Big news outlets stupidly sold their soul to Facebook. Desperate for the referral traffic Facebook dangled, they spent the past few years jumping through its hoops only to be cut out of the equation. Instead of developing an owned audience of homepage visitors and newsletter subscribers, they let Facebook brainwash readers into thinking it was their source of information.
Thirty-nine million Americans now own a smart speaker device, but the voice app ecosystem is still developing. While Alexa today has over 25,000 skills available, a number of companies haven’t yet built a skill for the platform, or offer only a very basic skill that doesn’t work that well. That’s where the startup Storyline comes in. The company is offering an easy to use, drag-and-drop visual interface for building Amazon Alexa skills that doesn’t require you to have knowledge of coding.
Source: Storyline lets you build and publish Alexa skills without coding | TechCrunch
The Alexa voice platform and other deep learning projects have made Amazon an AI leader.
Source: How Amazon Rebuilt Itself Around Artificial Intelligence | WIRED
Amazon is investing in a startup with an astoundingly simple premise: testing voice apps on real, human people.
Source: Amazon Is Spending $2.5 Million To Fix Alexa’s Fatal Flaw
The New York Times is about to expand our journalism so you can experience it in three dimensions, just by picking up your phone.
Source: Augmented Reality: How We’ll Bring the News Into Your Home – The New York Times
But analysts say advertisers probably will be willing to pay higher prices, even though the number of daily users declined.
New data from Kantar Consulting shows that an impressive 45% of households are more than willing to pay Prime membership fees, in exchange for free two-day shipping, along with ancillary benefits like access to Amazon’s streamable content.
Source: Nearly Half of US Households Are Now Amazon Prime Subscribers | eMarketer Retail
Less is more. The social network’s quarterly earnings report revealed that users spent 50 million fewer hours per day on the site in the last quarter of 2017 — its first ever drop. But the company’s profits still rose 47 percent compared to the same period in 2016, and founder Mark Zuckerberg said the slipping usage ultimately won’t matter after the company revamps its news feed to focus on “meaningful connections.” The mixed news sent Facebook’s stock on a roller coaster ride, tumbling 5 percent before recovering for a 1.4 percent gain.
Source: Facebook Usage Declines While Profits Soar – February 01, 2018 | OZY
Cryptocurrency miners now demand specialized hardware — and Samsung wants to sell them it.
Source: Samsung’s now making chips designed for cryptocurrency mining – The Verge
Nearly 75% of grocery shoppers have used a physical store to “showroom” before purchasing online. The store is still pivotal to the shopper experience, and there’s opportunity to convert showroomers or drive online purchases through one’s own online retail platforms.
Source: On the Path to Purchase, ‘Showrooming’ is a New Way to Shop
Several reports from Asia say Apple has slashed component orders for the iPhone X, its most important product. Apple shares dropped on the news. Apple CEO Tim Cook has previously said about component orders that “even if a particular data point were factual, it would be impossible to accurately interpret” what it means for iPhone sales.
Source: Apple reportedly slashing orders because iPhone X isn’t selling well – Business Insider
Microsoft’s Xbox One platform is making ambitious moves but remains in second place behind Sony’s massively successful PlayStation 4. A comparatively poor lineup of major exclusive games is a key factor in the Xbox One’s weaker position. A new report from the gaming site Polygon says Microsoft is looking at a major acquisition to help the Xbox group.Valve, EA, and PUBG Corp. are all cited as potential purchases.
Source: Xbox is in trouble, and Microsoft may buy a company to fix it – Business Insider
TV viewership of the The 2018 Grammy Awards was down 24%, but the show still spurred immediate sales gains for the songs performed on Sunday’s broadcast. Those songs earned a collective 328% gain in download sales in the U.S. on the day of the show, according to initial sales reports. All together, the songs performed (and original versions of songs covered) sold 74,000 downloads, up from 17,000 on the previous day.
Source: Grammys 2018 Boost Sales 328% Despite TV Ratings Drop – hypebot
Looking back at the new technologies and advancements from Facebook engineering in 2017.
Source: 2017 Year in review: Building immersive experiences | Engineering Blog | Facebook Code
In the latest episode of eMarketer’s “Behind the Numbers” podcast, analyst Paul Verna discusses trends in music consumption and how the Grammys fit—and don’t fit—with consumers’ evolving habits.
Source: Are the Grammys Relevant in a Digital World? – eMarketer
Source: From Amazon, Apple, Comcast and AT&T: This is who owns the media today – Recode
“People consistently tell us they want to see more local news on Facebook,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said.
Source: Facebook to show users more local news in News Feed – Business Insider
Fake news, a grudging dependence on social media platforms, the pivot to video—all of these add up to create an obstacle-laden environment for publishers trying to figure out a viable business model. Now, new data from native content discovery platform Taboola raises yet another difficult factor: a decline in the duration of US internet users’ sessions on publisher sites.
Source: Consumer Time Spent on Publisher Sites Fell in 2017 – eMarketer
Unsurprisingly, the Google/Facebook duopoly also reigns when it comes to video ads, finds new research. But Snapchat has barely made a dent in the space.
Source: Marketers Think YouTube, Facebook Are Most Effective Video Ad Platforms (Surprise!) – eMarketer
Data about exercise routes shared online by soldiers can be used to pinpoint overseas facilities
Source: Fitness tracking app Strava gives away location of secret US army bases | Technology | The Guardian
