News and Analysis
Retailers Use AI to Mine Social Data for Back-to-School Trends
Students across the country are returning to the classroom this month — some for the first time in more than a year. While early indications show strong late-summer back-to-school sales, retailers aren’t leaving anything up to chance. Widespread confusion around health policies, safety protocols, and required supplies that can vary by school are leading retailers to rely on social media and artificial intelligence to collect information on emerging themes and trends.
Idomoo Launches Interactive Video Platform
Could highly personalized interactive video become the primary way that businesses communicate with customers in the future? That’s what the team at Idomoo is betting on. The company is launching a fully open, enterprise-grade platform called Living Video that will enable businesses to automatically update videos in real-time based on context and user input.
Commentary
AR Impacts Local Commerce, Disrupting Home Services and Retail
AR is emerging at a time when the physical retail world is undergoing significant transformation. Things like Amazon Go stores and the counteractive “retail as a service” movement have raised awareness and hunger for retail evolution. So AR’s retail shopping use cases fall on fertile soil.
But retail is just one way that AR intersects with local commerce. AR comes into play in another key local commerce category: home services. Innovators like Streem are bringing remote assistance to traditional service calls (think: busted pipe).
Google Antitrust: Is It Enough for Yelp?
Mihm to Blumenthal: I’m not averse to the idea of the government regulating Google’s practices in Maps or local search, but it feels like rewarding Yelp in particular is not going to bring consumers any particular benefit, nor will it meaningfully benefit small businesses, as Elizabeth Warren seems to indicate is a primary goal of her plan.
If anything, Google has gone out of its way to help small businesses compete in its search results with the introduction of the local pack and the Venice update, whereas small businesses continue to rate Yelp as poorly as any company in tech.
Latest Posts
5 Tech Companies Changing the Grocery Industry
The percentage of grocery purchases influenced by digital media nearly doubled last year, and by 2025 roughly one-fifth of U.S. grocery sales are expected to happen online. Now it’s time for technology vendors to step in with new innovations, so that the industry can continue to evolve. Here are five firms working to change the way we buy groceries right now.
Street Fight Daily: Amazon Go Opens to Public, Advertisers See Video Pivot in News Feed Change
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Amazon Go, High-Tech Grocery Store Sans Cashiers, Opens to the Public… As Facebook Changes Its Feed, Advertisers See Video Ambitions… Google’s Emphasis on Webpage Speed Will Hit CNN, WSJ, Other Top Sites…
Sponsored: How Location Intelligence and Software-as-a-Service Will Take Over in 2018
Location data and technology companies thrived in 2017 and are looking to expand on their success this year. Probably the best indication that location intelligence is here to stay and growing are the better regulations and user-friendly initiatives that are being adopted by different players in the ecosystem.
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Beyond Likes: Win Hearts with Emotional Marketing