Sophia Perl of Wisdom

Priceline.com released data on the top 50 places that people are visiting during July 4th this year.  I’m letting you know now before it’s too late.  You can thank me later, perhaps a 1% cut?

1   < New York City, Times Square/Theater District
2   < Las Vegas, Strip Vicinity South
3   < New York City, Chelsea Area
4   < Chicago, Millennium Park. Loop & Grant Park Area
5   < Washington, DC, White House/Downtown
6   < New Orleans, Downtown/Convention Center
7   < St. Louis, Downtown
8   < Boston, Copley Square/Theater District
9   < San Francisco, Union Square West
10  < San Diego, Coastal Area

read comments (0)

I love Facebook in that I get to see my “friends” rsvp to events that I did not know about.  One of which was the next Girl Geek Dinner hosted by Facebook in San Francisco.  The RSVP cut-off was around 220 people, mostly women.  I arrived a bit late with another colleague and listened to a panel of Facebook employees plus a few Facebook application developers.  They talked about FBML and the new profile re-design, both of which I was familiar with.  The nice thing is that we got free schwag - Facebook t-shirt, Facebook wifi finder, drinks, and food.  I was happy to get free stuff and to mingle with some interesting people from other companies - Chevron, startup from NY, and IT dept at Stanford.  One in particular was a Berkeley undergrad that developed the Facebook easter egg application which she sold to a company.  The application itself garnered over 300,000 users.  Impressive for a young woman.

read comments (0)

One mystery that I have yet to crack is gift giving. I’ve always been perplexed about whom to give what and how much to spend for what occasion. One particular case touches upon an aspect of this subject from the perspective of the gift giver and brand choice of gift. The author of the case claims two things: 1) gift givers will seek the same type of benefits for all recipients and 2) any observed differences within recipient groups are not due to the recipient differences, but due to the giver differences in gender, age, and income. One would think that gender, age, and income of both the gift giver and recipient would influence the brand choice, not just that of the gift giver. After surveying 250 people, this case concluded that recipient type does have impact on the brand associations desired for a gift, but gender, age, or income of the giver may also have a significant impact on brand choice (reject claim #1, partial support for claim #2).

In my personal opinion, I do not think that any retailer has good gift giving suggestion services, short of having a personal shopper. I often enter stores looking for a gift and end up leaving without one due to lack of creative ideas from browsing the aisles, looking at sale ads, and talking with salespeople. This case clearly lays out the behaviors of males and females in terms of gift giving to different recipients. A retailer could use this information to improve their gift giving suggestions in conjunction with data from purchase history. For instance, if the retailer could identify the gift giver like from a frequent buyer card, then the salesperson or digital ads (if they exist) could adapt suggestions for that person. To take it one step further on an online storefront, if the retailer could cross-check purchase history of a similar, anonymous recipient when the gift giver specifies an abstract profile, then the retailer could provide an even more effective gift giving suggestion. Retailers should also start focusing on gift giving suggestions year-round, not just around the holidays (Thank you to Hallmark). Bottom line is that retailers should find ways to suggest gifts that provide the gift giver and recipient an experience to remember, match made in heaven

read comments (0)

Imagine all the data in the world open for you to use.  That’s what Freebase.com is all about.  It’s a universal database that people can populate and use whatever is stored already.   My only concern is how the data is organized around a particular topic.  It sounds like a mess waiting to happen.

From website:

In general, any data that might be of interest to other people and that you have the right to use is appropriate for Freebase. Examples of the kind of data that’s great to upload or add include:

• Information about people
• Information about locations
• Information about books, films, albums or video games (Freebase doesn’t have storage for the media files themselves; you can, however, add links to other sites that make them available)
• Information about products
• Information about organizations, including businesses, non-profits, political groups
• Scientific data
• Sports data
• Financial data
• Government data

read comments (0)

• 6/27/2008: Pownce 1st Anniversary Party
• 6/28/2008: iPhone Startup Camp
• 6/28/2008: Technology and Tips in Managing Personal Finance
• 7/1/2008: Venture Financing 101

read comments (0)