Customer Service Chatbots Are About to Become Frighteningly Realistic

A startup gives chatbots and virtual assistants realistic facial expressions and the ability to read yours.

MIT Technology Review:

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603895/customer-service-chatbots-are-about-to-become-frighteningly-realistic/?set=603954

Amit Singhal, on mobile and search. #MustSee # MustListen

Amit Singhal, former Google’s SVP for search and "a giant force inside the company", talks about 3 important things: mobile, mobile and mobile. Yes, search also. Click on the image and watch the full interview at Code/Mobile conference.

Facebook updates its CPC definition

Facebook is unrolling an updated CPC definition that will affect both CPC (which may go up) and CTR figures (which may decline).

Until now, CPC accounted for all clicks including likes, comments, shares, clicks to a website, clicks on "continue reading," and others. CPC will now account only for clicks related to a given ad objective, like clicks to visit another site, call-to-action clicks that lead elsewhere (like "Shop Now"), or clicks to install an app, for example. Engagement clicks (likes, comments, and shares) will no longer be counted.

Read more about How Cost per Click is Measured on Facebook.

E-commerce 3.0 for Walmart

Amandeep Singh Junejan, senior director for cloud operations and engineering at WalmartLabs:

"Ecommerce 3.0 is all about combining distribution so that all inventory is available to all customers all of the time, involving integration of the digital and physical worlds."

Read more at ComputerWeekly.com

Reuters: Amazon in talks to buy online luxury retailer Net-a-porter

Amazon.com is in talks to buy online luxury retailer Net-a-porter in what could be the biggest acquisition yet for the e-commerce giant, but the negotiations are in early stages and could fall apart, Forbes reported, citing a person familiar with the matter.

Reuters

Why Content Really Isn't King And What Actually Is

Great content :-), by Ross Simmonds

HTTPS as a ranking signal

At Google I/O, a few months ago, Google asked for “HTTPS everywhere” on the web. Now, there's an official announcement that the search engine will start using  HTTPS as a ranking signal.

"For now it's only a very lightweight signal — affecting fewer than 1% of global queries, and carrying less weight than other signals such as high-quality content — while we give webmasters time to switch to HTTPS. But over time, we may decide to strengthen it, because we’d like to encourage all website owners to switch from HTTP to HTTPS to keep everyone safe on the web."

Read more at Google's WebMaster Central Blog

Like, like.... like a vision: how Facebook-Obsessed Are You?