VoIPWatch

SMS Short Codes Can Come Up Short

SMS has become a way many users communicate and in lots of use cases, such as multi-factor authentication, it becomes the way various businesses and services validate you to use another mode of communications, like a mobile app. Unfortunately, just as how Robocalling has infected our telephone world, where calls come in looking like they're from your neighbor when they're from someone impersonating Apple, Microsoft, the IRS or the Social Security Administration, SMS Short Codes, that are administered by the CTIA, have also fallen victim to SMS Spam.

And, when your bank, or airline's SMS supplier is caught having SPAM traffic coming through to one of the MNOs (Mobile Network Operators), unlike with robocalling where the calls keep coming, the MNOs simply turn off access to the offending supplier, and with it, all the traffic from legitimate SMS platforms stops too. And with it, they, and their customers who are already enrolled in a Text Marketing program for information, as a means to authenticate and communicate, get turned off too.

As a result, SMS Short Codes, are coming up short, and will likely be the next target for the FCC to tackle, after Shaken/Stir has had its day. The reason is customers and businesses rely on the messaging platform to deliver the good. And when they don't, without warning, problems can arise. The FCC is there to serve the public's interest, and to protect the licensees and operators too so don't be surprised if they tackle this growing problem too.

Disney + and the Rise of The Self Marketer

I've been following Disney's pursuit of their own streaming service and the process they've undertaken to get there. For starters they signaled their intention and then acquired the infrastructure of MLB's streaming group. That was a key and very schrewed move, as the MLB infrasructure was already supporting other companies, like WWE, and was a proven, battle tested and state of the art network. It also brought with it relationships and talent that understood how to stream and scale.

Next they signaled again, telling the market that properties of theirs in the Marvel family would be coming to Disney+.  This was less about taking the content away from rival Netflix than it was the first step in how the streaming service would be where the best Disney content could be found when it launches. And then yesterday Disney indicated that as soon as the theatrical release obligations of their cinematic efforts were up, they would immediately become available on Disney+ which is lining up massive distribution from the start.

Well, reading between the lines, the battle lines are being drawn but that's not as important as what Disney is doing with Disney+. It's about you, the viewer, and how you interact with Disney, the brand. Up until Disney+ once a video asset left Disney and was aired on a network, shown in a theatre, or offered as a DVD, that asset, much like what the wine and spirits industry understands too well, is that the customer wasn't known.  With Disney+ it's all about the data, and you the customer.

By adding data to the mix, Disney knows who has children watching what. That makes it easy to work with their licensed products team to decide what to market to whom. For their theme parks efforts, Disney+ data crossed with other cookie data they have access to means offers and sales. The list of opportunities goes on and on.

When you add it all up, Disney has done with Disney+ what they have done with the theme park business. Acquire infrastructure (land now technology), engage with the market via distribution (travel agents, airlines and hotels now set top boxes), put together the content (the rides, experiences now video elements). 

Now that Disney will have the data, which connects you to them even more closely, Disney is poised to become the biggest self marketer since Amazon....now that's Imagineering...

Amazon, Apple and Google Steal The Show at CES

The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and this week's CES is clearly showing how what was once the way companies did business, has changed, and at the same time, what's old is new again and companies who once fought with each other are finding new ways to be allies. For example, Apple stopped licensing in 1997. Now they're redefining licensing by making it easier for anyone to access their iTunes platform. That's called distribution. What's next? Letting anyone make an iPhone-I think NOT.

Taken on face so far, it's clear Apple, Google and Amazon are dominating CES. News about assistants being deployed by multiple brands, new features and uses of the AI backed functionality and most of all iTunes ending up on Samsung, Vizio, and other smart TV brands. That and pure word play on the famed "what goes on in Vegas, stays in Vegas" line tied to your privacy.

Looking more closely, neither Amazon, Apple nor Google has really introduced any new products themselves. No new iPhones or MacBooks. No new Homes, Hubs, Mini's or Pixelbooks and no new Echos were introduced. But all three are dominating the news and over time, your wallets directly and indirectly. In everyway possible, they have mastered the hardware channel at this year's CES and at the same time proved that "software really is eating the world."

But what about all the news about them you say?

Well, its all indeed smoke and mirrors, with the media jumping on the names of Apple, Amazon, and Google when in reality what we have is a roll-out of services. Yes, those same services Tim Cook talked about is what caused the ill-informed stock market types to think Apple was a bad stock to hold onto, who misunderstand Google's real motivations, and who have yet to really see Amazon for what they are.

