Monday, November 27, 2017

The Full Monty: The Future of the News — November 27, 2017


There's a correction going on in the news media, and it's not from a typo; there's hope for jobs amid the robot revolution; smart speakers are the future; the car and heavy trucking industries are in for an upheaval; email matters to youngsters; how to make an innovative culture; Amazon still hasn't supplanted independent bookstores — for good reason; Walmart is thriving in its battle with Amazon; are we ready for the end of the social era?; Twitter changes up the rules; how Amazon could hamper filmmakers; understanding the most engaged podcast listeners; everything you need to know about the looming Net Neutrality battle; Uber's underhanded approach to a massive data breach; tips on data visualization; the fox and the hedgehog; the right leaders for your growth strategies; and more in the Future of the News edition of The Full Monty from Brain+Trust Partners for the week of November 27, 2017.



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The Full Monty, a Brain+Trust Partners publication, exposes you to virtually everything you need in business intelligence at the top of every week. Links are below with commentary in italics. Please sign up for our email updates to make sure you don't miss a thing. And please click send your colleagues to this page to sign up as well.

We've got all of these links — and those that didn't make the cut for publication — in The Full Monty Magazine on Flipboard. And a special note about Flipboard: please take a look at the new layout for The Full Monty. We've separated stories into mini-magazines that follow the same sections as below. Feel free to follow the magazines that matter to you.



Top Stories

Many forces have led to the squeeze that digital media companies now find themselves in: digital publishing failed to diversify properly, the platforms amped up their advertising, Facebook cut back referral traffic, and now we're facing a reckoning in the realistic market valuation of digital media companies. Meanwhile, there's a consolidation going on in the traditional media marketplace as powerful forces begin to concentrate news in fewer hands. The question is what will this mean for local news, advertisers and the public? We should all keep a close watch on this, as society depends on it.

  • Meredith agreed to buy Time Inc. for $1.85 billion, at a 46% premium to the stock's closing price on November 15. $650 million of the funding comes from the Koch brothers, who will assume ~$1 billion in Time's debt. Such a move is seen as a significant bet on the future of the magazine industry.
  • Meanwhile, the rapid growth of Google and Facebook continues to take its toll on digital media companies: 
  • Digital media have a difficult task ahead of them, but it's one that must be rooted in reality rather than in fantasy. Media companies don't have the same leeway as Silicon Valley unicorns and their inflated valuations. Journalism is very rarely backed by venture capital and therefore has a much shorter timeframe to prove viable business models.




Artificial Intelligence / Autonomous

The latest in AI, machine learning, bots, and blockchain, mobility, and autonomous everything.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE / MACHINE LEARNING

  • Maybe your kids will want to grow up to be data detectives or man-machine teaming managers. These are just some of the ways human workers are likely to be needed to manage artificial intelligence and automation in the job bonanza ahead under the robot revolution.
  • Check out this video of Sophia, an AI robot so lifelike that humans are freaking out.
  • Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Google all have variations of the same thing. As they race to improve the AI in each, what does the future hold for smart speakers? In short, expect to see more about security and privacy, proactive status, and true conversations.

    AUTONOMOUS / MOBILITY




    Communications / Marketing / Business Strategy

    Industry developments and trends, including advertising & marketing, journalism, customer experience, content, and influencer relations.

    COMMUNICATiONS / MARKETING / STRATEGY 



    Retail Apocalypse

    Humans are a transactional species, and the practice — if not the very notion of what retail is  is undergoing a historical metamorphosis. 



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    Platforms 

    News to know about relevant social, virtual, and augmented reality platforms that may affect your business.

    TWITTER / PERISCOPE

    FACEBOOK / INSTAGRAM / WHATSAPP

    ALPHABET / GOOGLE

      SNAP

      MICROSOFT / LINKEDIN



      Media

      The latest in the world of streaming video, audio, and the advertising, pricing and bundling models related to them.

