Virtual reality is even cooler than voice recognition but it’s harder to collect payments. So you’ll be pleased (or horrified) to learn that payment processor Payscout has found a way for people to use their Visa cards within a VR environment. You can wander the virtual aisles and test out the virtual products and then pay with real money without removing your headset. How great is that?
A shared customer database – that is, a Customer Data Platform – is in place at 15% of B2B firms that responded to a recent survey by MarTech Advisor.
Here’s another merger: marketing analytics vendor Singular has closed its deal with mobile app attribution vendor Apsalar. Singular combines data from all sources with an emphasis on tracking ad campaigns. It can create customer segments, deliver them to external delivery systems, and analyze results. We haven’t considered them a Customer Data Platform but maybe we should. Apsalar does similar tasks for mobile app marketers. The companies will operate under the Singular name.
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.