News and Analysis
Does a Bipartisan Bill Threaten the Autonomy of Local Platforms?
The push to regulate big tech is not new. In fact, a bill similar to the American Innovation and Choice Online Act was introduced by the House of Representatives last year, only to be relegated to the legislative back burner. So far, no meaningful legislation has made its way into law, but each new effort in that direction reawakens the possibility that companies like Google will eventually need to modify their practices to remove bias towards themselves.
Commentary
Retail as a Service: Amazon Tips its Hand
Amazon has a knack for moving into new vertical segments and then applying its logistical mastery and economies of scale to carve out margins and undercut incumbents. Then, it doubles down by scaling things up to its signature high-volume/low-margin approach. As Jeff Bezos ruthlessly admits, “Your margin is my opportunity.”
The latest place for this to unfold is retail. No, we’re not talking about Whole Foods, though that’s part it (more on that in a bit). We’re talking about Amazon’s transformation of the in-store experience — upending and streamlining logistics just like it’s done in shipping and cloud computing.
Here are some predictions for how Amazon’s disruption of retail via licensing of its Go technology will upend the industry.
Turning a Unique Vanity Phone Number into Many
Just over half of Americans now use their personal mobile phone numbers as their only phone numbers. A majority of Americans also no longer have landline phones in their homes, and that’s convenient because anyone, anywhere in the world, can now reach you with just that one number. But the opposite is true in the business world, where brands can leverage new technologies to create multiple vanity numbers in order to engage their customers across local, regional, and national marketing campaigns.
That statistic I cited above isn’t just an interesting bit of trivia. It highlights how the phone, an ancient communications medium compared to social media platforms, chatbots, messaging apps, and email, remains important to a brand’s marketing efforts.
Will Images Drive a New Local Search Paradigm?
Blumenthal to Mihm: Obviously AI/ML vis-à-vis image recognition is going to play a huge role going forward in terms of discovery and conversion. But I would have to add that it is also critically important to Google as a way to engage the user in “immersive search” behaviors. That is, drawing the user deeper and deeper into Google so that they never feel the need or desire to go someplace else. This will further seal off the walled garden of local discovery search.
You can see this in the new search by photos feature where the user is led into a grid of visual business choices and ultimately served up the Local Finder via the View list link or, if they click on an image, a business profile. But to get to the phone number, the user had to totally commit to diving deeper into Google.
Latest Posts
#SFSNYC: Broadly CEO: Brick-and-Mortars Need to Become Messaging Centers
Phone calls and contact forms are dead, but what about websites? Not so much, said Josh Melick, CEO of Broadly, at Street Fight’s annual summit in New York Wednesday. With this trend showing no signs of stopping, websites—especially those of local businesses—need to become messaging centers.
#SFSNYC: The Growing Power of SMB OS
Until recently, brick-and-mortar shopping relied on the digital world for advertising functions and not much else. But now, local retail has a new digital arena—the full-service operating system. Three leaders in this expanding set of technological solutions for SMBs laid out the state of the field, known as SMB OS, at Street Fight Summit in New York Wednesday.
#SFSNYC: Making Conversational Interfaces the Frontline for Customer Interaction
The development of conversational language to interact with chatbots, digital assistants, smart devices, and other machines is changing the ways consumers make use of such platforms to find the information and services they want—and this change is only going to get more important for brands and local businesses to address.
How Peoria Journal Star Did a Lot More With Less After Deep Cuts Shrank the Newsroom
“We made it our mission, working with our publisher at the time, Ken Mauser, that we would reach out to the people of the South Side and make sure they had a place where they could tell us about the good things happening where they live,” Peoria Journal Star Executive Editor Dennis Anderon says of reaching out to neglected community members.
Most Local Merchants Unfazed by Facebook Controversies, Though Some Signs of Trouble
By now, consequences of the negative aura surrounding Facebook’s role in customer info abuse, fake news, and Russian political meddling should have started to take hold. Yet over half of local merchants we polled said they would continue to use Facebook as they had previously, and only one in five said they may use it less.
Street Fight Daily: Local Merchants Unfazed by Facebook Controversy, Consumers Apprehensive on Voice
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Most Local Merchants Unfazed by Facebook Controversies, Though Some Signs of Trouble… Report: Brands Abandoning Social Media Measurement… Microsoft’s GitHub Deal Marks Latest Shift from Windows…
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