Using mobile apps to interact with merchandise: Using the Quikkly iOS or Android app, you scan what the company is calling an Action Tag — its own proprietary barcode-esque tech — and this immediately invokes an online action, such as listening to a track on Spotify, adding a contact to your address book, following someone on Twitter, or even connecting to a public WiFi spot. “When you see interesting stuff online and there’s a button to interact with it, you can click on it and something happens immediately. ‘Like’ on Facebook, ‘Follow’ on Twitter, add to Basket, listen to the song. In the physical world, it’s considerably more difficult,” says Quikkly CEO Fergal Walker. “If you’re interested, you would have to manually search for the item, hope you find the right one, and hope it works on your mobile. Quikkly removes the hassle and makes it as simple as it is online.” Quikkly also makes it pretty easy for anyone to create their own Action Tags, to be included on, for example, a business card, flyer or poster. This can be done via the website or mobile app. In fact, Quikkly is talking up its mobile-first play. To create an Action Tag, you simply select from a grid of pre-defined actions and fill in the needed details, such as URL and custom message.
Using mobile apps to interact with toys: “We want to draw kids out of a two-dimensional screen, to blend a hands-on physical experience with an app, and make something new come to life,” said Vikas Gupta, a co-founder and the chief executive of Wonder Workshop, a start-up that makes Dash and Dot, two programmable toy robots that will begin shipping to early backers this holiday season. Dash and Dot are controlled by a mobile app, but they can also be taught to understand and react to events that happen in the real world — to play a real tune on a xylophone, say, or to bark in response to a child’s clap. Wonder Workshop is on the vanguard of a trend that threatens to overrun much of the traditional, mass-manufactured toy business.
Twitter Experiments With Engagement Stats Directly In Tweets: Want to know just how many people actually care about what you’re tweeting? A new Twitter experiment spotted by ex-Twitter platform head Ryan Sarver will show many you how users are clicking on the links in the updates you post, with a handy link directly in the expanded Tweet view in the iOS application. As usual with Twitter’s features, this is limited to a small sample pool of users at first, but could roll out more widely if deemed successful. At the bottom of the tweet view, for those with this feature enabled, you’ll see a “View Analytics Details” link, which takes you directly to a synopsis of the overall interaction with said tweet, including overall impressions, and “engagements,” which includes how many people actually clicked on a link you shared, how many expanded the tweet and more.
Uber is causing the price of taxi licenses to crash; separately, a legal setback causes Uber to suspend operations in Nevada; ~1000 jobs might be at risk: The average price of an individual New York City taxi medallion fell to $872,000 in October, down 17 percent from a peak reached in the spring of 2013, according to an analysis of sales data. In other big cities, medallion prices are also falling, often in conjunction with a sharp decline in sales volume. In Chicago, prices are down 17 percent. In Boston, they’re down at least 20 percent, though it’s hard to establish an exact market price because there have been only five trades since July. In Philadelphia, the taxi authority recently scrapped a planned medallion auction. Most major American cities have long used a system to limit the number of operating taxicabs, typically a medallion system: Drivers must own or rent a medallion to operate a taxi, and the city issues a fixed number of them. In New York, which established its medallion system in 1937, that number is 13,437. The number has risen only gradually since the late 1990s, even as the city’s economy has boomed.
Jack Ma was in India; reportedly met Snapdeal co-founder Kunal Bahl: Ma is in India as part of a 99-member business delegation from his home town of Zejiang. He arrived in India last night and is reportedly scheduled to meet home grown e-commerce firm Snapdeal’s co-founder Kunal Bahl. There have been reports of Alibaba considering an investment in Snapdeal. Indeed the two firms already counts Japan’s SoftBank as a common and single largest investor.Jack Ma who was in a short India visit as part of a Chinese business delegation, said on Wednesday that Alibaba plans to invest more in the Indian e-commerce ecosystem and work with Indian entrepreneurs. India is one of the nine countries where Alibaba’s B2B marketplace is present. Besides China and India is it also present in the US, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea, Turkey, Taiwan and Vietnam. Its B2C ventures Taobao among others are presently only in home country China.