Apple wants to be the brand you will always trust. Their single billboard in Las Vegas is all about keeping what's your's, your's. It's also the premium brand. It's Bentley and Ferrari. Everyone else is Mercedes Benz and Chevy. They want iTunes to be the lure to keep you an Apple user. By aligning with the TV brands, they are skipping ahead of Spotify, Amazon Music, and Pandora.  Musicians love Apple. The labels work with Apple. The motion picture and television industry co-exist with Apple. Pretty much everyone trusts Apple, and this week, Apple reminded everyone why.

Google wants to make it as easy as talking to collect as much information about you so you can have a better, and less expensive, but still, have an elegant ride. Android is their Mercury, their messenger and the Google Cloud is their playground.  For Google, it's all about developing and deploying services. Hardware is their razor. The services are the blades. Google now has more razor manufacturers than anyone all lining up to be their blades' retailers. 

Amazon is for every day. It's the shopping center, file cabinet, and switchboard. Amazon is Walmart's biggest fear. They sell Apple. Google. Samsung. Jeff Bezos is the most prominent arms merchant in the world and never has to fire a single shot. Amazon hardware is the Colt .45's of every man. But if you want a Sig (Google) or a Glock (Apple) he'll find a way to deliver one to you. 

All the interest around voice interfaces is really about the death of the keyboard and the calculator. Just as we traded our landlines for smartphones and our calculators for digital spreadsheets, we're being migratory. Like the birds which fly south for the winter, we're leaving one nest for another. Instead of typing we merely talk. 

But what's also interesting is how all three are avoiding being social media platforms. Instead, they have all chosen to leave that for Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.  That's smart thinking as the big three are really all about the customer. Consumer or enterprise. Social media is all about the interaction between people who in theory are friends (or not), and a means to amplify, extol and pontificate.

Who do I see as winners from CES?

1. Zapier-without question the more cloud-based services with open API's based on REST come to market, the more Zaps get created, the more opportunities Zapier has.
2. IFTTT-where Zapier has taken a cloud and software focus, IFTTT takes the hardware world and connects it to services. Both are able to be used with Google's Home Hub and Alexa, and not as much with Apple (yet).
3. Google as Gmail, Calendar, Tasks, Apps integrate with more smart assistants but comes with a caveat. Google need to connect the Assistant to their business accounts soon as you can already do that with Alexa and Echos. I consider this like the way SMS was a decade ago. It wasn't interoperable with every operator. Then one day, it was. Like that, so will Home Hub and G Suite for business start working.
4. Amazon - someone has to sell all the new hardware, and they've proven they are the best (place) to buy beating out Best Buy, Costco and eBay sellers for new, more because they deliver and this year literally will be.
5. Qualcomm and Intel-their chips are everywhere. NVidia and MediaTek too. But for these four the looming 5G is where their chips really start to be cashed in.

Oh, how 2019 is going to be an exciting year as friends, foes, allies alike dance with one another, while still looking to stick the knife in their rivals backs.

But with all the hoopla, one question has to be looming in everyone's mind.

Where have you gone, John Legere?

Why the WWE is A Telescope, Not a Microscope

I grew up watching WWWF wrestling when Vince McMahon was the broadcaster. Actually, even before that. I would stay up late to watch Florida Championship Wrestling with Gordon Solie. The same with Georgia Championship Wrestling, even the AWA when Thunderlips pre-dated the creation of Hulk Hogan. In the 80's was at the Spectrum in the media conference for the first promotional tour for Wrestlemania and in the late 70's I interviewed Bruno Sammartino for the Philadelphia Journal (well promoter Phil Zacko did most of the talking). I'm also a music junkie and what is going on with the WWE and music plus their talent roster is all part of a bigger play. 

 

The idea of a campaign is typical to marketing. It starts with a hint. A tease. It grows. And grows. What the WWE and Rousey's managers are doing, are building more than just one person.  Wrestling has always been a soap opera. Stories within stories. Themes within themes. As a student of advertising I love a great campaign and seeing all the nuances that the public takes for granted. This is one of them.

 

The WWE has done a masterful job at reviving the song "Bad Reputation" by Joan Jett. They are doing it with "Rowdy" Rhonda Rousey, a former MMA champ, but also with the whole women's movement surrounding the Divas, what they did in the UAE last summer and with their upcoming all women's pay per view. That means some music supervisor came up with a few songs that could be the core of the campaign. Hats off to that person. Then a creative director and team built upon it. Mastery on so many levels.

