Revolutionizing the way people shop
From a consumer perspective, computer technology has had the greatest impact of all by revolutionizing the way people shop. Now everything from groceries and home furnishings to cars and holidays can be bought over the internet. More than this, however, consumers can collaborate and share information, write reviews and impart tips in newfound online communities. Shoppers are no longer restricted by physical boundaries. Technology has empowered them.
Thanks to online technology, we can now all have a home and office on the move.
We are perpetually in motion. Thanks to online technology, we can now all have a home and office on the move. With our mobile phones and tablets, we can field business queries, monitor our Facebook pages, send a Tweet, add to a blog and book a table for dinner while we're, say, sitting on a train or relaxing at a café table.
Internet trend watchers have come up with a new acronym that could describe this behavior as well as one of the main trends on the world wide web: SoLoMo, short for social-local-mobile.
The term conjures up a world dominated by social networks (So), in which local (Lo) commerce and communities thrive while people interact and transact from their mobile (Mo) devices.
Local listings are the most relevant and trusted search results
Next comes business, with a definitive local twist, driven by social media users on mobile devices. While business may be global in many ways, companies like Groupon and LivingSocial help generate demand for products and services locally. And check-in services like shopkick drive foot traffic into retail outlets.
Indeed, a survey by comScore in 2011 showed that local listings are among the most relevant and trusted search results for consumers. Some 61 percent of online searchers consider local search results to be more relevant, and 58 percent consider local search results to be most trustworthy than others, it said.