Amazon UI too cluttered for you? Canopy has a Pinterest like skin on Amazon for curated community-driven shopping, recommendations : Canopy offers a cleaner, uncluttered interface for its shopping service – a big difference from Amazon.com itself. In its community, you can browse through products recommended by other users, see what’s trending, shop by category or brand, or even shop by personality type – the latter something that may come in handy as you struggle with your holiday shopping needs. Meanwhile, as you find products you like you can add these to collections within the app, which can later be accessed under your Profile section. Essentially, the service is like having a layer of curation overtop the massive Amazon.com catalog, presented in a more modern, almost Pinterest-like format.Canopy has seen around 22% average weekly growth in traffic over the past six months, says co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong, and 35% weekly growth in gross revenue. (The company declined to go into detail on customer numbers or revenue figures, however.) Currently, Canopy makes money via affiliate fees, not product placements or ads, which has allowed the company to bootstrap its service to where it is today.
Zomato is monetizing traffic using geo-targeted ads on its apps: Restaurant and event-listing site Zomato.com, run by Gurgaon-based Zomato Media Pvt Ltd, has added a new revenue stream by introducing advertisements on its mobile app. The revenue model is based on hyper-local advertising related to the user search criteria. What this basically means is that users searching for restaurants in a particular area will see ads for other relevant dining establishments in and around that location. According to the company, this allows restaurants to target customers already searching for dining options in their area. The new service is available across Zomato apps on the Android, iOS and Windows platforms.
Samsung announces $2B buyback; some businesses to be exited; generational shift underway - shares surge: Shares of South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics Co Ltd opened sharply higher on Thursday on the news that it will buy back $2 billion of its own stock. Samsung shares were up 5.8 percent as of (7.02 a.m. EST) after opening 6 percent higher. Samsung announced the buyback plan, its first since 2007, after market close on Wednesday.
Amazon is circling Jabong; potential deal size ~$1-1.2B, two sources privy to the development told Techcircle.in. According to a source, the meeting took place very recently and it has not even been a week. Restructuring would be complicated: Jabong is an inventory-based e-tailer, where foreign investment is not allowed at present. Another source cited above said that Amazon would keep Jabong as a separate property post the acquisition. “It (deal) would be very much on the lines of Amazon’s acquisition of Zappos in the US,” he said. Jabong, which is one of the two top lifestyle e-tailers in the country along with Flipkart owned Myntra, reported gross merchandise value (GMV) of Rs 509.5 crore from 3.197 million orders in the January-June 2014 period. This marked a three-fold rise over the previous year. If it maintains the same growth through the rest of the year it may end with GMV of around Rs 1,300-1,500 crore for the year ending March 31, 2015. Accepted fair valuation in e-com space internationally is pegged at 3.5x sales which would value Jabong at around Rs 5,000 crore. Jabong could be looking to drive a hard bargain given the strategic play of Amazon in India and significance of the deal to win in the high stakes game in the country.
Twitter launches Twitter Offers, Which Link To Your Credit Or Debit Card; Separately Twitter's CFO commits a DM Fail: Companies will be able to offer cashback rewards in their tweets, and those rewards will tie directly into consumers’ credit and debit cards. The card-based approach should offer some significant advantages. If you see an offer in your timeline (to use the example in the screenshot above, it might be $2 back on a $5 purchase at a coffee shop), you should be able to add it to your card without leaving Twitter. Then when you go into the store, you don’t need to change your behavior — instead of bringing a coupon, you just pay with that card and the cashback payment should show up on your statement shortly after. A Twitter spokesperson said the card integration was already built by CardSpring, which Twitter acquired in July.Meanwhile, this gives businesses a way to track when their Twitter ads are actually driving consumers to make purchases in the store. From a security standpoint, Twitter says your card information will be encrypted and can be removed from your account at any time. Twitter Offers are being tested initially on desktop and mobile in the United States. The post says Twitter will be working with “a handful of brands” to test these offers in holiday-related promotions, and it will announce those brands “in the near future.”
Uber is close to a round of financing at $35-$40B valuation: T. Rowe Price Group Inc. is in discussions to be a new investor, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the details are private. Existing investor Fidelity Investments is also set to participate in the funding, they said. Uber is raising at least $1 billion, the people said. The financing hasn’t closed and the terms and investor group may still change, one of the people said. T. Rowe previously considered investing in Uber and may still end up passing this time, two of the people said. If Uber completes the funding, a valuation of $35 billion to $40 billion would more than double its $17 billion value from a June financing. At the time, the valuation was a record for a U.S. technology startup in a direct investment round. That put Uber at the front of a pack of elite U.S. technology startups that are valued in the eleven-digit range, including Airbnb Inc. and Dropbox Inc. Such valuations are spreading internationally. In China, smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp. is in talks for a funding round that would value it at $40 billion to $50 billion, people familiar with the matter have said.
