Tag: apple
From Netflix recommendations to the rise of voice assistants, AI is increasingly finding its way into our daily lives. Just yesterday, Nike announced that they are buying an AI startup to predict what consumers want. You can’t deny AI is everywhere.
How do we accept, understand and trust AI in our day to day lives? Look no further than our very own Retail Revolution research study, which this week was featured in Business Insider series How AI Is Changing Everything.
The Tik Tok takeover continues! By partnering with Giphy, fans of both can now import stickers and create memes.
Are third party schedulers a thing of the past? Instagram rolls out their very own post creator studio.
Alexa, close your ears… Amazon are now giving users the option to opt out of human review of their voice recordings.
Social media marketers rejoice as Snapchat’s new tool makes it easier to create vertical video assets.
Pin, pin, pin. Shop, shop, shop! The number of retail products on Pinterest was up by 50% in Q2 of 2019.
This report of high-subscriber YouTube channels finds that children’s content received more views than other videos!
The 4 giants unite in their goal to simplify data migration between platforms, as Apple joins Google, Facebook and Twitter in The Data Transfer Project.
Introducing WhatsApp Pay! Messenger services plans to make sending money between their 400 million active users as easy as sending a voice note.
From Netflix recommendations to the rise of voice assistants, AI is increasingly finding its way into our daily lives. Just yesterday, Nike announced that they are buying an AI startup to predict what consumers want. You can’t deny AI is everywhere.
How do we accept, understand and trust AI in our day to day lives? Look no further than our very own Retail Revolution research study, which this week was featured in Business Insider series How AI Is Changing Everything.
The Tik Tok takeover continues! By partnering with Giphy, fans of both can now import stickers and create memes.
Are third party schedulers a thing of the past? Instagram rolls out their very own post creator studio.
Alexa, close your ears… Amazon are now giving users the option to opt out of human review of their voice recordings.
Social media marketers rejoice as Snapchat’s new tool makes it easier to create vertical video assets.
Pin, pin, pin. Shop, shop, shop! The number of retail products on Pinterest was up by 50% in Q2 of 2019.
This report of high-subscriber YouTube channels finds that children’s content received more views than other videos!
The 4 giants unite in their goal to simplify data migration between platforms, as Apple joins Google, Facebook and Twitter in The Data Transfer Project.
Introducing WhatsApp Pay! Messenger services plans to make sending money between their 400 million active users as easy as sending a voice note.
Hello and welcome to your weekly FWD.
“While my background is in tech, I have a deep-rooted belief in the power of creative ideas. This mix combined with start-up mentality, agility and entrepreneurialism, will unlock opportunities to deliver work that makes a difference for our clients.” – Guy Marks
Following the exciting announcement earlier this week that start-up founder Guy Marks will be taking the helm of OMD EMEA, this issue is dedicated to stories where tech and creativity meet…
Google opens new avenues in China through a long-term agreement with Tencent, Amazon has finally opened its checkout-free shop, and Spotify can now help you adopt a dog with the same music tastes as you!
One to watch: tackling one of the industry’s big mysteries, BuzzFeed’s Publisher Dao Nguyen gives a TED talk on the secret to making content that people love.
HEADLINES
INSIGHTS
COOL
- Are we about to see the launch of an ‘iTunes equivalent’ for VR music?
- Barking mad? You can now adopt a dog with the same music tastes as you
- This messaging app only works when you have less than 5% battery life, and you can only chat to strangers
DEEP READS
If you find anything interesting, please share using #OMDFWD
Hello and welcome to your weekly FWD. This week, YouTube joins the ‘stories’ bandwagon, allowing users to post Snapchat-like videos on their channels. Meanwhile, Instagram is testing a stand-alone messaging app that will replace the current inbox. Good news for brands and celebrities as you can now save your Instagram stories on your profile and Twitter’s new 280-character limit drives higher engagement rates. Prepare to start shopping from the comfort of your car’s Marketplace as research finds that voice search has a positive impact on sales and Amazon’s Alexa users buy more. Lastly, rumour has it that Apple is in the process of acquiring Shazam to step up its game in music services.
HEADLINES
INSIGHTS
COOL
DEEP READS
And finally…prepare to cuddle up with a huggable spoonbot
Another call for stories, we love it when you get involved! If you find anything interesting, please share using #OMDFWD
Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of OMD FWD. With the big Christmas TV ads released over the last week (including the hotly anticipated John Lewis advert by MG OMD), the festive season is well and truly upon us. This week, Apple teaches people around the world to code with their “Everyone Can Code” initiative. For those that don’t fancy staying in to code, there is good news for nightlife lovers as Facebook relaunches their Events app as Facebook Local, adding bars, food, and nearby attractions.
