Image by Paul Hohmann

“Online is clearly taking share from brick and mortar. … [T]his is likely to continue”
—International Council of Shopping Centers, last week

America has too many malls.

I’ve recently blogged that many traditional brick-and-mortar retailers are being threatened with “economic destruction” by their advantaged online competition. In an interview with Bloomberg TV, anchorwoman Nicole Lapin asked about the implications of this dynamic on retail real estate. I said I hadn’t studied it, but I thought the ramifications would be very big and very negative (I believe the phrase “apocalyptic” was used).

I’ve since had the opportunity to spend some time looking at this issue, and I believe we’re seeing clear signs that the e-commerce revolution is seriously impacting commercial real estate. Online retailers are relentlessly gaining share in many retail categories, and offline players are fighting for progressively smaller pieces of the retail pie. A number of physical retailers have already succumbed to online competition, including Circuit City, Borders, CompUSA, Tower Records and Blockbuster, and many others are showing signs of serious economic distress. These mall and shopping center stalwarts are closing stores by the thousands, and there are few large physical chains opening stores to take their place. Yet the quantity of commercial real estate targeting retail continues to grow, albeit slowly. Rapidly declining demand for real estate amid growing supply is a recipe for financial disaster.

There are very few thriving physical retailers these days outside of the daily consumables markets. I did a quick analysis on the high-level health of the National Retail Federation’s list of the Top 100 retailers in 2012, focusing on merchandise retailers that would likely be located in malls (removing grocery, drug, restaurant and online retailers). I looked at three measures of retailer health: total sales growth, comp store sales growth and number of stores.

The analysis doesn’t paint a very pretty picture regarding the health of the leading physical retailers in the United States. Total sales growth is mixed and is negative for 20 percent of the sample. Comp store sales growth — arguably the key measure of retailer health — is also mixed, and a quarter of the sample is negative. And note that many of these sales results include the retailers’ online segments, so the picture for their physical stores is even worse. Lastly, store counts are simply stagnant — about as many top retailers shrank their store count as expanded it, and precious few are expanding aggressively. The largest retailers in the U.S. do not look very healthy. And if they’re struggling, it’s likely that their more marginal physical competitors are struggling even more.

I went back to the Top 100 retailers in 2007 to see how that crop had fared five years later and found that four of these top retailers had already gone away through Chapter 11. Interestingly, the picture of these four doesn’t look that different than the 2012 list.

Source: Stores.org Top 100 Retailers

This declining retailer health is directly impacting malls and shopping centers in the form of very high vacancy rates and sluggish rents — exactly what you’d expect to see where supply exceeds demand. Both factors deteriorated quickly during the economic crisis of 2008-09, but they’ve shown virtually no improvement since in spite of improved economic conditions. The recession was the catalyst, but competition from online retailers can only be the continued driver. The mall business isn’t very healthy, either.

These trends are hitting the market capitalizations of most of the largest owners of retail real estate. Simon, General Growth, DDR and Kimco among them own over 600 MILLION square feet of U.S. retail real estate, according to nreionline. Simon’s stock has performed strongly, but the other three stocks have created virtually no value over the past decade.

Source: Yahoo! Finance

Most real estate professionals understand that profound changes are afoot. Don Wood, CEO of Federal Realty Investment Trust, says, “There is too much retail supply in this country.” The Wall Street Journal reports, “Green Street Advisor, an analysis firm that tracks REITs, has forecast that 10 percent of the roughly 1,000 large malls in the U.S. will fail within the next 10 years and be converted into something with far less retail. That’s a conservative estimate; many mall CEOs predict the attrition rate will be higher.” And Daniel Hurwitz, president and CEO of DDR, observes, “I don’t think we’re overbuilt, I think we’re under-demolished.”

I agree with the above perspectives, although I believe they likely understate the eventual impact on malls. A report from Co-Star observes that there are more than 200 malls with over 250,000 square feet that have vacancy rates of 35 percent or higher, a “clear marker for shopping center distress.” These malls are becoming ghost towns. They are not viable now, and will only get less so as online continues to steal retail sales from brick-and-mortar stores. Continued bankruptcies among historic mall anchors will increase the pressure on these marginal malls, as will store closures from retailers working to optimize their business. Hundreds of malls will soon need to be repurposed or demolished. Strong malls will stay strong for a while as retailers are willing to pay for traffic and customers from failed malls seek offline alternatives, but even they stand in the path of the shift of retail spending from offline to online.

