How was your Halloween? I hope it was good. What are your plans for Thanksgiving? Hold that thought. It’s just two days after Halloween, over three weeks before Thanksgiving. Amazon prepares for the holiday shopping season.
The day after Halloween, Amazon launched Black Friday deals as they begin their countdown to the traditionally big shopping day. We can expect deep deals in computers, smartphones, electronics, clothes, toys, and other products until December 22. Like last year, Amazon is starting it’s Black Friday special on November 1. In fact, Black Friday for Amazon is so big that they had a Black Friday sale in July. We all know about how Walmart showed them up. But despite that, that Black Friday special did better than last year’s Black Friday sales on the real Black Friday! This year, Amazon Prime members will see over 30,000 lightning deals. But to do even better, you need Prime Early Access. This will give subscribers a 30-minute head start ahead of the big crowd. Imagine lines of people camping out all night in front of their favorite store. But right before the store opens to this mob, you get to skip the line, shop for everybody on your list, and get out of there before the mob hits the store.
My question is: Why are we even talking about holiday shopping on November 2? I’m just reporting the technology trends I see. One thing about it, things aren’t what they used to be, neither is Black Friday. Now, people are actually shopping on Thanksgiving Day. I think that’s just plain blasphemous, and I applaud those taking a stand against it. But it just goes to show how things are changing. And look at how extreme Black Fridays are getting now. They’re starting earlier, often at 12:01 am Friday morning. The lines are getting longer. The mobs are getting meaner. So is Amazon forcing an early holiday shopping season down our throats? Or is this a smart move?
By 2012, Yahoo was in trouble. Increased competition from Google and dysfunction within the office caused the online pioneer to slip. In July 2012, Marissa Meyer was hired as Yahoo’s CEO. There were high hopes Meyer’s leadership would get Yahoo back on the right track. For a while, things seem to be turning around.
But starting a few months ago, the Yahoo exodus began. The Yahoo exodus is becoming so frequent and so intense that employees are worried if company growth will continue at all. Last week alone, there has been resignations of women top executives Lisa Licht and Jackie Reces. Yahoo’s Chief Marketing Officer Kathy Savitt abruptly left. Was it to chase a Hollywood dream or was it to get away from Meyer? Depends on who you ask. Their homepage creation VP Mike Kerns is gone. So is technology architect expert Bruno Fernandez-Ruiz. In June 2015, Yahoo security officer leader Alex Stamos left and went to Facebook. Engineering VP?Jim Everingham left in June and is now employed at Instagram. Scott Burke, the former Senior VP of advertising, left Yahoo to help a genetics startup. Dawn Airey was so frustrated with lack of progress she packed her bags. She’s now CEO of Getty Images. Top ad exec Peter Foster sang ‘Bye Bye Bye’ to Yahoo. He’s now helping a startup company called Wrap Media. There are other big names that have left Yahoo that time won’t allow me to permit.
This year, Yahoo’s market shares have fallen 34%. Good leaders are evacuating Yahoo like women and children evacuated the Titanic. What is Marissa Meyer doing about it? She’s putting up cute pictures of kittens and spinning the situation like nothing’s wrong. But for this many top execs to leave in a short period of time should indicate to a 3rd grader that something is terribly wrong. They’re leaving to join Yahoo’s rivals. They’re leaving out of frustration. Shouldn’t the alarms be going off? Shouldn’t something be done about this?
Today, the tech world is officially introducing Twitter polls. Twitter has been perfecting this venture for a last month or so. Now, it’s time for Twitter polls’ debut.
In the days and weeks to come, Twitter subscribers should prepare to be flooded with polls. For now, many of these polls will simply be ‘yes’ or ‘no’ options. For example: Do you like polls, yes or no. Those that aren’t that simple are two question options. For example, there’s a Twitter poll out saying if Election Day were tomorrow, who would win: Hilary Clinton or Donald Trump (Hilary Clinton won 70-30 percent). Another polls says Watch me: whip/nae-nae or stanky leg (how about neither!?). ?I know these sound like the simplest, dullest, most superficial polls there are, but give it time. Knowing Twitter, we’ll see deeper, more thought provoking, and more engaging polls in no time. At least I hope so. When you vote on a Twitter poll, you won’t be followed. That means your fellow tweeters can’t track your voting habits. That also means marketers won’t be able to push ads on you. This debut comes when Twitter is under changing times. Jack Dorsey is restructuring the company. Twitter is launching other projects like Twitter Moments. Will Twitter polls help the rebuilding process?
We’ll see. But I do hope they come up with more thought provoking Twitter questions though. These yes-no and two choice questions aren’t going to last that long. Twitter users are going to want something more eventually. I can already see advertisers putting up poll questions. They’ll do this because they won’t be able to exploit data for advertising purposes. How addictive will these Twitter polls be? Will you answer one a week? Will you answer one a day? Or will you probably be like the majority of people, and answer several a day and get in heated debates? Isn’t that what Twitter wants?