 

 

 

This is a campaign around a campaign, carefully crafted to broaden their audience at a time where the "Me Too" movement is alive and growing. While I have no doubt that at some point the same thing went on in the WWE, that's ages ago and from a different era. As someone who grew up in sports and entertainment, that was part of the game off the playing field. It wasn't right then, it was just how it was.

 

 

But today, with youthful stars like Rousey, Charlotte Flair and others who are now competing on par with the likes of the top male wrestlers, the WWE, their close confidants in the world of Hollywood agentry are shaping things the way the big 4 networks have not even come close to. The same can be said about the NHL, NFL and MLB, while the NBA at least has the WNBA. You don't see the NHL glorifying women's hockey, yet it's an Olympic sport. The NCAA has the women's hockey championships. So while we all know wrestling is reality TV at it's finest, and live reality in the arenas, it has surpassed the rest of the groups at moving in the direction of giving women their place, "bad reputation" or not.

 

 

 

 

 

The Comunicano for Friday February 3 2017

 

FEBRUARY 3 - ISSUE #15 The big news, especially here in the Southland, is SNAP and their 3 billion dollar IPO. There’s lots of coverage on it, with some deep insight from the Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern and the Business Insider as well as the L.A. Times. The stories around the story is also interesting so there’s six for your reading pleasure.  Beyond SNAP, we have news about Google, Amazon, Facebook, Uber, the Sharing Economy, Microsoft and a bit more.  Lastly, next week is IT Expo Week in Fort Lauderdale. I’ll be there so find me in the media room, or up on stage on any of my three panels. That’s all in today’s COMUNICANO!!! Snapchat company's IPO filing might be L.A.'s biggest ever WWW.LATIMES.COM – Share Snapchat maker Snap Inc. filed papers to move forward with what’s expected to be the biggest initial public offering ever for a Los Angeles company and one of the highest valued in U.S. history. What’s So Great About Snapchat Anyway? WWW.WSJ.COM – Share As Snap Inc. files its IPO, here’s what grown-ups need to know about Snapchat, the social network millennials love so much. Upcoming Snapchat Lenses will be Able to "Interact" with Objects WWW.DIGITALTRENDS.COM – Share Work-in-progress Snapchat Lenses will reportedly “interact” with real-world objects and scenes, according to reports. Snapchat paid third cofounder Reggie Brown $158 million to disappear WWW.BUSINESSINSIDER.COM – Share Snap Inc. has disclosed that it paid a total of $157.5 million to settle with its ousted third cofounder Reggie Brown. Snapchat IPO: Inside Snap Inc.'s company culture WWW.BUSINESSINSIDER.COM – Share Thursday night’s filing of Snapchat’s IPO papers was the largest data dump we’ve ever received from the company. Here’s what we learned. Snap S-1 Filing WWW.SEC.GOV – Share   Uber Watch Uber C.E.O. to Leave Trump Advisory Council After Criticism WWW.NYTIMES.COM – Share Travis Kalanick plans to step down from the president’s council, after internal pressure from employees and a social media backlash. Sharing Economy Goes Mainstream in Business Travel — Skift Corporate Travel Innovation Report SKIFT.COM – Share   Odds & Ends The Best Drone Photography of 2016 WWW.CNTRAVELER.COM – Share You’ve heard it from us before: Drones can take your travel photography to (literally) a whole new level, offering a perspective on a place that has long been out of reach to most of us. As drones become more commonplace, it is harder to stand out. Amazon's advertising business is growing fast - WWW.BUSINESSINSIDER.COM – Share Amazon’s fastest-growing business is its advertising business, which is a direct competitor to Google and Facebook. Facebook’s AI unlocks the ability to search photos by what’s in them TECHCRUNCH.COM – Share Initially used to improve the experience for visually impaired members of the Facebook community, the company's Lumos computer vision platform is now.. How Twitter took on Trump's bot army—and won MASHABLE.COM – Share A small change got real people’s voices heard. Why augmented reality will be big in business first WWW.ECONOMIST.COM – Share The technology is coming. But it will take time for consumers to embrace AR With Chrome 57, Progressive Web Apps will appear in Android’s app drawer, settings, more 9TO5GOOGLE.COM – Share   Microsoft Outlook for iOS now supports add-ins like Giphy and Trello WWW.THEVERGE.COM – Share Microsoft is bringing apps and add-ins to its Outlook for iOS email application today. The software giant has partnered with Evernote, Giphy, Nimble, Trello, and Smartsheet to bring the first… Business Ops is the New Sales and Marketing Ops. Why Consolidation is Crucial to Your Bottom Line. MATTERMARK.COM – Share   We’re probably underestimating how quickly electric vehicles will disrupt the oil market WWW.VOX.COM – Share Unpredictably rapid growth happens pretty predictably. Catapulting Europe’s brightest FinTech startups from Singapore to Asia with The FinLab TECH.EU – Share FinTech startups are invited to apply for The FinLab’s accelerator programme in Singapore to help bring their ideas to market. Verizon Restructures Small Business Segment, Launches Verizon Business Markets WWW.CRN.COM – Share   Do you enjoy receiving this? Please share it:     Tweet     Share   Carefully curated by Andy Abramson with Revue If you were forwarded this newsletter and you like it, you can subscribe here.