This in turn creates further opportunity for online commerce. If I were thinking of starting a new retail brand right now, I would unquestionably start it online. And many very talented entrepreneurs are doing just this! I personally shop at Bonobos for pants, J.Hilburn for sweaters, Ledbury for shirts and Warby Parker for eyeglasses. All of these brands design and source their own goods. They historically would have started in the mall but they now are starting online, a trend that will undoubtedly continue. There clearly will be fewer new offline retailers to take the space vacated by the disappearing brick-and-mortar chains, further pressuring malls.

And in an ironic turn, many of these online brands are experimenting with offline stores — but typically with some important twists. Bonobos and Warby Parker have built showrooms in their New York offices where consumers can come in and try on samples. But if the consumer wants to purchase items, then the companies fulfill the product from their warehouses — they don’t stock inventory in their “stores.” Bonobos has expanded this concept into a few additional locations, but not mall locations. Instead, they are selecting lower cost, non-mall locations and using emails to their online customers to drive folks to these locations. They do this because a consumer’s purchasing typically expands after a visit to their physical store, and the costs are not high given the lack of inventory and lower rents and staffing costs. If this trend expands, it will provide further challenges to malls.

In researching this post, I came across a fascinating (and slightly morbid) Web site called deadmalls.com, a site that chronicles the tales of hundreds of already or soon-to-be dead malls. Co-founder Brian Florence writes, “I started deadmalls.com with my friend Peter Blackbird in 2000 when we both realized that Pete had mountains of data about dead and dying malls stuck up in his head. Why keep this information to yourself? And, realizing the burgeoning power of the Internet and its ability to draw in more information, the site was created to harness stories of woe and merriment from others. It’s been a great success.”

Unfortunately for mall owners, the content on deadmalls.com is about to expand substantially. There are just too many malls in America, and this will only get worse.

Jeff Jordan is a partner at Andreessen Horowitz and is on the boards of AirBnB, Belly, Fab, Circle, Lookout and Pinterest, as well as OpenTable, Wealthfront and Zoosk. Previously, Jeff was president and CEO of OpenTable, which he took public in 2009. Before OpenTable, Jeff was president of PayPal, and he was previously the SVP and general manager of eBay North America. He blogs at http://jeff.a16z.com/.

Walmart is slashing the price of a few iPhone and iPad models — including Apple’s flagship iPhone 5 — in 3,000 stores, reports Reuters.

The 16 gigabyte iPhone 5 will cost $127, compared to the original price of $190 (with a two-year contract from Verizon Wireless, Sprint or AT&T). Wal-Mart is also selling the 16GB iPhone 4S for $47 — nearly half off. The 16GB iPad with Wi-Fi will cost $399, or $100 off.

Interestingly, the 30-day promotion has Apple’s blessing. A Walmart spokeswoman told Retuers that the discounts were arranged with Apple. But, after making a few inquiries, the discounts proved difficult to find in a handful of locations in Washington and California.

I was told that the iPhone is only carried at Walmart Supercenters, which, if true, should make the hunt easier, since there are only 3,100 supercenters in the U.S., roughly the equivalent number of stores where Walmart is supposedly offering the discounts. Instead, I found the inventory and prices to be wildly inconsistent.

My advice, if you plan on taking on the challenge, is be patient. It takes awhile to find the correct person in electronics to answer your question on the phone, and hold times can be long. In one case, I was hung up on; in another extreme case, a representative simply told me that the iPhone 5 would cost “a lot.”

After calling the stores close to my home, I found that some only carried phones for Verizon Wireless and sometimes AT&T, but never Sprint. Additionally, inventory was limited to the 16GB iPhone 5, with none carrying the higher-capacity 32GB model.

Finally, after calling two stores in the San Francisco area, I found one Supercenter that was selling the iPhone at a discount. The Walmart in American Canyon, Calif. said the phone from Verizon Wireless would cost $127 with a two-year contract, but the iPad remained at its original price of $499. The Supercenter in Napa continued to charge full price for all the devices.

Here’s one idea: To save time and the headache of calling around, go to one of the many stores that are offering to match the lowest prices this holiday season, including Best Buy and Target, which have both vowed to honor some competitors’ prices. Perhaps you’ll have better luck there.

Some analysts said yes. (For the record, we at AllThingsD are dubious. But, for the moment, we’re going to pretend that not spending dough on stuff is just like spending dough on stuff.)