Tumblr Overtakes Instagram As Fastest-Growing Social Platform, Snapchat Is The Fastest-Growing App; Facebook saturated: While Tumblr and Pinterest appear to have seen the most growth, they are not seeing as much use when it comes to frequency, where the numbers almost appear to invert. With 1.35 billion active monthly users, Facebook continues to be the world’s largest social network by some margin, but when it comes to picking up new users, it appears to have reached a saturation point. Research out today from the Global Web Index notes that Tumblr’s active user base in the last six months grew by 120%, while Facebook’s grew by only 2%. And in overall member growth, Pinterest took the lead with 57% growth while Facebook’s member base grew by 6%. In mobile apps specifically, while Facebook is the largest app today, Snapchat — with an emphasis on teen and 20-something users — is the fastest growing of them all, up 56% this year. It is however followed closely by Facebook Messenger and Instagram — a sign of not just how Facebook’s mobile apps continue to represent the company’s growth drivers, but also how its push to drive more users to the standalone app by cutting out Messaging from the main app has helped it grow. China continues to be dominated by home-grown social networks. Sina Weibo, Qzone and Tencent Weibo lead, while Youku and Tudou round out the top 5.
Amazon is expanding its local services offerings - plumbers, electricians and handymen: Amazon wants to connect users with handymen like plumbers and electricians through the expansion of its Amazon Local Services division in New York, Los Angeles, and Seattle, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing a document viewed as well as person briefed on the plan. Amazon shoppers in those cities will reportedly see installation or handyman offers after purchasing goods like ceiling fans, air conditioners, and the like. The company will offer a money-back guarantee on its services and will do background checks on any service provider that it lists on the site. Every handyman or woman will have to liability insurance.
Amazon is using kiosks on the NY Metro as scan-and-shop physical pop-up stores: Earlier this year, design firm Control Group partnered with New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority to roll out large digital kiosks underground that display maps of the city's transit systems. Today, Amazon is the first advertiser to use those kiosks as digital pop-up stores to drive sales of holiday gifts. Amazon's promos are running on 100 digital 47-inch screens in 12 major hubs in New York, including Grand Central Station, Union Square and Brooklyn's Barclays Center. Collectively, the kiosks target 1.2 million riders per day. Half of the screens are placed on subway platforms and the other half are near entrances and high-volume areas. Creative content on Amazon's ads differs between the two areas: Ads in the mezzanine area focus on branding while promos near trains drive sales. The digital screens are swipe-able and let consumers browse through a curated list of electronic holiday gifts from brands like Bose, Samsung, Sony and Belkin. Each item can be tapped on for more information, which also pulls in real-time pricing. After finding a product they want, riders can scan a QR code or send a text message or email and receive an Amazon.com link, where they can buy the gift from a smartphone once they're above ground. Amazon's campaign runs through Dec. 23—the last day consumers can buy something online and have it delivered by Christmas.
Production and delivery bottlenecks are crimping Xiaomi's growth - but its India focus has only intensified - will make locally, and launch Redmi Note in offline stores as well: Instead of expanding into 10 new markets this year, Xiaomi will enter just five. That means consumers in Brazil, Russia, Thailand, Mexico and Turkey will have to wait a bit longer. The problem? Production and delivery bottlenecks are slowing the no. 3 smartphone maker's pursuit of Samsung Electronics and Apple. In the past two months, Beijing-based Xiaomi has had to charter special flights four times to make scheduled deliveries into India. While Xiaomi usually relies on commercial cargo flights for deliveries, the company can't always get the space it needs to meet demand, Manu Jain, head of operations in India, told reporters in the New Delhi suburb of Gurgaon yesterday. Hence the charters. The solution for Xiaomi is to produce its smartphones in the countries where it wants to grow. Production in India will likely begin in one to two years, and Brazil may start sooner, he said. While Xiaomi has pushed back the expansion plans for some markets, India will be a "focus" for years to come, said Barra. The company has sold more than half a million of its low-cost phones in the country since expanding there in July. Xiaomi is on track to cross one million smartphone shipments in India this quarter and could break into the nation's top-five smartphone vendor rankings, he said. "Like Chinese consumers, Indian consumers are quickly warming up to bigger screens on their devices," Shah said. "Redmi Note will provide that power boost for Xiaomi to quickly move up the rankings capturing market share away from the incumbents.".
