Recently, my Gmail inbox has received “New MySpace Comment” alert emails much more frequently than usual. Oddly, these comments are often times posted by Friends who rarely, if ever, converse with me via MySpace. Without fail, upon logging in to the social networking giant I find something similar to the image to the right has been posted on my page.

There is a picture (that looks like a video) coupled with some descriptive text that presents a compelling “click on me” pitch. I admit, at first I fell for the scam. I clicked on the picture trying to get the video to play (I’m only human, and male).

Now here is where the scam kicks in. Upon clicking on this faux-video I was taken to a login
screen asking for my username and password. To the naked eye the log in page looks completely normal, so most people have no problem providing their log in information. Below, on the left is an example of a scam log in page compared to the regular MySpace log in page.

Although these two pages look almost identical there is one major difference: the URL. On the left, the URL is http://rnyspacei.com/ while on the right the URL http://www.myspace.com/ - often an unnoticeable difference. (By the way, the Compete Toolbar will let you know if you are on a phishing site.)

Continue reading “The Anatomy of a MySpace Scam” »

Yapta (Your Amazing Personal Travel Assistant), a new online travel startup, is looking to change how consumers compare and shop for flights. Users who download free Yapta software are able to tag specific flights as they research on online travel agencies and suppliers, the details of which are then saved to Yapta. Once tagged, Yapta keeps track of prices for the selected trips, silently returning to check prices, and then informing users if a change has occurred.

I must admit I have not yet tested Yapta so I cannot speak to the user experience, but I can tell you a bit about how successful the site has been in its early stages.

In June Yapta reached its high water mark of 109,000 US unique visitors. After the initial buzz there has been a steady decline in traffic and subsequently in downloads. Speaking of downloads, a look at the Download Interest numbers – people reaching the download page of yapta.com – shows that a healthy portion of Yapta visitors are interested in downloading but get cold feet when it comes to actually clicking the “Download” button (or they use Firefox and have to wait for a compatible version).

Will Yapta be successful? It is too early to say. Perhaps some Yapta users could chime in???

Amidst the increasingly competitive world of Online Travel Agencies, an interesting battle has emerged between two unlikely spokespersons: Priceline’s Negotiator and Travelocity’s Roaming Gnome. In recent months this skirmish has moved to a new Web 2.0 arena - MySpace.

In June, Priceline announced they would join their competitor with the release of a dedicated MySpace page. Since this announcement Priceline’s Negotiator page has captured more unique visitors than Travelocity’s Roaming Gnome page.

Some interesting discoveries found on the two pages:

• The Gnome is 300 years old, he is on MySpace for “Dating” and one of his top friends is Sasquatch.
• The Negotiator is “Single” and has a body type of “More to Love”.
• The Gnome narrowly wins the friend battle, with 13,762 friends to the Negotiator’s 12,884.

Although the Negotiator is currently winning the MySpace engagement campaign, Travelocity is sitting atop the head-to-head site traffic contention.

The Gnome vs. Negotiator MySpace pages are an interesting and comical example of what tactics companies are employing in order to get an edge in the online world. With essentially zero cost associated with maintaining a MySpace page, there is really no downside to the campaigns.

As we know, Netflix.com stands on top of the online video rental industry. Using U.S. monthly unique visitors as a proxy for subscriber-base, and thus overall success, Netflix currently doubles the closest contender, Blockbuster.com.

However, when you are atop any e-commerce industry you cannot become complacent. The second you loose your innovative edge you will become obsolete like the ’07 Yankees (oh snap!).

Back in January, Netflix released its Watch Now feature allowing subscribers to stream full-length movies and TV shows on their PCs. The service is offered free to existing Netflix members. The online on demand concept was certainly not invented by Netflix and there are plenty other players in the game. The space includes established sites like Vongo.com and Cinemanow.com, as well as new comers like Amazon.com’s Unbox. A look at the amount of people visiting these services shows that Netflix’s Watch Now has quickly grown into an industry leader.

*Cinemanow.com and Vongo.com are domain level counts. Netflix.com and Amazon.com counts are for the specific Watch Now or Unbox pages, respectively.

The executives at Netflix know that DVD’s will not be around forever. Being an early adopter to any new viewing formats will certainly help the company remain the king of the online movie business.

A recent Business 2.0 article offered a behind the scenes look at the highly lucrative and controversial business of domain-squatting. Featured in this piece was Kevin Ham, a man who has made a fortune simply by driving people to the sponsored links and ads on sites like Agoga.com.

Out of nowhere Agoga quickly ramped up to more than 1.5 million page views per month. Every time browsers click on one of the ads offered on Agoga and similar sites, Ham and fellow “domainers” cash in. It’s that simple.

Continue reading “A Look at Domain-Squatting” »

As noted in a previous post, Mother’s Day sends consumers to online flower vendors in droves. Every year, sites like 1800flowers.com experience huge growth surrounding the celebration of mom.

But what about Father’s Day? You can’t get dad a bouquet of flowers, can you? As a result, Father’s Day is much more of an offline event than its female counterpart. Consumers are more likely to go a brick-and-mortar Best Buy than get online and find the perfect gift for pop. The standard Father’s Day usually consists of a barbeque, a couple neck ties, and maybe a new set of golf clubs.

Some sites, like Amazon are trying to make shopping online for Father’s Day a seamless experience. Amazon offers a section dedicated to Father’s Day gift ideas; and of course allows you to purchase your selection.

As the holiday approaches, the Father’s day section of Amazon has caught on. In the past month, visits to Amazon’s Father’s Day section has increased almost 70 fold!

Digging deeper on the demand side, the Compete database calculates 65,000 proxy dads (men above the age of 35) using the Wish List function on Amazon.com each month. From our view, Amazon appears primed to adopt Father’s Day to the ecommerce world.