Closures and acquisitions become signals of change. These days the lack of a Twitter account also tells another story. I remember sitting in my cubical at Ingram Micro (at the time), a computers and accessories distributor in Santa Ana, Calif., searching the Internet for information trying to figure out the best use for AltaVista and other similar early search engines. Around 1996, I had moved from designing catalogs, brochures and ads to writing copy about computer products and accessories in the company's in-house marketing department.

I've been saying it for years: mobile ecommerce needs a simpler conversion path from discovery to conversion. Now a study confirms it. Make it easy to connect and reduce the amount of processes and clicks to find the information, and business professionals will start researching and spending more through mobile devices.