The Comunicano for Friday January 27 2017

 

JANUARY 27 - ISSUE #10 It’s only been a few months since cableco Charter gobbled up Time Warner Cable, but now it looks the buyer may become the bought which becomes a big win for Charter’s largest shareholder, Liberty Media and John Malone. That’s because Verizon is reportedly in talks to buy Charter, largely as a defensive move against both Comcast. That’s because Comcast is rolling out wireless phone service and also due to AT&T trying to buy up Time Warner for all their entertainment properties.  In other news we have good news for rural New York State when it comes to broadband; why video streaming is so easy;  a Facebook/MailChimp ad match up; a look at a lot of e-commerce tools; how to increase sales; plus those hotel thermostats and you, along with a short item on Starbucks and its customers. Those stories are all in today’s Comunicano. Verizon Watch Speculation builds on a Verizon-Charter tie-up, no offer made WWW.BUSINESSINSIDER.COM – Share (Adds analysts’ quotes, context, updates share… Verizon Wireless and AT&T see value perception decrease TODAY.YOUGOV.COM – Share Two of the four major wireless phone brands have experienced significant value perception declines with consumers for the last 30 to 60 days, which may create opportunities for their rivals. Rural Broadband to Keep Growing (in NY) New York to keep $170M to expand broadband access WWW.WASHINGTONTIMES.COM – Share New York state will get to keep $170 million in federal funding for broadband access after all. Video Streaming Watch 5 Ways to Use Live-Streaming to Amplify Offline Events WWW.SOCIALMEDIATODAY.COM – Share While there’s some hesitation from event organizers, live-streaming can be a great compliment for offline conferences. Oscars 2017: Where to Stream the Nominated Movies WWW.NYTIMES.COM – Share Several Oscar-nominated films are still in theaters. Here’s where you can stream the rest. Marketing Watch Facebook Ad Campaigns for MailChimp BLOG.MAILCHIMP.COM – Share With Facebook Ad Campaigns for MailChimp, you can grow your audience and sell more stuff in the same place. Find new subscribers and reconnect with others. Gorgias - E-commerce Stack. Top 100 e-commerce apps. GORGIAS.IO – Share E-commerce stack: Top 100 e-commerce apps and tools for Shopify, Magento and WooCommerce How Tech Companies Double Annual Sales with Three Words MEDIUM.COM – Share It’s January, which means increasing sales and growth targets for emerging technology companies for the new year. With more venture capital funding comes higher expectations. How do private B2B tech… Odds & Ends It’s Not You: Hotel Thermostats Really Are Rigged WWW.WSJ.COM – Share Systems can leave guests pushing buttons in vain. Now some travelers have started resisting, scouring thermostat manuals to uncover secret overrides of the override. Starbucks: Crowded stores turned off customers WWW.USATODAY.COM – Share The chain reported disappointing sales growth and partly blamed store “congestion.“ Do you enjoy receiving this? Please share it:     Tweet     Share   Carefully curated by Andy Abramson with Revue If you were forwarded this newsletter and you like it, you can subscribe here.

"Alexa Text My Friend" --Amazon Echo to now text via AT&T

In a move that I would have thought would have come from any carrier  but AT&T (T-Mobile comes first to mind) , the mobile operator and Amazon have teamed up to make it possible to send a text message to any one of ten of your contacts using the Echo voice controlled device.

