Amazon (AMZN Quick QuoteAMZN - Free Report) selling over the counter medications and Alphabet (GOOGL Quick QuoteGOOGL - Free Report) rebranding and enhancing Android Pay as Google Pay were the top stories from last week.

The Amazon Drug Store

CNBC reported that Amazon quietly launched a line of over-the-counter (OTC) medications and generic drugs under the Basic Care brand back in August. The 60 products sold under the brand are currently exclusively manufactured by private label Perrigo and also include some generics sold under its GoodSense brand.

Over the counter medications are everyday things like cough syrups, allergy medicines or treatments for minor stomach disorders that don’t require a prescription. People generally don’t buy them til the last minute, something that may not change despite Amazon’s competitive pricing. This is the main challenge for Amazon in the segment. They comprise 31%, or $8.4 billion, of the U.S. OTC medication industry, according to Euromonitor.

The bigger and more regulated part of the market is generics and while there have been news reports off and on about Amazon’s interest in the area, this market will be harder to break into. But once it manages to make an entry, it will be much easier to buy prescription medicines on Amazon, especially for chronic or prolonged illnesses. This might be why the company recently launched an alliance with JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway with the stated objective of lowering healthcare costs for everyone over the long term.

Google Pay

As announced earlier, Google is rebranding Android Pay as Google Pay and also incorporating Google Wallet P2P (now called Google Pay Send) services into it. The app’s Home tab displays your recent transactions and based on your shopping history and location, lists nearby places that accept Google Pay. There’s also a Cards tab that stores your debt, credit and loyalty card information, as well as ongoing offers.

You can shift through these with your Google account information and don’t need to share card details. Other than the supported brick-and-mortar outlets, Google Pay also allows you to pay online on partner sites like Airbnb,DoorDash, Hotel Tonight and Fandango.

For people already using Android Pay, the shift will simply be a software update. The Google Pay Send integration will happen gradually over the next few months, first in the U.S. and UK.

Other Stories-

Corporate

Analysts Weigh in on Apple: According to various media reports, UBS analyst Steven Milunovich thinks that Apple (AAPL Quick QuoteAAPL - Free Report) will likely spend its billons by buying back shares or combining that with higher dividends to become cash neutral by 2023. Speculation started after In the first scenario, it buys back 10% of its shares each year resulting in a 30% increase in the EPS by 2021 and in the second, its spends $30-60 billion on share buybacks while increasing the dividend yield to 3% from 1.6%. The analyst doesn’t think there’s a big acquisition on the horizon.

Analyst Sees Facebook Losing Ad Dollars to Twitter, Snap: Daniel Ives of GBH says that a number of factors are leading him to believe that Snap and Twitter’s growth prospects are improving relative to Facebook . Facebook’s recent move to keep its platform social could have had something to do with it.

In any case, 15-20% of traditional social media advertisers who have earlier only used Facebook, are now experimenting with Twitter ads. He also thinks that Snap’s (SNAP Quick QuoteSNAP - Free Report) redesign will be beneficial in the long run. "We do believe a renaissance of growth and new [monthly active user]/engagement is starting to benefit both Snap and Twitter as organic initiatives/targeted ad algorithms, app redesign, and a host of content driven campaigns are serving as positive catalysts in the field for 2018," Ives said.

Legal/Regulatory

Facebook Loses Belgian Case: A Belgian court has ruled that Facebook will be fined 250,000 euros a day or up to 100 million euros if it does not comply with privacy law in the country that forbids social networks to track people on third-party sites. Facebook said it would appeal the decision.

Google Sued for Trademark Infringement: Connecticut-based fruit bouquet provider Edible Arrangements has sued Google for placing rival ads alongside its own in a way that customers are led to believe that they are buying from it when they are actually buying from its competitors. The company is suing Google for $209 million, $9 million of which is the amount it paid Google for ads and the balance for trademark infringement.

