The pirate bay bit-torrent site which was closed down yesterday (31/05/06) will be back up and running within the next few days according to a posting on their website.

Apparently "requiring Internet service providers to save records of their customers' online activities is necessary in the fight against terrorism". Is anti terrorism a legitimate reason for invading individual privacy? Where does the public draw the line?

More details on the Pirate Bay raid.

Recent research carried out by WebSideStory suggests that "visitors returning to a web site are eight times more likely to make an online purchase than new visitors". In fact the research reveals that repeat visitors to B2C sites had a conversion rate of 12.61% while new visitors had a conversion rate of only 1.55%. Most online shoppers would agree that they would visit a site more than once before making a purchase. Although the research doesn't reveal any insight in to reasons behind the findings I believe that the importance of return visits applies particularly to smaller unknown sites. There are many reasons that return visits are needed. I believe the most important are to build trust in the site and to build trust in the purchase.

Building Trust in the Site:

Building trust in the site for a novice internet shopper would involve the shopper fully exploring the site and making judgements on its credibility based on factors such as product range, shipping and returns policies and contactibility. The more experienced online shopper may look at independent reviews of the site and comparisons with competitors. In either case the customer is likely to go away prior to making a purchase.

Building Trust in the Purchase:

As well as trust in the site the customer needs assurances that their purchase is right for them. Here I believe the customer will look at alternative solutions to their needs as well as ensuring that the price they will be paying matches the price they want to pay, based on the prices of competitors and any pre-existing price assumptions that they may have.

For smaller less trusted sites, spontaneous purchases are less likely and the need for return visits is more likely. I believe that a customer browsing established eRetailers such as Amazon already have trust in the site and will believe the prices to be most competitive.

In my opinion the research findings should compel eRetailers to look at how they can establish trust in the in the mind of the consumer and establish the best value proposition for the product as quick as possible in the mind of the visitor.

Sources: WebSideStory

Kaya.ws

Google Calendar has at long last been released. My early impressions are that it has a very easy to use interface and is quite intuitive. My favourite feature has to be the quick add option where you can just type a text string with dates and the Google Calendar inserts it in to the correct location. It compares favourably to Outlook Calendar but doesn't have the to-do list option. Also I haven't seen any obvious ways to tag or colour code events other than private/public. The only way is to set up a second calendar then filter them both in to one calendar with the tick of a box.

Have a look at Google Calendar for yourself

There will be many thoughts going around the web as to how Google can bring together its growing and seemingly disparate list of products. To me it appears that Gmail was really a Trojan horse. It was the first mass appeal tool that required users to sign up. Apart from web developers few would have registered with Google prior to this. In my opinion Gmail will now integrate the calendar function making it the true web based Outlook rival we have been looking for. However Gmail also offers Instant Messaging via Google IM. As a stand alone product Google IM really does not meet the standards set in Voip or IM. However integrated with Gmail it offers something very different. From the basic functionality of being able to see if someone is online before sending an email to turning an email in to a real time chat seamlessly. Now Google has its version of Outlook coming together I would guess that the next step is to see what it is going to do with its recent acquisition of Writely the obvious answer would be a Microsoft Word alternative, with the ability for true online simultaneous collaboration.

Technorati Tags: Google, Calendar, Outlook, Microsoft

Interesting survery. I believe it would be good to get some thoughts on this story from readers. As only 17 nations are surveyed it can't be 100% representative.