My take is this was an Amazon driven idea to get more retail distribution for the hot selling Echo devices and for AT&T it was a fit to create more stickiness for their wireless customers by bringing the sexiness of the connected home closer to their mobile universe. Had AT&T tied the Echo into their big push effort surrounding Direct TV and made it possible to toggle on recording of television programs, enabled the reading out loud what TV programming scheduled, told you what movies or sporting events are scheduled or airing in real time, and went one step farther and dove into the meta data of the program line up, it might even have been possible for a customer to ask Alexa to "tell me when the Flyers hockey game is on tv" or "let me know what tonight's NCIS episode is about" or "record this weekend's Rams game." If AT&T and Amazon would have done that, I would be impressed, as it would have shown that AT&T was really thinking about integrating the services that they are counting on to bring in bigger dollars. 

Known as the AT&T Send Message skill the effort is part of AT&T's move to be more integrated into the idea of the "connected home," the market they used to dominate in their heyday of the landline.  The effort with Alexa is part of a sales partnership between AT&T and Amazon where the different Echo devices will be sold through AT&T online web site and in their many retail locations. The way it works is very easy. First users of AT&T wireless need to have an Echo. Once in hand, they download the iOS or Android Alexa app onto their smartphone or tablet, enable the Send Text Message Skill, add or manage their ten contacts  and then speak to the Echo saying "Alexa, ask AT&T to text message <contact> where contact is one of the ten names on the contact list. Alexa then will prompt the user for the message.

While this is a great way to "send" the text message, it's only a half-baked solution. Replies are sent directly to your phone not received and shared to the Echo for Alexa to read out loud if you want it spoken to you. UPDATED-If messages could be spoken out loud, some discretion may be needed, a point made to me by super analyst Dean Bubley via a Twitter Chat.

AT&T also say users need to have a compatible plan and that other restrictions apply, but they have not listed those on their web site.

 

 

Related articles

You'll soon be able to send AT&T SMS messages through Amazon's Alexa

The Comunicano Communique for Monday March 28th 2016

The Comunicano Communique

Good Morning. It's a Monday and the stories today are going to help you do better business.  Take the changes going on in Social Media. Instagram. Snapchat. Facebook. News about each of them leads things off. Then there's growth. Netflix and Spotify both are changing the ways we consume entertainment. All that and more in today's Comunicano Communique. By the way, don't miss the API event of the summer in Las Vegas. "All About The API"......     Snapchat users now spend 25 to 30 minutes every day on the app, and it's trying to attract the TV money because of it Snapchat's photos and videos are famous for disappearing after a few seconds, but its users are spending as much as a half-hour every day playing with its app. The company is touting the time users spend on the app in its efforts to lure big brand advertising dollars away from television.     [continue...]     Instagram is changing - here's how to make sure your posts still get seen Rumour has it that Instagram 's new algorithm will be dropping tomorrow, resulting in a big change to the way posts are displayed. Rather than presenting users with a chronological list of posts, the algorithm will sort posts based on "the likelihood you'll be interested in the content, your relationship with the person posting, and the timeliness of the post".     [continue...]     