Despite concerns over its content, anonymous messaging app Yik Yak secured $62M in funding led by Sequoia Capital, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, according to a person close to the deal. Yik Yak differentiates itself by focusing on local communication; users chat anonymously with one another based on their location. And the company says it is highly popular within schools and universities. The app is mostly popular with college students “but has been troublesome for middle and high schools across the country because of bullying,” reports Re/Code. Yik Yak allows anyone within a mile of the person posting the message to read it, which means it works well in school and campus settings, depending on your definition of “working well.” The Wall Street Journal’s Dennis Berman points out that when you log into Yik Yak, these are the “top messages” you see — the ones with the most upvotes by users (using a similar system as Reddit does; being able to vote on posts to get them in front of more eyes.) The messages are pretty gross.
Facebook is giving select brands exclusive access to qualitative user insights based on information gleaned from its 1.3 billion users, letting high-rolling advertisers find out what consumers really think based on comments and other telling social activities, according to industry insiders familiar with the special program. The brands and their marketing teams get to dive deeper into Facebook and its unprecedented ability to gauge public sentiment thanks to the marketing program called Grapevine, according to sources. Which brands get invited to the program depends on their bankroll, one industry source said. "The advertisers spending in the millions on campaigns or a half-million dollars for one ad, that's who has access," this person said. Industry insiders said data analysis from Grapevine was "qualitative not just quantitative." For instance, a shampoo brand could get insights into what Facebook users are saying about frizzy hair and then tailor ads based on that sentiment. The tool is similar to what Twitter does with its "firehose" of tweets, sifting through the torrent of information to track public sentiment. Twitter bought Gnip earlier this year to get a better handle on that data for marketers, and it licenses access to the full stream of information to a select few firms.
In-store location targeting is going mainstream this US Holiday Season: Beginning this week, shoppers at Tysons Corner Center with the right app may see a welcome message pop up on their smartphones as they walk into the mall. An hour into their shopping spree, they are likely to receive another text message, this time asking if they’d like their purchases delivered to their home. And if they have questions along the way — does Nordstrom offer gift wrapping or when does California Pizza Kitchen open — they can get instant answers via text messaging. The property is one of a handful of shopping centers around the country experimenting with mobile apps and Bluetooth technology to communicate with customers as they move through the mall. Ugg this month opened its first high-tech store at the Tysons Galleria, where it uses the same wireless sensors that are in E-Z Passes to help shoppers customize boots and find related products on large in-store touch screens. At Burberry’s new outpost at CityCenterDC, which opened in August, company iPads are available for online shopping. And at Inspirato, a luxury vacation company with a new “experience center” at the Tysons Galleria, passersby can use a number of on-site computers and touch screens to browse lodges in Jackson Hole, Wyo., or chateaus in Bordeaux, France.
Watch out Facebook - Apple is finally showing serious intent about mobile advertising: Its iAd business has gone through several iterations and struggled, and the company is now tapping the ad tech community to open the service widely so marketers can get access to its iPhones, iPads and computers. AdRoll CMO Adam Berke said the new iAd system is going to reshape the mobile advertising landscape, opening access to consumer data Apple had walled off for a long time. Here's how: Berke expects the new iAd to reach massive numbers of users quickly. Apple is using standard format ads to make it easy—mobile banners and video already in use across the industry. App-install ads will immediately be in demand and give mobile developers a new edge in the App Store, which can be a tough environment because of the sheer volume of apps. Apple iTunes and App Store consumer data will finally be open for use to target ads. This is tremendous information about which apps every user has downloaded and which media each one consumes. This knowledge has been locked away within Apple, untouched by marketers until now. "They have App Store behavioral data, and we'll be able to target based on the types of apps that people like," Berke said. The ads will show up in apps that use iAds, and the App Store has hundreds of millions of them, opening up never-before used ad space. "Any app developer using iAd will suddenly have a lot more demand and a lot more advertisers buying their inventory," Berke said. Apple Pay, the new payment service, will feed into the advertising. This is the final piece of information marketers need to know for certain if their ads worked—did the user buy their product? This purchasing behavior is something only Apple will have access to through its control of its mobile ecosystem. "It [could eventually] allow us to track from the mobile ad impression to the App Store behavior of the user to the app install to eventually someone buying with Apple Pay," Berke said.
