by Andrew Chau

I have to admit that Amazon never stops innovating. This week, they launched the trade-in feature on their website. Gamers can now trade in their used software (it has to be in good condition) and receive credit. GameStop has a similar program, but I think Amazon’s platform is much more user-friendly. I just read an interesting article about it on CNNMoney. You can easily search the games you want to trade in and find it’s trade price. When they go in, they go hard.

Amazon’s strategy is rather brilliant. They are inching their way into the used market. They initially stepped into the used good business with the Auction/zSellers but I guess only zSellers (aka marketplace or third-party merchants) took off. I recently bought a used textbook from a zSeller and I was extremely satisfied! Now, someone can buy used video games from Amazon with the comfort of knowing its Amazon’s “owned” inventory.

First, Endless vs. Zappos. Now, onto GameStop.

I remember in college, I wrote a short column about how much I admired Jeff Bezos .. I think I still do!

by Andrew Chau

I read an interesting column about the corporate culture in Southwest and Wal-Mart. I love how the columnist gives a more personal perspective about how each figureheads’ iconic company reflected personal conviction.

On a side note, the team is heavy into development over the next few weeks, so the blog posts will be more sporadic. I have several “The Spin” entries in the queue– it looks like other e-tailers like Dell and Best Buy are implementing product rotation into their web experience. It’s really exciting!

I read a great article on branding today. I agree with the writer’s perspective on the emotional part of branding. I still think there are concrete metrics out there to measure one’s affinity with a product, but you can’t discount the qualitative aspect of branding. I use Heinz only because my parents use it. I tried using other ketchups and they all somehow tasted funny.

by Aaron Rau

As some of you have noticed, we’ve recently migrated over from CacheFly to CloudFront. It was a big decision for us– after all, content delivery is core to our product. We will spare you the details exactly why we transitioned, but I will highlight some of the major factors of our CDN decision. Perhaps this may help you out too!

Our Initial Take

Ackamai, Limelight, Level 3, Edgecast, Pantherexpress, SimpleCDN, CacheFly, Amazon ( CloudFront ) are definitely contenders when considering which CDN to use. Pricing and contracts ranges from $2000+/month to ~$20/month depending on bandwidth and storage. But the million-dollar question is, which one is the best for cash-strapped startups or even cash-strapped companies? Ackamai, Limelight, Level 3Edgecast, Pantherexpress are definite first round cuts. These companies target mid-size to large enterprises and are extremely expensive for their service contracts. Also it’s often difficult get a quote if you’re a startup and looking to shop by price. SimpleCDN, CacheFly and Amazon (CloudFront) are priced very competitively and can grow with your business if you’re thinking about hosting just image, video or audio files without worry too much about securing the content. CacheFly and SimpleCDN make it extremely easy to upload files using FTP, perfect for a small to midsize e-commerce or promotional sites at $15/month or less. Amazon (CloudFront) is great if you have the time and programming resources to leverage their name brand for SAAS reliability. Keep in mind that your content is often fluid and it’s not difficult to change CDN mid-stream if a central repository is created in the beginning. Ultimately, pricing and timing are crucial factors to picking the correct partners. Amazon hasn’t quite gotten their with their setup / signup process. CacheFly and SimpleCDN on the otherhand are very quick and easy to setup.

Why Cloudfront?

As mentioned earlier, we still went with Amazon’s Cloudfront. There are many factors that went into the decision, but it basically came down to value. It’s reliability without the frills and for many startups, that’s what we need. Obviously, there are more technical and UI issues involved here, but I want to keep the recommendation short and simple.

Hope that helps everyone!

by Andrew Chau

As an undergraduate, I wrote a guest column in our school’s paper about one of my favorite CEOs, Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon.com.  I won’t bore you with his visionary ideas, but I will focus on his central theme of data mining.  I’m sure “data mining” is an overused term now, but a decade ago, the term was only used in inner loyalty marketing circles and old-fashioned database marketing companies.  Fast forward into 2009, marketers cannot envision a world without data mining.  Basing decisions off of intuition or competitive analysis is no longer acceptable.

I stumbled across this cheesy video below while working on my SAS know-how.  I am far from an expert in SAS, but I know enough about SAS to understand how businesses can use it to model trends.  It’s simply amazing.

