Thursday, January 12, 2017

Amazon, data isn’t everything; consider emotions to humanise business

Amazon, data isn’t everything; consider emotions to humanise business

Workers are seen in the Amazon.co.uk warehouse in Milton Keynes, north of London. Image: REUTERS/Dylan Martinez
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At the outset, Amazon would need to consider customers as humans. There are no two ways about it. Customers aren’t statistical entities that express growth in business. Yesterday, I read reports of a doormat available on Amazon Canada. The doormat had the pattern of the Indian national flag on it. Turns out, it caused furore on social media, with several users protesting against it online. Yesterday, the Indian external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj put out a series of tweets warning Amazon to take the product down, and issue an apology. It didn’t end there. Not failing to do so would’ve have made it very difficult to continue operating in India.
Soon enough, the product was taken down. Before you brush it aside as a dumb decision by Amazon to list these kind of products on the website, consider this. The American flag and the Union Jack are available as part of several products that would otherwise be considered offensive.
The American flag doormat is listed on Amazon. Image: Amazon
The American flag doormat is listed on Amazon. Image: Amazon
This comes across as a human problem. Someone somewhere just failed to understand customers. And context is critical. A Republican-Democrat debate in the US that also brings in the faith of the ‘American Bible Belt’ could be laughed off. But, it’s far different from poking fun at any other faith. A comment, on say Muslims or Hindus, could spiral into an international controversy. Such are the times we live in. The world’s a village. One mans’s joke is another man’s ammunition.
Amazon is customer focussed
I purchased an Amazon Kindle in 2010. It was the Kindle Keyboard. It wasn’t sold in India back then. So I asked a friend to get it from the US. I loved the packaging – subtle, plain cardboard – that opened like a pizza box. In it was my Kindle staring at me with its monochrome e-ink display and a letter from Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. It spoke about the design brief for the Kindle, which read:
‘Our top design objective was for Kindle to disappear in your hands – to get out of the way – so you can enjoy your reading. We hope you’ll quickly forget you’re reading on an advanced wireless device and instead be transported into that mental realm readers love, where the outside world dissolves, leaving only the author’s stories, words, and ideas. Thank you and happy reading!’
Image Credits: REUTERS
Image Credits: REUTERS
Business is beyond a sale, it’s an experience
Mental realm. Dissolving the outside world. So that readers are left only with the author’s stories, words and ideas. That, for me, projected the Kindle as an experience. Rather than a device, gadget or product I bought from an online retailer. It was the best example of humanising a business. Where, a transaction wasn’t just an exchange of money. It wasn’t just a transaction.
In my mind, it was a promise of superior customer satisfaction. And I expected Amazon to uphold its part of the promise. And it did. Many months later it replaced my faulty device for free, no questions asked. And I didn’t have to part with my original Kindle, which still let me read books. That left me an impressed customer. And it earned my loyalty.
It’s worth pondering over Amazon’s mission statement:
‘Our vision is to be Earth’s most customer centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.’
Earth’s most customer centric company does sound several notches above the rest. There are volumes in customer testimonies online that attest to the great lengths Amazon would go to ensure it’s customers are left – nothing less than – impressed.
amazon_kindle_paperwhite
Data and analytics help create magic
It was Amazon that taught me the power of digital marketing. The impressive power in the hands of a digital marketer that data analytics offers. I still remember how digital was the new buzzword. Humans were too slow.
Digital helped you scale. Instead of managing a mom-and-pop store, or something comparable to that, you could now focus on scaling up. Reaching out to markets far beyond. Connect your digitally-enabled business with efficient supply and logistics and you could reach every corner of the planet. No one’s talking pin codes. We’re talking corners of the planet. Or any point on earth.
We’ve come a long way from yearly plans to real-time business intelligence and optimisation. A star product on the home page of an ecommerce business can be changed based on the response of customers.
