Weekly Rundown:: 02.02.22
Each week via our ‘Weekly Rundown’ segment, we highlight stories we thought were interesting, notable across business and technology. This week, we showcase stories on Amazon further getting into retail, getting paid on social, headsets are coming, planning your 2022, and lastly let them play games!
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Story-1:: Amazon is opening its first-ever Amazon Style physical clothing store
Overview: The best of shopping in-store and online, so Amazon claims. Amazon Style offers Amazon’s wide selection of fashion, the convenience of seeing and trying on items, and the same great prices found on Amazon.com. Here are some of the ways we’ve made it easy to shop, whether in-store or online:
Discover in-store, buy online. In addition to Amazon Style’s wide selection of items available for in-store purchase, customers can easily find and shop more styles online.
Keep shopping after you leave the store. Items scanned at Amazon Style are conveniently saved in the Amazon Shopping app, making it easy to revisit and purchase at a later time or easily find more items online from the new brands discovered in the store.
Shop millions of items online, try on in-store. Customers can shop millions of apparel items on Amazon.com, request delivery to Amazon Style, and try on items in a fitting room. If an item isn't perfect, customers can return it in-store and we'll take care of the rest.
Great prices. Amazon is known for great prices, and Amazon Style is no exception. In-store prices will be the same as on Amazon.com. Plus, customers can view deals in-store that match their preferences right in the Amazon Shopping app.
“Our first-ever physical apparel store offers a personalized, convenient shopping experience where Amazon’s technology and operations make it easy for customers to find styles they love at great prices.”
Why It Matters: text to go here
Link: aboutamazon.com
Story-2:: Get Paid to be on Social
Overview: Tik Tok is testing paid subscriptions for some influencer accounts. Instagram introduced paid subscriptions for some Facebook pages a couple of years ago and is now testing rolling them out for Instagrammers too. This brings new ways to monetize for some of its most-followed users (who can potentially create content or even badges for paying subscribers), and reduces the need to use other platforms like Patreon. It also potentially strengthens some creators’ ties to the platform, at a time when TikTok is also reportedly testing similar moves.
Why It Matters: Tik Tok launched a fund last year for $200M to support creatives getting supplemental investment to create rich content. We saw a similar tactic over at Youtube. The concept is smart you carve out a few dollars for creative is to keep them on your platform anything about what it takes to invest in certain TV shows print media movies it's a limited investment that can make a big impact on the creatives. What will be interesting is if it does make a big enough impact or if one platform can kind of monetize or supplement the monetization of the creatives to keep them sticky with a single platform
Link: TechCrunch.com
Story-3:: We All Live in a Headset World
Overview: Google reportedly planning a new AR headset for 2024. Project Iris could see Google go up against Meta and Apple in the coming headset wars
Why It Matters: Every day I wake up and read another story about another A.R. headset from another tech company or at least that's what it feels like these days. I had the opportunity to look at the oculus by Facebook and I loved it I just I'm not a big gamer and I've commented on the show that I sort of regret returning it because some of the fitness apps have been well received and I kind of wish I had given it more of a demo or trial if you would what's interesting is you're seeing rumors by Google and Apple on this topic and what I'm wondering is this is it going to be more of virtual reality like what Facebook is put out in MetaVerse or is it gonna be more like augmented reality kind of like what Google class was 10 years ago where you're kind of walking down the street and things pop up and you tell me I can tell you directions or where your restaurants are it's kind of like the price tags or signage on top so only time will tell what each vendor brings but it will be interesting to see.
Link: TheVerge.com
Story-4:: Facebook at Work
Overview: It has been reported that Facebook (before it was rebranded as Meta) was approached by enterprise investors offering the social network a proposition: spin off the organization, they said, and let us back in as a startup. A deal would have valued a newly independent Workplace as a “unicorn” (at least at $1 billion) according to the source.
