EConsultancy has a great post on why retailers need effective feature filtering.
I know a lot of people are unfamiliar with this concept, and it goes by other names as well (most notably: “guided navigation.”) The non-obvious benefit of this type of technology (supplied by industry leaders as Endeca In-Front, Right Now Technologies, and IBM Omnifind) is that it can effectively turn a search utility on your site into a strategic selling platform. Search becomes more than something users expect and can instead provide them with an unexpected and delightful brand experience.
I’ve often lamented that in while in offline retail environments, you can directly observe user behavior (through retail anthropology techniques a la Paco Underhill’s Envirosell), you couldn’t do the same thing in online stores.
I was then delighted to see Eyetracking technology evolve enough to be used for online retail. And now, the “circle is complete” as Path Intelligence Monitors Foot Traffic in Retail Stores By Pinging People’s Phones.
Creepy? Absolutely. Innovative and useful? No doubt.
While a single shopper’s specific path through a store may be information as trivial as “who is David Thiel’s favorite band” the aggregation of this information through an ambient method like Path Intelligence can lead to all sorts of data driven commerce strategies. This automatic collection of ambient information (vs. the self-promotional blogging/tagging/posting requirements of Web 2.0) is my vote for Web 3.0.
Exciting stuff.
This is the first article I’ve seen addressing RSS feeds for marketers… and it’s a good one. Via Linda Bustos at (always excellent) Get Elastic: RSS Marketing for Ecommerce - Get Elastic Ecommerce Blog
These customer reviews of the classic Bic Crystal ballpoint pen are not to be missed.
Enjoy 
