Have you been wondering when Amazon Web Services would join Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure in offering generative AI tools? Wonder no more: they announced a collection of services last week that will let developers build AI chatbots and other tools using pretrained models from Anthropic, AI21, Stability AI, and Amazon’s very own Titan family.
What must worry Google above all is the decline in search marketing itself. You’ll recall we reported last week that search’s share of U.S. Internet ad spend has been falling. Today I’ll add this Jungle Scout report that people are starting their online shopping searches less with “search engines” (presumably mostly Google) and Amazon, and more with Walmart and TikTok. Yikes!
Blue badges are the new black: LinkedIn has joined the verification party with a so-far free and voluntary program that offers several ways for members to prove their identity and employer. With programs like this and growing demands for social media to verify young users’ ages and identities, get ready to master the intricacies of identify verification. And start wondering what happens to people who can’t or don’t want to participate.
T-Mobile will allow advertisers to target more than 20,000 screens in 11,000 store locations. That’s a lot of screens, but how much foot traffic does the average T-Mobile store get? It’s also linking up with streaming media company Plex as a CTV partner.