Futuretail: The Retail Technology Weblog

Netflix 1, Wal-Mart 1/2

Having offered the same basic service (with less selection but lower prices), Wal-Mart has apparently decided that the Netflix DVD rental offering is stronger than its in-house efforts. What's really interesting is that this is the first substantive multi-channel "co-brand" on the Wal-Mart site. Big picture, it sets the stage for a WM acquisition of Netflix, in my opinion. Wal-Mart is clearly making a services play with DVD rental, and it won't let that service operate outside its brand umbrella for too long. Look out Blockbuster....

The future of text messaging: Morse code

Hot on the heels of the announcement that carrier pigeons are faster than DSL at delivering information comes the bombshell result of a contest between a 93-year old telegraph operator and a 13 year old SMS text messager: Morse code is faster than text messaging. What makes this interesting is that it is a powerful story of the importance of interface. A simple telegraph key is much easier to operate than thumbpressing tiny buttons. If you're intrigued by this story, check out "The Victorian Internet", a wonderful book about the parallels between the telegraph and the Internet booms. You'll also note in the article above that the 13 year old was allowed to use SMSlish, while the 93 year old spelled out the entire message properly. So evn f u use bad speling to txt ur pals 2 tel thm wot u r up 2, it wont b ne fstr than ur grndads mrse cod. Damn, I'm getting 3L33T. Word.

Finally, a way to bypass customs (not US, of course)

OK, for any of you who have ever come back from Hawaii with orchids, Hawaiian flowers and seeds for birds of paradise and then needed to go straight to London... now you can send all that stuff from the airport easily, rather than cramming it all into a FedEx envelope. Also useful if you want to keep your lighter rather than ditching it at the TSA checkpoint.

Marks & Sparks and Amazon... Oh My!

OK, so on the surface, this is just another Amazon.com deal... but UK retailer Marks & Spencer has announced that they are partnering with Amazon.com to run their e-commerce operation. Now Marks & Spencer has been ailing a bit lately... well, more than a bit (despite making the world's coolest men's suit) but I don't think e-commerce is going to be a barnburner for them. But if you read the story closely, you'll see that Amazon is going to be handling "in-store and telephone ordering" but M&S is going to still handle warehousing and fulfillment. It will be interesting to see if this deal either A) improves Amazon's ability to do interesting things in stores or B) improves their UK distribution/fulfillment to the point where they take over for other retailers as well. 

Ringtones eclipse online music sales (temporally, not financially...)

For all of you 14 year old girls perfectly balanced normal folks out there who think it is of critical importance to have your phone ring with a perfect rendition of the latest pop song (personally, mine rings with a monotonal version of the "Wallace & Gromit" theme, or "ET" if my wife is calling), you can now not just get the latest ringtone... you can get it before you even hear the song. Cingular Wireless is making Coldplay's new single "Speed of Sound" available via ringtone before it even hits the radio airwaves next week. Ironically, people are willing to pay $2.49 for a ringtone version of a song, while complaining bitterly about the $.99 Apple charges at iTunes. Go figure.

Forget King Kong... here comes Donkey Kong!

Nintendo has joined the ranks of Apple and Sony in opening a flagship store to showcase the products it manufacturers. The new store will be in Times Square, which is... well, a "traditional" choice to say the least. When are manufacturers going to realize that no one has free time on trips to NYC to spend browsing and playing with their gadgets. Hint to Nintendo: airport retail. With an average wait time of 90 minutes, the 500 million passengers per year who pass through the USA's top 50 airports have plenty of time to kill on the Nintendo DS and GameCube. Who knows, we might even pay for the privilege: next time you're in the Atlanta airport, check out the "Dasani Listening Zone" in the Delta Crown Room for a chance to try Bose noise cancelling headsets and Sirius satellite radio.

The Apple Store goes mobile... in Japan anyway.

Proving once again that - like Godzilla and vending machines that dispense beer and toilet paper (though not the same machine) - Japan gets all the cool things first. Now the Apple Store in Japan is available in a mobile-optimized form. (Don't click the link if you're not reading this on a mobile DoCoMo phone: you'll just see "You cannot utilize this ｻ ｲ ﾄ from the portable terminal of the customer."). It looks like Apple is the first "brick and mortar" retailer to offer multichannel features that extend to the phone (Amazon.co.jp did it earlier this year)