We’re in the age of algorithms
I’m not sure about you, but my life certainly seems to be controlled by algorithms. When I step out of my home every home, it begins with a glance of Google Maps to get an idea of the traffic conditions. A green coded map ensures I’m not stressed to the extent that I fret calls from office. If it’s red, then I turn my phone to the Silent mode. Because the stress of reaching office sooner, and the anxiety caused by a dreaded senior only add to my woes of life. What I’ve realised is that even if the road is absolutely free on my journey, I’m anticipating the traffic jam I’m about to face in exactly 900 metres that’s going to make me 15 minutes slower.
google maps lane guidance feature
Similarly, when I’m heading home in the evening, I pull out my smartphone and book a cab from either Uber or Ola. Between searching for coupons for either. Gone are the days when I’d wait patiently on the road for a taxi driver to have mercy on my haggard of a face at the end of an arduous day of urban slogging. To be specific, I book my taxi from my workstation, while mentally calculating the time it takes to walk down to the office gate. Such is life. Algorithms tell me the expected time to everything, and I seem to align my life to smoother journey.
We need to step back from algorithms at times
There are instances, touching moments when humans want to connect with other humans, rather than a machine. Awry times. When you’re stranded. Either due to disasters, attacks, acts of violence or a flood. Those are the moments, when you want to pick up a phone and yell at the top of your office. Uber and Ola are classic examples. They’ve both been in the news and have gained social notoriety for acts committed by their drivers. Neither can claim to be better than the other on the aspect of women safety.
Image Credit: Ola
Image Credit: Ola
I’m sure though, that they’d claim otherwise. I hope they prove to be true. But for now, there’s ambiguity on addressing complaints. If a woman I know is stranded in one of these taxi services, I need to be able to redress it. I need acknowledgments of the messages I sent. I need trails for my record for an eventual legal conversation. Twitter can’t be the means for resolution all the time. That’s what I mean by the need to humanising business, during times when things go south.
Talking of taxis, I live in Mumbai. And every monsoon, water logging is a frequent sight. Given the inconvenience, and the fact that local trains come to a halt, the strain on the road network is way beyond funny. But try booking a cab on either app, and you’re likely to find a cab after a lot of persistent efforts. When you do find one, it’ll likely be at triple or quadruple pricing. Whatever happened to customer focus you’d think? We’re all in a philosophical rat race. Whoever is the swiftest and fastest wins. After significant outrage on social and digital (read negative sentiment from analytics as an external input), cab aggregator services decided to take down surge pricing for day with heavy downpour this past monsoon in Mumbai.
Be human, and learn the cultural context
Modern businesses assume that data and scalability through technology is a given. But what are obvious misses is not getting the cultural and social context. Multinational food giants frequently face the problem as they expand globally into newer markets. Its popular beef burgers aren’t available in India. Similarly, pork burgers are available in European markets, but not in the Middle East or even India for that matter.
Being sensitive to cultural realities doesn’t hold true just to prevent people from getting offended. It also helps ensuring overall satisfaction. In a post on the Aditya Birla Group website, Chairman and MD Kumar Mangalam Birla highlights how the once staunch vegetarian culture was changed, as the group went global. Adapting to changing times is the key to a successful business. The journey is aptly titled, Butter Chicken at Birla.
Amazon needs optimisation
What Amazon needs to do is put in place a system that tracks cultural sensitivities. Touching aspects of global culture that prevents such mishaps. I’d expect it to have such a framework. But it certainly doesn’t seem to be working. It’s absolutely necessary for a global company such as Amazon. Given its vision and mission statement including words such as ‘customer obsessed’ and ‘on planet earth’, it has set standards that are way above others. It has left itself with no excuse. For now, an apology should do it for them, but for the long term, it needs optimisation in the way it delivers smiles to million of global customers.