      VIDEO

      AUDIO

      • There's a curious group of people who listen to podcasts at super-fast speed. Life at the speed of sound. Or is that life at the sound of speed?
      • Pandora's new CEO wants more podcasts and would like to revamp the audio streaming giant's advertising technology to stem the loss of younger listeners.
      • Spotify announced it has acquired Soundtrap, a collaborative online music recording startup, reportedly for at least $30 million. Such a move could make it more attractive as a destination for music creators.
      • The Knight Foundation released a report on Public Media's Most Engaged Podcast Users. Super listeners consume twice the amount of podcast content compared to generic listeners. They are loyal evangelists of the medium. The report notes that 96% of surveyed super listeners had recommended a podcast to a friend. These listeners prefer in-depth content, and increasingly prefer digital consumption over podcast.
      • Program of the Week: And as our recommendation this week, we have The Most Useful Podcast Ever, a podcast for getting things done. Thanks to Jessica Willits for the suggestion. Do you have a program to recommend? Add yours to our Google Sheet:  smonty.co/yourpodcasts.  



      Regulatory / Security 

      Business disruptions in the legal, regulatory, and computer security fields, from hacking to the on-demand economy and more.

      SECURITY / HACKING

        ON-DEMAND ECONOMY




        Measurement / Analytics / Data

        The future is not in plastics, but in data. Those who know how to measure and analyze it will rule the world.


        Mental Nourishment

        Other links to help you reflect, improve, or simply learn something new.




        Do you like what you see here? Please subscribe to have trends on digital communications, marketing, technology and business delivered to your inbox each Monday.


        patreon.com/scottmonty

        Wow! You made it this far. That took a lot of work. Can you imagine how much work it took to write this? If you can appreciate the effort and this publication provides any kind of value to you, maybe you'll consider joining as a patron.



        Upcoming Brain+Trust Speaking Engagements

        Can we speak for your organization? Drop us a line.



        Brain+Trust Partners helps smart, risk-taking executives discern the real from the hype. From strategy development to technology and data vendor selection, and streamlining processes, our focus is on digital business transformation that improves customer experience and drives efficiency for your company. And our decades of experience working for major brands means that we deeply understand the challenges you're facing. Let us know if we can help you.


        Top image credit: The New York Daily News by William Michael Hartnett, public domain 

        -- 

        Monday, November 13, 2017

        The Full Monty: Think of the Children — November 13, 2017


        Something is wrong on the Internet—and we need to do something about it; the speaker wars are upon us; Waymo launches driverless taxis in Phoenix; Ford is finally being recognized for its technological prowess; the challenges of digital transformation; multitasking rules TV watching; the annual look at Fortune 500 use of social platforms; the need for experience managers in retail; Kroger takes a step up; Twitter goes 280; Facebook Local taps the power of 70 million business pages; SportsCenter on Snapchat; Disney and Fox in talks; Netflix's secret content strategy; voice-based passwords may be next; the chatbot that will scam scammers; Lyft's fortunes are lifting; analytics and predictive modeling are best for ROI; the great poop emoji wars; and more in the Think of the Children edition of The Full Monty from Brain+Trust Partners for the week of November 13, 2017.



        Please support this newsletter by becoming patron. We'll let you decide how much. 


        You know you want to

        Thank you for doing your part to keep this publication going.  



        The Full Monty, a Brain+Trust Partners publication, exposes you to virtually everything you need in business intelligence at the top of every week. Links are below with commentary in italics. Please sign up for our email updates to make sure you don't miss a thing. And please click send your colleagues to this page to sign up as well.

        We've got all of these links — and those that didn't make the cut for publication — in The Full Monty Magazine on Flipboard.



        Top Stories

        When the Internet became too unwieldy to manage (sometime after Yahoo's homepage stopped being a series of curated links), engineers let algorithms make decisions. And for a while, it seemed like an elegant solution to a massive challenge. But technical solutions are not the same as ethical solutions, and now we're finding there may be great harm being done in some of these circumstances. We need to be on guard as programmers as well as parents, to ensure the future and fate of our children is not mismanaged by bots and tech moguls on the quest for a digital land grab.





        Artificial Intelligence / Autonomous

        The latest in AI, machine learning, bots, and blockchain, mobility, and autonomous everything.

        ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE / MACHINE LEARNING

        AUTONOMOUS / MOBILITY



        Communications / Marketing / Business Strategy

        Industry developments and trends, including advertising & marketing, journalism, customer experience, content, and influencer relations.

        COMMUNICATiONS / MARKETING / STRATEGY



        Retail Apocalypse

        Humans are a transactional species, and the practice — if not the very notion of what retail is  is undergoing a historical metamorphosis. 



        SPONSOR

        Want to know what 500 marketers (budgets up to $10 million) believe and how those beliefs influence their behaviors when it comes to hiring and firing agencies just like yours?