So much is talked about of the Millennial Generation, those born between 1981 and 1997. But what about those that are coming after them? What about those born after 1997? What about Gen Z and social media?
As it turns out, Instagram is the most popular website among today’s teenagers. As of fall 2015, 33% of teens use Instagram. That’s triple the percentage of teens who used it back in fall 2012, only three years ago. The second and third most popular social media sites among Gen Z’ers are Twitter and Snapchat. Twitter has been steady over the past three years, but Snapchat usage has skyrocketed. But one statistic really caught my eye. In fall 2012, the percentage of teens who don’t social network at all was seven percent. Guess what that number is in fall 2015? Zero percent! Then there’s Facebook. In the fall of 2012, Facebook was the most popular social media site among teenagers. Over half logged on Facebook on a daily basis. By 2015, Facebook is ranked fourth among teens. Only 15% use it on a regular basis today. Other social media sites getting lower scores are Tumblr, Pinterest, and Google/YouTube. The ‘other’ category got eight percent.
What is most shocking is Facebook’s decline among teenagers. I think I know why the numbers are so low among Gen Zers. It’s because Facebook is getting so popular among their parents. Facebook usage among adults 18-49 has skyrocketed lately. And the kids today can’t have that, can they? ?But Gen Z is our future. Facebook needs to do something to get this demographic back. In fact, it’s obvious all social media need to cater to this demographic. These statistics prove that nobody under 18 is refusing to use social media. In school, they’re even teaching elementary school children the Internet and social media to get them comfortable in using it. My elementary school days consisted of Oregon Trail. So this is a demographic social media firms can’t ignore, if they want to stay in business for the long run. What can they do to make that happen?
Twitter is one of the most successful social media sites out there. But even they have to make tough choices.
Back on Monday, October 5, Jack Dorsey was named Twitter‘s permanent CEO. Dorsey’s honeymoon period was very short. He went right to work, and Twitter expects layoffs starting next week. Multiple sources don’t know how many jobs will be sacrificed, or in what departments. But Twitter is bracing for many layoffs across the board. Engineering expects to being hit the hardest. This would be a double whammy because the engineering department makes around half of Twitter’s entire staff. You see, the company is going through a restructuring phase. Unfortunately, that often means sacrifices…aka jobs lost. In the last couple of years, Twitter’s employment roster has more than doubled, from 2,000 to 4,100. Many in Twitter’s front office say this is too much too soon. But Twitter’s consumer usage has grown 50% over that same time. To add to company growth, they’ve made several acquisitions. But for months now, Jack Dorsey has been saying Twitter needs to be refocused. Well, stockholders heard about this refocusing and they responded alright. As soon as this layoff news hit the trading block, they lost 3% of their share in one day.
Do you think it’s good for your business to grow too much too fast? Learn a lesson from Twitter: it’s not. In two years, they hired double the workers. Yet, their growth was only 50%. Do you see the discrepancy there? Looking at this situation, it’s easy to call Dorsey names and blame him for these layoffs that are allegedly about to take place. I say allegedly because Twitter isn’t confirming, or even commenting on this matter. But this is what happens when businesses grow too fast. Now hard choices have to be made. The party has been had. Now it’s time to clean up after the hangover. So is this restructuring worth it?
When I was 11 years old, I flew from California to North Carolina. My checked luggage ended up in Florida. It took several days and lots of weeping (remember, I was 11) before I got it back. If only they had the tracking baggage system back then.
American Airlines is launching a tracking baggage service. They started a free real-time online luggage tracking service in August. They’re just letting the public hear about it now because American Airline employees weren’t yet used to this kind of scanning system. This is available only when you fly American Airlines and their newly acquired US Airways. You go on their website. Click the ‘track your bags’ button. Give your name, locator, or bag tag number (the number they give you when you check your bag). The site will give you info like whether the baggage is loaded on your right aircraft or not. In the event checked baggage is misplaced, the tracking service will let you know your baggage is lost. Instead of wasting time and freaking out at the baggage claim, you can report your baggage loss to customer service immediately. This tracking service is free of charge.
Thankfully, it’s getting better. In 2007, airline workers mishandled the bags of nearly 19 of every 1,000 customers, an all-time worst. By 2013, the number fell to 6.96 per 1,000 customers. But during that time, the TSA [Transportation Security Administration] has shelled out over $3 million to disgruntle customers over mishandled baggage. This new tracking service was part of the deal in the American/US Airways merge. Usually, I’m not a fan of tracking or merging, but I think this is a good call. The numbers are going in the right direction. So if tracking is what it takes to give people their sanity, their luggage and peace of mind, then so be it. But please use this system for what it’s intended for, and don’t abuse it to infringe on customer’s privacy rights. That’s my only concern here. Will the American Airlines track baggage system help prevent more baggage mishandling?
