Social shopping or ‘crowdsumption’ is what happens when social networking principles meet the vagaries of fashion. It’s what happens when the fickle facebook crowd meets the faddish fashion industry. There is even a new word for this — shopcasting — that describes people that look at what other people are looking at or wearing right now. Narcissism? More like Narcissism 2.0. Sites like Osoyou.com and ThisNext.com connect people with similar interests and tastes and represent what some observers are calling a new ‘referral economy’. There is definitely something interesting going on here, especially sites like Nethaggler that tap into the purchasing power of large groups of individuals. Also interesting are sites that represent a merger or hybrid between media and retail. However, we shouldn’t get too carried away with the wisdom of the masses, because all to often the wisdom of crowds seems to think very short-term and often exaggerates the importance of the new.

A decade or so ago, many exuberant e-experts were predicting the death of bricks-and-mortar stores due to the rapid emergence of online stores and e-tail. It didn’t happen. Instead the Internet has complimented physical stores and given customers the choice of how and where they shop. The Internet has also fundamentally changed consumer behaviour because it has shifted power in the form of information from the retailer to the customer.

Shoppers are now increasingly well-informed and increasingly impatient thanks to the speed of the Internet and the control it gives them. However, while convenience is important, it’s not the only factor. Customers also like physical stores because they are sensory and in some instances highly personal. As a result, physical stores are investing in the best of both worlds, which means superfast information access and superfast delivery. For example, Bloom Supermarkets in the US (owned by Food Lion) has installed scanning technology that allows customers to scan items as they pick them up, thus allowing them to keep a tab on their final bill, but also speeding up the final checkout. In a similar vein, Circuit City (US) is promising that any item ordered over the Internet will be available in-store within 24 minutes or the customer will get a US$24 gift card to soothe their lack of instant gratification. Interestingly, Circuit City reports that 50% of online orders are now picked up from one of their stores.

Meanwhile, Best-Buy (US) is investing in staff training so that its staff know at least as much about the products they are selling as their customers, many of whom are using cell phones in-store to search the Internet for product information or to compare prices via sites like frucall.com. Bloomingdale’s have gone one step further by installing technology that allows customers to try on clothing in front of an interactive mirror and then email images to their friends for comments and suggestions. A final example of the merger between bricks and clicks is Barnes & Noble. The bookseller is installing kiosks that allow customers to search for obscure and out-of-stock items. So what are the takeaways for retailers here? First, customers want more information and control. Second, they want delivery and payment to speed up, and third, they want more service. The latter obviously clashes with the need for low prices but the modern customer is nothing if not demanding and contradictory.

Sales of books in Japan are in decline but a novel idea — the ‘phone book’(keitai bunko) — is enjoying spectacular sales success. People — and especially women in their 20s and 30s — are reading love stories and mysteries on their mobiles while sitting at home or travelling to work. Indeed, in 2006, four of the top ten best selling hard copy books in Japan began life as mobile phone books and several of these cellular stories have notched up sales well in excess of a million copies. There are roughly 100 million mobile phones in Japan (out of a total human population of 127 million) and according to one estimate the size of this market is ¥ 9.4 billion (Euro 60 million) a year in Japan, up from zero in 2002. Why is this happening? Data transmission speeds are now fast and screen are bigger and easier to use, however, there may also be another particularly Japanese explanation. Many Japanese commute very long distances to work and there is often a need for some form of mobile-based distraction, be it phone shopping or mobile literature. Interestingly, perhaps, what typically starts off as a serialised or instalment-based phone book sent out to subscribers is often transferred to a traditional hard copy. The reason for this could be that young readers first read these instalments on their phone and send in suggestions and criticisms direct to the book’s author. Thus the reader feels that she or he has contributed to the development of the novel and therefore wants a copy of the final (hardcopy) book as a physical keepsake or memento. So what are the implications of this trend? First the distinction between e-books and phone books will erode to the point where the distinction is meaningless. Second, language and literature will evolve to fit these new formats, which will mean that simple, short sentences and words will be the order of the day.

