Location data vendors Foursquare and Factual are merging. The combined firm will provide marketers with data on movements by more than 500 million devices worldwide, including a panel of 25 million always-on users. Foursquare bought Placed, another competitor, in May 2019.
SugarCRM, which long ago expanded to include marketing and customer service solutions, has added a data integration platform to connect with external business applications. It’s one more example of making external data available to customer management systems. You know, like you do with a CDP.
Marketers aren’t doing so well with AI adoption, either. This MIT Technology Review Insights report found that media and marketing companies were dead last in expected use of AI. Financial services, manufacturing, IT and telecom lead the way. From one -quarter to one-third of companies across all industries use AI for personalization.
The U.S. Senate has passed a bill that could potentially ban TikTok in the U.S. if its Chinese owner, ByteDance, does not sell its holdings within a year. The bill now goes to the President Biden, who has said he will sign it. Court challenges are likely to follow.