After Disney and Activision, now Nintendo launches physical toys that can interact with digital games via NFC: Toy companies had been trying for years to bridge the gap between physical and digital toys, applying different strategies but finding limited success. Like recent physical-virtual crossover hits from Disney and Activision, Nintendo figurines use the technology known as near-field communication to send signals to a device connected to the game console. For Disney and Activision, the toys are required to play the related games. Starter kits are about $75, and figures start at about $13. The Nintendo toys are not required to play the related games, but instead offer bonus features. Each character is $13. Activision’s approach has been to add new features and types of toys to each installment. This fall, the company released Skylanders Trap Team, in which players can insert a physical crystal-shaped item in a base to trap virtual villains.
"Social Media Bots Offer Phony Friends and Real Profit": Numerous reports have found that celebrities, politicians and companies often buy fake followers to enhance their perceived importance online. The practice is so widespread that StatusPeople, a social media management company in London, has a web tool called the Fake Follower Check that it says can tell how many fake followers a person has. According to that tool, 6 percent of Ms. Kardashian’s followers are fake, as are 12 percent of Mr. Sheen’s. Here’s how the pyramid works: With minimal effort, I downloaded a piece of software called Twitter Supremacy. For $50 for a six-month license, the software (which violates Twitter’s terms of service agreement) lets me fabricate an unlimited number of friends. Furthermore, I can program these fake accounts to tweet, retweet and follow others automatically, as if they were living, breathing users. (There are dozens of similar services that do this for Instagram, Vine, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube and Facebook.) With an army of fake friends at my disposal, I can now charge people who want to increase their number of followers or promote certain tweets. One bot creator I talked to (who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because his work violates user agreements with social media sites) said that he manages hundreds of thousands of Instagram bots and makes a good living by pushing posts to the app’s popular page. He can also manufacture all kinds of engagement, including following accounts and commenting on photos. Who pays for these services? The bot creator said that his clients include well-known celebrities and brands, along with everyday people who want a social media ego boost. (The bot maker wouldn’t let me share whom he works with, but the list includes A-list celebrities and a fast-food chain.)
"Cable & Wireless helped Britain spy on the world: Channel 4": Telecommunications firm Cable & Wireless helped Britain eavesdrop on millions of Internet users worldwide, Channel 4 reported on Thursday, citing previously secret documents leaked by a fugitive former U.S. National Security Agency contractor. Cable & Wireless, which was bought by Vodafone in 2012, provided British spies with traffic from rival foreign communications companies, Britain's Channel 4 television said, citing documents stolen by Edward Snowden. Channel 4 said Cable & Wireless gave Britain's GCHQ eavesdropping agency access by renting space on one of the arteries of global communications, a cable that runs to the southern English region of Cornwall. The Channel 4 report, which was impossible to immediately verify given the secrecy of the surveillance programs, said Cable & Wireless carried out surveillance on Internet traffic through its networks on behalf of British spies.
Amazon's typical data centers have 50K-80K servers, and there are 28 such data centers globally: Amazon has 11 cloud regions across the world, said James Hamilton, an Amazon distinguished engineer, during a presentation at re:Invent. Each region has multiple sets of data centers, and there are 28 total sets across the world. Each of those has one or more data centers, with a typical facility containing 50,000 to 80,000 servers. A conservative estimate puts Amazon over 1.5 million servers globally. Lydia Leong, an analyst at research firm Gartner, puts it at 2 million or more. By comparison, Rackspace Hosting has a little over 100,000 servers spread across six data centers. Google has three regions with eight total sets, and Microsoft has 17 regions. Last year, Steve Ballmer, then Microsoft's CEO, said the company had over a million servers within its data center infrastructure and that Google had even more. Amazon's cloud could soon get even bigger. Hamilton told me that he saw no reason why Amazon couldn't eventually have a data center in every U.S. state if companies adopt cloud computing as enthusiastically as people predict.
