The People's Supermarket?

I co-wrote a book about the future of retail many years ago: didn't think we'd come this far, so soon.

Tesco has said it sees the future of its online offering as an open platform to which anyone can contribute.

From New Media Age. Interviewed Tesco and they were always ahead of the game but...

Tesco, along with its digital agency EMC Conchango, Microsoft and Nesta, is inviting developers to an open day, called T-Jam, in August to introduce them to the initiative.

Nick Lansley, Tesco.com head of research and development and head of special projects, told new media age, “We’re opening up our affiliate programme to allow people to develop for whatever device they want, whether it’s a website, mobile phone or set-top box, and make money for each new customer that comes to us as a result.

“The reason we’re doing this is that although we have lots of ideas we don’t necessarily have the resources to do them ourselves,” he added. “So the new API allows developers to write whatever they want, benefit us but also make money off the back of it.”

Great stuff.

Looking at the mini bar now costs

My wife just called to ask and was told, "If you open the mini bar door, there’s a sensor in there and if you move anything in there... you get billed for it."

The Consumerist gets a tip off about hotel mini bars.


Clue: expensive.

Google goes even more bookish

By providing tools that help sites connect readers with books in new and interesting ways, we hope publishers and authors will find even wider audiences for their works.

Click on the Google Preview button for an example here. The Google Book Search blog is here.

The Promiscuous Shopper?

For us, it’s like the modern way to do retail. This way, we can travel with the store and try out different neighborhoods. It’s like we are trying out the relationship before we marry.

Lisli moves into moving retail.


And Microsoft moves into Tents.

Luckily, Sean had some spare decommissioned servers we could put in a rack. So, like good Boy Scouts, we installed this rack under a large metal framed tent behind his data center in the fuel yard.

Here are some pictures of our setup. First, a couple of shots of our tent, nestling in the corner of the fuel yard. Sean coined the phrase “Tent City” to refer to our efforts.

And gets Nicholas Carr thinking.