Andrew Lipsman, an analyst at comScore, insisted there’s little distinction between whether consumers make the transaction on the phone or whether they later go home and make a purchase on a computer.

“It’s just the introduction of mobile devices into the brick-and-mortar environment that’s affecting consumer behavior,” Lipsman said.

According to recent comScore data, 37 percent of shoppers this past quarter displayed “showrooming” behavior — the act of price-checking using a mobile device while shopping in a traditional brick-and mortar-store. That’s compared with 32 percent of showrooming shoppers in the second quarter of the year. (Note to the math-challenged: This is a small increase, given the explosive growth of smartphones over the last year.)

But Forrester analyst Sucharita Mulpuru echoed Lipsman’s statement in a recent blog post, noting: “Most of the showrooming shoppers told us that they usually find cheaper prices online when they research them … A lot of people switch retailers when they find cheaper prices online.”

It’s apparently not all bad news for brick-and-mortar, though. As Forrester’s Mulpuru pointed out, some research leads not only to Amazon.com, but to another store. About 18 percent of mobile shoppers surveyed opted to head to another store to make a purchase, while just 15 percent said they went online instead.

Key takeaway: We’ll buy lots of stuff in lots more ways.

The new operating system sports a geometric layout, emphasizing third-party applications and touch navigation that works across PCs and mobile devices.

So far, companies like Netflix, Hulu Plus, Evernote and eBay have contributed apps, but many consumers will probably find the catalog thin. The selection is even more pressing, given that some versions of the operating system — called Windows RT — will not support older-style programs.

This week, Microsoft is hoping to fix that by hosting hundreds of developers at its Redmond, Wash., campus, under a big white tent, where it will be building its best case for why developers should be creating apps for its platform. Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer has already been busy giving the hard sell, projecting that a year from now we’ll see close to 400 million new devices running the new operating system, to make it “the single largest opportunity for software developers today.” That includes hardware spanning phones, tablets and PCs.

The company is also trying to pitch developers on its broader Windows ecosystem including Windows Phone 8, which was formally announced Monday in San Francisco.

Stay tuned for the keynote, starting at 9 am PT.

Earlier:

8:51 am: Hello folks, welcome to Redmond, Wash., where it’s raining super hard. But heck, we can’t complain since it’s not a hurricane.

As people get into their seats under the massive white tent, we’re getting a lesson from artist Jordan Rudess on how he uses a Surface to create music.

8:58 am: Rudess is rocking out. Hard to see him in the photo, but he’s bent over his keyboard, mixing the beats.

It’s like electro-funk, extraordinary techno-like music. But he’s legit. He went to Juilliard when he was 9.

Audience goes wild as Rudess leaves the stage after his finale. Now a little stage set-up while we watch a promotional video showing launch scenes from last Friday from around the globe.

9:08 am: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome Steve Ballmer to the stage. He mentions the rainy weather, and says that today’s festivities sold out in 58 minutes. He promises a bigger, better event next year. (Indoors, maybe?)

Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 are here, so how are they doing? Not a huge amount of data yet, but he says in three days, four million Windows 8 upgrades sold. Those are all individual users buying a copy — we’ve sold tens of millions of units to corporate customers, who can update when they choose.

9:12 am: Ballmer says lots of great things being said, namedrops quotes from CNET, Geek.com, AP and The Verge.

“The level of enthusiasm we’ve seen is exciting … I think we are really resonating across the board with the work we are bringing to market.”

Ballmer starts the pitch to developers: “Some points that are useful for those who are thinking about developing for Windows 8 today. With Windows 8, we absolutely have in our hands the best PCs — hardware and software — ever made. The best laptops, desktops, the new tablet meets PC form factor.”

9:17 am: With the launch of Windows Phone 8, it’s a first-class member of the Windows family, Ballmer says. You can read about the phones that were announced yesterday here. “If you want the best experience with your Windows computer, you’ll own a Windows phone. If you want an experience that’s most personal, you’ll want a Windows phone.”

9:20 am: Ballmer promises that he’ll be talking in a moment about the opportunity to make money and drive volume. But right now he’s touching on the fact that developers will be able to write once and have an application that runs across PCs that come with all kinds of form factors.

“You can not only build popular apps, but the apps you deliver on Windows will be better applications than you can build anywhere else, if you choose to marry the opportunities in the software.”

