Lab Weekly — 01/26/2018
Apple’s two major upcoming releases, Facebook’s latest esports move, and more
Lab Original
What Amazon Go Means for the Future of Retail and CPG Brands
Amazon’s checkout-free convenience store has officially opened its doors to the general public. The concept store employs computer vision and machine learning to let shoppers skip the checkout line and literally just “grab and go.” A harbinger of the AI-driven automation coming to retail and other industries, Amazon Go heralds an impending paradigm shift to which brands must adept in order to survive. Here is a deep dive into its implications and what brands can do in response.
News Analysis
Apple Sets Release Date For Siri-Powered Smart Speaker HomePod On Feb. 9th [link]
Apple is finally ready to release its entry into the smart speaker market after a slight delay (the HomePod was supposed to launch by the end of 2017). Despite being relatively late to the market and the limitations of Siri, the HomePod should have no trouble finding an audience with audiophiles and Apple fans, thanks to its focus on sound quality and deep integration with Apple’s ecosystem.
Although Apple still limits the functionalities that developers can create for Siri so as to keep a tight control over the user experience, HomePod will support messaging apps, third-party reminders, and podcasts via SiriKit. The impending arrival of HomePod is set to complicate and accelerate the fight for the voice-led smart home platform, which, up until this point, has largely been a showdown between Amazon and Google. If your brand still hasn’t considered developing a voice strategy, now would be the time to do so.
Related: Apple says Siri is now being actively used on 500M+ devices [link]; Apple expands Siri’s ‘Give me the news’ feature to non-beta users & the U.K. [link]; Google Assistant now supports voice match for multiple Netflix profiles [link]
iOS 11.3 Set To Bring New Animojis, Updated ARKit, And Business Chat [link]
The initial release of ARKit was limited to recognizing horizontal surfaces. Updating ARKIt in a minor iOS update to add in vertical surface recognition, along with the update for Animojis, shows just how much Apple is invested in augmented reality. As Apple continues to make it a priority to update and enhance ARKit, brands will be able to create more precise and sophisticated AR features for their iOS apps. As for the arrival of Business Chat, you can check out this analysis from last year when the feature was first announced to learn how it works and how your brand may utilize it to better serve your customers.
Related: Amazon’s ad business is growing at a rapid pace, although still far behind the Google-Facebook duopoly [link]; Verizon is working on a new OTT video content service based on Oath content and a connected home management product [link]
Facebook Inks Exclusive Partnership With ESL One For Live Streams of Major Esports Tournaments [link]
This exclusive deal will grant Facebook the global live streaming rights of CS:GO Pro League, ESL One Dota 2, and CS:GO circuit. Facebook also reportedly plans to make the live stream available in VR via its Facebook 360 App for Gear VR. This is not the first time ESL, the world’s largest esports company and event organizer, has worked with Facebook to distribute its content. ESL first started livestreaming on Facebook two years ago, when it reached about 700,000 people every month. That figure has skyrocketed to over 25 million now, a viewership that brands can no longer afford to neglect. As esports continue to grow, it will be interesting to see the major digital platforms compete with each other for tournament streaming rights, just like the way TV networks did with traditional sports.
Related: Twitch made an Alexa skill for playing Twitch streams on Echo Show [link]; ESPN’s Fantasy sports app is driving a massive chunk of the network’s digital traffic [link]
Snapchat To Let Users Share Public Stories Outside Of The App [link]
This move marks yet another effort from Snapchat to open up access to its user-generated content to non-users and increase their reach. Although Snapchat is not serving any ads via this new web player for Stories yet, it is safe to presume that will follow before long. Following the major app redesign last December and an unfortunate data leak two weeks ago that highlighted, among other things, how much the company has struggled with innovating non-chat features and driving users to check out the publisher content, 2018 will be an important year for Snapchat. With its main competitor Facebook now caught in a public trust crisis, it will be interesting to see if Snapchat can manage to win over some users and refuel its growth.
Related: Twitter is reportedly working on a Snapchat-style tool for image and video sharing [link]; Facebook introduces Watch Party to let you watch shows together with friends [link]; Selfie app Snow, once a Snapchat clone, raises $50M from SoftBank and Sequoia China [link]
Stats To Know:
Netflix reports a “beautiful” Q4 by adding another 8.3 million subscribers worldwide despite a price hike last October, far exceeding market expectation of 6.3 million. The OTT streaming giant now has nearly 118 million subscribers worldwide.
Esports platforms continue to grow at a rapid pace, according to new data from StreamLabs. In Q4 2017, Twitch grew its streamer base by 197%, reaching 814,000 monthly active streamers. In comparison, YouTube Gaming grew by 343% in the same quarter to reach 293,000 monthly streamers.
Live video continues to draw increasing attention from brand marketers as a crucial digital channel to reach consumers. Nearly 95% of brand and retail executives say live video will be an important part of their marketing strategy in 2018, according to a new study by Brandlive and IBM.
