Amazon to enter student loan business | BBC News

July 22, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

E-commerce giant Amazon has entered the student loan business, teaming up with US bank Wells Fargo to offer lower interest rates to subscribers of its “Prime Student” services.

For an annual fee “Prime Student” gives subscribers discounts, free delivery and access to Amazon’s video streaming.

Wells Fargo is one of the largest providers of student loans in the US.

The deal should help the bank promote products and Amazon attract students.

“Prime Student” subscribers will be eligible for a 0.5% discount on Wells Fargo student loans.

In a statement, Wells Fargo’s head of personal lending John Rasmussen said: “We are focused on innovation and meeting our customers where they are – and increasingly that is in the digital space”.

Which is the Best Online Marketplace: Amazon, Etsy or Ebay? | Small Biz Trends

June 27, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

When you sell crafts online, choosing the right platform is paramount. There are plenty of different options available to handmade business owners. Three of the most popular are Etsy, Amazon and eBay. But each one offers different options and benefits for handmade shop owners. Here are some comparisons and basic information that can help you make the best decision when it comes to choosing Handmade at Amazon, Etsy or eBay.

Amazon Doesn’t Consider the Race of Its Customers. Should It? | Bloomberg

May 17, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

For residents of minority urban neighborhoods, access to Amazon.com’s vast array of products—from Dawn dish soap and Huggies diapers to Samsung flatscreen TVs—can be a godsend. Unlike whiter ZIP codes, these parts of town often lack well-stocked stores and quality supermarkets. White areas get organic grocers and designer boutiques. Black ones get minimarts and dollar stores. People in neighborhoods that retailers avoid must travel farther and sometimes pay more to obtain household necessities. “I don’t have a car, so I love to have stuff delivered,” says Tamara Rasberry, a human resources professional in Washington, D.C., who spends about $2,000 a year on Amazon Prime, the online retailer’s premium service that guarantees two-day delivery of tens of millions of items (along with digital music, e-books, streaming movies, and TV shows) for a yearly $99 membership fee. Rasberry, whose neighborhood of Congress Heights is more than 90 percent black, says shopping on Amazon lets her bypass the poor selection and high prices of nearby shops.

Amazon and Apple Want to Save Your Sleep by Tweaking Screen Colors | WIRED

January 26, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

IN THE NOT-SO-DISTANT future, your personal tech will behave like the sun. It will rise and shine brightly in the morning, and set and dim its lights as the day winds down. In a recent preview for iOS 9.3, Apple teased a new feature called Night Shift that does exactly this, automatically altering the color of your screen display to make it orange-colored in the evening. Last month, Amazon released a similar feature, called Blue Shade, in an OS update for its Kindle Fire reading tablets. The new feature lets nighttime users dim the amount of blue light that comes off the Fire’s screen, in favor of a mellow, amber glow.

5 Ways Any Business Can Survive (and Thrive) Against Amazon | All Business

September 14, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The last twenty years has seen a dramatic shift in the retail landscape ever since Amazon burst onto the scene. Offering a vast selection and ever-shorter shipping times, Amazon came to dominate retail sales, starting with books and quickly expanding to other categories.

Yet for all of Amazon’s disruption, the online giant is not invincible. Many retailers and etailers have built significant businesses by refusing to accept the status quo. Any business can learn to beat Amazon by incorporating these five easy tips:

1. Create a unique voice.

Many businesses believe they are unique when they really do not have anything that truly sets them apart. In order for a brand to stand out, it must have a story that aligns with both their business values and personal values.

Amazon Acquires Elemental Technologies For A Reported $500 Million In Cash | TechCrunch

September 4, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Amazon announced this afternoon that it’s acquiring Elemental Technologies, a backend mobile video service.

It’s paying around $500 million in cash for the company, according to a new report from The Information. (Subscription required.)

Amazon didn’t immediately return a phone call or email request for comment about that figure.

The deal was orchestrated by Amazon’s highly profitable Amazon Web Services unit, which will incorporate Elemental’s technology into its cloud infrastructure services mobile video offering, says The Information.

Elemental, which makes high-speed video encoding and transcoding software to enable multiscreen content delivery across different devices, was founded nine years ago in Portland, Ore., and counts among its many customers ABC, BBC, Comcast, Ericsson, and ESPN.

Any Amazon Prime customer can now buy Dash buttons | Mashable

September 2, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

It’s been five months since Amazon announced the Dash button, a physical device slightly larger than your thumb that lets you orders more goods with a single tap. Now, the Seattle tech giant is taking the Dash button out of the invite-only stage and making it available to all Prime customers for purchase.

Prime customers can purchase Dash buttons for $5 each starting Wednesday; the company will credit you for the cost of your first button.

The company is also expanding the number of available button types -– one for each brand partner -– from 18 to 29. The additional 11 brands include Ziploc, Dixie tableware, Hefty trash bags, Finish dishwashing detergent, Depend diapers, Ice Breakers Mints, Orbit gum, Greenies dental chews, Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day products, Digestive Advantage probiotic supplements, and Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard 100% whey protein.

The Future Of Retail Won’t Be So Good For Consumers | TechCrunch

July 17, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Shopping — both online and offline — is a great luxury of the modern era. People can enjoy a great selection at lower prices and shop from the convenience of their home, while still having the option of going to a local mall or retailer to peruse the aisles for instant gratification.

But consumers can’t have their cake and eat it, too, and the retail world as we know it today can no longer give it to them.

Retail Will Change Forever

Technology is killing the traditional retailer. Victims will include those selling commodity brand-name-type products like consumer electronics, appliances, sporting equipment and furniture, and may even include those selling consumable goods.

Price wars, combined with technology shifts, will eliminate national, regional and local competitors who just can’t keep up. Many of today’s vendors will cease to exist as online shopping takes larger shares of all sorts of markets. Just look at the trends in companies like Best Buy, Staples, Radio Shack and Sears.

TV Is Losing Ground to the Internet Where It Really Counts | WIRED

June 3, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

AS A SPATE of new shows from Netflix and Amazon prove that some of the best television being made streams rather than airs, TV will take a financial hit. PwC’s annual five-year forecast for entertainment and media released today has revised downward the growth rate for ad spending on television. Last year, PwC predicted advertising would increase 5.5 percent annually over the next five years; now PwC says that rate will slow to just 4 percent annually through 2019.

And those are just the global figures. In the United States, TV ad spending is growing by just a little more than 3 percent annually on average. By contrast, spending jumped 5 percent between 2013 and 2014, the most recent years that PwC makes available.

This Entrepreneur Thinks His Startup, Farmigo, Will Kill Off Supermarkets | Forbes

May 11, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

In the not-too-distant future, says Benzi Ronen, founder and CEO of Farmigo, consumers will use mobile phones to order non-perishables like toothpaste and toilet paper from Amazon and then buy their fresh food–from “humanely raised” lamb chops to “locally foraged” ramps–from his six-year-old online grocer based in Brooklyn, NY. Using technology and community-organizing techniques borrowed from the Obama campaign, he is building a network of Farmigo reps who are spreading the word throughout their neighborhoods and distributing food at weekly pick-ups. Farmigo operates only in New York, New Jersey and parts of northern California, but Ronen, 44, believes he can take his model to all 50 states. This interview has been edited and condensed.