Facebook Journalism Project adds new formats and measures to curb fake news

Facebook Journalism Project adds new formats and measures to curb fake news

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The Facebook Journalism Project is an initiative to establish stronger ties between Facebook and the news industry. Facebook is in the process of testing and introducing new content formats for publishers, is deploying training and tools for journalists, and taking measures to reduce fake news.
Live is realtime streaming of video content, similar to news shows on television. 360 is taken to mean immersive virtual reality experiences that people can consume through headsets, or using inputs to look around on flat screens. Facebook recently introduced Live 360 videos, with National Geographic being the partner. Instant articles are predominantly written content with multimedia embeds, that are served directly from Facebook itself, without redirecting to the web site of the publisher.
Facebook introduced Live 360 videos in an exclusive partnership with National Geographic. Image: Facebook
Facebook introduced Live 360 videos in an exclusive partnership with National Geographic. Image: Facebook
Live, 360, and instant articles are some of the formats for presenting news that publishers have liked so far. Facebook is introducing additional formats by testing them with select publishers. Packages of stories are being tested, where several instant news articles are presented at once. Hindustan Times and Indiatimes are Indian news organisations participating in the initial testing period. The finer details of how best this presentation should occour is being worked out. Users should start seeing packages of instant articles in their news feeds, from predominant publishers.
Facebook is collaborating with news organisations around the world to figure out exactly how several instant articles can be presented at once. One of the planned ways of doing this is to package several stories together under a cover image. Users are presented with the cover image, and when tapped, they can slide horizontally for swiping between stories, or scroll vertically to read each individual story. Facebook is looking to partner with more news organisations to develop the necessary presentation formats.
Facebook Live is getting an update where page owners can designate certain contributors to go Live from their handsets. This does not compromise the security of the page, but still allows contributors to go Live on behalf of the page. There is a plan to roll out all the features available to pages, to individual end users as well. Facebook has provided instructions on how to set up contributors that can go live on a page.
Facebook Instant Articles. Image: Facebook Media
Facebook Instant Articles. Image: Facebook Media
Journalists will be provided with feedback on how well their videos are performing, in times of views, shares and engagement. Information such as total number of followers, minutes for which the video was viewed will also be available to journalists. The video metrics information will only be available on profiles with a minimum of 5,000 followers. There is now a permalink landing page for all the video content of a page. Any user who navigates to that page will be served a live broadcast available, or the previously uploaded video content in a brand new interface.
Crossposting of Live videos have now been enabled, but the posting can only happen after the Live has been concluded. Page owners have more powerful tools to manage and present the discussion around their Lives. Publishers can choose which comments on a video deserve to be read first, and can pin these below the video. Facebook automatically picks a comment to display below the video as of now. The move offers more control to the video content creators.
Facebook is introducing whole new ways for publishers to widen their subscriber base, through the use of novel and emerging business models. Facebook is planning to push out free subscriptions to the most engaged users, from within the instant articles. Facebook is collaborating with German news organisation Bild to pilot this project. Facebook is taking steps to support local news sources and independent media houses. Directly working with the local media, Facebook is in the process of deciding how best to present these news articles.
One of the ways Facebook will make products around news ideas is workshops with the news business, where Facebook engineers will hack together new solutions based on the requirements of the news organisations. The hackathons will see the identification of new opportunities, and the development of solutions for these. Facebook says it will take inputs from journalists and news organisations, in an effort to take the project forward.
The journalists will have to be trained to use these new tools. Facebook is partnering with Poynter to introduce a certificate course for journalists. The existing training program has been expanded to nine additional languages.
Facebook is going to partner with educational institutions to provide training on site, directly at newsrooms around the world. The new features of the platform, building audiences, and distributing the content over Facebook are some of the topics already covered by Facebook e-learning courses for journalists.
Facebook is taking a number of steps to tackle the fake news problem. Measures are being taken to disrupt the financial incentives for spammers. Facebook has launched a program with third party fact checking organisations to identify hoaxes that spread on Facebook. Facebook is introducing new features to allow users to report fake news articles more easily. Facebook notes that fake news is a platform independent problem.
reporting Fake News on Facebook.
reporting Fake News on Facebook.
One of the initiatives by Facebook is working on to curb the menace of fake news is a series of public service advertisements that educate the masses on the importance of consuming news in a critical manner. The end users who spread misinformation on social networks because of their own biases are as responsible, if not more, than the publishers who seed the fake news on the platform. The public service advertisements will be made in collaboration with The News Literacy Project. Facebook has said that its long term goal is to improve news literacy with help from news organisations for new ideas to do so. Facebook has committed to providing financial backing to improve news literacy in readers, if needed.
Facebook is a member of the First Draft Partner Network, that works at formulating best practices and ethical guidelines on sourcing news stories from the social web. The network has over 80 publishers, and Facebook will be helping the network establish a virtual verification community. Journalists often encounter breaking news stories from individual users on social networking platforms, particularly the micro-blogging platform Twitter. Verifying the sources before publishing is an important step in making sure that misinformation does not spread.
Verified users will investigate and authenticate images, videos, photos and claims that have been challenged. The partner organisations will use the results of the investigations to feed their audiences. A public feed of the results of the investigations will also be available. Efforts are being made to reduce the damage to eyewitnesses who have been suddenly caught in breaking news situations. Partner networks include Twitter, AFP, The New York Times, CNN, Washington Post and Reuters.
Being made to tackle the fake news problem is a blessing in disguise for Facebook. Facebook and news organisations have to work together for mutual benefit. Facebook has an even more strong foothold in the news publishing sector now. Facebook is steadily growing beyond a social network, and has been invading culture, media, and governance.

New Apple iPhone to use forged stainless steel and glass, claims leak

New Apple iPhone to use forged stainless steel and glass, claims leak

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While the rumour mill is literally overflowing with news about the upcoming iPhones (there’s 3 of them) this year, we aren’t sure as to where do all of these individual bits of information fit in. Adding to the mix is another leak from Taiwan, which hints that the new iPhone will make use of a forged stainless steel chassis.
The news comes from DigiTimes who’s sources come Apple’s supply line. The publication claims that Apple has made a big decision by sharing component orders between Foxconn and Jabil in order to get their hands on forged stainless steel chassis for an upcoming iPhone. The steel chassis would come from US-based supplier, Jabil and it would be sandwiched between the two sheets of reinforced glass.
Of course the idea does sound very familiar. Apple could be looking back at its design ideas from its earlier days for inspiration. We are talking about the old iPhone 4, which used a similar materials with a soft steel chassis sandwiched between two slabs of glass.
The difference here is that instead of milling the metal, Apple plans forge the metal alloy into the required chassis which would make the end result stronger and a lot lighter than its current series 7,000 aluminium backs on the iPhone 7.
More importantly, this would also make the process cheaper for Apple, bringing down the additional cost of CNC machining needed to cut through a block of aluminium (several times over). As the publication points out, quality control is also more stable with forging when compared to milling.
The added benefit here is that iPhone could also get slimmer.

