Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

But which of several approaches each chain will use has yet to be determined, according to the CEO of the vendor (Shopkick) providing the software.Read more...

Sending in senior people to convince the client that it has expertise in the topic and then sending in inexperienced, low-cost worker bees to do the actual work—this somehow surprises the people who run Marin County?Read more...

Put simply, Technical Debt is any technology decision that has a long-term negative impact on the business. Although it would seem obvious that companies would want to avoid accumulating Technical Debt, Michaud argues that, in some businesses, as many as 8 out of 10 technology decisions carry some level of Technical Debt. As Technical Debt accumulates, the results can be devastating.Read more...

Then customers, who are used to the niceties of that sales associate interaction or the tactile feedback from inside a high-end clothing store, show no interest and developers are baffled. That's where a bunch of Amazon Kindle developers find themselves today.Read more...

On Tuesday (May 25), MasterCard announced it plans to release Open APIs so developers “will be able to create a new wave of E-Commerce and mobile payment applications.” The only problem: Why would it? MasterCard officials spoke of the power of M-Commerce and E-Commerce platforms, but failed to explain why an Open API approach would help. Unlike PayPal and Apple, where developers have expressed strong interest in creating their own apps to sit atop those platforms, there is little such enthusiasm surrounding Visa and, given its smaller marketshare, even less for MasterCard.

It’s hard to look at this MasterCard statement and not envision Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer whitewashing his fence by tricking every other kid in the neighborhood into doing the hard work for him, while he made the money. Tom gave them the tools and let them finish the job. To paraphrase MasterCard’s current tagline: There are some things money can’t buy. But custom apps and marketshare ain’t among them. Use that plastic and pay for your own development. Don’t see the development community whitewashing your fence for you this time.…

On his site's blog, Hsieh wrote that the current software—which is all homegrown by Zappos—was so complex it was difficult for non-programmers to feed it information. "Unfortunately, the way to input new rules into the current version of our pricing engine requires near-programmer skills to manipulate, and a few symbols were missed in the coding of a new rule, which resulted in items that were sold exclusively on (Zappos partner site) 6pm.com to have a maximum price of $49.95," he wrote.Read more...

Conway can imagine a few scenarios, but none seems to be the answer. This issue is important to every retail CIO, so we need to understand what Chip-and-PIN will and won't do, in addition to what the business case, if any, is for the U.S. and other markets to convert from magnetic stripe to Chip-and-PIN cards.Read more...

On Monday (May 24), Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz took to the stage in New York City at a TechCrunch event and participated in an on-stage interview. The exchange was lively and interesting, with Bartz speaking about Yahoo’s plans and innovation efforts. But near the end of the interview, when asked again about Yahoo’s innovations versus Apple, Bartz answered in a way not typical for the CEO of a $6.5 billion publicly held company: She told interviewer Mike Arrington to “f-ck off” and then added “this time, I meant it.” (That particular exchange happens near the very end of this video clip.)

Bartz has a well-deserved reputation for direct (some might say salty) language, but most CEOs pull back a little in a videotaped interview in front of a large audience. Her remark wasn’t made in the heat of anger, so we can assume it was a calculated comment. If you look at shorter clips from the event, Bartz comes across as defensive. But in the context of the complete interview, her unhappiness is clearly based on repeated comparisons with Apple and despite her having given a lengthy list of Yahoo’s innovations.…

The upshot: The search giant has now decided to end its entire WiFi survey. And that's exactly the wrong lesson to learn from an incident like this.Read more...

Last week, Todd Michaud’s column spoke of getting rid of paper receipts. It seems that suggestion struck a bit of a nerve with readers, many of whom had rather intense reactions, at least according to their posted comments.

Questions and comments about everything from the role of smartphones, proving warranties with dead-tree innards, letting customers leave the store confident they won’t be hassled by security and the loss of ad revenue from the back of receipts to handling expense reports that still demand original receipts flooded the comment box. We had some very interesting exchanges. Typically, readers don’t go back to the stories after they read them. So when especially interesting comments are posted on a story days later, this related story is the only way we can tell our readers about it. Please check ’em out, if you’re interested.…

Envision a customer walking up to a kiosk, looking into a mirror and smiling. The mirror digitally captures the customer's face. With the captured face on a screen, the customer chooses makeup options. Read more...

