We have no real news today so let’s just amuse ourselves with tech. We’ll start with a “second-generation support chatbot” from Intercom, which answers questions as soon as users start typing. You might find that rude but the vendor says it shows the system truly understands customers’ problems. Feel better?
Like much of the tech industry, the News Gods seem to be phoning it in this week. They did offer a modestly interesting acquisition: CRM vendor Pipedrive purchased email marketing automation system Mailigen. Interesting because the idea seems to be for salespeople to run their own automated email campaigns. Maybe that makes them “citizen marketers”.
Looking for something to read when you get trapped at home by coronavirus? This 247-page compendium of global digital statistics from We Are Social and Hootsuite includes everything from population statistics to the gender split of Snapchat users in Qatar. Did you know that people in the U.S. have more smart home devices than average but make less use of voice search? Or that Americans are more concerned about misuse of their data but less likely to use ad blockers? Hours of fun.
FindMine offers hope for the fashion-challenged everywhere, with machine-learning-based advice on pulling together coordinated outfits. Results are based on a combination of sales data, visual content, and marketing inputs, and can be distributed in pretty much any channel. The firm just raised additional funding, bringing total financing to $9.9 million.