India Post to launch real-time parcel tracking, shipped 85K units for Amazon in October : India Post, which has the biggest network and serves the last mile, is boosting its infrastructure for real-time tracking of parcels through satellites using a new technology. The Postal Department will also soon start an SMS facility to inform customers about delivery status of their parcels. India Post, which is already in tie-ups with e-commerce majors Amazon and Snapdeal, will also have security gadgets like CCTV and access control systems to ensure safety of articles. Amazon started booking parcels at one place with India Post in 2013 which has now expanded to five locations by October 2014. “Amazon shipped 7,000 parcels in January this year. By October, the number of article booked in a month by Amazon increased to about 85,000. Snapdeal sends 2000-3000 parcels per day. Naaptol is giving about Rs 25 crore business to India Post per annum,” the official said. India Post is offering cash collection on delivery facility of product to 200 customers. “Since December 2013 approximately India Post has collected Rs 280 crore as cash on delivery amount and paid to the e-commerce companies,” the official said.
Alibaba will sell its first-ever $8B bond offering on Thursday, attractively low yields of 110bp over Treasuries for the five-year tranche: It is looking to sell up to seven tranches, including five fixed-rate bonds ranging from three to 20-year maturities and two floating-rate notes with three and five-year maturities, which bankers and investors expect to be the most sought after of the year. "Alibaba will have no problem attracting the attention of every investor base around the world," said one bond syndicate manager. "They've done a good job of coming out with enough spread over what would be fair value to make sure they get the size done." Alibaba, highly rated for a Chinese corporate at A1/A+/A+, has been sounding out investors this week in Asia, Europe and the US and is believed to have a huge order book already in place before officially starting the marketing phase in Asia overnight. Two market sources said initial indications of interest were at US$10bn. Alibaba's high Single A ratings will help as the company pitches itself as a comparable to blue-chip names like Oracle, Amazon and Cisco, rather than its lower-rated Chinese internet peers Tencent Holdings and Baidu.
Asian shoppers lead the world in 'showrooming': Implication: location-based targeting which is red-hot in the US (news here and here) could be even hotter here: Asia’s shoppers are experts at “showrooming” – the phenomenon of looking at items at a brick-and-mortar store whilst simultaneously checking the prices available online. According to data from Google’s Consumer Barometer survey (shown in a new post on Google’s APAC blog), this showrooming is most prevalent in less developed tech markets, where you might expect it the least. The top showroomers are Vietnam’s shoppers. 40 percent of them stand in a store whilst cross-checking the prices online. South Korea is second.
Walmart Amends Price Matching Policy After Cheap PS4 Debacle, excludes marketplace vendors, third-party sellers, membership or auction sites: Yesterday, some individuals figured out that they could print out an $89.99 Amazon marketplace listing for a brand new PS4 and get the company to sell them the console for the bargain price, considering that it usually retails for $399.99. Price matching guarantees are a common marketing tactic, but Walmart's policy was especially lax, extending to any legitimate retailer including third-party companies. The retailer said Wednesday that it is limiting its generous Walmart Ad Match Guarantee to just selected retailers, none of which include marketplace vendors, third-party sellers, membership sites or auction sites. Walmart will continue to match the lowest price on Walmart.com and 30 selected retailers, including Amazon.com. However, for an Amazon product to qualify, it must be sold and fulfilled by the online retailer.
A button for faster payment collection on e-commerce sites: PayUMoney (earlier PayUPaisa) has introduced a ‘Pay with PayUMoney’ button to let online shoppers complete purchases with just a few clicks. The new feature will basically let e-tailers embed a button within their websites and blogs so that users can make payments without having to navigate away. According to the company, the button’s look and design can be customised as per the website’s design to collect details of customers. Its design also enables the same button to work for both web and mobile. PayU India further claims that over 2,188 merchants have already created the button for collecting payments. E-tailers who want to add the PayUMoney button on their sites / blogs can do so by logging in to PayUMoney and in the merchant dashboard going to PayUMoney tools. Post that, they can click on the PayUMoney button in order to create new button. The e-tailers can then specify the amount and customise the look and feel of the button. They can also add a custom field to collect more information about the customer. Once that is done, e-tailers can embed the button into their website and start collecting payments.
Alibaba extends Taobao and Alipay to Australian merchants seeking to sell in China; focus on food & agri: Alibaba announced today that China’s biggest online payment system and online marketplace officially launched their respective channels for Australian merchants to sell their goods to Chinese customers. Taobao’s Australian channel will focus on selling food and agricultural imports. “With increasing concerns for food safety and higher levels of disposable income, Chinese consumers are keen on purchasing healthy, safe food and beverages from overseas,” says the press release. These products will be sourced by Melbourne-based Zoyu Digital. The ecommerce titan explains Alipay Australia will work with a joint venture partner called Paybang “to continue serving local businesses targeting China’s booming consumer base and facilitating cross-border trade between the two countries.” Despite media reports to the contrary, Alibaba did not mention launching a localized version of Taobao or Alipay for Australian consumers to shop on. However, Alibaba says it will work with Australia Post to sell Alipay Purchase Cards at 4,400 retail outlets so Aussie shoppers can buy stuff on Tmall and Taobao.