        Don't miss this FREE 16 page report, full of information, insight and guidance on how to best approach prospects based on the findings.

        Some of the results are going to really surprise you.

        If you're seeing this, maybe you'd like to see your company's name here too. Let us know.


        Platforms 

        News to know about relevant social, virtual, and augmented reality platforms that may affect your business.
        • Social media platform changes you may have missed last month include: the launch of Facebook Explore, expanded actions available in Instagram Stories, and a video website card from Twitter, among other things.

        TWITTER / PERISCOPE

        FACEBOOK / INSTAGRAM / WHATSAPP

        • Did you ever wonder how Facebook figures out how to suggest People You Might Know? Well, it has less to do with surreptitious spying on your computer and your sordid past than it does with the inboxes and contact lists that your correspondents have shared with Facebook to form your shadow profile.
        • The standalone Facebook Events app has been rebranded Facebook Local, to help you discover bars, restaurants, and nearby attractions, powered by Facebook's nearly 70 million business pages.
        • Facebook launched a closed beta of Customer Chat, a plugin for businesses to enable Messenger chats on company websites that works across multiple devices and platforms.

        ALPHABET / GOOGLE

          MICROSOFT / LINKEDIN

          • Microsoft's CEO has brought an unlikely approach to the company's business strategy: empathy. The ability to understand and feel what others experience is critical to the work of technology giants, according to Satya Nadella.
          • One person not displaying much empathy for Microsoft is Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, who ridiculed the Redmond, WA company from the stage at Dreamforce. Then again, he might be a tad bitter that Microsoft outbid Salesforce for LinkedIn.

          OTHER

          AR / VR

          • Mixed reality (a combination of augmented and virtual reality) may be the most effective at helping businesses cash in on the craze. One would hope there's some actual reality baked in there as well.
          • Apple is reportedly working on a standalone AR headset for 2019 that would run rOS — Apple's reality operating system. Great. Just what we need: another Apple gadget. Maybe it'll carry a spare battery.



          Media

          The latest in the world of streaming video, audio, and the advertising, pricing and bundling models related to them.

          VIDEO

          AUDIO




          Regulatory / Security 

          Business disruptions in the legal, regulatory, and computer security fields, from hacking to the on-demand economy and more.

          SECURITY / HACKING

            ON-DEMAND ECONOMY



            Measurement / Analytics / Data

            The future is not in plastics, but in data. Those who know how to measure and analyze it will rule the world.


            Mental Nourishment

            Other links to help you reflect, improve, or simply learn something new.




            Do you like what you see here? Please subscribe to have trends on digital communications, marketing, technology and business delivered to your inbox each Monday.


            patreon.com/scottmonty

            Wow! You made it this far. That took a lot of work. Can you imagine how much work it took to write this? If you can appreciate the effort and this publication provides any kind of value to you, maybe you'll consider joining as a patron.



            Upcoming Brain+Trust Speaking Engagements

            • SocialFresh in Orlando December 8-9, 2017 (Christopher and Tim)
            Can we speak for your organization? Drop us a line.



            Brain+Trust Partners helps smart, risk-taking executives discern the real from the hype. From strategy development to technology and data vendor selection, and streamlining processes, our focus is on digital business transformation that improves customer experience and drives efficiency for your company. And our decades of experience working for major brands means that we deeply understand the challenges you're facing. Let us know if we can help you.


            Top image credit: The Catch by Norman Rockwell, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain 

            -- 

            Monday, November 6, 2017

            Friend of the People — November 6, 2017


            Big Tech needs to step up their game in accountability to users and society at large; robots have surrounded us for years; blockchain is a versatile tool; Waymo defines autonomy; the end of an era for Big Auto; digital transformation is about more than tools; COOs need to think like behavioral economists; what customers want from personalized marketing; YouTube TV debuts; Pandora has a teen problem; you've covered your webcam - now what?; one travel company deleted traveler warnings about the safety of resorts; stop with the quizzes already; the Instagram for data; rethink your to-do list and improve your memory; and more in the Friend of the People edition of The Full Monty from Brain+Trust Partners for the week of November 6, 2017.



            Please support this newsletter by becoming patron. We'll let you decide how much. 


            You know you want to

            Thank you for doing your part to keep this publication going.  