I know I am a bit bias because I myself am a database marketer by trade, but I think a world without marketing analytics is a world walking blind.  Having worked at and worked with dozens of companies, I get the impression that the truly effective ones mine their data very well.  That is why we at Vergence stress analytics so much.  Information is a currency.  You can buy predicted behavior as easily as you can buy a soft drink at a vending machine.  If you believe there are large mathmatical laws governing our world, then you should live and die by analytics.  Imagine a world where direct mail is even more untargeted.  Or if companies like Amazon did not build their marketing messages around relevance.  It would be a very cluttered and distracting world.

I think analytics are often de-prioritized when companies look for ways to trim the fat.  I think it hurts companies in the long-run.  By having a good customer intelligence infrastructure, companies can actually save more money because they have better targeting and optimize each vehicle’s potential for success.  While it’s probably too late for companies that are slow to build a CRM database, I think those that are sitting on a wealth of data are passing up a golden opportunity to compete.  That is why we hope to apply this more of this philosophy at Vergence.

If you want to see what data mining means for our platform, shoot us an email and we can chat.

The team came back together last week from a short Holiday break and excitement is in the air!  We’re getting ready to shoot our video demo this week and we hope to have a rough cut up by the end of the month.  We’re also about to roll out a beta release feature that will rock our platform.

Tomorrow will be an historic day, so it’s natural to feel a bit introspective about “change.” It’s amazing to think how much has changed over the past century.  We have grown so much as a society in a few, short decades. I see a lot of progress even with the way we communicate. As an undergrad, I was fascinated with technology and communications (I still am). I wanted to always be on the cusp of technological and social change. At Vergence, I feel we are contributing our own unique set of skills in developing a more relevant world. The way we shop and interact with physical objects will indelibly fixed in the new marketplace. I can’t wait!

by Andrew Chau

We don’t like to play favorites here at Vergence, BUT we do give major props when it’s well deserved. The Ocarina app on the iPhone is impressive. While I do love my LG Dare (outdated, I know), I am occasionally envious of iPhone users for this simple reason: all the best apps are on the iPhone! Aaron is the only member of our team that has an iPhone, so I’ll have to continue pestering him to use it.

Ocarina, for those who don’t follow iJustine (hello Justine, great reviews at CES!), is an app for the iPhone that imitates an instrument (an ocarina, as made famous by the Zelda games). Justine posted a recent video of her experience at the Smule booth, which is pretty funny. The Mule is an interesting character. We want to meet him, but he’s probably too cool for us with his white hat (hit us up Mule, we’re in the Bay Area). Smule makes good apps, but Ocarina is just plain awesome. It’s on the cusp of a tipping point (if it isn’t past it already)– there’s videos all over YouTube featuring everyday people playing songs on Ocarina. Very cool.

Ocarina is worth the $.99. You can’t even buy your recorder from fourth grade for 99 cents! Plus, you can connect with a global community. Pretty sweet for something so simple.

We’ve been talking about a possible foray into the app world, but we haven’t found the right concept with our Free Form Rotation technology yet. If you have any ideas, pass them along. Maybe you can help bring Vergence Media to Mobile 2.0.

I leave you with the theme of my all-time favorite video game theme.

We’re following CES all this week. The team couldn’t make it out this year, but come 2010, we’ll be there!

Amazing. I won’t even attempt at breaking this down.

Google Hacks the Wii Balance Board

by Andrew Chau

We’re sorry for being MIA over the past couple of weeks. Vergence Media is back for an interesting 2009!

This year, we hope to make our biggest leap yet. We can’t divulge too much just yet, but we’re gearing up for a major release. In the meantime, we started keeping a list of resolutions we hope to plow through. We are probably violating a cardinal rule of business by opening our hand, but that’s how we like to do things here.

Top 7 Vergence Media 2009 Resolutions

1) Launch fully-integrated implementation of Free Form Rotation in a kiosk - trade shows are right around the corner!

2) Optimize platform reporting - this has been on our ad hoc queue for a bit, but we’re getting there!

3) Cut load time for Free Form Rotation technology in half.

4) Scale photo operations by 300%

5) Refresh VergenceMedia.com

6) Figure out what we’re going to do with ProductStory.net

7) Make it to the front page of Digg.com

Let’s see how much we can do!

All,

Thank you all for a great 2008. It was full of milestones and some occasional challenges, but we’re here.

Watch out 2009!

~ Vergence Media Team