A Holiday for the Internet: Cyber Monday

Cyber Monday, a phrase created by the National Retail Federation's Shop.org online-retail unit in 2005, is the day consumers return to work after the Thanksgiving holiday and start shopping online.

Monday consumers responded enthusiastically to online retailers' promotions setting a record for single-day online retail sales spending $733 million (a 21% gain from last year) according to comScore Inc., a market research company that tracks Internet sales and traffic. Forty-four percent of Internet users shopped online Monday, with 60% of dollars spent online coming from work computers.

The number of Cyber Monday buyers rose 38% from a year ago, although the average amount spent per buyer declined 12%. That decline may be attributed to discounts offered by a number of online retailers, as well as the fact that new buyers tend to spend less online than returning buyers.

Top retail web sites included Amazon.com Inc., Wal-Mart Stores Inc., and Target Corp., to name a few. Click here to view the entire report.

Keeping an Eye on the Mobile Web

The mobile web still has a long way to go in this country.

Yes, I wrote about the iPhone being visionary, but while the applications and touch feature are wonderful, there still needs to be improvements for creating an interesting browsing experience. Sunday's New York Times article on the mobile web sparked a ton of blog posts. Scott Karp's article on Publishing 2.0 brings up a good point: dissatisfaction could spur innovation.  Andrea Trasatti offers a great slide show on mobile standards, but states that compliance and innovation is in the horizon. You can see more opinions on the W3C's Mobile Web Initiative website.

So, while your organization or foundation keeps an eye on mobile web advances, check out text-based giving options. Text to Give is a great example of this type of service, as is Justgiving. But, the ROI might not be there yet for your organization (check with your CFO or accountant). The mobile web is still revving up in the United States and your organization will have to be a forerunner with the technology rather than an adapter.

But, keep an eye on it, it's coming.

Care to Comment on That?

By now, you're sick of the phrase Web 2.0. It's the catch-all phrase for a lot of new stuff (and frankly, old stuff) and it gets tossed around like an old rag in conversations. Maybe it has been rendered meaningless to you by now (is it design? social networking? marketing? Of course, for O'Reilly and gang, Web 2.0 is much more about how data is moved around.

IMHO, Web 2.0 really kicked in with blogs and blog comments. The two-way communication between an organization and site visitors is the key factor in defining what is truly Web 2.0. This swung the door open for everything else. The read/write Web is 2.0. Some terminology critics maintain that these tactics and devices have been around forever (including Tim Berners-Lee), so it's not really a 2.0 version of anything that hasn't been done. But now, it is expected that users not only read your materials, they need to offer their perspective, too. And comment tools should be ubiquitous on your website.

OK, maybe not all over your website, your privacy policy or contact page doesn't need user comments. But, you can offer the the chance for comments on pages you might not be thinking about. Do you have a weekly or monthly newsletter? Have you posted the newsletter HTML on the website for casual visitors or for people who just subscribed? Now, just imagine a handy comment tool after each article. If your organization authors its own content for constituents or members, you can solicit comments there, too. Event wrap-ups and campaign material pages also provide great content for comments.

Now, you may think some pages don't apply. You might want to be the perceived expert or though leader on a topic and feel that comments on library articles or position statements would lessen your authority. That's definitely Web 1.0 thinking. If you've read Wikinomics or Naked Conversations, you know that audience collaboration is a new method for success. You should accept those comments and questions as they will help you redefine and strengthen your position. That transparency will help in the eyes of potential constituents or donors.

A great place to get started is to check if your CMS has a comment feature. If not, scour the Web for free tools, usually only takes a small patch of code at the end of a page to get started. Try JS-Kit or Download.com to find a code for your site. And please comment on our blog. We love 'em.

Ron Paul's Haul: Lessons for Online Fundraisers?

The political world was stunned yesterday with the news that Congressman Ron Paul of Texas, a libertarian insurgent who is considered a longshot for the Republican presidential nomination by the mainstream press, had raised a forehead-smacking $4.2 million online in little over 24 hours from a whopping 35,000 donors. To recap: casting his 5th of November online fundraising plea as a not-subtle Guy Fawkes attack on the entrenched political powers in his own party, Paul's campaign raised what his campaign calls "the largest single-day online primary fundraising effort by a presidential candidate in United States election history."

It really is amazing, considering the decentralized, open-sourced, viral nature of the campaign - and I think there's a lesson in there somewhere for nonprofit fundraising. The entire campaign was choreographed by a volunteer, Trevor Lyman, according to The Politico:

Lyman, who’d never contributed to a politician before Paul, doesn’t fit into either category.

The co-owner of a company that promotes musicians on the web, he saw a video online proposing someone gather pledges from Paul’s legions of Internet followers, to be contributed through Paul’s campaign website on Monday, Nov. 5

He bought the domain name ThisNovember5th.com and launched the site Oct. 18.

“There’s no officialness about it in any sense. It’s just a website that said ‘hey let’s all donate money on this day,’” Lyman said. “And once the banners were in place and people could start spreading links, it just propagated virally. And that’s really it.”

Paul campaign spokesman Jesse Benton said the campaign did not coordinate with Lyman but was aware of his efforts, which Paul piggybacked on as Nov. 5 approached.

Could committed volunteers operating semi-independently from major organizations and causes really blow the doors off online fundraising (not to mention list-building)? I think so. Political fundraising isn't the same, of course, as charity fundraising but the basic techniques online can be similar and they do boil down to an effective case, good timing, ease of use, and list-building. We'll be watching the Ron Paul campaign for more developments.

Online? You’re Not Alone.

When Harris Interactive, a market research firm, first began tracking online use among adults in 1995, the group found that only 9% of the population—or 17.5 million—said they went online.

Today, according to a new Harris Poll, four out of five U.S. adults now go online. The survey found that 79% of adults—about 178 million—go online, spending an average 11 hours a week on the Internet.

The poll also found that adults are spending more time online at home and at work, up two percent each at 72% and 37% respectively, from 2006. More dramatically, 31% of those surveyed said they went online elsewhere, up from 22% in 2006.

"It's not just a laptop or a desktop anymore. How many of these people are using some kind of hand held device for all of their online activity?" said Regina Corso, director of the Harris Poll.

Click here to view the full report.

Could Big Brother Affect Your Housefile?

The Federal Trade Commission wants to crack down on how online advertisers and marketers track people's online activities. (see today's NY Times article). We probably all agree that privacy policies are difficult to read, children should be protected, and most companies are given a pretty free reign on how they track customers. But, this could lead down an iffy road for organizations trying to market their messages or campaigns. Questions abound!

• If consumer groups want to crack down on the amount of information asked in an online form or how they monitor clickpaths, where does that stop?
• How much information can a group ask for? Salary ranges for major donors?  How about employer information for workplace giving? Can source code tracking be an issue?
• While protecting public interest and constituent privacy should be paramount for all organizations, could the FTC crack down and make it possible to grow deep, well-rounded housefiles?
• Can this set a dangerous precedent for online marketing and advertising, even for nonprofits?
• And, shouldn't trust be left up to the company or organization and the person filling out the form?