How is it that the term "cloud computing" came to be? Granted, it's better than all its predecessors. But a cloud is about the most unstable thing Michaud can think of. It moves whichever way the wind is blowing; it may disappear; it may become a terrible storm. Exactly what marketing genius is responsible for this term catching on?Read more...

Each of the vendors is basically crossing its arms and pointing at the other two. The next person to tell him, "Hey, we did everything right; you need to talk to those other guys." is not going to like the conversation that follows.Read more...

Smartphones scanning barcodes is easy. The tricky part is accessing a frequently updated database that knows of the smallest ingredients—a recent CDC probe identified a food poisoning culprit as contaminated black pepper sprinkled on salami—and current non-obvious food triggers.Read more...

Although that's certainly an impressive achievement, the much more telling figure is the one that wasn't released: the dollar value—or even simply the number—of actual transactions coming from the free app.Read more...

Michaud was on a conference call with a group of franchisees recently, providing a status update on several projects. When asked about the status of one particular project, he informed the group that it had not yet been started, primarily due to a lack of IT resources. This project is important, one that is expected to deliver significant savings to the franchisees' community. He wasn't surprised when they were unhappy with his answer.Read more...

The idea behind the patent—see all of the Patent's glorious tech and logistical specs here—is for Amazon to video each package as it's being filled and link the clip to the order number. The video would show what goes in the box and then do a close-up of the address label as the box is sealed.Read more...

It's time for IT execs to stop trying to explain how the world works and start accepting how others think it works. I'm not saying that "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." I'm saying it's time to make your own way. The way of the Maverick CIO. Read more...

Describing the smartphone as a "cord to my soul" and a consumer's "most personal device," Tracy Benson, senior director of Best Buy U.S. marketing, said the trial is promising some contextual relevance to know precisely where a customer is standing and what direction they're looking when they have their phone. Today's mobile technology "doesn't tell me where the customer is looking. This uses different sound waves to detect precisely where they are."Read more...

Long before the term customer relationship management was bastardized to secretly mean salesforce automation, many companies had the vision of an IT system that would help them manage and maximize the relationship they have with their customers. The idea of being relevant is a complex equation that means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Because no one really knows the secret formula to being relevant, Michaud's goal as an IT leader is to create systems that will help his business partners answer questions they don't yet know to ask.Read more...

What would happen if we turned NFC on its head? For example, rather than the phone making a payment to the POS, it makes a payment to the restaurant's bank in the cloud. What would happen if the restaurant deducted the cost of lunch from Facebook credits? What if the guest could earn a free lunch by promoting the brand on Twitter? What if restaurants gave guests their menus on an iPad? What if that menu was customized to each diner’s likes, dislikes and allergies? What about a restaurant booth that has a video-conferencing setup that allowed to people to have lunch together without being in the same restaurant? Read more...

Think video store, convenience chain, 24-hour restaurant and gas station. Hacking away out of boredom is a very different profile from someone looking to harm the chain or even steal something to sell later.Read more...

"Currently, 42 mission-oriented applications run on a 1980s IBM mainframe with a 68 percent performance reliability rating. Networks, data systems, applications and IT security do not meet current operational requirements," said an Oct. 16, 2009, Secret Service contracting memo. "The IT systems lack appropriate bandwidth to run multiple applications to effectively support USSS (U.S. Secret Service) offices and operational missions around the world."Read more...

My thanks to Bruce Schneier’s wonderful security blog for finding this link, which is actually an unusually funny video of Hitler complaining about cloud computing security problems, pointing out that the Nazi’s provider had been certified PCI compliant.

Although the whole video is quite funny, you really should stay for the last line. I don’t laugh out loud much, but this surprise ending got me. …