Uber has partnered with BBM Messenger to enable users of the messaging app to book an Uber directly from it. It covers BBM Messenger users on Android and iOS users, as well as BlackBerry, enabling them to book an Uber from the BBM app, even if they don’t have the Uber app installed on their phone. The partnership […]
Facebook has announced plans to promote videos more prominently inside its News Feed, using the central feature of its main app to build more interest in the original video content it has created and compete more directly with YouTube. As part of the plans, it will also change the kind of advertisements that run in […]
Tencent Holdings and JD.com will buy a slice of one of China’s largest online retailers for $863m, forging an alliance to take on Alibaba in e-commerce and digital payments. The pair agreed to buy shares in US-listed Vipshop Holdings at a premium of 55% to their previous close. The deal comes with a business co-operation pact that […]
To step up its efforts to rival Google’s unified payments interface (UPI) application Tez, digital payment company Paytm is now pushing for the QR code to become the primary method of acceptance of payments using either UPI or debit cards at zero cost. The Indian government recently subsidised the charges on debit card payments that […]
A new report published by Brightpearl, a provider of retail management systems that helps high-growth retailers streamline back-office operations, finds an enormous gap between omnichannel importance and adoption and its effective execution. The findings, taken from a report entitled ‘The State of Omnichannel’, a survey of 352 retail leaders in the United States, shows that […]
The monetisation of WhatsApp by parent company Facebook took another step forward: Advertisers on Facebook can now include a button on their Facebook boosted organic posts that enables users to contact them via the messaging application. Facebook introduced click-to-Messenger Facebook ads in November 2016 as part of its launch of version 1.3 of its Messenger […]
Criteo has unveiled the findings from two third-party studies it commissioned, as part of the company’s new initiatives to create an open commerce marketing platform. The studies examined the value of data and the strength of shared pools of knowledge within the industry, and is a timely reminder for Australian brands that they need to […]
Microsoft’s Bing is undergoing a major change, partnering Reddit and using AI to try and take on Google. New features include the ability to summarise the two opposing sides of contentious questions, and another that measures how many reputable sources are behind a given answer. Speaking at the Everyday AI event, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian […]
Snap Inc. has launched Lens Studio, a real-time tool for brands to design and build 2D and 3D augmented reality Snapchat Lenses. For the first time ever since it launched Lenses in 2015, Snap has vetted, trained, and approved a selection of best in class augmented reality production partners to develop Snapchat Lenses for advertisers. […]
A new game has been released by the BBC. Doctor Who Time Vortex VR gives players the chance to pilot the TARDIS through the depths of the space-time vortex inside a virtual reality version of the show’s title sequence. The game is a VR reboot of the successful Time Vortex 360 mobile game released earlier in […]