Subscription Fatigue Flaws, Amazon Slashes Affiliate Rates, VTEX Invests in US, Kanye's Vision, Attentive Raises $40M, Instagram Small Business Commerce, Quibi: Fancy Youtube, CPG Cannot Go Dark
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The Flaws of "Subscription Fatigue", "SVOD Fatigue", and the "Streaming Wars" — Matthew Ball
The most popular narratives hide the truth of competition, scalability, and monetization.
No longer do you need to “track” your toothbrush for wear, risk “running out” of toilet paper and then be forced to overpay for a small-volume purchase, or need to scan and hoard coupons to ensure a great deal.
These two things should allow the company to make more intelligent programming investments, more effectively market its non-SVOD content and consumer products, and enhance upsell/cross-selling of everything from a Toy Story tote bag to a $5,000 cruise adventure.
Serial entrepreneurs Carlos Cashman and Josh Silberstein founded the company in mid-2018 and have since quietly and steadily built a business that they say has been profitable since inception and, well, growing like crazy.
Amazon slashes commission rates for program that gives publishers a cut of sales
Amazon told members of its affiliates program that it will cut commission rates beginning April 21.
Hit with a surge of online orders, the company moved to prioritize shipments of essential items in its warehouses, though it has since begun winding down those restrictions.
One member of the program, who asked to remain anonymous, said they "cannot afford" the fee cuts that were announced, since a main portion of their income comes from commissions earned via Amazon links.
We're excited to officially announce the new leadership team for VTEX in the US to support successful B2C clients like Motorola and B2B clients like Stanley Black & Decker.
This approach creates what VTEX calls “collaborative commerce”, an effect that yields rapid sales growth for marketplace operators and sellers alike.
“Because our solutions allow companies to scale quickly, deliver the fastest time-to-revenue and never experience painful software updates, we’re seeing many retailers leave their legacy platforms for our end-to-end offering,” said Amit Shah, VTEX US General Manager and Chief Strategy Officer.
Dr. Anthony Fauci sees path for sports to come back without fans
Dr. Anthony Fauci said sports returning without fans in what would essentially be quarantined leagues is within the realm of possibility.
Chris Kielsmeier, Cleveland State women's basketball coach
Paolo Maldini, former player and current AC Milan technical director
Posting your photos on Instagram? You are giving up some rights – to Instagram, of course, and seemingly also to others – in doing so. That is the point
In an interesting new decision dated April 13, Judge Kimba Wood of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed the lawsuit that Stephanie Sinclair – a professional photographer whose striking work has been contracted by the New York Times and Time Magazine, among other titles – filed against Mashable in January 2018, in which she accused the New York-based digital media publisher of infringing her exclusive rights in a photo that she took, entitled, “Child, Bride, Mother/Child Marriage in Guatemala.”
In fact, it comes as a string of cases centering on the legality of (or potential lack thereof) embedding others’ social media posts that contain copyright-protected images has been making the rounds in federal court.
Inside Kanye West's Vision for the Future
For the May issue, Will Welch spent three months across three countries talking to Ye about the Yeezy campus he's developing in Wyoming, his next album, his “altered ego,” and his renewed faith in God.
Over the course of our conversations, Kanye refers to West Lake Ranch as a “Yeezy campus” and “a paradigm shift for humanity.” He is focused on developing a new architectural language with input from the legendary American light-and-space artist James Turrell, the Belgian interior design wizard Axel Vervoordt, and the Italian architect Claudio Silvestrin.
The idea is that once these things are developed and built, the thinking that shaped them will spread, just as his album 808s & Heartbreak reshaped the sound and emotional tenor of popular music, and his taste for a mix of streetwear, Ralph Lauren, and Louis Vuitton changed how you and I dress—and eventually reorganized the whole fashion industry.
Mobile messaging startup Attentive continues to bring in new funding. The startup raised a $40 million Series B last summer, followed by a $70 million Series C at the beginning of this year. Today it’s announcing that it’s extended the Series C by another $40 million, bringing the total…
“Attentive’s rapid growth is an indicator of how consumers are eager to find a more direct, personalized and efficient channel to interact with businesses,” said Jeff Wang, managing partner at Sequoia Capital Global Equities, in a statement.
