Marketers Lack the Skills to Improve Digital Customer Experiences, Survey Finds (Ad Age)
Digital customer experiences are an increasingly important part of the marketing playbook, but many marketers lack the tools and know-how to take advantage of the tech that can improve them. According to eMarketer, many marketers lack the skills necessary to implement customer experience strategies.
Georgetown’s Downes Is Down on FCC’s Broadband Privacy Plan (Broadcasting & Cable)
Larry Downes, project director at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy, is no fan of the FCC’s broadband privacy proposal and took the extra few days the FCC provided for official comment to tell it so. Downes filed a letter in the docket referencing his article in the Harvard Business Review.
Comcast Agrees to Put Netflix on X1 Boxes (Broadcasting & Cable)
Comcast and Netflix have worked out a deal that would make Netflix programming available via the X1 operating system on Comcast’s Xfinity set-top boxes. The deal might affect the debate over cord cutters because it would be easier for cable subscribers to watch Netflix, now only available to consumers willing and able to go over-the-top.
Ashley Madison Faces F.T.C. Inquiry Amid Rebranding (NY Times)
The Federal Trade Commission is investigating Ashley Madison, a year after the adultery-focused website was roiled by an enormous breach of its members’ personal data. Ashley Madison, a service that claims to facilitate extramarital affairs, has been in repair mode since last summer.
Report: Verizon changing up data plans (USA Today)
Add Verizon to the list of carriers reportedly changing up their data plans. According to CNET, the carrier will announce a broad overhaul of its data plans this week, offering more data for a slightly higher price. Keeping with its clothing-sized data plan names, the cheapest “S” plan will now offer 2GB of shared data for $35 per month.
Hulk Hogan Says Gawker Made Secret $200K Loan to Nick Denton Before Bankruptcy (Hollywood Reporter)
Hulk Hogan doesn’t think that Gawker’s Chapter 11 should save Nick Denton from having to declare personal bankruptcy. In new filings, Hogan’s lawyers accuse Denton of doing things like getting a pre-bankruptcy loan from Gawker and making misrepresentations to a Florida court.
‘Warcraft’ Gamemaker Sues Over Cheat Bots (Hollywood Reporter)
While Warcraft is taking the world box office by storm, the company behind its computer game source material says it’s losing tens of millions because of bots that help players cheat. Blizzard Entertainment is suing Bossland GmbH, a German company the gamemaker claims has built a business by creating malicious software products.
Mobile Video To Hit $25B Globally In 5 Years (Media Post)
Worldwide revenue from mobile video will reach $25 billion by 2021, according to fresh research from Strategy Analytics. The money is mostly coming from advertisers trying to reach a growing mobile-video audience. “The strongest growth in mobile video revenue will come from advertising-funded content.”
Music Streaming Doubles, Exceeds Video Streams (Media Post)
Music streaming in the digital media world has taken a new direction. For the first time, audio streaming has topped video streaming, according to a new report. There have been 114.2 billion audio streams for the first six months of 2016 versus 95.1 billion video streams, according to a report by music researcher BuzzAngle Music.
The new internet domains are a wasteland (Network World- Commentary)
The many new DNS top-level domains were heralded as a way to take pressure off the older DNS TLDs. It seems, however, the new TLDs are almost uniformly the source of spammers and malware launchers. There might be valid web resources in the new TLDs. They seem rarely referenced beyond a handful of sites.
Finally, real viewership numbers for Netflix (Media Life)
Netflix struck two huge deals, one to gain distribution through Comcast set-top boxes and another to remain the exclusive streaming video on demand home for the CW. The first Nielsen ratings reveal a lot about what’s popular on the video site and why advertisers are dying to reach those viewers. For one thing, they skew a lot younger.
EU PARLIAMENT PUSHES AHEAD WITH PLANS TO BLOCK, REMOVE TERRORIST CONTENT ONLINE (ARS Technica)
Civil liberties Members of the European Parliament approved plans to create a law that will block terrorist content online. The counter terrorism directive also deals with terrorism training and financing as well as “Internet propaganda, and the misuse of the Internet for terrorist purposes.”
BREXIT: THE FIRST MAJOR CASUALTY OF DIGITAL DEMOCRACY (Brookings- Commentary)
Arguably, Brexit represents the first major casualty of the ascent of digital democracy over representative democracy. This claim deserves an explanation. Many technology optimists have assumed that globalization would lead to the democratization of information and decision-making, and also greater cosmopolitanism.