Millennials aren’t just cutting cable cords: the newest trend reports indicate that they’re also cutting back on cash withdrawals in favor of mobile payment apps. Venmo, for instance, reported an impressive 62% jump in usage during this year’s first quarter, with a total of $312 million in processed transactions. It is worth noting that currently mobile payment is primarily used in interpersonal transitions between friends, ranging from dinner tabs to splitting rents, which reveals a true missed opportunity that most businesses have yet to embrace.
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Yahoo Woos Small Businesses With Revamped Web Store
When it comes to online retailing, Yahoo might not have the same clout as Amazon or eBay. But that doesn’t mean it has stopped trying. In fact, it has quietly unveiled a revamped version of Yahoo Stores that is specifically targeted at small retailers, which puts it in direct competition with similar platforms such as Shopify, Squarespace, Etsy, and Weebly. To stand out, Yahoo clearly needs to leverage its other existing online resources into better assisting small retailers build customized online storefronts.
What The Spread Of Private Social Network Signifies
Nextdoor, a private social network platform for local communities, has reportedly infiltrated over a quarter of neighborhoods across the nation. Functioning less like an exclusive Facebook, and more like a community-based web forum with real names and verified addresses, Nextdoor excels in its capability in forging a neighborly bond that is usually lost nowadays.
The rapid growth of Nextdoor corresponds nicely to that of the messaging apps, as both substitute the one-to-many communication model that most social media perpetrate with a one-to-one, sometimes one-to-few approach of connecting with friends and neighbors. The spread of Nextdoor signifies the rising demand for a more intimate mode of communication and social connectivity.
What’s Next For The Sharing Economy
From car rides to groceries, apps like Uber and Instacart have helped fostering a new service market for connecting consumers with similar needs to share a service together. Born out of such market demand, the booming sharing economy is set out to transform the way many service industries conduct their business. But could we take this sharing concept one step further and apply it to big data?
By default, matching another person in your proximity to share a service with requires sharing a lot of personal information. And an economy supported by big data sharing would work seamlessly and even anticipatorily across different service platforms. Despite the potential convenience it may provide, this would most likely be a hard sell to the consumers as privacy concerns persist. Nevertheless, as the sharing economy continues to grow, sooner or later the valuable data it collects will presumably be put into good use. In fact, this might have already happened, as many opt to log in on a new service with their Facebook accounts.
Creative Emmy Round-Up: 7 Netflix Wins & Apple Ad Awarded
The Creative Emmy 2014 was announced on Sunday, and among the long list of new winners, Netflix and Apple stand out from the crowd.
Netflix continues to disrupt the entertainment content market by reaping a whopping total of seven awards with its original content. Three awards went to its hit prison dramedy Orange Is The New Black, which solidifies the show’s frontrunner status in the race for this year’s Best Comedy Series. It is worth noting that all of its award-winning shows and documentaries could never have been made if not for Netflix’s subscription-based business model, as they are evidently too edgy for ad-supported broadcasters and basic cable.
Meanwhile, Apple beats out strong competitors like Budweiser and Nike to take home the award for Best Commercial with its acclaimed holiday spot “Misunderstood” from last year, once again showcasing the tech giant’s incredible marketing flair.
What Lay’s Is Teaming Up With Uber For
Sing all the praises you want about ecommerce, one thing it has yet to really figure out is how to provide interested consumer with samples in a timely manner. Or has it now?
Potato chips brand Lay’s is teaming up with car-on-demand service Uber to launch a campaign in NYC. The campaign makes use of UberRush, Uber’s courier service, to deliver a free picnic basket filled with Lay’s potato chips for consumers participating in the brand’s “Do Us a Flavor” contest. If successful, this unlikely partnership could potentially pave a new path for digital sampling and proximity-based marketing.
Attention! There is A New Security Loophole On Your Smartphone
Researchers from Stanford University have discovered a new privacy concern on smartphones: the gyroscope. They found that not only were the gyroscopes sensitive to phone vibrations, they could also pick up the frequency of minute air vibrations around the device, which gives them the capability to serve as unauthorized microphones that eavesdrop on your personal conversations. This new finding could potentially bring a new set of regulations regarding the use of gyroscopes on digital devices.
How Reflected Wi-Fi Could Help Wearables With Battery Life
Forget NFC and beacon technology. Future wearables could communicate via reflected Wi-Fi, according to researchers at UCLA. A team from Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the university has been developing a technology called ambient backscatter that allows small devices, like wearables, to communicate with Wi-Fi routers by reflecting the signals they send out. This new transmission protocol would cut down transfer rates, which means a longer battery life. Whether the technology is mature enough to be adopted by the industry remain to be tested.
Surprise! Lenovo Is Selling More Smartphones Than PCs
According to Lenovo’s latest earnings report, the world’s largest PC manufacturer is now selling more smartphones than PCs. The Chinese company reported selling 15.8 million smartphones in the recent quarter, compared to 14.5 million sales in PCs, further proving that the digital world is moving towards mobile. Despite this, Lenovo is still making more profit on its PCs, possibly due to the fact that most of its smartphone sales are low-end handsets popular in emerging markets.
Yahoo Sites Start Integrating Ads From Tumblr
Sponsored posts on Tumblr for brands like Lexus, Lipton, and “Hunger Games” will start showing up on Yahoo sites. This cross-platform integration makes perfect sense, given Yahoo’s continuous efforts in integrating the microblogging platform it purchased last year into its business. Plus, for the image-heavy digital magazines sites like Yahoo Tech, Tumblr already serves as the editorial publishing tool for these sites and has been used to create those sites’ ads since their introduction.