Facebook's Safety Check malfunctions after Pakistan bombing Facebook activated its Safety Check tool to help people stay in touch after a deadly terrorist attack Sunday in Pakistan, but the feature strayed far afield from the carnage. Safety Check automatically sends Facebook users in an affected area a note asking if they're safe.     [continue...]     Spotify hits 30 million subscribers Spotify has 30 million paid subscribers, CEO Daniel Ek announced today in a tweet. This is the first subscriber update Spotify has given out since it announced it had 20 million subscribers days before Apple Music hit the market last June, and shows the increased competition has had little to no effect on Spotify's growth.     [continue...]     Netflix's Grand, Daring, Maybe Crazy Plan to Conquer the World Late into the night on St. Patrick's Day, Netflix hosted a makeshift "war room" at the company's Silicon Valley headquarters. Engineers and product wranglers sat loosely around a long, U-shaped formation of desks, monitoring diagnostics and Hipchat conversations. Linguists and translators patrolled a ring of television sets to check subtitles and dubs in a dozen languages.     [continue...]     Google To Open A Dozen New Data Centers To Take On AWS Google is planning to open 12 new data centers over the next 12-18 months. This has come just weeks after Google nabbed Spotify and Apple as its cloud customers. The huge cloud push by Google could see Google Cloud become its biggest growth engine a few years down the line.     [continue...]     Forget the Small iPhone. Is Apple Going Charger-Free? Apple might be ready to ditch some of its charger cords by 2017 with a plan to charge next-generation smartphones through the air. Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has a track record of solid Apple hardware predictions, told 9to5Mac over the weekend that he thinks next year's iPhones will charge wirelessly.     [continue...]     Enterprise IoT rollouts still need outside assistance, but new software can help The industrial Internet of Things doesn't just show up in a box at the door ready to use. It takes integration to deploy IoT systems and get the maximum benefit. That's because IoT isn't one thing, but many linked together in pursuit of a business objective.     [continue...]     Japan's NTT to Buy Dell Systems for $3.055 Billion     NTT Data Corp., a unit of Japan's former telephone monopoly, agreed to buy technology services businesses from Dell for $3.055 billion. The acquisition was announced by the unit of Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp. in a statement to the Tokyo Stock Exchange Monday. The company didn't give a date for when it will acquire the Dell units.     [continue...]     The Inside Story of How Oculus Cracked the Impossible Design of VR Palmer Luckey has never used an Oculus Rift. That's what the founder of Oculus keeps telling himself as he unboxes the commercial version of the virtual reality system he invented. Opens the package. Takes out the few elements-the headset, the single cable that connects it to a computer, the small cylindrical infrared camera that tracks it in space.     [continue...]     Searching For Google CEO Sundar Pichai, The Most Powerful Tech Giant You've Never Heard Of The Consumer Electronics Show, universally known as CES, is a riot of technology. Held annually in the bleak Nevada desert town of Las Vegas, it is a great blinking din, jammed with screens, speakers, automobiles, whirling drones, blooping robots, e-cigs and e-cigs and ever more e-cigs, plus some 170,000 people bumping around inside a disease-ridden convention center.     [continue...]     Why the Most Talented People Copy - ReadThink (by HubSpot) We have an insatiable thirst for the new. In business, we want new products, new campaigns, and new ways of reaching consumers. The shiny object syndrome isn't just about being easily distracted. It's also the result of thinking that what is new - and seemingly unique - is better.     [continue...]

