Amazon

Four companies dominate our daily lives unlike any other in human history: Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google. We love our nifty phones and just-a-click-away services, but these behemoths enjoy unfettered economic domination and hoard riches on a scale not seen since the monopolies of the gilded age.

Propelled by what we can legitimately call The Alexa Movement, voice is now perceived as the future of the User Interface. But we need numbers: How many of us continue to use Alexa (or Siri, or Google assistant) after the novelty has worn off? What do we use it for? This will help us understand the likely actual future of Voice UI.

Combining two media businesses at a time when fewer people are paying for (or watching) TV won’t help either of them, even in the near term. But selling to a tech company like Amazon would allow CBS to more effectively compete with other networks by bidding higher for sports rights — the only content that still keeps mass audiences tied to TV sets — while at the same time getting ahead of TV’s inevitable shift to online distribution.

On Wednesday, two significant streaming live sports deals were announced. One represented a major extension of the status quo, while the other painted a picture of what the future could hold.

With CBS and Viacom talking merger again, all eyes are on Lionsgate, which is considered a prime target for acquisition. According to one source, there are already potential suitors — Amazon, Verizon and a CBS-Viacom combination — that have all been sniffing around the company.

Both companies usually shun conventions like CES, preferring to debut gadgets at their own press events. But these tech giants have built an imposing presence here this year as they work to weave their voice-operated digital assistants more deeply into our personal lives.

As brands increasingly seek to understand the Internet of Things, marketers are keying in on how Amazon and Google will dominate connected devices in 2018. That’s why Amazon’s Alexa and the Google Home — with their rapidly expanding sets of AI skills and services — will be completely unavoidable for the 180,000 expected attendees at this week’s annual CES in Las Vegas.

Amazon is hoping to more aggressively take on Google and Facebook in the digital advertising space, and video advertising may play a key part of that expansion.

Trace Lysette, who plays yoga instructor Shea on Transparent, is the second accuser to allege misconduct by the show’s star; Amazon says the new information “will be added to our ongoing investigation.”

The retail and streaming giant on Monday announced that it has acquired global TV rights to the J.R.R. Tolkien fantasy series.

Amazon has gotten so good at moving merchandise that it now accounts for 43 cents of every dollar spent online in the U.S., according to eMarketer. An ebullient Wall Street last week sent the company’s share price soaring after a record-breaking third quarter, and made CEO Jeff Bezos the richest man in the world. Lost in this torrent of news are indications that Amazon’s revenue formula is fundamentally changing: from a reliance on retail and cloud services, the e-retailer appears likely to power future growth with fulfillment and shipping services to third-party sellers.

Analyst Michael Nathanson says broadcasters’ biggest weapon against SVODs is their live sports and news content. That gives them a key edge against cable, which can no longer compete with the aggressive scripted content investments coming from the likes of Netflix, Hulu and Amazon. (Photo: Wendy Moger-Bross)

Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Alphabet and other tech giants are pushing deeper into cultural industries — and stumbling in ways that suggest a certain cluelessness

While tech giants like Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Apple have already stepped up their lobbying efforts, some say the companies will have to pay even more attention to policy in the coming years as regulators across the globe increase scrutiny.

Amazon.com Inc. is experimenting with a new delivery service intended to make more products available for free two-day delivery and relieve overcrowding in its warehouses, according to two people familiar with the plan, which will push the online retailer deeper into functions handled by longtime partners United Parcel Service and FedEx Corp.

Nearly 2 million people logged onto Amazon.com for the online retailer’s first livestream of Thursday Night Football, the National Football League said.

The NFL’s Thursday night package is being carried jointly by CBS, NBC, the NFL Network and Amazon this year, but the 2018 package will soon be up for bid. There could be substantial interest from companies like Twitter — which aired Thursday night games last year — Amazon, and potentially other tech behemoths like Google, Apple or Facebook.

As streaming competition heats up over the coveted kids’ demographic, Amazon Studios is teaming up with Genius Brands International, a prominent maker of animated entertainment, to launch a new channel that will target youngsters ranging in age from toddlers to tweens.

Amazon today announced the launch of Brown Sugar — the new subscription-video-on-demand service featuring baddest African-American action movies — on Amazon Channels.  Amazon Prime members can now watch Brown Sugar’s library of iconic black movies, all un-edited and commercial-free […]

Amazon will order more of its shows straight-to-series in the future, studio chief and head of content Roy Price said Friday at the Edinburgh International Television Festival. Pilots “sort of slow you down,” Price explained. It adds ‘another 10 months.”

We are in the midst of a technological revolution that has altered the flow of information. Just a few companies have taken control, and this concentration of power—which Americans have acquiesced to without ever really intending to, simply by clicking away—is subverting our democracy.

“I want the humans to be able to hold their own against the strength of the machines.” That was perhaps the most ominous line spoken from the stage at the summer Television Critics Association press tour, and it came not from an actor or showrunner but FX Networks chief John Landgraf. He wasn’t describing the plot of a new scripted drama. He turned to the classic science fiction trope as a metaphor for the situation that he and other cable programming executives now find themselves in as Netflix, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple engage in a “titanic struggle” — Landgraf’s words — for domination in the video entertainment marketplace.

Sports broadcasting is the latest industry to catch Amazon’s eye, but its interest will only turn into intent once it knows whether the likes of tennis and American football can give its video service an edge in its tussle with Netflix. It’s why the e-commerce giant has pursued sports streaming rights in recent months, particularly those with international appeal such as rugby, golf and tennis. These sports could drive Prime subscriptions and viewing in a market where it is still behind Netflix.

Sources confirmed the review has been launched via an RFP issued by the client. The firm spent more than $5 billion on advertising and promotional costs in 2016, according to the firm’s latest annual report. More than $1 billion of that is estimated to be earmarked for measured media expenditures worldwide, most of it targeted to U.S. consumers.