(This post originally appeared on Forbes)
Here are five things in technology that happened this past week and how they affect your business. Did you miss them?
1 — Twitter will soon have live video available to its users 24/7.
The social media network has announced that it has plans to broadcast “video content covering news, sports and entertainment 24 hours a day, seven days a week.” Twitter COO and CFO Anthony Noto said that the shows will be the type where you “focus in on it when you hear something that’s of interest, but then maybe not be 100 percent focused on it when it’s not of interest.” Twitter does not have a specific rollout timeline currently, but the feature will likely be available soon. (Source: The Verge)
Why this is important for your business:
Because there aren’t enough cable stations broadcasting junk already, right? But this is the future of the Internet and Twitter, Facebook, Google and other giants are ramping up their streaming services. All are opportunities for your business to either provide content or advertise.
2 — A Canadian company can help your business better compete against Amazon.
The ultimate goal for Toronto-based Rubikloud is to use artificial intelligence and data to build customer loyalty and support as well as draw shoppers away from “Amazon and Walmart during times when those competitors fail to deliver and frustrate buyers.” (Source: Forbes)
Why this is important for your business:
As Forbes’ Tom Popomaronis notes, “Executives automatically can complete tasks like pricing prediction, stocking and campaign generation based on the data, as well as engage with existing and new customers through channels like email and e-commerce according to what the shoppers like.” Sounds good to me!
3 — Startups can now join the Silicon Valley scene with Y Combinator’s online courses.
The famous startup accelerator has announced that it has chosen 3,000 entrepreneurial businesses to join its first “Startup School.” The lucky startups are currently taking a free, 10-week online course that is “meant to replicate a bit of the accelerator experience by combining online lectures from tech-world luminaries about starting a company with online mentoring from past Y Combinator participants and support from fellow Startup School students.” (Source: MIT Technology Review)
Why this is important for your business:
The lecture videos are also available on YouTube and on Startup School’s website so that any entrepreneur (psst…that’s you!) can learn the ins and outs of Silicon Valley from anywhere in the world.
4 — Amazon now has a self-service subscription marketplace.
Called “Subscribe with Amazon,” the new program from the ecommerce giant offers subscriptions for services ranging from standard magazines and newspapers to Sling TV for streaming programs and LegalZoom for legal documents. Businesses that join Subscribe with Amazon will receive 70 percent of the transactional account for each customer’s first year subscribing to their service, and 85 percent for each additional year. (Source: PYMNTS)
Why this is important for your business:
Lovina McMurchy, general manager of Subscribe with Amazon, said, “Today we’re excited to extend our selection by offering subscription businesses a self-service way to make their subscriptions available to millions of Amazon customers.” Is that you?
5 — In the growing digital advertising market, mobile ads rule.
A recent report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has shown that for the first time, mobile ads accounted for over half of all digital ad revenue in 2016. The two biggest winners in this shift are tech giants Facebook and Google that, when combined, account for 73 percent of total revenue. (Source: TechCrunch)
Why this is important for your business:
If you’re on the fence about where to spend your ad money, here’s your answer. IAB CEO Randall Rothenberg said that advertisers are becoming confident in digital, and “this increasing commitment is a reflection of brands’ ongoing marketing shift from ‘mobile-first’ to ‘mobile-only’ in order to keep pace with today’s on-the-go consumers.”
Gene Marks owns The Marks Group, a 10-person technology consulting firm and is also a small business expert, speaker and columnist at other major outlets.
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