In retail, Black Friday is around the corner but will sales overtake those from China’s Singles’ Day? Alibaba, the e-commerce Chinese giant, reported over $25.3 billion in sales last weekend as retailers competed for a share of consumer spending. This start-up is making augmented-reality glasses to help the blind see again.
HEADLINES
INSIGHTS
COOL
DEEP READS
While you wait for next week’s FWD (and Christmas!), check out the best tech toys of 2017. As ever, please tag and share anything you spot with #OMDFWD
Hello and welcome to the latest edition of FWD. It’s been an exciting, and busy week for Apple as they launched the iPhone 8, iPhone X, an updated Smartwatch and the new ARKit. Talking of new technology, whilst Amazon’s Alexa Shop Assistant directs you to the right aisle and answers product questions, Facebook are hot on their heels quietly building their own voice assistant.
With online video consumption on the rise, research finds that six in ten European retail brands are already offering ‘TV-like’ online video experiences and are also on their way to becoming a media company. Lastly, say bye to auto-play videos with audio on Chrome, and prepare to share Instagram stories on your Facebook feed.
HEADLINES
INSIGHTS
COOL
DEEP READS
As usual, please share anything you find interesting using the hashtag #OMDFWD
Hello and welcome to the latest edition of FWD. It’s been an exciting, and busy week for Apple as they launched the iPhone 8, iPhone X, an updated Smartwatch and the new ARKit. Talking of new technology, whilst Amazon’s Alexa Shop Assistant directs you to the right aisle and answers product questions, Facebook are hot on their heels quietly building their own voice assistant.
With online video consumption on the rise, research finds that six in ten European retail brands are already offering ‘TV-like’ online video experiences and are also on their way to becoming a media company. Lastly, say bye to auto-play videos with audio on Chrome, and prepare to share Instagram stories on your Facebook feed.
HEADLINES
INSIGHTS
COOL
DEEP READS
As usual, please share anything you find interesting using the hashtag #OMDFWD
Staying on-trend
Aside from struggling with early mornings, wrestling with public transport (or the lack thereof), and re-acquainting yourself with your gym trainers, you may have spent some of your first working week of 2017 skimming through the shiny, new tech trends for the coming year. But
perhaps, like me, you had a slight feeling of déjà vu. Didn’t I read these last year? Virtual Reality; Augmented Reality; artificial intelligence; social video; messaging; a new term for instant gratification; some other new term for streaming content. All in all, all the same.
Well, firstly I commend the experts for sticking to these themes, rather than conjuring up something that isn’t there for the sake of saying something new. Many of these trends are vast in scope and have a long way to go, in terms of both the technology improving and brands
experimenting with them.
Secondly, isn’t it a bit of continuity comforting after a year of unexpected change in 2016? (Of course, the political changes decided upon in 2016 are actually to come in 2017, but let’s suspend disbelief for the sake of a bit of New Year things-have-to-be-better-this-year-just-cos-they-do optimism.)
Some trendsetters have called the coming year one of ‘incremental change’. Others say that it’s the obvious consequence of the Gartner Hype Cycle. Both valid points. To bring back a 2009 phrase (sorry, so passé) – ‘everything’s now in beta’. The world’s biggest tech companies (many
of which are now the world’s biggest companies full-stop) continue to release products into the market that are far from the finished article. Many of them don’t have a ‘killer use case’ (very 2011 that one, sorry again) attached to them. The Apple Watch was infamously meant to be for erm, kinda everything, until based on actual user behaviour of those that had bought one, Apple recognised that fitness was probably the application to shout about.
For technologies like Virtual and Augmented Reality, content is being developed in tandem with, and in response to, the constant improvements to the technology available. We now live in an environment where the tech companies are all looking to lead consumer behaviour rather than respond to it, so it should come as no surprise that the dominant technology trends and platforms aren’t changing each calendar year; consumers are still becoming accustomed to, and providing feedback on, the new possibilities and functionality that the tech companies have been nudging them towards over the last few years.
There is no new ‘smartphone’ on the horizon. I would hazard a guess that there won’t be a new piece of technology at this scale in our lifetime – 2.5 billion smartphones globally now – in particular, if you consider the breadth and depth of its impact on humanity, just 10 years after
the first iPhone was announced. So unfathomably powerful is this device – potentially humanity’s most behaviour-changing product ever – that I believe that any technology that gains the reach of even 10% of the smartphone user base is indeed likely to be an accessory to, or at least powered by, the smartphone itself.