That’s a huge statement, but in order for them to be better than anywhere else, he’s saying developers have to embrace everything they have to offer, such as the opportunity to build live tiles, and integration with SkyDrive, etc. In other words, use everything that Microsoft has to offer!

9:25 am: Ballmer is going to do all his own demos, even though he isn’t a professional demoer. He’s got an 80-inch-plus slate! Huge touchscreen. He’s joking around and getting a lot of laughs from the audience. Someone is tweeting about him in another language — he says, “That’s got to be great!”

He’s sort of like a weatherman, giving us a tour of the Microsoft campus on Bing maps. Now, he’s bringing up OneNote. He makes a couple of notes on the screen, using a stylus.

9:30 am: Next demo. Ballmer is on a Dell desktop, and he’s talking about hanging out with Jessica Alba yesterday at the Windows Phone launch. He does a Jessica Alba search on the PC — there are no related apps, but some photos of the two of them, and then he searches the Web.

9:35 am: And now the smallest demo in the Windows 8 family: The phone. Phones on display are from Samsung, Nokia and HTC. He’s got Bill Gates pinned to the front of his screen. He’s also syncing his notes that he changed earlier on the 80-inch screen. Sure enough, the ink annotations show up on the screen.

9:38 am: Back to medium-sized devices, a one-pound Asus tablet. He’s tempted to throw it to someone in the first row, since it feels so light. But he won’t, because “he’s logged in to his email.”

Sorry, correction. That tablet was 1.15 pounds.

Next up, the Microsoft Surface, which gets applause from the crowd. Before this next demonstration, Ballmer admits: “I’m not a touch typist in any form!”

9:43 am: Ballmer is showing off Xbox Music on the Surface, by streaming “Beautiful Day.” Side note: If you haven’t tried it out yet, it rocks.

Next tablet demo is a Lenovo that weighs 1.32 pounds and runs all applications, not just ones made specifically for Windows 8. This tablet comes with a stylus to make it easy to make annotations.

9:47 am: Now Ballmer is showing off a touch laptop from Acer that weighs less than three pounds. Do people want touch in a laptop? Ballmer asks. Yes, he answers himself. This is a good enough machine to do testing, but also the development of apps, he says. He’s pinching to zoom in the new MSN app, and clicking through headlines.

Ballmer: “If it’s not clear, we’re all in with Windows 8. Every group at Microsoft has contributed something.”

9:53 am: Ballmer steps off the stage, and Steven Guggenheimer, corporate VP of developer and platform evangelism, is up next.

Looks like Ballmer’s job was to sell us on the hardware. Now the other Steve is here to show us a lot of apps. And, oh boy, he’s a fast talker.

That was cool, Guggenheimer just connected an Xbox controller to a Surface to play a game. You’ll also be able to Skype together with a friend while playing a game on a split screen.

Now something a little more serious: Using AutoCAD. It’s running the old Windows 7 app on a new Windows 8 desktop, although it has been upgraded to include a sketch application that can be used with a Windows 8 stylus.

10:02 am: Here’s some on the economics. This isn’t news, but, as Microsoft has already said, if developers choose to deliver the app through the Windows Store, including payments, then Microsoft shares 70 percent of the revenue with the developer, with the opportunity to increase that to 80 percent.

He’s saying that developers can use their own payments system, Microsoft’s, or PayPal.

10:04 am: Cameo appearance by Michael Bayle, the SVP and GM of ESPN Mobile. He’s going to give us a peek into his experiences developing for Windows 8.

A look at the new Windows 8 app from ESPN, built in the “Metro” style: Viewers will have an experience that is synced with their previous preferences. Listen to podcasts, view photos or follow real-time scores. “It’s our mission to serve sports fans, anytime, anywhere.” The app launches today on Windows 8.

10:08 am: Steve Ballmer comes back onstage. He’s scrolling through the catalog of apps: Disney’s Where’s my Water? game, Wikipedia, Hulu Plus, Fitbit, Expedia. Others coming as of today: SAP, Dropbox and Twitter just announced.

“One thing I didn’t have a chance to show you, but with the built-in People app, you can actually connect directly into the system, so when I put my son or my wife on my desktop, that connects to Facebook and Twitter. The work that Twitter announced this morning to bring an app to Windows 8 will highlight and showcase capabilities.”

