Archive for October, 2007

A little Lexington news to share. 400 will be hired to staff a variety of positions at Amazon.com’s facility here in Lexington. This is a response to Amazon’s excellent growth, of course, and very good for Lexington. The Lexington Fulfillment Center was established in November 2000 and fulfills customer orders for products from Amazon.com.

These are mostly warehouse, maintenence, operations, and human resources positions.

Amazon has been consistantly praised for its successes in offering a huge variety, an excellent affiliate program and some of the industry’s best customer service.

“Lexington has been a great success for Amazon and our customers,” said Michael Passales, general manager for Amazon’s Lexington facility. “As we continue to expand our product and category selection, we are looking forward to hiring even more individuals who will help us deliver a great experience for our customers.”

Amazon is hosting weekly job fairs every Wednesday through the month of October from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. at its facility located at 1800 Mercer Road in Lexington, and information about upcoming Open House events is available by calling 859-381-2299. Management positions can also be applied for online at www.amazon.com/careers.

For qualified people in Lexington currently working at smaller, old-fashioned warehouse ventures, this represents a chance to get involved in one of the most advanced logistical systems in the world. The high-tech warehouse environment at Amazon will offer outstanding experience with modern systems with great benefits and a terrific entry into your career history.

One side-note about the photo above. Note the vacant field next to Amazon? I’m pretty sure they’re not planning on growing corn.

Dear Retailer who sells very nice gift items in Lexington Green. When I snap a photo of something, I’m not here to scam you.

I’m not the front for a big Chinese manufacturer who is about to knock off your stuff and put you out of business. I’m not planning out an elaborate “Mission Impossible”-style robbery.

My wife and I are multi-tasking. I need to send her a picture of something I like and see if she wants to swing by and look at it. I’ve spent hundreds of dollars in your store and you don’t need to break the delicate positive brand image I have of you with some petty “We don’t allow pictures in the store” rule. I explained what I was doing, nicely, but it didn’t matter.

It’s amazing that I’m even in the store - with as much as I buy online. Since it’s an artsy-store, I flip the tag over on the item I’m photographing. … yep, URL. I surf to the address, yep. photos. Get a clue. This small, unique retail shop is one example, but not a unique one, and it’s about to collide with new technologies for comparison shopping we discussed at SMX Local Mobile in Denver last week.

If this were a one-time situation, I’d blow it off. But it happens to others, who blog about it too. I’m pretty fast with my camera, just hold it up and snap a quick picture, so I’m not making a scene or asking people to move, etc. I guess I could get better at it. I’m also not there photographing every thing on the shelf. I’m the best type of interested customer.

Seth Godin was busted for photographing oreos, and had this to say:

The irony of the Stop & Shop approach is that the people who you don’t want taking pictures–snoopy journalists or competitors–can easily conceal their cameras and you’ll never know. But the raving fans, the bloggers, the folks twisted enough to want to take and flickrize their supermarket experiences are your friends.

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A terrific brain trust of folks answered great questions that I’ve tried to aggregate into an organized list you may find very helpful. Enjoy! The Q/A was especially helpful and added a lot to the session.

Moderators:
Chris Sherman, Executive Editor, Search Engine Land
Greg Sterling, Founding Principal, Sterling Market Intelligence

TIP: See the end of this post for other coverage on the conference too.

 

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Mobile Search: Beyond 10 Blue Links

Fascinating presentation at SMX Local Mobile.

Mobile searchers don’t want lists of web pages - they want answers or fast ways to take action. Mobile search providers are increasingly experimenting with alternative interfaces, such as location-aware browsing, voice recognition, text messaging and other innovative approaches. Learn about these new efforts and how they potentially impact mobile search marketing efforts.

(room sparse, but excellent presentation!)

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Show Me the Money!

So there are Billions out there. But who’s making money now. How will SEMs place bets now to ensure their success? Show me the money!

Moderator:
Greg Sterling

Speakers:

• Ian White, CEO, Urban Mapping
• Shawn Riegsecker, Chairman & CEO, Centro
• Justin Sanger, CEO, LocalLaunch
• Alfred Chow, Head, Yellowbook

 

Lots of energy in the room for this one. Big variety on the panel. PACKED ROOM.

 

Live Blogging after the jump

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Local businesses want leads and customers, not clicks. Although pay-per-click and pay-per-call are the two prevalent ad models to reach local searchers, will other models like CPA/PPA ultimately be more effective?

(Partial Liveblogging - other presenters not blogged… couldn’t get a coherant flow going :-P)

Steven Chuck, Director of Strategic Alliances, Yahoo! (more…)