But I’m perfectly happy with ‘incremental change’, even if it doesn’t sound that whizz-bang on face value. I’d argue that the current technology available to us – the hardware, the software, the networks – is more than enough to transform any business or disrupt any sector, and keep us busy for a generation. Or at least the year ahead.
The state of play at the start of 2017
So where are we at with technologies’ prevailing themes as we embark on our next lap of the sun? What’s possible now and where can brands find immediate opportunity to jump on board with the current new technology that I refer to? And what are the challenges and watch-outs?
Dividing this into three broad themes: New Realities, Smart Systems and Connected Objects. Stay tuned for these updates about what to expect in 2017.
Staying on-trend
Aside from struggling with early mornings, wrestling with public transport (or the lack thereof), and re-acquainting yourself with your gym trainers, you may have spent some of your first working week of 2017 skimming through the shiny, new tech trends for the coming year. But
perhaps, like me, you had a slight feeling of déjà vu. Didn’t I read these last year? Virtual Reality; Augmented Reality; artificial intelligence; social video; messaging; a new term for instant gratification; some other new term for streaming content. All in all, all the same.
Well, firstly I commend the experts for sticking to these themes, rather than conjuring up something that isn’t there for the sake of saying something new. Many of these trends are vast in scope and have a long way to go, in terms of both the technology improving and brands
experimenting with them.
Secondly, isn’t it a bit of continuity comforting after a year of unexpected change in 2016? (Of course, the political changes decided upon in 2016 are actually to come in 2017, but let’s suspend disbelief for the sake of a bit of New Year things-have-to-be-better-this-year-just-cos-they-do optimism.)
Some trendsetters have called the coming year one of ‘incremental change’. Others say that it’s the obvious consequence of the Gartner Hype Cycle. Both valid points. To bring back a 2009 phrase (sorry, so passé) – ‘everything’s now in beta’. The world’s biggest tech companies (many
of which are now the world’s biggest companies full-stop) continue to release products into the market that are far from the finished article. Many of them don’t have a ‘killer use case’ (very 2011 that one, sorry again) attached to them. The Apple Watch was infamously meant to be for erm, kinda everything, until based on actual user behaviour of those that had bought one, Apple recognised that fitness was probably the application to shout about.
For technologies like Virtual and Augmented Reality, content is being developed in tandem with, and in response to, the constant improvements to the technology available. We now live in an environment where the tech companies are all looking to lead consumer behaviour rather than respond to it, so it should come as no surprise that the dominant technology trends and platforms aren’t changing each calendar year; consumers are still becoming accustomed to, and providing feedback on, the new possibilities and functionality that the tech companies have been nudging them towards over the last few years.
There is no new ‘smartphone’ on the horizon. I would hazard a guess that there won’t be a new piece of technology at this scale in our lifetime – 2.5 billion smartphones globally now – in particular, if you consider the breadth and depth of its impact on humanity, just 10 years after
the first iPhone was announced. So unfathomably powerful is this device – potentially humanity’s most behaviour-changing product ever – that I believe that any technology that gains the reach of even 10% of the smartphone user base is indeed likely to be an accessory to, or at least powered by, the smartphone itself.
But I’m perfectly happy with ‘incremental change’, even if it doesn’t sound that whizz-bang on face value. I’d argue that the current technology available to us – the hardware, the software, the networks – is more than enough to transform any business or disrupt any sector, and keep us busy for a generation. Or at least the year ahead.
The state of play at the start of 2017
So where are we at with technologies’ prevailing themes as we embark on our next lap of the sun? What’s possible now and where can brands find immediate opportunity to jump on board with the current new technology that I refer to? And what are the challenges and watch-outs?
Dividing this into three broad themes: New Realities, Smart Systems and Connected Objects. Stay tuned for these updates about what to expect in 2017.
During the announcement of Google Home at the opening of the Google I/O conference, Sundar Pichai, Google CEO, mentioned that 20% of mobile queries are now voice searches. While the market for virtual assistant slowly heats up, a MindMeld survey found that there has been a significant increase in the number of people now using voice assistant and voice search capabilities within the past 6 months. Transactional queries will become even more common as virtual assistants integrate a range of third-party services such as OpenTable, Spotify, WhatsApp, Uber and Ticketmaster. While the topic of voice and virtual assistants can be a conversation starter with tech hobbyists, it is also true that the general public is now starting to take interest in this field.
HEADLINES
INSIGHTS
COOL
DEEP READS
Share anything you see through the week with the hashtag #OMDFWD