Here we go. Here’s the reality of it. The software and hardware are nice, but there has to be volume for developers to get excited. “We have an installed 670 million people on Windows 7. Windows 8 takes less resources than Windows 7. Every one of those is a potential Windows upgrade. In the last few days, four million sales have moved in that direction. We don’t know what will happen with the PC market over the next year. I think with Windows 8, we’ll see growth and vitality, but even if it stays flat, there will be 400 million new Windows devices that you can target with your application.”

He says that 400 million is “for sure.”

As for Windows Phone 8, Ballmer says that most people think they are a small player, but they are offering the most differentiated experiences. “We’ll do more marketing, and better marketing.”

That commitment gets huge applause from the crowd. They want to see more Windows commercials!

“You will not be able to pick up a magazine, go to the Internet or watch TV without seeing one of our ads frequently.”

He adds: “You have an opportunity to make money — for you, for your company or for your shareholders.”

“I guarantee this will be the best opportunity developers will see. I really want us to build together. We need your support; we need your commitment. For those of you in the room — not on the Webcast — it is my pleasure that every Build attendee will get 100 gigabytes of SkyDrive storage for free.”

Another Oprah moment: Everyone is getting a Microsoft Surface RT with 32GB and a Touch Cover. For that, he asks two promises: Write lots of applications and, since you can’t pick up the Surfaces until 7 pm, stay seated and don’t run.

Enjoy Build!

10:22 am: That’s it, folks. Thanks for tuning in. The bulk of the keynote is over, but plenty more sessions are scheduled for the rest of the week to address how to create the best applications for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8. We’ll be back tomorrow at the same time for the Day 2 keynote.

Shopkick is one of the leading rewards programs, enabling shoppers to earn points using their phones by walking into stores and interacting with products.

But that system also costs retailers money because it requires them to install transmitters that emit signals that are then heard by a shopper’s smartphone.

Starting today, that’s changing thanks to a new partnership that will enable store owners to replay the same noise over a retailer’s existing music system.

“The speaker solution is cheaper to install for the retailers,” said Doug Galen, Shopkick’s chief revenue officer. “In fact, many retailers manage their music centrally at the music provider headquarters so installation work is done only once. Additionally, the music system is traditionally a cost center. Now, we are using that existing cost and investment to drive revenue.”

To make this possible, Shopkick has partnered with Mood Media Corporation, a leading in-store media solutions provider that is used by Macy’s and other major retailers.

In a statement, Mood Media’s Chief Business Development Officer Mark Elfenbein said rolling out Shopkick in one of its 580,000 commercial locations will require “little more than approval from the retailer and then it can be live with Shopkick in no time.”

Speed to market and affordability are obviously two major selling points as Shopkick pitches its service to more merchants.

With the Macy’s integration now nationwide, Shopkick is in more than 7,000 stores and 250 U.S. malls. Other retailers using Shopkick include Target, American Eagle Outfitters, Best Buy and Crate & Barrel. Shoppers who take the time to use the app are rewarded with “Kicks,” which are points that can be redeemed for in-store gift cards, song downloads, movie tickets and other offers.

The partnership and funding is a huge vote of confidence for the brand, which up until today only existed on the Internet.

If you haven’t seen the ads and don’t already know, Bonobos is known for “better-fitting” men’s pants, and while I’ve heard many men say it’s true, it’s apparently hard to explain why — sort of like why the company is named after a kind of over-sexed chimpanzee. Wait, maybe it’s not that difficult to understand. Ahem.

To be sure, the company has a large selection of nice pants.

Bonobos said the round of funding was led by Nordstrom, along with full participation from existing investors, such as Accel Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

In a statement, Andy Dunn, founder and CEO of Bonobos, said “We understand there are people who still want to touch and feel clothing before they purchase. We realized we needed help expanding beyond our web-only roots.”

Since launching in 2007, Bonobos has expanded to offer a full clothing line for men. Beginning in April, Nordstrom will carry the top two product lines of Bonobos, including chinos and cotton trousers. The brand will launch at 20 of Nordstrom’s stores and within the Men’s Shop on Nordstrom.com.

“Our investment with Bonobos will enable Nordstrom to participate in the young company’s phenomenal growth, and we look forward to what we can learn from each other as we build the business together,” said Jamie Nordstrom, president of Nordstrom Direct.

Last March, Nordstrom acquired HauteLook, an online retailer that offers flash sales.

Like Bonobos, several venture-backed companies have cropped up over the past couple of years that encourage men to shop more online, such as Indochino, J. Hilburn and TrunkClub. In December 2010, Bonobos raised $18.5 million.

