Best of ECT News

To many, the term "sales executive" conjures up images of five-star dinners and long afternoons on the golf course. But, as I'm sure any sales executive would tell you, the job entails more than simply schmoozing with clients and courting prospects. In reality, sales executives face enormous pressur...

Gazelle takes your old cellphones, laptops, digital cameras, camcorders, GPS devices, game systems, calculators, e-readers, LCD monitors, tablets, and any other out-of-date electronic equipment cluttering up your home or office, and turns it all into cash. First launched as "Second Rotation" in 2006...

Gazelle takes your old cellphones, laptops, digital cameras, camcorders, GPS devices, game systems, calculators, e-readers, LCD monitors, tablets, and any other out-of-date electronic equipment cluttering up your home or office, and turns it all into cash. First launched as "Second Rotation" in 2006...

Ludology or narratology? These are the two generally accepted approaches to thinking about games. Though not incompatible, these two branches of knowledge nonetheless contend for pre-eminence among video game designer priorities. The first emphasizes play, the second story. In literary theory, ...

The idea of taking CRM into the field has been around for a decade -- long enough to lull many people into ignoring it in favor of newer, flashier and more social ideas. But this isn't the time to take your eye off mobile CRM. The technology is about to emerge as a force that will boost adoption, in...

With more than 600 million members and counting, Facebook is the world's largest social networking community. Lately, however, a lot of people have concluded that this community is too large for their tastes. That has created an opportunity for a number of startups that are promising users a much mo...

Computer software requires an enormous amount of support. That fact has enriched companies such as Oracle and SAP, which levy annual support fees of about 20 percent of the sale prices of their applications. That's one of the things that just sticks in the craw of Clint Oram, chief technology office...

Succumbing to the primal pull of gameplay, millions of new consumers are joining the nearly ubiquitous adventure of exploring the pixelated worlds presented in video games, seeking personal recreation, relaxation, amusement, even escape -- and the industry is feeling the profound effects of that sta...

One of the goals often cited for implementing CRM is an improvement in customer loyalty. That sounds like a logical objective, and knowing more about your customers and the history of your interactions with them certainly helps you understand how to keep them coming back. Still, there's a long way f...

There's no question that as a society, we're addicted to technology. That was evident when the earliest versions of BlackBerry smartphones were given a nickname I won't repeat here. Most technophiles are familiar with the term. It equated the devices with an illicit street drug, and alluded to use...