Walmart has been quietly building up its own ad network and apps for comparison shopping: Walmart Exchange WMX is a platform available to brands that sell products at Walmart. Agencies buying ads for Walmart’s brands can use the tool to serve online ads in real-time based on shopper data, promising SKU-level measurement for marketers. Walmart’s media agency MediaVest also has access to WMX to manage its digital media buys on behalf of the retailer. Since launching, Monahan said that WMX is rolling out new features weekly that track the performance of campaigns. Meanwhile, @WalmartLabs is credited for cranking out mobile apps, e-commerce and social tools for shoppers. Just this year, it has rolled out a new e-commerce site, an app revamp that pulls in local inventory and a program called Savings Catcher. Savings Catcher is an app that scans a receipt to find prices at competing stores. If the app finds a cheaper price, shoppers get money back in the form of a gift card.
Zomato closed $60M in funding; post-money valuation of $660 million: Zomato, the restaurant search and discovery service, has closed a further $60 million in funding, giving the company a post-money valuation of $660 million. Investment comes from India’s Vy Capital, and existing backers Info Edge, and Sequoia Capital. It takes total funding to over $113 million.
Uber has walked into a storm of adverse publicity: An article from BuzzFeed this week alleged that an Uber executive floated the idea of hiring opposition researchers to dig up information on particularly critical journalists. But it needn’t have gone to such great lengths to get dirt -- its vast data stores might already contain that sort of insight. In fact, Buzzfeed also alleged that the general manager of Ubers New York City operations tapped into the user profile of one of its reporters, without the reporter’s permission, “to make points in the course of a discussion of Uber policies.”
5 early stage Indian startups that were picked by TLabs (an accelerator and early stage seed-fund) 1. Vidooly: Vidooly is an intelligent YouTube marketing and analytics suite for content creators, brands, and multi-channel networks 2. Wibe: Wibe recommends relevant videos to users while they read on the web. It is currently offered as a browser extension compatible with popular websites such as Google, Wikipedia, and Amazon. 3. Neuron: Neuron is a big data tool that examines a brand’s social presence (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest), picks up users who are interested in its products, and then uses deep learning to figure out which users are potential customers. 4. Flynx: Flynx is a floating browser for Android that makes multi-tasking effortless while browsing the web on mobile devices. It will load web pages in the background without obstructing current work-flow. 5. Mobapper: Mobapper creates native iPhone, Android, Windows, and Blackberry apps for your WordPress website instantly. No coding is required. It can seamlessly integrate with your existing website and fetch content automatically. In the previous batch, TLabs backed FashUpp, Ghar360, GreedyGame, ParallelDots, Spayee, Vidgyor, and Take Zero.
Rural consumers accounted for ~10% of Alibaba’s US$9.3B Singles Day haul, washing machines, wool and down coats in top 10 items: Alibaba VP Wang Yulei said at the event that the top ten products China’s rural residents bought via Alibaba’s online marketplaces this Singles Day were, in order of popularity: Mobile phones Flatscreen TVs Boots Wool coats Women’s down coats Men’s down coats Low-top shoes Bedsheets/sets Facial skin products Washing machines According to Wang, there are some significant differences between that and the urban top ten list, on which flatscreen TVs rated lower and washing machines didn’t rate at all, among other differences.
Snapchat is getting into p2p payments; linking audience identity information to (currently anonymous) Snapchat might be the rationale: Snapchat doesn’t ask for your real name, but its on the debit card you use for its new peer-to-peer payments feature Snapcash. That could prove very lucrative for the ephemeral messaging service. To use the feature for sending friends money that launched today, users connect their debit card to their Snapchat accounts through a partnership with Square Cash. The real names, addresses, and account information associated with those debit cards could potentially be cross-referenced with databases of personal information to give Snapchat a much better idea of who users are and what ads they might want to see.