Google announces list of Daydream VR compatible smartphones: Here’s why yours isn’t compatible

Google announces list of Daydream VR compatible smartphones: Here’s why yours isn’t compatible

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Google Daydream had been more of a mystery than a new avenue of technology until recently, when Google announced the Pixel. In short, it was a smartphone made by Google that was expected to work with the search giant’s Daydream VR project, and it did. At the same time Google also announced the Daydream View, a Daydream headset that will fuel the virtual reality experience allowing Android users to mount their compatible smartphones. But the one thing that wasn’t answered on stage is “What about the rest of us?”
Well, for those who have been waiting for long, Google has finally released a list of Daydream VR compatible smartphones, now that its headset has gone on sale. That list surprisingly includes some smartphones which were launched last year along with some new models that were announced at the recent CES 2017 in Las Vegas.
The list includes the all-important Google Pixel and its bigger sibling the Pixel XL. Next up is the modular Moto Z and its variants. Then there are the handsets that are yet to launch like the Huawei Mate 9 Pro, the Tango-happy Zenfone AR and the ZTE Axon 7.
Image Credit: The Official Motorola Blog
If you happened to buy a Moto Z last year. Good for you! But if it was any other flagship, it’s sad to say that it now gets the ‘outdated’ tag. On this side of the camp if you have been trying to figure out what does it take to qualify? Well here’s one hint, all the above mentioned smartphones have AMOLED displays. Suddenly, it made sense as to why Apple is interested in OLED displays for its upcoming smartphones. But as the VP of Business and Operations for Google VR Amit Singh put it, it not just one thing but many that need to fall into place for a smartphone to qualify as ‘Daydream ready’.
Daydream View
The Daydream View headset and controller.
Singh in an interview with VR Heads, finally gave some information that has until now only been with smartphone manufacturers, the key elements needed for a Daydream VR experience.
While many including myself, thought that a Daydream VR experience needed a Snapdragon 821 chipset like on the Pixel. We were all proved wrong when Motorola announced that its Moto Z became Daydream ready with a Nougat update and then OnePlus announced that even with a 821 chipset inside, Daydream VR was not a possibility.
But Singh has the answers to most of our queries. It turns out that Daydream can run on current day 820 or 821 smartphones, but it will not always be a fluid experience, which means that Google will not certify it.
Singh touches up on factors like a photo latency in the 22-25ms range so that a user does not perceive an effect that spells lag. He said, “You could do it at any level of the stack. you could do it in hardware, you could do it at the sensor, and you could do it at the display. Each of them has friction. We can optimize, and today the path to optimization has lead us to the spec we have today, but everything is changing so fast in this world that other options quickly become available.”
But he did give out a part of the secret recipe, “The combination of performance needs a few things in the stack. The right GPU, Android N and above, and an OLED display.” He claimed that without these, the latency would be high enough to be noticed, making for an uncomfortable or unsatisfactory experience. How do you know whether the smartphone you buy will be Daydream compatible? Well, your manufacturer of choice will advertise it as a feature.

Samsung and LG to unveil smartphones with foldable displays in Q3 and Q4 2017: Report

Samsung and LG to unveil smartphones with foldable displays in Q3 and Q4 2017: Report

Image: Samsung
By 
Fast on the heels of a Weibo leak which claimed that Samsung’s foldable Galaxy X1 will arrive in H2 2017 comes another that suggests that “foldable phones” will be released in Q3 2017.
Unnamed sources have reportedly told The Korea Herald that “Samsung is expected to roll out more than 100,000 units of fold-out devices in the third quarter.”
There’s no name for the device just yet, but it’s said to be a “fold-out” device, meaning that the display stays on the outside when folded. When unfolded, it will expand to a 7-inch tablet sized device.
Samsung has apparently had the folding screen technology in place for years now, but has been wary of market response. Samsung’s decision to release the device this year might have been hastened by reports that LG is expected to release 100,000 foldable devices of its own in Q4 2017.
The Korea Herald claims that its sources suggest that LG’s folding display technology is far more advanced than Samsung’s, but they also add that LG might be more keen on selling the technology to its clients rather than integrate it into its own devices.
Samsung and LG have both been demoing folding display technology for many years now, most notably at various CES (Consumer Electronics Show) events.
Will 2017 finally be the year that foldable display technology goes mainstream?

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