We hope you are enjoying The Comunicano Daily. If you want to share it with friends, colleagues and co-workers, or even your wife, child or even someone you don't like, please do. They can join by visiting The Comunicano Daily signup page: http://eepurl.com/BFXkD

The Comunicano Communique for Friday March 4th 2016

The Comunicano Communique

It's no surprise that this week the Amazon Echo is the darling of the news this week or that my pals at Telzio announced their start of integration with the Echo. Now we're seeing more and more reasons coming out about how voice is the next UI, of new line extensions to Echo. As someone who has been using the Echo since its beta stage, I've seen first hand how it makes my life easier. I'm turning lights on and off with the sound of my voice, ordering items from Amazon, scheduling an Uber. Over the summer while in Portugal, "Alexa" was keeping me abreast of the weather, the time and I was even able to stream Pandora due to the way Amazon has structured their network. The new additions to the line up are interesting, but what is really neat about the Echo platform is the voice control. If Amazon really opens up the Echo API, developers to include it in their apps, all of a sudden we may finally be free of the keys....Speaking of which, don't miss the API event of the summer in Las Vegas. "All About The API"......     Voice: The Next UI Layer Lately, I've been obsessed with the power of voice. Not voice as in self-expression (though important!), and not voice as in voice calls or - worse! - voicemail, but rather voice as the next major UI layer for software in the living room and beyond.     [continue...]     Amazon's Echo Dot, Tap, Alexa equate to Amazon Everywhere strategy Amazon is putting Alexa, the brains of Amazon Echo, in more places via the Tap and Echo Dot and now has formed a comprehensive smart home strategy that links up with e-commerce. The Echo was Amazon's surprise hit last year. Simply put, Echo has become the platform Amazon will use to jump further into the Internet of things.     [continue...]     Amazon's Ingenious Plot to Take Over Your Living Room When Amazon released the Echo in late 2014, people didn't quite know what to make of it. It looks like a speaker, but it listens to your voice, talks back, and can play songs, radio broadcasts, or podcasts on demand. It can also do some other, seemingly unrelated tasks, like telling jokes, checking your calendar, and buying stuff on Amazon.com.     [continue...]     Meet tech's new odd couple: the CIO and CMO When Akamai was laying the foundation for its digital business back in 2010, CMO Brad Rinklin had a relationship with IT, but it wasn't exclusive. Because the content delivery network provider had no CIO, Rinklin might call on IT for help tweaking a website or deploying a sales-enablement tool, but the marketing group often turned to cloud tools or outside service providers for the heavy lifting.     [continue...]     Instagram starts blocking 'add me' deeplinking for Snapchat, Telegram Facebook-owned photo-sharing platform Instagram is flexing its platform muscle by shutting down 'add me' deeplinking for some other social media services within its apps. Previously Instagram users were able to include 'add me'/'follow me' links in a website section on their profile page, directly linking out to any other profiles they had on third party social services' apps.     [continue...]     Facebook Plans To Open Messenger To Publishers At F8 In April Mobile messaging apps are usurping social networks as the shiny new platform through which publishers can distribute their content. Now Facebook is looking to join the fray with its own uber-popular messaging app. Facebook Messenger will soon let publishers distribute their content automatically through the social network's messaging service, according to three people familiar with the company's plans.     [continue...]     Spotify becomes first music platform to integrate with Facebook Messenger Music has arrived on Messenger. Facebook announced today that its mobile messaging platform now integrates with Spotify. The new feature, which is rolling out to iOS and Android users, is the first music integration for Facebook Messenger and allows people to share their Spotify songs or playlists directly within a chat box.     [continue...]     Yahoo exploring sale of $1 billion-$3 billion in 'non-core assets': CFO Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O) is exploring the sale of $1 billion to $3 billion in patents, property and other "non-core assets," its chief financial officer said on Thursday. Yahoo CFO Ken Goldman told the crowd at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference that a committee created to explore alternatives to the company's plan to spin off its core business is looking at quick sales of assets.     [continue...]     B&N is Shutting Down One of Its Top Three Digital Blunders on 15 March Barnes & Noble announced a slew of of closures on Thursday, including Nook Video, the UK Nook Store, and what had to have been one of B&N's greatest digital mistakes. B&N sent out an email on Thursday which informed users that the Nook's own branded app store was going away: Effective March 15, 2016, NOOK will no longer offer third party applications (Apps) for sale from the NOOK Store™.     [continue...]     Life and death in the App Store As last year began, the app developer Pixite held its company retreat at a converted Old West movie set outside of Palm Springs. They spent a few days dreaming about the future while eating barbecue and sipping whisky in the sun. But 2015 was not a good year, and by last month the company's dreams had narrowed to survival.     [continue...]

We hope you are enjoying The Comunicano Daily. If you want to share it with friends, colleagues and co-workers, or even your wife, child or even someone you don't like, please do. They can join by visiting The Comunicano Daily signup page: http://eepurl.com/BFXkD

