A quick round-up of stuff we liked on the interweb this week, including M&S, Glassholes, Being interesting, virtual changing rooms, and lots of data… but first:
We’re giving a talk at Bedford College! It’s on 26th Feb, about the Connected Consumer & Responsive Web Design. Come and join us. It’s free.
Design for the Connected Consumer
If you check out one thing this week:
A Pants Website
Two years in the making, Marks & Spencer launched a spanking new website this week. Reportedly optimised for tablet (40% of M&S traffic is tablet based) with content curation of editorial, beautiful imagery, the new M&S is still the most reliable place to buy your underwear. The content is supposed to give the site a magazine-like feel and should keep people on the site for longer while changes to the purchase paths seem to make buying easier, but we’re not sure about the UX. We’ll give it about 8 weeks and check it again to see what’s been dropped and changed (by the way, the featured image is St Michael, the brand name for M&S goods and patron saint of wool cardigans).
Other stuff we liked:
13% of UK has never been online
It’s easy to forget that web access is not as universal as we like to think. This report looks into the number of adults that have never gone online and the complex and mixed reasons behind it.
Glassholes
More and more stories are appearing of people getting thrown out of cinemas, filming in dubious circumstances or using Google Glass while driving. It took a while but Google has finally responded by publishing a list of Do’s and Don’ts for Google Glass wearers.
The Big Smartphone Market Share Data Roundup
Lies, damn lies & smartphone market share data. Nielsen, Comscore, Netbiscuits, CIRP…There so many sources of mobile and market share data, using different criteria from surveys to shipments & traffic data that’s it’s impossible to give an authoritative answer. The link below provides a selection of these reports, sources and their most recent numbers so you can compare and make your own mind up.
Become a brand people listen to
If you only ever talk about yourself, people quickly get bored of listening to you. Some good insight into content marketing and general social marketing. Listen well, so that people can speak and speak well, so that people will listen.
eBay Acquires 3-D Virtual Try-On Technology
eBay have bought a 3D company with the technology to map clothing onto virtual bodies, complete with accurate hanging and physics.
eBay Report on the Super Shopper (AKA the Connected Consumer )
With the caveat that the article linked below may have fallen for some over zealous interpretation, the underlying data is taken from an eBay report and shows the continued shift in consumer behaviour towards researching on third party sites and ZMOT influenced purchasing patterns.