Small business martech vendors Benchmark (email) and Hatchbuck (CRM plus marketing automation) are merging. The deal will help the two relatively small firms compete with industry giants. The combined firm will have 130 employees and over 150,000 users.
Hi, it’s Jamie, Senior Intern at the Department of the Obvious. The boss tells me he has no news at all today, so I get to write. We’ll start with this Leanplum study that finds the most common reason that people delete smartphone apps is too many and irrelevant messages.
Finally, AI-based scheduling software x.ai is making its system available for free, so long as you share your calendar, location, and contacts. X.ai describes itself as an example of a “utilitarian social network” that provides specific shared services. They point to Venmo, DocuSign, and DropBox as other examples. Interesting.
Procrastinators of the world can throw a party whenever they get around to it: Google has once more pushed back complete third-party cookie deprecation. The new target is “early next year.” Reasons for the delay include concerns expressed by U.K. data regulator Information Commissioner’s Office, an ongoing inquiry by the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority, and widespread discontent in the advertising ecosystem.