E-Commerce Minute

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E-Commerce Minute: Thursday -- January 16, 2020

The E-Commerce Times -- E-Business Means Business
https://www.ecommercetimes.com
Part of the ECT News Network

Headline Scan
Google Snaps Up Pointy to Help Main Street Stores Get Online
It's Crunch Time for California Consumer Privacy Act Compliance
Adobe Offers Experience Manager as Cloud Service
What's in Your Containers? Try an Open Source Tool to Find Out
4 Marketing Automation Tools for SMB Success in 2020
Building E-Commerce Wave: Social Media Shopping
Some PR Firms Line Their Pockets by Spreading Misinformation
Facebook to Kick Out Some Deepfakes
Few Households Have Taken the Gigabit Broadband Leap
Chatbot or Human? Combine Both to Achieve Customer Service Success

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Today's Story Highlights

Google Snaps Up Pointy to Help Main Street Stores Get Online
Google has inked a deal to acquire 6-year-old Ireland-based firm Pointy
for $163 million. Pointy provides a $900 box with built-in cellular
connectivity, which lets brick-and-mortar retailers list their stock
online. It plugs into the retailer's barcode scanner and automatically
obtains accurate product names and images for display on a Web page
hosted by Pointy.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/86458.html

It's Crunch Time for California Consumer Privacy Act Compliance
The CCPA -- widely considered to be the toughest law in the U.S.
regulating the collection, storage and use of personal information --
went into effect on Jan. 1. Rather than preparing for it, however, many
businesses have taken a wait-and-see approach. This could be a serious
mistake. The new law is similar in many respects to the EU's GDPR, which
went into effect last spring.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/86456.html

Adobe Offers Experience Manager as Cloud Service
Adobe has announced the availability of Adobe Experience Manager as a
Cloud Service for B2B and B2C companies of all sizes. The service
provides "a globally scalable, agile and secure digital foundation that
optimizes marketer and developer workflows across the entire content
lifecycle," said Haresh Kumar, director of product marketing for Adobe
Experience Manager.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/86455.html

What's in Your Containers? Try an Open Source Tool to Find Out
As most security pros know, application containers -- Docker, rkt, etc.
-- and the orchestration elements employed to support them, such as
Kubernetes, are used increasingly in many organizations. Often the
security organization isn't exactly the first stop on the path to
deployment of these tools. If it was in your shop, consider yourself one
of the lucky ones.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/86451.html

4 Marketing Automation Tools for SMB Success in 2020
Marketing automation isn't a thing of the future -- it's very much a
part of the here and now for small and midsized businesses across the
world. However, many are unaware of a variety of marketing automation
tools that can help SMBs reach customers in a timely and effective way.
To compete with larger firms on customer reach, SMBs need to approach
their marketing plan with a strategic mindset.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/86453.html

Building E-Commerce Wave: Social Media Shopping
Consumers are on social media constantly, scrolling through posts. Many
have begun clicking on brand posts and making purchases. "Social
commerce is becoming increasingly popular for brands," noted Darin
Archer, chief strategy officer at Elastic Path. "Even when the
transaction itself may be happening outside the app, there's a much
smaller gap between discovery and purchase."
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/86450.html

Some PR Firms Line Their Pockets by Spreading Misinformation
PR companies long have been known for reshaping perceptions for their
clients. Some now engage in "black PR" -- the calculated spread of
misinformation online. Entrepreneur Peng Kuan Chin's company harvests
online posts written in Chinese, reshapes them, and posts them on
websites under its control. Thousands of fake social media accounts then
spread this manipulated content across the Internet.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/86444.html

Facebook to Kick Out Some Deepfakes
Facebook has promised to remove certain "misleading manipulated media":
videos edited or synthesized in ways that likely would mislead viewers
to believe that video subjects said words they did not say; products of
artificial intelligence or machine learning that merge, combine,
replace, or superimpose content onto a video, creating a fake video that
appears to be authentic.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/86443.html

Few Households Have Taken the Gigabit Broadband Leap
Increasing numbers of connected devices in the home and greater
consumption of streaming media are driving consumer demand for faster
broadband speeds. In recent years providers have introduced greater
service speeds, bundles and pricing models to address widespread
consumer churn. The service speed average among U.S. broadband
households has increased steadily over the last four years.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/86441.html

Chatbot or Human? Combine Both to Achieve Customer Service Success
Companies across industries are shifting toward an automated approach to
customer relations. With the help of chatbots, businesses can reduce
their customer service costs by up to 30 percent and save both
employees' and customers' valuable time. In fact, many customers welcome
chatbots in the customer service process. So, if chatbots offer all of
these advantages, why not automate everything?
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/86442.html

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