New York

Somewhere between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, this Holiday season I’ve experienced a Twitter Sunday - with the best accessory deal I’ve ever scored. It was the Brooklyn based uber trendy Hayden-Harnett design duo (@hayden_harnett) who I happen to follow on Twitter, announcing their Twitter-exclusive 80% off sale on a long-time-craved Corcovado Turnlock Tote in Patent Black. Despite the early Sunday morning, all handbags and other items offered exclusively to their followers were gone within minutes. It was a moment when I realized my Twitter connections don’t only provide the emotional value, but also commercial.

This Holiday season my Twitter friends shared exclusive sales, special discount codes and rare finds, saving each other time and money. It was the first season Tweet Commerce really took off, and if I could make one prediction for 2009 it will only continue to develop, as more brands realize the value of constant connection to their consumers.

In addition, clever entrepreneurs are already realizing the value of these tweets and building applications around them, organizing the data like CheapTweet.com whose slogan says “scouring Twitter for deals so you don’t have to”. Online invite-only sites such as Ideeli.com (@ideeli) are using twitter to alert their users about new sales, and e-commerce brand eLuxury (@eluxury) sometimes share “secrets” like this one with their followers: “A little secret for the grapevine; starting tomorrow take an additional 30% off sale items. Shhhhhh”.

Call it Tweet Commerce or Social Shopping 3.0, but if you care enough about your favorite brands to follow their daily ramblings, you might score some great deals along the line. Now when people ask where I got my new gorgeous tote from, I say without thinking twice - on Twitter!

~ Yuli Ziv (@yuliz)

As we all know, over the past few years, TechCrunch has become the bible equivalent for the Web 2.0 tech space. However biased or opinionated TechCrunch is, they have a knack for breaking solid news, announcing new, interesting start-ups, and analyzing the ups and downs of the industry, including which companies are staying afloat during this volatile economic situation that we’re facing. TechCrunch is the most highly-respected tech blog around with a “Michael Arrington” backbone that has made it a lucrative business and revenue stream for them. Regardless of that point, and because I value the opinion of TechCrunch’s writers and readers, I wanted to highlight some of the finalist names of the Crunchies, “Best of the Web 2008″ award competition:

For the “best overall” category a few obvious companies such as Amazon, Facebook, Android, Hulu and Twitter made it to the list. Four out of those five services I personally use on a daily basis. Within the category of “Best New Startup of 2008,” Dropbox, FriendFeed, GoodGuide, Tapulous, Topspin Media and Yammer made it on to the list. Congrats!

Share your voice. You can vote for your favorite Web 2.0 companies, by clicking on the following link:

http://crunchies2008.techcrunch.com/votes/

As Girls In Tech we often find ourselves in a position when we need to balance our femininity with male qualities we are “expected” to have. For me personally, fund raising meetings are a culmination of these conflicts, especially considering the minority of female entrepreneurs. This video is a result of turning my personal conflict into a humorous video sketch, with 15 tips for women entrepreneurs on how to raise VC money, in style. The video was quickly picked up by CenterNetworks, and created a live discussion on Twitter. While some (mostly men) failed to see the humor and even took the video as an offense, I didn’t mind to be in the middle of controversy, as long as it helps to bring awareness to the gender issue in the boardroom.

How to Raise Money From VCs… In Style…

I have been meaning to share this information for some time now…oh, where DOES the time go?

Anyway, I was reading through the recent (ok, I KNOW it’s from October!) Downtown Women’s Club “Online Networking: How Social is Your Media?” survey and its results show that “businesswomen in all generations now prefer email (82%) to the telephone (64%) when it comes to networking”.

I can honestly say I must agree.  I see telephone calls as a bit of an intrusion and I usually only pick up the phone when I’m totally “over” email (which lasts about an hour or so) or if I feel that it would be quicker to communicate what I have to say by voice mail or speaking directly to the person.

People are doing exactly as Faith Popcorn predicted. We’re cocooning. We’re sitting at our desks, behind our computers and not answering our phones - at least, most of the time, I am….and I know I’m not alone.

I know that I mostly connect colleagues that I think need to meet one another - and they connect me to people they feel I need to meet - via email.  None of that calling back and forth stuff.

I recently had a VERY painful conversation with a businesswoman whom I respect immensely. She has a stellar track record and I have watched her career skyrocket. I’ve always wanted to meet her. What made it so painful? The person who introduced us, insisted that we TALK on the PHONE.

Wrong move. I knew it was wrong when I agreed. It’s not that I didn’t want to meet her. Heck no! I just think we should have built up our rapport a bit via email first and then we probably would have increased our chances of having a fabulous conversation — when it was time.

You can listen to all the pundits who say that email is dead, but do so at your OWN peril.

Are you finding that you rely on email more nowadays — or are you more of a telephone person? Or, maybe you use a different way to connect? If so, do tell!

Image credit: Crunch Gear

At the end of 2008 we are way past the online presence debate: with majority of the fashion designers and leading luxury brands accepting the advantages of online products offering, now it’s all about building the online shopping experience.

Many online retailers turn into creating an online “shopping events” these days, which have limited window opportunity to score highly discounted goods.

Neiman Marcus has run a two days only shopping event early in November, offering their subscribed consumers 40% off on new designer items. While there is no official numbers on the sales increase during the promotion time, I would assume creating urgency similar to that of a real store closing its doors at 6pm would do the trick of sales boosting.

BlueFly took the concept even further with their new limited time sale feature called The Quickie, launched earlier this month. Blue Fly shoppers were offered highly discounted Prada wallets, for 2 hours only. The concept, borrowed from the exclusive invite-only sales sites like Gilt, Ideeli and Rue La La has definitely a future in the “traditional” e-commerce world and goes in line with the recession economy.

If I had to make my 2009 e-commerce trend prediction – this will be the one to watch. Considering the fact that most online retailers like Saks, Nordstrom, eLuxury, BlueFly and Neiman Marcus are already equipped with the necessary technology, have the merchandise in stock and most importantly loyal customer base, it will be easy to incorporate these timed exclusive sale experiences into their daily routine.

This move might create a very competitive environment for almost 20 exclusive invite-only sales sites existing today in the US only. Returning customers are a high reward, and is worth “fighting” for. At the bottom line – we, online shoppers, will be the most rewarded from the competition.

In the next week column, I will discuss how retail brands recreate the personal in-store experience and service in their online stores.

~ Yuli Ziv