If you thought user-generated content was limited to the media and entertainment industries you’d be wrong. The medical industry has recently seen an outbreak of cancer videos, wellness wikis and bulimia blogs that borders on a epidemic. In many ways this is nothing new. Online support groups have been around for at least 15 years and the distribution of material related to specific medical conditions via physical meetings has been around much longer than that. What is changing is content. The reason for this shift is pretty straightforward. Increasing connectivity allows patients to access what other people think and feel and tools for creating and filtering content are more widely available and easier to use. Add to this the popularity of Web 2.0 or user-generated and user-filtered sites such as YouTube, Facebook and Wikipedia and it’s easy to see why some people are getting very excited about the prospects for ‘Health 2.0’. Moreover, user-generated content allows patients to control their own destiny and not be beholden to medical professions, many of whom are themselves suffering from information fatigue caused by the sheer amount of medical information now being created and distributed through more traditional channels.

But does user-generated medical content really have a future? On the one hand, you’d think that privacy issues alone would prevent any meaningful exchange of knowledge but this doesn’t seem to be an issue. Equally, you might suspect that the information itself would be unreliable, or even harmful, but a study in the British Medical Journal found that just 6% of such information was factually inaccurate. According to Jupiter Research, 20% of US Internet users have now generated some kind of health-related information for the Internet and according to a PEW Internet & American Life study almost 1/3 of the 100 million Americans that have used the web to find medical information say that such information has been helpful.

Late last year there was a cartoon in the Daily Telegraph (UK) showing a bank cashier pointing a gun at a customer and saying ‘Leave your money where it is’.The sign above the cashier said ‘Northern Rock’. If you don’t live in the UK the fiasco surrounding Britain’s fifth largest mortgage lender may have gone unnoticed, but in Britain this was the first run on a bank since 1866. So what went so wrong?As recently as July, Northern Rock’s Chief Executive was publicly talking about a ‘robust’ credit book. Two months later the bank was effectively insolvent.But there were warning signs well before all this. For example, Business Week warned about the consequences of cheap money in February 2007 while in early March The Economist magazine commented that there might be trouble ahead when you can buy a book called ‘House Flipping for Dummies’ (‘Flipping’ being the American colloquial term for ‘doing up’ a property quickly, in order to sell it on). The issue with regard to Northern Rock is essentially that the bank used the global wholesale money markets to fund its growth rather than relying on the slower method of using its own local deposits. Interestingly, the bank did little or no business overseas but the connectivity of global lending meant that it was still exposed to far-away risk, specifically the complexity and confusion surrounding securitisation (that is, the process of turning debt into marketable securities). Implications? Securitisation and ‘structured’ financial products aren’t going away any time soon but what is likely is that there will be demands for greater transparency surrounding the securitisation process.

A decade or so ago, many exuberant e-experts were predicting the death of bricks-and-mortar stores due to the rapid emergence of online stores and e-tail. It didn’t happen. Instead the Internet has complimented physical stores and given customers the choice of how and where they shop. The Internet has also fundamentally changed consumer behaviour because it has shifted power in the form of information from the retailer to the customer.Shoppers are now increasingly well-informed and increasingly impatient thanks to the speed of the Internet and the control it gives them. However, while convenience is important, it’s not the only factor. Customers also like physical stores because they are sensory and in some instances highly personal. As a result, physical stores are investing in the best of both worlds, which means superfast information access and superfast delivery. For example, Bloom Supermarkets in the US (owned by Food Lion) has installed scanning technology that allows customers to scan items as they pick them up, thus allowing them to keep a tab on their final bill, but also speeding up the final checkout. In a similar vein, Circuit City (US) is promising that any item ordered over the Internet will be available in-store within 24 minutes or the customer will get a US$24 gift card to soothe their lack of instant gratification. Interestingly, Circuit City reports that 50% of online orders are now picked up from one of their stores. Meanwhile, Best-Buy (US) is investing in staff training so that its staff know at least as much about the products they are selling as their customers, many of whom are using cell phones in-store to search the Internet for product information or to compare prices via sites like frucall.com. Bloomingdale’s have gone one step further by installing technology that allows customers to try on clothing in front of an interactive mirror and then email images to their friends for comments and suggestions. A final example of the merger between bricks and clicks is Barnes & Noble. The bookseller is installing kiosks that allow customers to search for obscure and out-of-stock items. So what are the takeaways for retailers here? First, customers want more information and control.Second, they want delivery and payment to speed up, and third, they want more service. The latter obviously clashes with the need for low prices but the modern customer is nothing if not demanding and contradictory.