David Dorf

Personalized offers tied to mobile check-ins is a great idea, but it's one that retailers should drive, not Foursquare. Retailers should own the customer data and determine the best offers. Using Foursquare for this purpose makes the retailers one step removed, and that's not in the best long-term interest...

We've already seen that duplicating your e-commerce site within Facebook is the wrong move. To take advantage of Facebook, you need to think in social terms and leverage the available interaction tools. People want to express themselves, and the customizable "like" buttons will certainly help, both on Facebook and...

With scale, retailers have lost intimacy. Expecting store staff to know their shoppers is tough, so retailers have tried segmentation, loyalty programs, focus groups, etc., all of which help but aren't quite as good as truly knowing customers.

I believe so-called Big Data can help paint a better picture when...

The site is certainly unique, although I'm not sure it will pay off. I like the concept of rewarding customers for passing the word. Snatter tried to reward customers with discounts if they re-tweeted deals and even more if those deals were redeemed. Amazon does something similar by temporarily...

It will take a while for emerging payments to shake out, and in the meantime consumers will be confused. One thing is for sure: if mobile payments are to be successful, they must offer more than mag-stripe based payments. That is, they must offer coupons, loyalty, and other ancillary...

I have to say this is a terrible idea. Talking to a cart in a busy grocery store just isn't going to work. And expecting the cart to follow me is very error prone. I can just imagine how much fun teenagers could have walking around randomly giving carts...

Facebook storefronts merely duplicate a Web store, so that's the wrong approach. Better to leverage the social nature of Facebook using the newsfeed to drive consumers to your Web store, or perhaps do purchases within the newsfeed itself.

The changes around pricing, promotions, and personality all seem good for JCP. We know it's tough to compete on pricing and promotions these days, so the personality changes are what will determine success. The Main Street and Town Square concepts sound intriguing, so I can't wait to eventually visit...

B&N should spin off the Nook just like Netflix should spin off Quickster. Both are bad ideas. B&N needs the Nook to be relevant in the digital age, and the Nook needs B&N for publisher deals. I don't see how a possible spin-off looks good to anyone accept the...

This isn't much different than being watching via LP cameras. It will get really interesting when this technology is used in a crime investigation. I smell a "Law and Order" episode.