Rocket Internet in Asia: Jabong H1 GMV $81M (195% Y/Y), Lazada H1 GMV $91M (202% Y/Y): Rocket Internet’s first earnings report since its October IPO on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange revealed: Jabong H1 GMV up 195% Y/Y to US$81 million; Orders grew 171% to 3.2 million, no data for active users. EBITDA loss US$0.129K slightly worse than the loss in H1 2013. Lazada H1 GMV (US$91.4 million), up 202% Y/Y. 1.8 million orders from its 1.4 million active users. Rocket Internet explains that Lazada is shifting from a direct sales model (shipping from its own warehouses) to a marketplace model for third-party merchants. As a result, revenue may suffer. But for now, revenues are stronger than last year, with H1 2014 already amounting to EUR 47.3 million (US$59.2 million), which is 83% of the total 2013 net revenues. EBITDA was negative EUR 40 million (US$50 million). Zalora, which sells clothing in 10 Asian nations: H1 GMV US$70.1 million (44% Y/Y), 1.5 million orders, 1.2 million active users during H1. Revenues US$55 million. EBITDA loss US$41.9 million (more than halved since the whole of 2013).
Snapdeal in India claims to be aggressively investing in assisted kiosks (similar news also from Kudo in Indonesia): Snapdeal is planning to set up assisted outlets across over 70,000 rural areas and 65 cities by the end of March 2015 in partnership with FINO PayTech, who has thousands of business correspondents on the ground, especially in rural areas. Under the partnership, Snapdeal.com is trying to expand its access to consumers in the hinterland with an assortment of over 1000 products through assisted kiosks which would be operated by FINO Paytech. This would enable the target segment to shop online. Apart from Dharavi, Varanasi, Valsad (Gujarat), urban villages of Noida, Gurgaon, Hyderabad and Jaipur are the targets of the e-commerce player to begin with. The company has already started the pilot project in these places. The products would be on display at the digital kiosks curated on an exclusive page requiring login by FINO agent, who would place an order, collect payment, receive and deliver to people who have no permanent address. “Together we aim to provide innovative, yet simple ways to reach and service those end-consumers who are still not exposed to the benefits of online shopping,” Kunal Bahl, co-founder and CEO Snapdeal.com said in a statement. FINO will assist in sales, payments and delivery of ordered products to customers through its network, he added.
Google Glass seems to have lost its mojo: Many developers and early Glass users are losing interest in the much-hyped, $1,500 test version of the product: a camera, processor and stamp-sized computer screen mounted to the edge of eyeglass frames. Google Inc itself has pushed back the Glass roll out to the mass market. While Glass may find some specialized, even lucrative, uses in the workplace, its prospects of becoming a consumer hit in the near future are slim, many developers say. Of 16 Glass app makers contacted by Reuters, nine said that they had stopped work on their projects or abandoned them, mostly because of the lack of customers or limitations of the device. Three more have switched to developing for business, leaving behind consumer projects. Google Glass now sells on eBay for as little as half list price.
Meanwhile, Apple marches on inexorably - (i) links to UnionPay, China's largest bankcard network; (ii) Apple Pay is flirting with AliPay, and (iii) is gaining unprecedented traction in the US: App Store customers in China can now link their UnionPay debit or credit cards to their Apple IDs for purchases, Apple announced today. This is significant for Apple and Chinese consumers because China UnionPay, a bankcard network approved by China’s State Council and the People’s Bank of China, enjoys a virtual monopoly. It has issued more than 4.5 billion cards in China, and is available in all cities, as well as in overseas market. China (which has an estimated 100 million iPhone users) is Apple’s most important growth market; in its recent fourth-quarter earnings report, the company reported that the market generated $29.8 billion, or 16 percent, in net sales in 2014.
Behavior-tracking app ClassDojo is going mainstream in the US - and attracting critics: ClassDojo is used by at least one teacher in roughly one out of three schools in the United States, according to its developer. The app is among the innovations to emerge from the estimated $7.9 billion education software market aimed at students from prekindergarten through high school. Although there are similar behavior-tracking programs, they are not as popular as ClassDojo. Many teachers say the app helps them automate the task of recording classroom conduct, as well as allowing them to communicate directly with parents. But some parents, teachers and privacy law scholars say that the carrot-and-stick method of classroom discipline is outmoded, and that behavior apps themselves are too subjective, enabling teachers to reward or penalize students for amorphous acts like “disrespect.” They contend that behavior databases could potentially harm students’ reputations by unfairly saddling some with “a problem child” label that could stick with them for years.
