Spotlight

News You Need to Know Now

Good morning. It’s Monday, April 2nd. Wednesday is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. You can visit The King Center online to learn about events commemorating the date. 

Today’s Spotlight takes about 5 minutes to read.

Highlights

• Public criticism of Facebook continues, and there are some real changes that we’ll run down for you.
• Google’s long coming move to mobile content indexing is here. 
• We review the president’s claims regarding Amazon.

Facebook Problems Mount

Facebook introduced real change to its advertising and fact-checking operations as well as the streamlined privacy screen shown above.

Facebook’s automated systems rejected one of our client ads that featured a news story about a condominium. Facebook didn’t let the ad run because of the word “condo” and a limited audience. The client wasn’t advertising a condo–merely the presence of a news story about a condo, but approval took a day-and-a-half and two written appeals. I know because I wrote both appeals. This is a good, but painful step to ensuring that housing ads are visible to everyone.

Facebook already announced that it will identify the purchasers of political ads *and* show other ads that advertiser purchased. That program goes live this summer, but a new program to fact-check videos and links is starting now in France and expected to roll out in other countries in time for the U.S. midterm elections.

These are substantial changes. We may all want faster or more comprehensive changes, but this is a promising beginning. 

What about advertisers who were able to target you with ads via Facebook? 

We’ve already said that Facebook is only one of many data repositories. And remember that every click, every character you type, everything you do online goes through your Internet Service Provider. And with the FCC’s rollback of net neutrality protections, those companies are empowered to do a lot more than they have been doing with what they know about you.

We know that Facebook faces other problems, but as the company shows its willingness to change, it may avoid regulation. And as we say to people, “You don’t pay for it, and it’s voluntary. It’s awfully hard to build a case for Facebook being worthy of legal oversight.”

Google Readies Mobile Switch

We can’t stress how important this is for every organization. Google announced this week that they have begun indexing and ranking websites on the basis of how their content displays on a mobile device.

The change only benefits websites that are following best practices. And Google is notifying those sites. Google also doubled down on the promise that sites that load content slower “may perform less well for both desktop and mobile searches.”

Google has beat on the mobile drum for years and the speed drum for even longer. Talk with us if you’re not ready. At some point in 2018, your website’s visibility in Google will be based on how your mobile output works today in terms of speed and usability.

Bottom line: Facebook is getting the headlines, but this change will impact most of the world’s search behaviors. Ultimately, it will have a bigger effect on the economy than Facebook.

Fact Checking Claims About Amazon

The president attacked Amazon instead of Facebook this week with some claims we thought were wrong. Here are the claims and the facts:

“The post office charges Amazon and others little to deliver their packages…making Amazon richer and the Post Office [sic] dumber and poorer?” – the president on December 29, 2017

The USPS makes money on package delivery. The USPS financial issues stem from email, the lack of home catalog shopping, and a Congressional requirement that it fund its pension 75 years in advance.

“They pay little to no taxes to state & local governments…” – March 29, 2018

Amazon pays state taxes in the 45 states that have them. Amazon does not pay taxes on items sold by third-party sellers on Amazon because the third party sellers are supposed to do that.

“...They use our Postal System as their Delivery Boy (causing tremendous loss to the U.S…)” – March 29, 2018

Amazon pays USPS bulk rates. Taxpayers do not pay for anything because the postal service does not receive tax dollars.

“It has been reported that the U.S. Post Office will lose $1.50 on average for each package it delivers for Amazon…” – March 31, 2018

The president is using flawed data that would encumber all USPS rates with their retirement liability. And the data was created by a financial firm with a stake in FedEx. But yes, if the USPS changed its rates to reflect its retirement requirements, then the rates would go up for everyone, incuding Amazon. And for you and me too.

The bottom line: The USPS doesn’t get taxpayer money, Amazon pays the same rates as everyone, and Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post, but the public markets own about 83% of Amazon–not Bezos.

Monday Coffee Break

The Richmond Times-Dispatch covered the fun story of 15 year old Darian Lipscomb of Prospect, Virginia. Darian created a Snapchat id called @CarnivalCruise six years ago when his family vacationed on a cruise ship. They’ve gone on others since then, and the teen is pretty vocal in his love for the experience.

Rather than sending a nasty letter from an attorney, the cruise line had fun by going to Prospect and offering the Lipscomb family a free trip aboard their newest ship in exchange for the Snapchat name. There is even a promise of lots of surprises that sound intriguing given the huge mobile billboard that showed up at their home. 

After all the crazy-making news this week, that’s a story we can get behind. And it’s a case study in how to be smart about your business goals. Carnival and the Lipscombs both won. Read the rest

Highlights

• Remember that Amazon Prime plane picture in last week’s edition? Yep, whispers were making the rounds that Amazon wanted to get big in delivery. They did.
• Google Chrome’s  “Not Secure” warnings are coming to all non-https pages in July.
• Facebook is testing a downvote function that lets users rate comments.

Today’s issue of Spotlight takes an average of 3 minutes and 30 seconds to read

Amazon Gets Bigger, Faster

We wrote last week that Amazon was eyeing an acquisition. Instead, look for Shipping with Amazon to launch and reduce the company’s reliance on the USPS, FedEx, and UPS. Amazon spent about $50 billion on shipping over the last three years so this move has leverage.

This move also has precedence. Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud business, now accounts for more than 60% of Amazon’s operating income. Amazon launched the service in 2004 to resell the Internet hosting services it developed for its own use. Delivery could be a similar success.

