Author Archives: alankent
The Rise of Clippy 2.0?
With the integration of ChatGPT into Microsoft products, are we seeing the rise of Clippy 2.0 (the old Microsoft Office Assistant paper clip)? Will it go better this time? Clippy 1.0 Clippy was a virtual office assistant in Microsoft office from 1997. A “cute” animated character that would pop up and offer help. It was […]
What does AI Chat hold in store for ecommerce?
I was just watching a CNBC news item on the success of Dick’s Sporting Goods (DSG): Why Dick’s Sporting Goods Succeeded When Sports Authority Failed. One of the reasons given for their success was their ability during COVID to get in-store pickup live in 2 days, which helped them sell stock trapped in stores when […]
Measuring the Effectiveness of Developer Advocates
Defining maturity levels for a developer community can be a useful tool to determine the right metrics to measure developer advocacy effectiveness and plan out a strategy to help your community grow.
Headless E-commerce: Who needs it and who is better off without it? (My notes from call)
BigCommerce just hosted a twitter space titled “Headless E-commerce: Who needs it and who is better off without it?” Lots of smart people were on the call (and me!) and a number of interesting points based on various experiences were raised. It also drifted into “Composable Commerce”. I did not start taking notes from the […]
Memorial Day Musings: How to move the ecommerce industry forwards?
Karen Baker posted on LinkedIn about what ecommerce platforms need to succeed. Here are my Memorial Day musings for your entertainment. Support not Kill Let’s start with a controversial topic! One comment left on LinkedIn was the solution should support, not kill, existing products in the market. A fine principle. I disagree however. I think […]
What does a “decentralized web” mean anyway?
I have been hearing for a while comments such as “web 3.0 is going to be a decentralized web”, and I must admit to not paying a lot of attention. After all, the web is already “decentralized”, right? People host web sites all around the world! Recently I have been digging a bit deeper, to […]
Google Cloud for Ecommerce?
Google Next, the Google Cloud conference, just finished up. (Videos of most sessions are available online.) It left me asking a question – is Google Cloud getting better for commerce? Yes! Well, what did you expect me to say? I work at Google! But more seriously, here are my reasons why. If you are running […]
Performance Benchmarking meets Core Web Vitals
Google has announced that Core Web Vitals (CWV), a set of 3 core metrics to measure page experience for users, is a ranking signal. (There are *many* ranking signals.) Why three? Well, you don’t want hundreds of metrics, but the experience of users on a site (as distinct from the quality of the content itself) […]
Gartner at Modern Commerce Day on Composable Commerce
I attended some of the sessions this week at Modern Commerce Day (presented by CommerceTools). There were interesting sessions from companies such as how Lego has modernized their ecommerce site using serverless patterns, Express.com on migrating to a new architecture during COVID (online sales were their sole revenue stream due to physical stores being closed), […]
Next Generation Digital Commerce Architecture Daydreaming
Every so often I day dream of what a next generation ecommerce platform would look like. (Yes, this is one of those pie in the sky blogs.) First, I think SaaS platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, Volusion, and so on do a great job for many ecommerce merchants. What I wanted to focus on in this […]
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