Amazon has rolled out India’s first celebrity voice feature on Alexa with the nation’s biggest movie star Amitabh Bachchan as the company makes a push to lure more users in the world’s second-most populated nation. The company, which rolled out the voice of Samuel Jackson on Alexa in the U.S. in 2019, said users in […]
Facebook releases a glimpse of its most popular posts, but we don’t learn much
Facebook is out with a new report collecting the most popular posts on the platform, responding to critics who believe the company is deliberately opaque about its top-performing content. Facebook’s new “widely viewed content reports” will come out quarterly, reflecting most viewed top News Feed posts in the U.S. every three months — not exactly […]
Amazon backs Indian wealth management service Smallcase in $40 million funding
Amazon has entered the financial services and insurance markets of India in recent years. Now it is paving the way to foray into the wealth management category. The American e-commerce giant has backed Bangalore-based startup Smallcase in a $40 million Series C financing round. The round was led by Faering Capital and Premji Invest as […]
xentral, an ERP platform for SMBs, raises $75M Series B from Tiger Global and Meritech
Enterprise Resource Planning systems have traditionally been the preserve of larger companies, but in recent years the amount of data small medium sized businesses can generate has increased to the point where even SMEs/SMBs can get into the world of ERP. And that’s especially true for online-only businesses. At the beginning of the year we […]
Peer into the eyes of Cyberdog
When someone mentioned to me that Xiaomi was launching its own “robot dog,” my mind immediately went to Sony’s Aibo. And honestly, it would have been difficult to be more wrong. Now that the news has been out for a few days, the company’s heard all of your bad Black Mirror jokes, don’t worry. And, […]
Microsoft says NSA needs to undo its $10B cloud computing contract with Amazon
Disputed award includes provisions for cloud computing, hardware-as-a-service.
Warehouses: the latest boom in the UK real estate sector
A record-breaking area almost twice the size of Hyde Park is slated for construction this yearThe UK is in the midst of a record-breaking boom in the construction of cavernous sheds to support the soaring growth of online shopping during the pandemic, …
Amazon’s $1.5 billion US air cargo hub is open for business
Amazon’s $1.5 billion air cargo hub in Northern Kentucky opened Wednesday, the latest effort by the e-commerce giant to connect a network of 40 sites and control all aspects of delivery as demand for speed and convenience accelerates. The Amazon Air Hub operations, located at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, will be the center of […]
Extra Crunch roundup: Influencer marketing, China’s tech clampdown, drafting growth teams
Before you hire a marketing consultant who doesn’t understand your products or commit to a CMO who has several years of experience — but none in your sector — consider influencer marketing.
What’s driving the global surge in retail media spending?
To understand why retailers will capture more ad spend, it’s important to evaluate what modern marketing has become. Is it bus stop advertisements? Bidding on Google keywords or a Clubhouse session?