Why It Matters: text when I first learned about Facebook at work a few years ago I was very interested in to the value prop that a company would bring sort of Facebook to the workforce. Over time I've seen products like yammer kind of come and go and a lot of it has to do with leadership at the top if the leaders are an engagement social or they don't see the value of what the tool or platform can bring than the junior staff phone use it because they're looked on his like hey go do your job don't be fussing around I'm basically a social network fast forward to today hybrid workforce is becoming the new norm eight I doubt it gonna ever go back to a full on-site for many organizations and tools like Facebook workplace are a prime example of how to bring stickiness and develop a culture in a distributed workforce. Microsoft has a slew of options from yammer to SharePoint to Team's to Work Viva are and then there's another company called work Work Vivo that we have written about. Needless to say, there's a lot of competition in the workforce. But when you think about where Facebook is investing as dollars into the MetaVerse I could see it in both directions you certainly could say well this isn't really a core competency if there is there really trying to get people into this like virtual reality and let's just carve out this business unit and sell it off. But I also could see this is saying hey it's just lower down in our pipeline let's go get the hell kind of like camera Rob no personal or non-business oriented individuals into the MetaVerse use it as our pilot program and then circle back for work. And so in a future state world where you know everyone is hybrid you're going to be able to see that this could be a really great value prop where people basically put on some sort of headset or meet in virtual reality and you pick your avatar and you just do your job so it would be very interesting, it's almost like a player one situation but for work is really where I'm getting towards so it'll be curious to see if Facebook does carveout this business unit or keeps it in the back burner
Link: Workplace.com/features
Story-5:: Shazam Your Thoughts
Overview: A new app called Weavit wants to be a “Shazam for your thoughts” — that is, it wants to offer people a different way to quickly capture their thoughts in a note-taking tool with the press of a button, which are then matched to other content in a broader knowledge base.
Our brain is a map of everything we know. We connect things every time we think. However, we cannot rely on our memory forever. Over time, this leaves a lot of our brilliant ✨ thoughts forgotten. Weavit is a mobile app designed to help you capture your thoughts 💭, tasks ✅ and inspiration 🌐 📸 📹 from anywhere. We find & link people, topics and events you know to your thoughts and tasks so you have a digital map of your mind.
Why It Matters: This is an interesting way to think I know today I kind of use a hacking of my notebook to-do list to kind of keep ideas together I know a lot of people use OneNote some people use notes through Apple other people use Evernote which was very popular and I think really the first one to kind of think about this. When I think about weave it’s more about using sort of text messages and ideas and sort of different talk it's coming together in like an AI-powered approach I haven't used the app I signed up for the beta I'll let you know what I think once I get into it.
Link: Weavit.ai
Story-6:: Google is about to look different
Overview: Google G-Suite or should we say Workspace is getting some updates with a new integrated view for Gmail features email, Google Meet, Google Chat, and Spaces in one place.
Starting Feb 8th, users can opt-in to test the new experience, allowing them to try it out and become more accustomed to it. Users can revert to classic Gmail via settings. Google will share an update on the Workspace Updates Blog, along with Help Center content, once rollout begins. All of these changes will push to user by the end of April, so just get on the train!
Why It Matters: When enabled, the new navigation menu allows you to easily switch between your inbox, important conversations, and join meetings without having to switch between tabs or open a new window. Notification bubbles make it easy to stay on top of what immediately needs your attention. When working in Chat and Spaces, you can view a full list of conversations and Spaces within a single screen, making it easier to navigate to and engage. When working in your inbox, you’ll be able to view the full array of Mail and Label options currently available in Gmail today.
In the coming months, you will also see email and chat results when using the search bar, making it easier to find what you need by eliminating the need to search within a specific product.
Story-7:: 2021 Annual Review
Overview: Use this page to complete your annual review of the previous year. To do so, you need to complete the followings steps (if you are new to Notion, just duplicate this page and you can then start editing it)...
STEP 1️⃣: Complete an audit of last year across the domains
STEP 2️⃣: Collect the following three key pieces of information and plug it into the framework
STEP 3️⃣: Next, complete the information in free form text in Part 2
STEP 4️⃣: Calculate what an hour of your time was worth in Part 3:
Why It Matters: so this framework came from the BeFocused live great framework by Brandon it's part of his overall toolkit kind of think about it as more of a business-oriented version of what I say or Tim Ferriss would do. The idea is that he's giving you a framework or series of frameworks in tool kits to be more productive at work and live a great life this is one example not to say that this is the right example but it's just a good primer and gives you ways to think about like evaluating your time and how you're spending your time. I'm gonna link to the article that he wrote and then I'm also going to link to the subscription service he has via LinkedIn.
Story-8:: Let them Play
Overview: The popular puzzle game Wordle has been purchased by The New York Times Company. The New York Times Company says Wordle will be free to play for new and existing players for the time being. The company also says no changes will be made to its gameplay as it moves to The New York Times.
Why It Matters: Wordle is a fund word puzzle game. With Crossword puzzles being part of NYT heritage, it is great to see them continue on with this tradition in a more digital sense.