The Sunday Paper Edition- The Comunicano Communique for January 31st 2016

The Comunicano Communique

Happy Sunday.....Facebook is going to disrupt sports and entertainment as we know it.  Forget TMZ. Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood. ESPNs SportsCenter. Facebook with live, streaming video is now a live new outlet for real time news, sports and entertainment. How are they a news outlet? First, with their move to Stadium, they have set themselves up as a news outlet in sports. By becoming a news outlet that affords them protection in the USA by the First Amendment. Next with photos and now live video, and their ability to aggregate and share content, they are going to be able to use their massive audience delivery platform to be a NETWORK, just like FOX, ABC, the BBC, etc. Third, their source material, at least in the USA can't be blocked, jammed or otherwise intercepted, thanks to the Communications Act of 1934 and 1996 with regard to unlawful intercept and blocking. That means all the money which stadium and arena operators have put into networking their venues so the "fan experience" is able to be one that's both "connected" and "socialized" also means they can't stop the content from leaving the building. As someone who grew up in pro sports and entertainment, Facebook is going to really toss a monkey-wrench/spanner into the whole rights issues game as today, anyone with an iPhone with those sharp and clear add on lenses, a good seat at a game and a steady hand, a cool voice, and knowledge of the sport will be a net caster...... Next is Instagram, another Facebook property. It's become the engine of endorsement. Think commercials, but with the power in the hands of those with followers. Given the whole "never corders" as YipTV founder Mike Tribolet calls them, and their growing up digital without cable tv or landlines, Instagram + Facebook video will be how the sub 20 year old generation of today and tomorrow gets their news, shapes trends and defines "cool." So if today's Communique has a "times are changing" or is all about "Changes", it's only fitting to bring some videos to the forefront about David Bowie, who was so much a driving force of change, not only in music, but as an icon for change in society. David Bowie's passing touched many. As someone who grew up in the many phases and faces of David Bowie era from the 60's to today, to see and hear the comments and performances by so many stars is touching and endearing. I've been collecting these the past few weeks, and have been moved by the performances of Madonna, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Rick Wakeman and the comments of Jimmy Fallon. Having also seen all of the musical stars perform in their own right, it's always fun to watch and hear artists do cover versions of other artists material. Madonna's may not be safe for the children, or for some workplaces, but between hers and Elton's  and the Boss' comments about going down to Philly on "Greyhound bus" the historical impact of Bowie can't be better expressed....so kick back, and enjoy some good old fashioned "rock and roll" this Sunday morning. Have a view on the news today? Please let me know what you think....Andy Abramson     Expanding Live Video to More People-News From Facebook In December, we started testing the ability for people to share live video on Facebook, and it has been inspiring to see all the ways that people have used Live to connect with their friends and family. Today, we're excited to expand the ability to share live video to everyone in the U.S.     [continue...]     How Instagram Changed the Celeb Crush My back is turned, and I'm probably 12 years old, so the only thing I can imagine them doing is some sort of tight-lipped smooching. Maybe his hands are resting heavily on her shoulders. I'm resigned to my empty little corner of what must be a bed or a couch when I feel Joey's hand reach over and pinch my butt.     [continue...]     Techiest Super Bowl ever: Silicon Valley's stadium girds for the big game Levi's Stadium is one of the most high-powered venues in sports. On Super Bowl Sunday, we'll see if its network can handle the data-storm caused by throngs of smartphone-wielding fanatics.     [continue...]     Media Trends in 2016: Why I'll Be Watching the Underdog Forecasting the future is usually a fool's errand - especially in a fast-changing industry like media. But I recently recruited two brave colleagues to make their 2016 predictions for a new internal GE podcast, Marketing Decoded, and I loved our conversation so much, I wanted to share it.     [continue...]     The Best TV is Korean TV: A Guide to Awesome K-dramas Game of Thrones isn't on, you've finished Orange Is The New Black, and fall TV hasn't kicked in yet. You need something to get obsessed with. Allow me to suggest a Korean drama, or K-drama, as they're called.     [continue...]     Jimmy Fallon Pays Tribute to David Bowie Jimmy takes a moment to remember legendary entertainer David Bowie.     [continue...]     Madonna's Tribute To David Bowie Houston, Texas, January 12, 2016.     [continue...]     Elton John Tribute to David Bowie Private concert at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles Jan 13, 2016 to promote his new LP Wonderful Crazy Night. Elton describing hearing Bowie's 'Space Oddity' for the first time and his desire to have the same producers work with him in the early days.     [continue...]     Bruce Springsteen: David Bowie Tribute (Pittsburgh) Opening night of The River Tour 2016. Bruce performs Rebel Rebel as a tribute to David Bowie. Instagram: dustinjohns Twitter: dustinjohns     [continue...]     Rick Wakeman's Tribute To David Bowie - Life On Mars Rick Wakeman, pianist on the original Life On Mars, performs the song at Radio 2's piano in memory of David Bowie.     [continue...]     Obama Pledges $4 Billion to Computer Science in US Schools President Obama today pledged $4 billion in funding for computer science education in the nation's schools.     [continue...]     The worst thing about driving is about to change If you drive out to visit Disney's Epcot center in Orlando, Florida, you will arrive at one of the biggest parking lots in America. With room for 12,000 cars, it sprawls out over 7 million square feet-about the size of 122 football fields.     [continue...]     Amazon's rent-a-Buddhist-monk service causes controversy in Japan YACHIYO, Japan - In Japan, where communal ties to local Buddhist temples are fading, families have in recent years been able to go online to find a Buddhist monk to perform funerals and other rituals.     [continue...]     Five Leadership Tips During Executive Turnover This week hasn't been short on major corporate changes. On Sunday night, Twitter announced that four senior executives are leaving the company. It's the biggest leadership shakeup since CEO Jack Dorsey took over in order to breathe life back into the social media company.     [continue...]

We hope you are enjoying The Comunicano Daily. If you want to share it with friends, colleagues and co-workers, or even your wife, child or even someone you don't like, please do. They can join by visiting The Comunicano Daily signup page: http://eepurl.com/BFXkD