With the vast amounts of information flowing at you from your tablet, TV, radio, phone, computer, and any other source of technology, sometimes it can be overwhelming to try and keep up with the news. Other times, I have known people who just admit that they cannot keep up and just throw their hands up and say “I can’t keep up so I just won’t try”. This article is for both of those types of people.
While it is impossible to know the news about all technology, I’m going to give you some news just about Amazon. I will condense the important Amazon tech news into 2 core bullet points that you can deep dive into if you are more interested.
I’m solely focused on Amazon in this article. I love technology and the impact that it has in the world. In addition, I absolutely love Amazon. If you have been reading my articles lately, you will realize that it is a core focus of the articles. Here’s why, they are one of the most innovative and thought provoking companies alive right now. Apple has become boring and too comfortable with their size. Google takes on projects that will definitely help the world, but in about 20 years when humans can catch up (look up their moonshot projects for more information).
Amazon, on the other hand, strategically battles with every company (whether big or small) and does so in a way that applies to our life from day one of them implementing it. With that being said, here are 2 pieces that you might have missed in their news and want to get a brief update on.
1. Amazon launched a social network
For those who are Amazon enthusiasts, if you open your Amazon app and make your way to the “programs and features” part, you might have an option to look at “Amazon Spark”. Spark is Amazon shifting their focus onto social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and any other small platform that you might have used. So, to get to the main question that everyone is wanting to know: why did they launch a social network?
No, the answer is not that they want to take market share from Facebook and Snapchat. While, I’m sure they will do that, that is not their focus. Their focus is to gather data so that they can make your shopping experience better. See, right now on Amazon, when you search for a product, it usually is not aesthetically appealing. After all, you are just shopping, you are not looking for art. However, they realized that a lot of people begin their “shopping experience” by seeing that one of their friends or social influencers has bought and used the product.
So, Amazon wants to be able to get data on your shopping habits earlier in the sales funnel. If we give them a year or two with this Spark network, you will see how it begins to slowly transform into allowing you to have a better shopping experience with them. This in turn, will cause you to buy more products from them. That is their main goal: to have you buy more products for them.
2. Amazon has created an immersive TV experience
For all those people who have watched some of Amazon’s original TV shows, here is one for you to try out, if you are a tech geek. One of Amazon’s shows that they have produced is Mr. Robot. This show follows a genius hacker that is on a mission to help a technology defense company protect its clients.
So why is this such a great show? Essentially, once you have finished the show (or that is how I’ve been recommended to do it) you can work to complete, what seems like a big puzzle. This puzzle starts off with you calling a number that you will see in an episode. It then provides you a binary code, that translates into a URL. Once you get the URL, it will take you to a website for E-Corp, a company that is in the movie. After that, there are multiple other hints that are dropped that allow you to get a free shirt and hack code among other challenges.
Changing the way we interact with technology
Whether it is shopping in a better looking way or creating TV shows that you can actually incorporate into your daily life, they have a unique way of making your life better. Think you want to join Amazon’s social network? Find the Amazon Spark page. Think you want to get your hack on and try and be like Mr. Robot? Try and do some research and figure out how you can crack into the system.