&T soon because new details on the E71x’s arrival has been scarce since the user manual made a brief appearance on Nokia’s site earlier this month.
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We can’t 100% verify the legitimacy of this bit of intel, but everything looks believable enough to warrant just a wee bit of excitement. The folks over at HipTop3 have uncovered what looks to be a spec sheet for an upcoming Sidekick model. The Sidekick LX 2009 sports a number of features that the Danger faithful have been clamouring after for years, including GPS for turn-by-turn directions and…wait for it…a 3G-capable radio. While the inclusion of a 3G radio isn’t exactly revolutionary in this day and age, it’s certainly a first for the Sidekick family, and it’s something that many have seen as a deal breaker as folks have been fleeing the Sidekick ship for more data-friendly waters over the past couple years. Other improvements include the conspicuous presence of Microsoft Outlook/Exchange support, which could signal the Sidekick’s first foray into the corporate workplace. Then again, imagining a legion of suits carrying Sidekicks is a bit hard to stomach, though we suppose anything is possible. If this document is correct, other features for the Sidekick LX 2009 will include:
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Apparently i-mate will be among the companies trying to make waves at next month’s Mobile World Congress and from the sound of things, we could be in for a surprise – or another big let down. Crediting a PR firm as its source, msmobiles revealed that i-mate is preparing to unveil and new handset at MWC and it looks to be putting all of its eggs in one basket.
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Nokia announced on Thursday three new handsets all falling under its classic line. Expanding upon its mid-range mass market appeal, the Nokia 6700, 6303 and 2700 classics are all feature phones that add a good amount of style to Nokia’s portfolio without compromising functionality. The smooth and slim 6700 candybar features a full metal keypad, 5 megapixel camera, aGPS, Nokia Maps support and high speed data access. It will retail for a cool €235 ($310) before taxes and subsidies. Next in line is the Nokia 6303, a phone that is not a step up but a step sideways from the Nokia 6300. The 6303 sheds the metallic adornment of its richer cousin and features a 3.2 megapixel camera, 2.2″ display touted by Nokia as being “large”, Nokia Maps support, “excellent” battery life and a 3.5mm jack. The 6303 will retail for €135 ($177) before taxes and subsidies. Last but not least is the Nokia 2700, an entry-level handset for the budget-minded individual. The ultra-affordable Nokia 2700 will set you back a mere €65 ($85) before taxes and subsidies and features a 2MP camera, 2GB of internal storage via the memory card slot, integrated music player and full support of Nokia’s Share on Ovi online service. All three handsets are expected to ship in Q2 2009.
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According to iSuppli, the cool cats that live to shed insight on the total dollar value of components in electronic devices, RIM’s BlackBerry Storm has about $203 worth of mediocrity jammed into its bulky frame. Want some specifics? $15 for the SurePress screen, $35 for the Qualcomm MSM7600 and $13 for the 3.2 megapixel shooter. $203 might not sound like too much, but it’s significantly more than the $169 of the Bold or the $174 of the iPhone 3G when you consider how many of these things are being churned out. Now we’re not too sure how these three phones would rank if we were to include the money spent on R&D, shipping, packaging, training, patents, etc, etc, into the costs of each handset, but we’re willing to wager that the Storm would be a pretty strong candidate for number one given that RIM shifted its entire focus this year from the Bold to the Storm and has spent vast sums of money on advertising and lavish launch parties. The silver lining? As time goes on RIM will be able to save a lot in production costs considering how many Storms were (allegedly) returned in the infancy of its life cycle thus giving them a vast supply of refurbs. And cue iPhone vs Storm nerd fight part MCCXLIV in the comments.
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No, it’s not exactly a mystery that the world can expect Apple to release the third iteration of its iPhone this Summer. A little hint of confirmation here and there never hurt anyone however, and it looks like Macrumors dug up a nice little morsel present in 2.2.1 and even earlier builds of 2.x firmware. A string of code refers to a new iPhone model, iPhone2,1, and identifies the new handset with product ID 4756 and vendor ID 1452. The current iPhone 3G is referred to as iPhone1,2 in firmware so this is clearly a different beast. Is this really worth mentioning, you might ask? Well, you may recall back in July when mention of a new iPod Touch was discovered in much the same way – that panned out pretty well and you can expect this to do the same. Beyond the mention in Apple’s firmware, an anonymous iPhone developer using PinchMedia to serve ads noticed a new category, iPhone2,1, in a recent report. We expect plenty more light to be shed on Apple’s upcoming third-generation iPhone before its release in June or July, but it’s always nice to be reminded that it’s on the way. Other than copy/paste, what are you guys looking forward to most from a new iPhone? Hit the jump for the PinchMedia chart showing the iPhone2,1 as being among the handsets viewing ads.
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Whew. About a month ago, a German group by the name of Chaos Computer Club exposed a vulnerability in Nokia’s S60 handsets that allowed attackers to remotely disable messaging by simply sending a string of specifically formatted SMS messages. Dubbed the Curse of Silence, Chaos Computer Club responsibly contacted Nokia and carriers long before releasing details to the public and while some carriers responded immediately, Nokia apparently hung back for a while as it prepared a fix. S60 users whose carriers weren’t among the responsible few that addressed the issue need not worry as Nokia as finally released a cleanup tool, free of charge of course, that will repair any device affected by the exploit. While a preventative solution would have been preferable, something is better than nothing and the fix is confirmed to work. If you found yourself the victim of a CoS attack hit the read link, follow the simple instructions and you should be back in action in no time.
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