thin, flexible solar technology

There's no doubt solar energy is a compelling alternative to fossil fuels, but implementing it has traditionally meant installing the standard, costly and ungainly solar panel. SRS Energy's dual purpose roof tiles offer one way to get around that requirement; now another comes in the form of thin, flexible solar sheets that can be integrated with architectural building materials.

Iowa-based PowerFilm makes low-cost foldable and rollable solar panels in which the solar technology is monolithically integrated in a polyimide substrate that's flexible and durable, yet as thin as 0.025mm. With an absorber layer made of amorphous silicon, PowerFilm solar panels use as little as 1 percent of the amount of silicon used in traditional solar panels; they're also cadmium-free. Since 2005 the company has been using its technology to manufacture solar field shelter tarps for military applications, and now it's developed the ability to combine it with standard building materials as well. Standing seam metal roofing, single-ply elastomeric membrane roofing and architectural fabric can all be combined with PowerFilm's flexible paneling for a variety of low-cost, building-integrated solar applications. In such uses, the electricity generated by the solar panels is stored in local batteries and converted to 110 AC for general wall outlet use or—in some cases—used directly for low-voltage lighting systems. The buildings can be either off-grid or grid-connected. PowerFilm recently completed a 10-kilowatt demonstration and evaluation project on metal roofing, and is now in the final stages of developing the technology.

PowerFilm also makes a variety of portable solar chargers—one of which won second place in the Mobile CE Fashion & Lifestyle Products competition at CTIA Wireless 2009—and it manufactures for OEM and custom orders as well. The lightweight and durable nature of its thin paneling, meanwhile, seems eminently suitable for use in the developing world. One to get in on early for the application of your choice...?

Website: www.powerfilmsolar.com

Godiva Chocolates - brand loyalty program run by the IT guy! go techies

When Godiva Chocolatier created its customer-rewards program this year, the initiative wasn't run by the marketing chief or advertising chief but instead fell to the chief information officer. Godiva CIO Mike Giresi says he drew on his history with sales and information technology to design a program tailored to Godiva and its customers. The program centers on creating better understanding of customers' preferences via an online community that Godiva initiated in 2008.
from Information Week

Social Shopping and the Brand Experience

Denise Zimmerman, president and chief strategy officer of NetPlus Marketing Inc., has spent the past 18 years of her career focusing on the emerging digital landscape and best practice applications in marketing, advertising and communications. She talks to eMarketer about the different forms social commerce takes and how retailers can understand it.

eMarketer: Why do people like to follow a brand on its Facebook fan page?

Denise Zimmerman: That answer depends on the retailer you’re talking about and how they use the platform. This is an interesting challenge for retailers, too. Because of the kind of communications and messaging you’re talking about, social media demands a very intense, thoughtful plan and approach in terms of what we call brand.

And not all of them have been good at this. I think Best Buy kind of breaks the mold. Zappos certainly does. Target does. Some of your larger retailers understand and cultivate their brand, and they can tell you what their brand is. But there are a whole host of them whose marketing, for the most part, historically has reflected commodity-type marketing—price promotion and very DM-focused—which is why they initially really latched onto affiliate marketing, search marketing, pay-for-performance type stuff. But when you’re out there in terms of communicating on these sorts of platforms, you really have to consider what is your brand. Your brand could be about price.

eMarketer: How much social commerce actually takes place on Facebook?

“If you successfully connect and make shopping valuable to the community in a way that’s easy and accessible and meets their needs, it’s a no-brainer.”

Ms. Zimmerman: I know that just when I’m out there and I regularly check what’s going on, I connect to a lot of these folks myself. I think it’s a natural evolution. Maybe I’m biased, but I don’t think so. If you successfully connect and make shopping valuable to the community in a way that’s easy and accessible and meets their needs, it’s a no-brainer.

eMarketer: Retail Websites are offering more and more social shopping features such as Facebook Connect. Do such features pose a competitive threat to social shopping sites or do they complement each other?

Ms. Zimmerman: I think they sort of complement each other. When we develop what we call a socially enabled Website, we don’t even like to call it a Website. We call it a social hub, which is really an evolution of the Website experience. So it should be really an experiential extension of the brand or of the retailer. When somebody goes to your Website, what they experience there should be reflective of the brand and however that expresses itself in terms of functionality, design, features and all that sort of thing.

“The social aspect is really an evolution of the brand experience.”

I think the social aspect is really an evolution of the brand experience. The big question from a very, very tactical perspective is the level of investment in terms of the technology, in terms of how you want to really enable your site: What’s going to really enhance that experience and furthermore what’s going to ultimately drive the sale?

The priority of a retailer is to focus on enhancing that shopping experience in how it actually influences the purchase. And there might be some community aspects to that. This comes down to really understanding your customers, understanding their shopping behavior, understanding what they want, understanding how they’re currently interacting with your site, understanding where your sales are coming from.

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007322