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Until recently, becoming a subscription provider was a big and expensive task. To get into the game, a vendor needed to build a subscription business model right next to its traditional businesses, so to speak, which typically involved building an e-commerce Web store and member site, organizing an ...

The e-ticketing systems of eight airlines, including Southwest Airlines and Dutch carrier KLM, have a vulnerability that can expose passengers' personally identifiable information, mobile security vendor Wandera has reported. They use unencrypted links that hackers can intercept easily. The hackers ...

The social networking era brought about a sharing economy. We share not only our lives, but also everything from cars to clothes to chickens, yes chickens. Services like Uber and Airbnb have ushered in a new era, and industries rapidly have been embracing the change to determine how to benefit from ...

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The State of Selling

What's the state of the selling profession today? In brief, it fluctuates significantly based on economic circumstances and a company's position in a category lifecycle. At the start of a category lifecycle, when vendors really need people who can educate and explain what a disruptive innovation act...

Musing about Facebook's first 15 years, CEO Mark Zuckerberg positioned it as a David confronting a Goliath composed of hierarchical institutions. Facebook gives the masses a voice, he wrote. It brings communities together and provides businesses with low-cost outreach. Progress has been made in addr...

The next upgrade of Apple's mobile operating system, iOS 12.2, will come with an annoying surprise for VR and AR developers. It reportedly will block Web access to the accelerometer and gyroscope in Apple mobile devices by default. That means users will have to grant permission to any Web apps or si...

INSIGHTS

How Do You Build a Software Company?

How do you build a software company? It's a trick question. There are certainly things you need to do and not do on the way to building a successful software company, but there are no recipes, especially in CRM where demand changes all the time. In my career, I've seen firsthand some of the ways tha...

Google has announced two new Android applications designed to make life easier for deaf and hard-of-hearing people. One of the apps, Live Transcribe, turns live speech into real-time captions by using a phone's microphone; the other, Sound Amplifier, improves a phone's sound output. Live Transcribe,...

Getting an e-book out there can be a daunting task, however, particularly for someone who's never done it before. It's important to know what you want to say, how best to say it, and who might want to hear it. It's also vital to understand the ins and outs of publishing so that your e-book isn't los...

Until fairly recently, industry pundits had all but written off voice as a customer engagement channel. Considering there were more than 100 billion inbound calls via mobile devices alone in 2018, the past year has proven them wrong. There has been an incredible resurgence of voice as the new UI of ...

EXPERT ADVICE

7 Timeless Tips for Small E-Commerce Businesses

From big companies to small-town mom-and-pop shops to "mompreneurs" working from home, e-commerce is the key to keeping revenue streams flowing and businesses afloat. In fact, e-commerce is really the only way for you to ensure your business' longevity these days, especially if you are a small retai...

Apple has blocked a Facebook app that paid users for total access to all network data passing through their mobile phones. Facebook had been paying users $20 a month for root network access to their phones. Facebook was on-boarding users of its Research program, which included teenagers, through App...

Americans received 26.3 billion robocalls on their mobile phones in 2018, according to Hiya. That was 46 percent more than in 2017.

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What's Wrong With the Social Media Model

The social media model has come under increased scrutiny following revelations of data misuse and news of executives reneging on some security commitments. People expecting to change the situation will need to address how social media works. This means changing not just the business model, which des...

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