Daily Roundup for 2007-12-24

• The Week Before Christmas, and All Through the Town - FocusOnCrofton.com blog
  A parody of Clement Clark Moore's "A Visit from St. Nicholas" by Margaret Woda.  Yes.  Margaret is related to me.  She is my mom, and she is really teaching me a thing or two about how to blog for business.  Keep up the great work Mom!


• BidPay Abruptly Closes Online-Payment Service
  December is an unlucky month for one online payment service. BidPay.com sent an email to users on Wednesday informing them it was discontinuing operations effective December 31, 2007, but gave no reason. It was 2 years ago this month that First Data Corporation abruptly closed BidPay before selling it to CyberSource Corporation.

       

• Coremetrics Releases Online Holiday-Shopping Sales Data
  Coremetrics released ecommerce holiday-shopping sales growth data, reporting that department store sites saw the highest growth vs. last year (37 percent increase in sales), and sales for apparel sites saw a 13 percent increase in sales and a 1 percent decrease in the average value of checkouts.


• Bazaarvoice Wins "Red Herring 100 Global" Award
  Bazaarvoice, the market and technology leader in hosted social commerce applications that drive sales, today announced that it has received a Red Herring Top Global 100 award as one of the top technology startups in the world.


• Jacked Expands Deal With NBC Sports, Discloses Funding - socalTECH.com
  Santa Monica-based Jacked, a venture backed startup developing web applications publishing tools for the broadcast media industry, said today that it has expanded its partnership with NBC Sports and NBCSports.com. Jacked said it will power the NBCSports.com Play Action for "Sunday Night Football" broadcasts. Jacked also disclosed that it has raised $6.5M from Provenance Ventures, Core Capital Partners, and Gabriel Venture Partners; the deal closed earlier this year.


• Online Brand Reviewers Anxious To Help Other Buyers - MediaPost Publications
  Following up on the ad spending Brief on WOM Marketing, here's a more extensive report by the Keller Fay Group describing the motivations of those who are driven to share their opinions.  Bazaarvoice released the findings of a study that surveyed over 1,300 online reviewers to discover what moved them to share their opinions. Overwhelmingly, the survey found, reviewers are motivated by goodwill and positive sentiment.


• PeSA and Infopia Co-Host the 9th eCommerce Summit In New Orleans
  The Professional eBay Sellers Alliance (PeSA), the world’s largest trade association for eBay sellers, announced that it has partnered with Infopia to co-host the Spring 2008 eCommerce Summit on April 22-24, 2008 at the New Orleans Convention Center. The event will bring together more than 600 eTailers to exchange innovative ideas on best practices as well as gain insight into the evolving opportunities from leading Internet companies including eBay, Paypal, Google, Amazon, Yahoo, buySAFE, and Microsoft.


• Innovation Predictions 2008
  Building the next-generation enterprise—and maybe even the next-generation nation—will preoccupy most of us in 2008. The demand for innovation is soaring in the business community and is just beginning to gain traction in the political sphere. Nearly all CEOs and top managers who have learned the language of innovation are now seeking the means to make it happen.  The Innovation Movement is still in its infancy, but it's growing fast.