Within the next two weeks, PayPal said in a post on the PayPal Blog, every Home Depot in the U.S. will be equipped to accept payments from customers using a PayPal card or mobile phone number and PIN combination.

Yesterday, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, PayPal also said it was increasing its efforts in the area of carrier payments, calling for wireless carriers to “revise standards to help optimize user experience, increase flexibility of carrier payments as a payment method, and increase payout rates for merchants.” The statement comes after Boku — which directly competes with PayPal’s recently acquired Zong — introduced a white-label service for in-store payments with wireless feature phones and smartphones, through a partnership with MasterCard.

In recent weeks, PayPal’s in-store payments system at Home Depot stores has come under fire from Visa, which is working on its own digital wallet service, called V.me. Visa’s global head of product, Jim McCarthy, said that PayPal’s system poses security risks, and that thieves could potentially see a paying customer’s account number as they enter it in at a payment terminal.

PayPal responded by reiterating its commitment to innovating point-of-sale purchasing, and said users’ data is more secure in PayPal’s cloud than it is in their pockets.

A new start-up, Openspace, is launching a physical store where consumers can visit and discover the latest mobile applications.

“If your iPhone has a problem, you take it to Apple. If your Android tablet has a problem, you take it to Verizon, AT&T or Best Buy,” said Openspace founder Robert Reich. “But if you have a question about which camera app would be great for taking pictures this weekend on the slopes, where can you turn?”

To help solve that problem, Openspace opened its first physical storefront last week in Boulder, Colo. Open six days a week, the store is staffed by “App Gurus” who make recommendations and try to eliminate “app-rehension.” (Their joke, not mine.)

Previously, Reich founded Boulder-based OneRiot, which uses social data to make mobile advertising more targeted. The company was acquired by Wal-Mart in September.

Openspace is just getting off the ground, so all the details haven’t been nailed down — like how the operation will make money. But in the next year it hopes to partner with developers to take a percentage of sales that result from applications promoted in the store.

Consumers can also do things the old-fashioned way and visit the company’s Web site to get recommendations. On the site, the company categorizes applications by interests — many of which won’t be found on iTunes — including such nontraditional subjects as Occupy Wall Street, zombies or “games a 10-year-old girl will enjoy.”

Developers often complain about how difficult it is for their applications to be discovered, and frequently pay for advertising or third-party promotion. So it’s possible that a physical app store could be one more way to get the word out.

Whether Openspace will be able to make enough money off referrals to offset the high costs of real estate and full-time staff will be the bigger question.

The inspection will cover business licenses, authorized permits of brand use, and the purchasing channels of each store, said China’s state-run Xinhua news agency, citing a worker with the city’s industrial and commercial department.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Pre-orders through Apple and Verizon begin tomorrow.

I have a 3GS iPhone. Is there a way to connect it to the Internet cable found in hotel and motel rooms?

A:

Not that I know of. But you can do this indirectly by creating your own Wi-Fi network from the wired connection in the room. There are two ways to do this.

One possibility is to carry a small portable router. These are small devices that plug into the wired connection and propagate a Wi-Fi signal in the hotel room that the iPhone (or other devices, like laptops and tablets) can use. A second option is to plug a laptop into the physical connection and use it as a Wi-Fi base station by setting up what’s called an “ad hoc” or computer-to-computer Wi-Fi connection. Steps for doing this, which can be a bit techie, differ depending on whether you use a PC or Mac.

Q:

I have been struggling with a hard drive space shortage for at least a year. I have deleted duplicate emails. I have deleted videos and word files and put them on a stand alone hard drive. Do you have any other suggestions?

A:

If you don’t want to, or can’t, replace your laptop, and don’t want to be tethered to your external hard disk, you might look into buying a new, larger, internal hard disk.

Many stores and consultants can sell and install larger hard disks, and even transfer the data from your old one.

Q:

I have thousands of photos on my computer and external hard drives. I’m in the process of trying to organize them on one hard drive and noticed that there are many duplicates between the different devices. Is there one program that you recommend that reliably detects and allows the removal of duplicate files?

A:

You might try using Google’s Picasa to sweep the drives, locate the photos, and display them.

