Resource Roundup: Week of 8/11-8/17

Now that summer is winding down, the Beijing Olympics are half over, and football season is almost upon us, it's time for another edition of Resource Roundup, Late-In-the-Afternoon-on-a-Friday-in-August Edition. Catch up on some of our past posts of the week and have some real fun over the weekend.

Another light week this week as I'm busy plugging away on other tasks, but by next week, you'll have a lot more to look forward to.

8/11/08:

"Big Push by Microsoft for Silverlight with NBCOlympics.com" - Unless you've been been living in a cave somewhere in the far reaches of the Milky Way Galaxy for the past couple weeks, the Summer Olympics kicked off last week with a spectacular bang. NBC made thousands upon thousands of hours of streaming content available for Olympic fanatics online. Instead of embedding Flash onto their olympics site for video, NBC uses Microsoft's Silverlight platform, which is considerably less mainstream than Adobe's flagship offering. Microsoft's Partnership with NBC potentially means greater visibility for Silverlight and more market penetration.

"CRM and eCommerce Integration Means More Sales, Less Costs" - Sandeep Walia of Ignify offers his insight on how and why Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software can be the key to increased sales and revenue. CRM automates common back office tasks and tracks customer behavior and data; the former helps reduce the cost of labor and the latter helps merchants better understand and serve his or her customers. Walia states a good case for CRM and eCommerce integration as a match made in commerce heaven.

"Going Where Their Customers Are: Corporations Using Micro-Blogs and Web 2.0" - As you may or may not know, I am a big fan and proponent of social media and networking. Even Mediachase has its own Twitter account. Big businesses and the enterprise are finally getting a clue and are now using social networks as a means to connect with customers. Big companies and major political campaigns are using Web 2.0 services to reach out to their core audiences as a means of conversation. Not all big businesses are fully sold on the idea of using social networks, but they're at least looking into them.

That's for this week. Got any cool links, resources, or tips to share? Post them below. I'd love to hear them.

Other than that, everyone have a great weekend!