There will be more details released in the coming weeks, but Long said the idea is to launch funds focused on the e-commerce/retail, food/beverage and educational sectors, providing free access to Attentive tools and services “to help those companies get recharged.”
Starting Wednesday in the U.S. and Canada, Instagram users can tap on a gift card or food order to make a purchase through a company's site. Fundraisers created by a business or its supporter open on Facebook.
On Wednesday it announced that Instagram is making it easier for small businesses to feature gift cards, online food orders and fundraisers in their profiles or stories.
The bottom line: small businesses generate crucial revenue for Instagram parent Facebook – at a time when larger brands in the travel and retail space are halting spending.
Instagram redesigns IGTV with creators as the focus
Who’s using the app?
The company tells The Verge today that it’s completely redesigned the homepage to feature a creator up top, tailored to each user based on who they follow and whose content the app thinks might be interesting to them.
Instagram says it thinks IGTV is the “future of video,” so ensuring people can actually find content to watch, as well as creators they like that’ll keep them coming back, is essential to making it succeed.
The Supreme Court Will Hear Arguments by Phone. The Public Can Listen In.
For the first time, the nation’s highest court will open a live audio feed as it hears arguments in 10 sets of cases.
The remaining arguments, including a $9 billion copyright dispute between Google and Oracle, will be rescheduled for the court’s next term, which begins in October.
Part of the reason was to preserve medical-grade masks for health care workers who desperately need them at a time when they are in continuously short supply.
Amazon was already powerful. The coronavirus pandemic cleared the way to dominance.
The global health crisis has forced 250,000 US stores closed, clearing the way to Amazon’s dominance.
“They had the rug pulled out from under them and are unfairly disadvantaged, while their competitors, like Amazon, Walmart, and arguably Target are allowed to stay open and widen their lead,” said Sucharita Mulpuru, a retail analyst at Forrester research.
The company rolled its Amazon Fresh delivery service under its main Prime membership program in the fall, simultaneously eliminating the extra monthly fee and lowering the barrier to usage for customers.
Blackfishing: 'Black is cool, unless you're actually black'
From Kim Kardashian to Selena Gomez, the perceived trend for wanting to appear black shows no sign of slowing down
On Monday night Interview magazine dropped their new cover on Instagram – a hyper-urban shot of singer Selena Gomez with her tongue sticking out, dressed in black boots, leggings and a Balenciaga X-Rated top.
“This is blackfishing y’all wake up,” read one comment under the cover image, while the website Pop Crave tweeted the question: “Why is Selena Gomez trying to be black …” – featuring pictures from the Interview shoot.
Quibi isn’t TV. It’s fancy YouTube
Here's everything you need to know about Quibi, the mobile video service launching in the US today.
Conrad and the rest of the company’s top brass—founder Jeffrey Katzenberg (the former Walt Disney Studios chairman) and CEO Meg Whitman (the former head of eBay)—think their pitch to consumers still applies in today’s socially-distanced world, even if people aren’t commuting or taking breaks between classes.
Quibi spends as much as $100,000 per minute ($6 million per hour) on some of its originals—right on par with an episode of TV on many broadcast or cable networks (but not quite Game of Thrones or The Mandalorian territory ).
Why CPG marketers can't afford to go dark despite coronavirus risks
Sales for the category remain strong, but marketers must rethink their strategies now to sustain momentum through a recession and adjust to altered shopper habits.
Sales of essential household goods and packaged foods are strong as people pantry load and seek comfort during the pandemic, but key marketing levers are shut off, halting strategies and possibly forcing a pivot to new methods of outreach.
Convenience stores like 7-Eleven and other retail venues are ramping up similar offerings to meet customer demand and stay afloat as foot traffic plunges — but CPGs could potentially play a larger role in the space.
Early this month, the Court of Justice of the European Union issued its decision in a closely-watched trademark-centric case involving Amazon and the
Early this month, the Court of Justice of the European Union issued its decision in a closely-watched trademark-centric case involving Amazon and the German arm of cosmetics giant Coty.
Holding that storage and distribution of third-party products orders consisting of infringing goods by e-commerce platform operators, such as the $1 trillion titan that is Amazon, to merely store, is, alone, not enough to give rise to trademark infringement liability on the part of the platform operator, the decision was swiftly deemed by the media to be a “big victory” for Amazon.