Former Employees Sue Google: Google fired James Damore last year after he wrote a 10-page internal memo criticizing the company's hiring and promotion policies. His memo included a number of objectionable comments such as women being biologically ill-suited for engineering work. Later, Damore sued the company saying that it discriminates against white, conservative men like him.

Jayme Sophir, a lawyer with the National Labor Relations Board has now said that while Damore may have been within his rights saying the things that he did, Google’s decision to fire him didn’t violate federal labor laws. “Employers must be permitted to ‘nip in the bud’ the kinds of employee conduct that could lead to a ‘hostile workplace,’ rather than waiting until an actionable hostile workplace has been created before taking action," he wrote.

Another ex-employee, Tim Chevalier was fired in November for using Google’s internal communications systems to drum up support for his liberal views on women, minorities and transgender people like himself and against people he deemed bigots. His social activism was reportedly investigated at the company before he was let go.

In his lawsuit he says, “Google’s internal social networking platforms were widely used to belittle and harass women, people of color, LGBTQ employees, and other underrepresented groups,” and “Chevalier pushed back on the online bullying he and others were experiencing, using the same internal messaging systems to try to educate his employer and coworkers on how to change Google’s working conditions to be inclusive and supportive of underrepresented minorities, such as himself.”

Twitter, Google Sued on White Pride: Bloomberg reports that Twitter was recently sued by somebody for holding a certain opinion. Jared Taylor objected to the permanent ban on him and his publication, American Renaissance, even when they neither harassed anyone nor advocated violence, but simply because they had “controversial views on race and immigration.”

Products/Technology

Facebook Simplifying Ad Metrics: Facebook is clarifying certain matters with respect to its ad measurement metrics that should make it easier for advertisers to understand and use them. The first thing it will be doing is explicitly saying when an ad metric is an estimate, in development, or both.

Second, it will remove certain metrics that aren’t useful to advertisers (like the 20 it decided to remove last July because they were redundant, outdated, not actionable or infrequently used (how often people saw an ad falls in this category and will be axed). Third, it is launching a new initiative called Measure What Matters aimed at educating advertisers about how best to improve their campaigns based on their brand building objectives and direct marketing initiatives.

Google Mapping Florida Waterways: Google has partnered with the Marine Industries Association of South Florida (MIASF) to take pictures of the Florida waterways covering 143 nautical miles along the Intracoastal Waterway and Biscayne Bay, some adjoining rivers, inlets and commercial canals with the goal of creating digital maps such as the Street View.

The boats that will house the cameras will be provided by MarineMax and Boat Owners Warehouse.The marine industry in South Florida, employs 136,000 people and produces an annual economic impact of $11.5 billion, according to the CEO and president of MIASF. The maps can increase awareness of the waterways and promote businesses dependent on it.

Google AdSense Auto Ads: Google is moving its AI-powered auto ads feature from beta into a broader rollout. So once you select the code in the “my ads” section of your AdSense account and paste it between the header tags for every page where you want the ads to appear, the system will automatically select the ideal position for ad placement and the number of ads to be placed on the page.

Publishers may not agree with Google’s idea of what is optimal in both cases, but Google says that test results from last year saw participating publishers report "an average revenue lift of 10% with revenue increases ranging from 5-15 percent."

Nest Camera Gets Google Assistant: Google Assistant is now available as a software update on the Nest Cam IQ indoor security camera. The company also announced that the Nest Aware subscription that earlier costed $10 for 10 days or $30 for 30 days now has a $5-for 5-days version. The camera has been updated to help you designate activity zones in your camera’s line of sight that can now tell the difference between human beings and objects. Additionally, you can now merge redundant facial recognition collections to cut down on storage space and speed up the recognition process by reducing the number of images it must process to identify familiar faces.

Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Card: Amazon and Chase are in an agreement to bring more rewards to eligible Prime members on their Whole Foods purchases when using the Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Card. Key Benefits include:

Ø  *New – 5% Back on Whole Foods Market purchases with an eligible Prime membership; otherwise 3% Back

Ø  5% Back at Amazon.com with an eligible Prime membership; otherwise 3% Back

Ø  2% Back at restaurants, gas stations and drugstores

Ø  1% Back on all other purchases

Ø  No cap on rewards earned

Ø  Rewards never expire and are redeemable, as long as their account is open, on hundreds of millions of products at Amazon.com

Ø  No foreign transaction fees when traveling abroad or for cross-border shopping

Ø  No annual credit card fee

Ø  Zero fraud liability

Ø  Benefits including travel and purchase protections, as well as 24/7 concierge service, through Visa Signature

Retail credit cards carry higher interest rates, so any real benefit to the consumer is difficult to fathom. But adding Whole Foods products to the discount party may be attractive for some consumers since store credit cards are easier to get.

More Amazon Go Stores Coming: Bloomberg and Recode report that Amazon is planning to open six more Amazon Go stores this year in Los Angeles and Seattle. According to Recode, which cited people familiar with the matter, Amazon has talked to billionaire developer Rick Caruso about bringing a Go store to The Grove, his 600,000-square-foot outdoor shopping mall in Los Angeles.

At least three sites have been identified in Seattle for additional stores. The news wasn’t confirmed by either Amazon or Caruso. Amazon Go stores are built on what Amazon calls Just Walk Out technology, which allows you to scan your phone on entry and then get charged to your Amazon account for any items you pick off the shelves. Cameras and sensors do the tracking job. The shop concept may be particularly useful in densely populated areas but all that much harder to pull off when traffic is high since all the tracking is handled by equipment that can get blocked or overburdened.

Pandora Premium Audio Marketplace: Pandora has launched a marketplace for programmatic ad buying across mobile and desktop supported with its first-party-data (demographic, location-based, or proprietary audience segments) as well as its advanced targeting capabilities. Advertisers can also opt to use their own data but since Pandora says it is the audio streaming leader with 73 million active U.S. listeners that each spending 23 hours a month on the platform, its data should be attractive to them.

Pandora also says that 53% of Americans already stream audio weekly and with the increasing ownership of smart speakers, connected cars, and voice-activated devices, the demand for audio inventory can only increase. So this seems like a very good time to launch a marketplace.

Spotify Has Hardware Plans: Musically has noticed job postings by Spotify that speak of the company’s hardware ambitions. In its search for an operations manager, Spotify says, “Spotify is on its way to creating its first physical products and setting up an operational organization for manufacturing, supply chain, sales & marketing.” It is also apparently on the lookout for a project manager and product analyst.    

HP Expands Device-As-A-Service Offering: HP has expanded its device-as-a-service offering to include support for Apple products (iPhone, iPad, Mac and other Apple devices) in mixed-operating system environments. It has also added HP Z4 Workstations and HP Windows Mixed Reality VR headsets to the list of devices it currently offers as a service.By expanding its real-time hardware analytics for Windows, Android, iOS, and macOS devices, it enables customers to analyze hardware performance, detect potential problems in advance and proactively implement corrective actions.

Through the HP Tech Café Market Enhanced initiative, customers will now get 24/7 access to lockers for device swaps or repairs. Tom Mainelli, IDC's vice president of devices and AR/VR thinks that it was wise of HP to bring Apple devices into the fold since many enterprise functions are currently done on Apple devices (especially when mobile devices are used). Moreover, while DaaS is still a nascent concept, it “will ramp quickly, as it’s a win/win for companies and providers. Companies can move away from huge capital expenditures that have forced them to extend device lifetimes radically.”

Collaborations & M&A

Facebook Music Licensing Deal: Facebook has signed a deal with ICE Services, a licensing group and copyright database of some 31 million works that represents PRS in the UK, STIM in Sweden and GEMA in Germany. The group will collect and distribute license revenue when its music is played on Facebook, Instagram, Oculus and Messenger through a royalty reporting system it will be building for the purpose.

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