Jeff Bezos’ mantra of “get big fast” is almost surreal in the company’s execution. Amazon delivery is only one example. Amazon announced its Whole Foods acquisition less than 250 days ago. Since then, they’ve also:

• announced a search for a second headquarters housing 50,000 employees,
• partnered with Warren Buffet and JP Morgan to start a healthcare company,
• and announced two hour delivery windows for Whole Foods groceries in four cities.

Google Gets Customer-Friendly

Visit an unencrypted web page using Google Chrome beginning in July, and your browser will show that the page is “not secure”. That’s true today for e-commerce pages. But starting in July, Google will flag every page without encryption just as they’ve been warning that they would do. 

Google is also requiring ticket resellers to be certified and declare the face value of the ticket. The other kind of tickets–airline tickets–along with hotels and other travel services are getting a redesign. Travel info firm Skift says: “Google is one step closer to its user-centric vision of travel booking,”  Translation: Google wants to sell more travel, not travel advertising.

And hallelujah, word came from Lifehacker Thursday afternoon on Twitter that Google Chrome now has a “mute site” instead of a “mute tab” button. That means that the site’s audio will NOT play when you’ve selected that option. And your browser stores your choice so you only set it once per site.

To mute a website while using Google Chrome: hover over the tab at the top of the browser page, press right-click once, and scroll down. Silence is that easy!

Facebook Gets Comment Voting

You’ve probably seen comment sections that allow you to see “Top Comments first”. Facebook is testing a “downvote” comment link on comments left on personal pages. It’s available only on a small sample of pages. Sites like Reddit and Imgur already have this function, as does blog comment platform Disqus. 

Facebook is adamant that this is to downvote comments only. The fabled thumbs-down dislike button still does not exist.

Hoax Alert: Facebook didn’t limit your content to 26 people

If you haven’t seen the downvote link yet, you’ve probably seen a post from one of your Facebook friends asking you to comment on their post because Facebook has limited the newsfeed to 26 people. It’s a hoax that got new life when a version appeared that read, “I checked Snopes and…”  Read Snopes calling foul on the whole thing.

Monday Coffee Break

It’s over now, but The Washington Post captured the collision of SEO and Philadelphia Eagles fandom. Google’s quest to “organize the world’s information” sometimes goes astray. Sometimes it is deliberately led astray. For a brief time, Eagles quarterback Nick Foles was the answer to the search query, “who owns the New England Patriots” in a nod to Philadelphia’s Super Bowl win.

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Good morning. It’s Monday, February 5th. The federal government has four days of funding remaining. Watch for a vote in the House on Tuesday. Without an agreement, the federal government could be forced to close again on Friday.

Today’s Spotlight takes an average of 3 minutes and 45 seconds to read.

Highlights

• Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg wants Facebook to be “…good for your well-being and for society”.
• He’s onboard with the themes of the “Time Well Spent” movement without explicitly saying so.
• Amazon posted $2 billion plus in Q4 operating income, leading speculation that another major acquisition is in the cards.

Tristan Harris’ TED talk on how giant tech companies command the attention of several billion people is gathering a lot of fans. It’s only 17 minutes. Save this issue of Spotlight and watch it when you can. 

Former Google ethicist Harris is raising the same issues we told you about last fall when Facebook’s first President Sean Parker said that Facebook knowingly exploits human psychology. 

Zuckerberg is publicly embracing the “less is more” mantra of Facebook usage and speaking about tech addiction. This was the first time that Facebook average usage decreased, and the company is steadfast in its support of that trend. Zuck is also talking about Facebook creating local news channels that might not be as divisive as national news channels. That suggests he hasn’t attended a contentious local meeting. And not surprisingly, Google announced its own plans to test local news in Nashville and Oakland.

The entire issue is ultimately about tech addiction. We’ve all gone down a YouTube or Wikipedia rabbit hole–it’s easy to do. But people like Harris and Parker are forming an umbrella organization called The Center for Humane Technology and shouting about this issue so it’s worthy of your attention.

Have a look at the group’s data from a 200,000 person study showing how increasing time on apps lowers overall satisfaction with that app. App ratings here

We now talk about Amazon’s growth in ways that we once used for Facebook, Google, Microsoft, IBM, AT&T. It’s time for their closeup. 

It’s not a story about cloud business Amazon Web Services. Pay attention to advertising this year. Amazon sold tens of millions of voice-powered devices in 2017.  And the company is not shy about saying publicly that it wants a healthy slice of the advertising pie that Google and Facebook currently share.

The growth machine Amazon has created will require disrupting another industry to maintain its growth. The company ranked #29 in revenue on the Fortune 500 two years ago and 18th last year. The three largest ad agencies are each increasing their spending on Amazon by 40% to 50%. That money is coming out of other digital companies. Advertising could easily be Amazon’s next huge opportunity.

Spotlighted

Facebook’s second biggest property is now WhatsApp, not Instagram or Messenger. Details

Restaurants can now add their menus to their Google My Business listing. Learn how

Snapchat is selling branded merchandise inside their app. It’s not for revenue generation. The company is testing whether its users will buy things while using the app.

Monday Coffee Break

No one who knows why is talking, but Elon Musk added to his legend by selling 20,000 “Not A Flamethrower” devices for $500 each. The device shoots a 10 foot flame, which allows it to be sold as a non-weapon.  Advised that customs agencies wouldn’t allow a product called a flamethrower to be shipped into their country, he had the name changed to “not a Flamethrower”.

He’s still only 46 and will go down as an engineer/inventor at Tesla’s level. Nope, we don’t get it either. But he may be the best business leader in the world today for executing on a project. And if it was all a distraction, it was one that came with a $10 million revenue line in 6 days.

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