            The Full Monty, a Brain+Trust Partners publication, exposes you to virtually everything you need in business intelligence at the top of every week. Links are below with commentary in italics. Please sign up for our email updates to make sure you don't miss a thing. And please click send your colleagues to this page to sign up as well.

            We've got all of these links — and those that didn't make the cut for publication — in The Full Monty Magazine on Flipboard.



            Top Stories

            The Russian influence on the election via major technology platforms continues to dominate the news cycle. Rather than occupying this space as a partisan issue, it pervades our thinking because of two elements: (1) the rise of fake news and the public's ability to be easily duped via online sources (and here we're referring to actual fake news, not the rhetoric that uses the term as an insult to media); and (2) the lack of moral responsibility exhibited by technology companies. Both are larger issues that reflect on the business climate in general and more specifically on these platforms that are now undeniably and inextricably considered media companies.




            Artificial Intelligence / Autonomous

            The latest in AI, machine learning, bots, blockchain, mobility, and autonomous everything.

            ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE / MACHINE LEARNING

            BLOCKCHAIN

            • Bitcoin's incredible price run to break over $7,000 this year has sent its overall electricity consumption soaring, as people worldwide bring more energy-hungry computers online to mine the digital currency. Now one Bitcoin transaction uses more energy than your house in a week.
            • Here are 27 ways marketers can use blockchain, from verifying ad delivery to paying consumers for explicit use of their data, to rewarding consumers for contributing content to an ad campaign, storing digital assets in lieu of cloud computing and more.
            • Want a quick boost to your company's value? Apparently you can just add "Blockchain" to your name and voilà. Behold, the power of blockchain.

            AUTONOMOUS / MOBILITY



            Communications / Marketing / Business Strategy

            Industry developments and trends, including advertising & marketing, retail, journalism, customer experience, content, and influencer relations.

            COMMUNICATONS / MARKETING / STRATEGY

            THIS WEEK IN RETAIL




            SPONSOR

            Want to know what 500 marketers (budgets up to $10 million) believe and how those beliefs influence their behaviors when it comes to hiring and firing agencies just like yours?

            Don't miss this FREE 16 page report, full of information, insight and guidance on how to best approach prospects based on the findings.

            Some of the results are going to really surprise you.

            If you're seeing this, maybe you'd like to see your company's name here too. Let us know.


            Platforms 

            News to know about relevant social, virtual, and augmented reality platforms that may affect your business.

            TWITTER / PERISCOPE

            FACEBOOK / INSTAGRAM / WHATSAPP

            • Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook's efforts to prevent abuse will cut into future profits as company plans to double employees to police its platform. What's that quote again about the price of liberty?

            ALPHABET / GOOGLE

              OTHER

              • Microsoft introduced LinkedIn integrations in Outlook.com for richer contact info in inboxes
              • There are so many messaging apps to choose from, especially when groups of friends are spread out across a handful of them. How to determine when and where to share something with your trusted friends? A case can be made for switching to Signal.

              AR / VR




              Media

              The latest in the world of streaming video, audio, and the advertising, pricing and bundling models related to them.

              VIDEO

              AUDIO




              Regulatory / Security 

              Business disruptions in the legal, regulatory, and computer security fields, from hacking to the on-demand economy and more.

              SECURITY / HACKING

                ON-DEMAND ECONOMY



                Measurement / Analytics / Data

                The future is not in plastics, but in data. Those who know how to measure and analyze it will rule the world.


                Mental Nourishment

                Other links to help you reflect, improve, or simply learn something new.




                Do you like what you see here? Please subscribe to have trends on digital communications, marketing, technology and business delivered to your inbox each Monday.


                patreon.com/scottmonty

                Wow! You made it this far. That took a lot of work. Can you imagine how much work it took to write this? If you can appreciate the effort and this publication provides any kind of value to you, maybe you'll consider joining as a patron.



                Upcoming Brain+Trust Speaking Engagements

                • SocialFresh in Orlando December 8-9, 2017 (Christopher and Tim)
                Can we speak for your organization? Drop us a line.



                Brain+Trust Partners helps smart, risk-taking executives discern the real from the hype. From strategy development to technology and data vendor selection, and streamlining processes, our focus is on digital business transformation that improves customer experience and drives efficiency for your company. And our decades of experience working for major brands means that we deeply understand the challenges you're facing. Let us know if we can help you.


                Top image credit: The Death of Marat by Jacques Louis David, 1793 (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) 

                -- 

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