Forbes is reporting a nifty new patent application (by Apple) that could have wide ranging effects on the world of eCommerce.

Apple has filed for a patent on a business / technology process to enable wireless devices to place orders with brick and mortar establishments.

This blurring of eCommerce with good ol’ fashioned commerce sounds pretty exciting at first. The ramifications for business both on and offline are huge.

The uses for end users like you and me are pretty neat too…

The scenario they lay out as an example is using your iPod or iPhone to order a coffee at Starbucks. Your handheld device would then notify you when the orderis ready and you could zip in and pick it up.

No more annoying lines for you.
… well except for the line of all of the people who have ordered via their iPod or iPhone.

Of course the capabilities go beyond ordering a White Chocolate Mocha.
You could also hit a button to download right to your iPod the music playing in Starbucks as you drink that mocha.

Neat right?

Well yes… but how does it know what’s playing in Starbucks at that moment?
Easy… it keeps track of you.
And the retailers would as well.
Your shopping and buying habits are all fair game.

Once you get through drooling over the coolness factor in being able to hit a “my usual please” button on your iPhone you may start to get a little freaked out that it & they know your usual.

Behavioral data is the most powerful tool in the marketeer’s tool belt, but if it’s not used with great care it can back fire in the arena of public perception.

Time will tell I suppose how this will go over.

Karen Luniw maintains one of the web’s most popular podcasts in the personal development field.
She focuses on the Law of Attraction and helping ordinary people utilize it in their lives.
DMD’s mission was to give Karen a web presence worthy her noble purpose and growing fan base.

The Law of Attraction Center (http://www.thelawofattractioncenter.com) serves as the base of operations for the “The Law of Attraction Tips” podcast, newsletter, and blog.

Karen needed an affordable web presence that accomplished three main goals.
Provide a new, more professional, appearance to enhance the brand.
Allow visitors, clients, and prospects to contact the center effectively.
Add new features to enhance the user experience and provide more robust tool sets to subscribers.
Provide Karen with an easy to use interface for adding/editing the pages and content of the site.

The Challenge.
Specifically Karen and DMD agreed upon the following metrics for success.
Provide a new, more professional, appearance.
Provide a Blog that would be available to all visitors
Provide a Newsletter “Tips” 30 day archive available to all visitors
Make the Newsletter “Tips” archives that are older than 30 day available by password only.
Allow for visitors to sign up for the newsletter using the existing Email Service Provider
Allow for visitors to listen and subscribe to the podcast keeping the method Karen was used to for posting podcasts.
Do all of the above with little to no interruption of the site and services currently in use.

The Solution.
True to our philosophy we worked with Karen to land on a solution that would minimize development hours, provide her with an easy to use interface for the creation of her page content, and rebrand her site to reflect the momentum her podcast was gaining.

Karen already owned several domain names as well as a suitable web host.
DMD configured the hosting account and installed a “Best of Breed” open source CMS to run the website.
Once DMD had configured the install, domain, mail servers, and miscellaneous settings the CMS allowed Karen to maintain the pages and content of her site as easily as she would type a letter.
DMD received some initial design parameters and provided several site design options to Karen for approval.
Once the final design was decided upon…

Development Began!

We bagan building the new site behind the scenes while the “old” site continued to do it’s job.
We configured the CMS.
We created the layout, and graphic design elements.
We Integrated her existing Email Service Provider into the new site’s infrastructure.
We Integrated her Podcast creation Service into the new site’s infrastructure.
We setup a new blog system for her site.
We setup a new “newsletter” archive system for her site to automatically password protect posts older than 30 days.

The Design
Here are some before and after images to help illustrate what DMD did for Karen.

The Results

The beautiful thing here…
The CMS we installed allowed Karen to start building out her web pages WHILE DMD was working on the look and feel of the site.
This parallel work drastically reduced the time to launch compared to if we had built a custom CMS from scratch.
(something that wasn’t REQUIRED to meet the goals, would have been EXPONENTIALLY more expensive, and sadly is USUALLY what development companies want their clients to agree to.)

We were able to throughly test the new system while the existing site did it’s job.
When we were ready we simply “flipped the switch” and the new site took over.
There was virtually no interruption of service.

Today Karen is online and loving it.
Her website represents her faithfully all day - every day.

How can we help YOU?
We’d love to talk you about your online needs, and how DMD can partner with you to fulfill them.
We take great pride in our work, so that you can take great pride in the results.
Contact us today and we’ll get the conversation started.

One of the techniques it suggests is a process called “email appending”.
This is a fairly shady and potentially dangerous practice with respect to ensuring you stay compliant with CAN-SPAM.

The process of email appending works like this:
You take your opt-in postal file and append an email address (attained by an email address search) to each record.

At first glance it sounds like a great idea.Heck it even has the term “opt-in” in there.

But here’s the thing… just because some one has given you permission to send them postal mail doesn’t mean they have given you permission to send them email.
CAN-SPAM is all about permission, and you can’t assume anything.

The article somewhat redeems itself as it then explains that you would get an “email appending provider” to help you and they would

…do an initial gross email address match of your file against its opt-in database…

But remember that IT’S opt-in database is not YOUR opt-in database.
To even APPROACH compliance with CAN-SPAM this next line is VERY VERY important.

Your appending provider will then send these matches a permission-based message prepared by you. All bounces and opt-out requests will be removed from the list. At that point a valid permission-based email address file of your customers will be delivered back to you.

This is sometimes called a “re-opt-in” campaign and is enough in the gray area that it will probably keep you out of trouble. But you need to be very careful when you do this.

The message you send needs to very clearly say “We’d like to verify that we have your permission to to send you further emails”. Obviously not verbatim but you get the idea.

You want to overtly communicate that you are trying to do the right thing and respect their wishes - you only wish to confirm those wishes. This is NOT the place to sneak in a marketing message.

Remember you’re in the gray area here, and it doesn’t take much for a consumer to consider you as having crossed the line.

When executed with care, and tact, a re-opt-in campaign can be a great way to breathe life into your marketing list. But use it with respect, and honor the results.

Consider this send as creating evidence of your desire to be a good citizen in the email marketing community. The boost it may give your list is just an added bonus.

Your subscribers will thank you, you’ll be compliant, and your list will be more responsive and worth while even if you don’t get 100% of the people to confirm their opt-in status.