Blockchain: What's In It For The Communications, Media and Entertainment Industry?

Technologies, Business

Article | July 20, 2022

Over the last few months Instagram has done its best to capitalise on the latest social media success tactics, often at the cost of its own original user proposition. The photo-sharing app for friends now offers Reels, imitating TikTok’s success. It has rolled out an option to hide Likes, the iconic feature which has characterised social media as a whole since inception. And it now is introducing ‘suggested posts’ to users’ feeds, sorted by topics a profile states they are interested in – potentially putting these ahead of photos and videos shared by profiles they actually follow. Directly mimicking TikTok, this seems to diverge very little in practice from hashtags, which are its original discovery feature. Instead, it seems to want to emulate the usability which younger users are familiar with from TikTok, in order to entice them to increase their Instagram engagement.

Business

Article | July 11, 2022

Live streaming is an effective tool to attract the attention of your potential clients in the B2B SaaS domain. You can influence users and prospects without stretching your marketing budget. In a survey by Wyzowl, it was reported that 86% of businesses were relying on videos as a marketing tool. All you need to make the most of this tool is a good device, a strong internet connection, and the right live streaming application. Live Streaming: It’s All about the Connection Every business focuses on creating connections with their prospects through every form of communication, like discord, social media and websites. As a medium, live streaming offers an exciting opportunity to make this connection interactive. Let us look at what it can help you do: Build Your Brand Real-time comments, likes, and shares take brand interaction to another level. You can reiterate your brand’s ability to responsibly respond to your customers and create a new benchmark for how you deliver customer experience. Since live streams are unscripted, you can also showcase your brand’s ingenuity in handling customer issues without any hang-ups. Connect With Customers A live stream will help you connect with your customers in a novel way. Not only will your customers participate in your brand journey, but they will also feel excited to learn about your offerings. Tapping into their curious minds and influencing their buying decisions will be easier once they become visually engaged in your stream. Get Instant Feedback Product enhancements are a result of priceless customer feedback. When you present your products to customers over a live stream, they understand the product features and benefits in real-time and offer their feedback instantly, so you know what you need to work on. This feedback can also be the fodder for your content and marketing strategies. Keep Customers Informed Customers prefer watching interactive videos more than reading detailed emails on products. Keep your customers informed and updated about your latest product information through regular live streams. You can highlight important product updates that can help customers elevate their businesses and address any concerns that might hamper your sales through a stream. Boost Your B2B SaaS Business with Live Streaming Now that we have seen what exactly live streaming can do for businesses, let us narrow it down to the B2B SaaS domain. Here is how you can improve your SaaS sales with live streaming: Speed up problem resolution Allow customers to request live streams on what they need. Through live streams, you can troubleshoot for them without making them wait in queues or for your responses over email. If you address one customer’s problem over the stream, it can help you reduce and eliminate similar problems other customers are facing. Conduct detailed product tours If you live stream your product tour, you can show your customers how it works in detail. Product tours will help you create a personal connection with businesses because you can highlight how your product will help them address their pain points. You can also answer questions in detail and communicate with them better. Save the videos as tutorials Your live streams can become tutorials for your customers. Your ‘How-to’ live streams can help them understand your product and solve their problems without any brand intervention or waiting period. Reel in the customers Give your customers a glimpse of the trends in the SaaS industry. Update them on industry events, expos, and conferences they can attend. Let them see what goes behind making the product and get their opinion on new product ideas. It’s a Wrap B2B SaaS leaders must develop appealing live streaming strategies to solve customer problems, identify their needs, and connect with them on new platforms to increase sales and product uptake.

Media and Broadcasting, Business

Article | August 4, 2022

The appointment of Lina Khan on June 15th to chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is poised to be a transformational one in the history of the world wide web. Khan came to prominence with an article in the Yale Law Journal, Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox, which identified the paradox of hegemonic tech service providers which bypass the US’ strict competition laws by offering lower prices to the end consumer. Under US antitrust law, the driving indicator of market monopolies are higher prices for the consumer – under this strict definition, none of the tech majors which dominate the digital economy are monopolistic. Indeed, some such as Alphabet and Facebook do not even directly charge the end user for their services. So, while both Google and Facebook dominate the global digital ad market, making an antitrust case against them under the current 20thcentury era regulatory framework is nigh on impossible. However, the absence of meaningful competitive challengers to these two incumbents in search and social advertising over the previous 15 years, despite the lucrative high margin business opportunities, implies that the competitive market is not performing according to classical economic theory. Khan has built a subsequent career on trying to square this circle, and now the Biden Administration has empowered her as the key instigator of the sweeping regulatory update required for a digital-first century.

Article | June 13, 2020

The virtual reality market has been hailed as the "next big thing" for decades, but VR has repeatedly disappointed consumers with mediocre hardware products and software experiences. But in recent years, a wave of refined devices narrowed the gap between consumer expectations and reality. The VR market's future has yet to be written, but investors who believe in this budding market should consider buying these four tech stocks. Sony's PlayStation VR is the best-selling VR headset in the world with over 5 million shipments since its launch in October 2016. That only represents a sliver of Sony's installed base of 110 million PS4s, but that foothold has encouraged developers to produce more stand-alone VR games and add-on experiences for PS4 games.