The program has a feature that can avoid importing duplicates. Once imported, if there are still duplicates, Picasa offers methods to hide or actually delete them from your disk. Information on this is at http://bit.ly/8YKTzy.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online for free at the new All Things Digital website, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

One of the tidbits from the call was just how strong Apple’s business has been in Asia, particularly China. Apple’s four stores in China, on average, get more visitors and generate more revenue than the company’s stores anywhere else. And, if you have been to Apple’s stores in New York or San Francisco, that’s saying something.

Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook said the company decided several years back that of the largest developing economies–Brazil, India, Russia and China–it was China that represented the greatest opportunity. As a result, he said, the company has invested enormous energy there.

“The results of that have been staggering,” he said.

In the latest quarter, Apple had $2.6 billion in revenue from Greater China (mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan). That’s up four times from a year ago and nearly what the company did in the entire prior fiscal year. Apple launched a China-specific online store back in October to go along with the four physical locations (including the one in Pudong, shown here).

The company also saw strong results in Korea, led by sales of the iPhone and iPad. For the Asia-Pacific region as a whole, Apple had nearly $5 billion in sales, more than two and a half times what it had a year ago. Sales in Japan, which Apple counts separately, were up 83 percent year-over-year, to more than $1.4 billion.

“We’re placing more and more resource in these areas and continue to look for expansion possibilities,” Cook said.

• Apple’s Cook Aims to Reassure Wall Street on Apple’s Future
• A lot of iSales: Apple sold 7.3 Million iPads, 16.2 Million iPhones in December Quarter
• Apple’s Earnings Insanely Great

GameStop is expanding from primarily selling games in retail stores found in malls around America to a digital strategy that includes a new mobile component starting today.

The announcement expected today is timed with the release of its new Android application, which will let users of Google’s operating system download hundreds of games for free to either their phone or tablet.

In an interview, GameStop President Tony Bartel said: “The console continues to be a growth business, but it’s also exploding outside of console. It’s moving to anywhere people have a device that’s capable of reaching the Internet–if that’s a smartphone, or one of the 50 tablets that we saw at CES. Our gaming strategy is anytime, anywhere on any device.”

That’s a relatively new concept for GameStop, which jumped into the digital realm only following its acquisition of Kongregate six months ago.

Kongregate operates an online gaming community that gives tools to game developers so they can add achievements, virtual goods and community aspects to their games.

The Android application will be called Kongregate Arcade, which will leverage those same experiences found online. The app will be available to users from the Android Market for free. Inside the game, users will be have access to 300 free games to start.

Traditionally, Kongregate makes money from in-game advertising and virtual goods sold. Its mobile app will be monetized through ads only.

Kongregate CEO Jim Greer said he thinks users will find it easier to discover new games on the Arcade app than on Android’s default market. “We see the discovery of games in Android marketplace as an issue. It’s hard to find titles and it’s not well curated,” he said. “We’ve learned a lot about making customized game recommendations to players based on what they’ve played and what their friends have played, and their ratings and game play styles.”

In addition, he said the Android version will be linked to its PC version, allowing users to tap into the community they’ve already built, and earn achievements on both the phone and online.

GameStop plans to promote the application in its physical stores and leverage Kongregate’s 13 million monthly unique visitors on the PC to make it a hit. Already, Greer says, Android users are the most likely to visit the company’s mobile Web site.

Interestingly, Kongregate has created the experience in Adobe’s Flash Player, meaning that even if Apple allowed it, it would not work on the iPhone because Apple doesn’t support Flash. Likewise, it will only work on Android phones that support Flash–that is, phones with version 2.2 or higher.

GameStop will be competing against other companies, such as Aurora Feint’s OpenFeint game network, which claims to have 3,400 games and 55 million users across Apple and Android. In a way, GameStop will also go head-to-head with one of its more traditional competitors, Amazon.com, which is preparing to release an Android app store that also aims to solve the discovery problem.

Investors include Bessemer Venture Partners, FirstMark Capital and Felicis Ventures.

Shopify has more than 10,000 stores actively selling products on its platform, which provides features such as custom themes to create a storefront, an iPhone app that helps track orders and easy integration with PayPal or credit cards. Competitors in the space include BigCommerce and Yahoo Merchant Solutions.

Tobias Lutke, Shopify’s CEO and co-founder, said the funding will help the company expand the team from 30 employees and add mobile capabilities to its products. Lutke says mobile phones are playing a huge role in this year’s holiday shopping season, and that they can do a lot more “cool stuff” going forward.

The Ottawa-based company was founded five years ago originally as an online storefront selling snowboards and other winter gear. Lutke said that’s when he realized how difficult it was to start an online store. Shopify has now shut down the storefront to focus on reselling the software it has built for itself. He hasn’t raised any money before because the company has been profitable to date.

Shopify is now processing more than $100 million in revenues, and beyond Angry Birds developer Rovio and DodoCase, it counts General Electric, Tesla Motors, Amnesty International and the Foo Fighters as customers. Lutke: “People are becoming extremely savvy about selling online. The time it takes to get up and running is always decreasing. It’s an amaizing thing.”

Aydin Senkut, founder and managing director of Felicis Ventures, said: “We have conviction that e-commerce is a key area, and some areas of e-commerce have not seen a lot of innovation…and I was blown away at how beautiful and practical Shopify is. They’ve been bootstrapping and have had a lot of traction. I was very impressed with the company.”

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but both TechCrunch and Business Insider peg the price tag at around $75 million in cash.

Analysts have been critical of eBay’s ability to turn its marketplaces unit around as it struggles to maintain its lead against others like Amazon and Google.

The purchase of Milo will help eBay bridge the gap between online shopping and brick-and-mortar locations. Milo’s database will be integrated into RedLaser, a mobile phone app eBay bought earlier this year that allows consumers to check prices in physical stores by scanning a bar code. Likewise, Milo’s sale to eBay will help give it some additional backing as it faces competition from Google, which in March launched the ability to check stock at nearby stores from smartphone devices.

The company had shared most of its plans ahead of time. One of the unknowns, though, was what Verizon would charge for the service. Verizon said on Wednesday that pricing will start at $50 a month for 5GB of data (that’s $10 a month cheaper than Verizon currently charges for its 3G data service). The company also announced two 4G USB modems (4G-ready phones won’t be coming until next year).

The event is just now kicking off, with Verizon Wireless CTO Tony Melone going through the details.

“This announcement has been a long time coming,” Melone said, noting that the company announced its plans to use LTE at Mobile World Congress in 2009. At the time, he said, the company didn’t necessarily know that it would be the first with a significant 4G network.

Melone also took shots at competitors, some of whom are already billing their existing networks as either 4G or delivering near-4G speeds.

“This is the real deal,” Melone said. “Not all 4G is the same.”

Update, 9:15 am PT: More on pricing. Two data plans: 5GB for $50 and 10GB for $80. Anything more than that will be charged at $10 per GB.

“There’s no limit,” Melone said. “We’re not going to slow customers down if they want to use more.”

As for speeds, Verizon said it expects customers will get 5 to 12 megabits per second when downloading and 2 to 5 Mbps when uploading once the network is fully loaded. (Speeds should be faster early on, Melone said.)

The two modems, which will sell for $99 after rebates, also support Verizon’s 3G network in areas where 4G is not available. They will be available online and at Verizon stores, but not immediately at retailers like Best Buy or Radio Shack.

More devices (i.e., phones) will be out by the middle of next year, Melone said. Verizon will talk more about smartphones at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, a spokesman said.

9:25 am: On to Q&A.

Asked about pricing, Melone said that they expect many customers will find their usage is above 5GB and will opt for the $80 a month plan, but still wanted to entice some customers with the lower price plan. “We believe the combination of the two will meet the needs of most customers,” he said.

Consumers will be able to get alerts letting them know when they are at 50 percent, 75 percent, 90 percent or 100 percent of their data plan and they can also query to see how much data they have used.

As for shifting from 4G to 3G, there won’t be a hiccup. However, the caveat is that going from 3G to 4G, you stay 3G until you finish an active session.

We’re likely to hear about some 4G-specific services around CES, Melone said, hinting at some sort of video service. “Obviously the capabilities of this network lend themselves to video-based applications,” he said.

9:38 am: I asked a couple of questions. First, how will Verizon handle voice and data simultaneously. (LTE supports it but 3G doesn’t.)

Melone said that was part of the thinking in launching data modems before 4G smartphones. “One of the reasons why we are not going out with voice out of the gate is it creates complexities that don’t serve anyone,” he said. That said, Verizon’s plan is that initially voice-only calls will be placed on the 3G network, while data sessions will be on 4G when both are available. Eventually, both will move to LTE, he said.

My second question was on whether the speeds Melone talked about on a fully loaded network take into account having a hit device, like the iPhone.

“We expect to be successful and have lots of devices on this network,” Melone said, adding that the company designed the network to be able to handle that kind of usage.